“Yes, J.W., it is,” said Marcia.  “Joe has been doing perfectly splendid work in his medical course, and they say he will probably turn out to be a wonderful all-round doctor—­everybody is surprised at his thoroughness, except me.  I know what he means by it.  But, of course, he has little time for training in other sorts of religious work, and so, ever since last June, I’ve been dividing my time between a settlement dispensary and the training school.  Why shouldn’t I be as keen on my preparation as he is on his, when we’re going out to the same work?”

“You should, Marcia—­you should,” J.W. agreed, vigorously, “and we’re proud of you; aren’t we, Marty?  I remember thinking two years ago what fine missionary pioneers you two would make.  Only trouble is, we’ll never know anything about it, after we’ve once seen your pictures in The Epworth Herald among the recruits of the year.  If you were only going where a feller could hope to visit you once every two years or so!”

Marcia looked out across the lake, but she wasn’t seeing the white sails that glided along above the rippling blue of its waters.  In a moment she pulled herself together, and observed that there had been enough talk about a mere visitor.  “What of you two, now that your student occupation’s gone?”

“Tell her about yourself, Marty,” said J.W.  “She knows what I’m going to do.”  And for the moment it seemed to him a very drab and unromantic prospect, in spite of his agreement with Mr. Drury that all service ranks alike with God.

Marty was always slow to talk of himself.  “It isn’t much,” he said.  “The district superintendent is asking me to fill out the year on the Ellis and Valencia Circuit—­the present pastor is going to Colorado for his health.  So I’m to be the young circuit-rider,” and he smiled a wry little smile.  He had no conceit of himself to make the appointment seem poor; rather he wondered how any circuit would consent to put up with a boy’s crude preaching and awkward pastoral effort.

But J.W., Jr., was otherwise minded.  A country circuit for Marty did not accord with his views at all.  Marty was too good for a country church, he argued, mainly from his memories of the bare little one-room meetinghouse of his early childhood.  In his periodical trips to the farm he had seen the old church grow older and more forlorn, as one family after another moved away, and the multiplying cars brought the town and its allurements almost to the front gate of every farm.

So J.W. had tried to say “No,” for Marty, who would not say it for himself.  It was one of the rare times when they did not see eye to eye.  But it made no difference in their sturdy affection; nothing ever could.  And Marty would take the appointment.

Commencement over, for the first time in many years the chums went their separate ways, Marty to his circuit, and J.W. home to Delafield.  Then for a little while each had frequent dark-blue days, without quite realizing what made his world so flavorless.  But that passed, and the young preacher settled down to his preaching, and the young merchant to his merchandising; and soon all things seemed as if they had been just so through the years.