At times, as we read, her fair, fine hair would brush my cheek and send a shiver of fire through me.  But I still knew nothing about women.  I never even offered to kiss her.

But when she was away from me, at night specially, I would go into long, luxurious, amorous imaginations over her and the possession of her, and I would dream of loving her, and of having a little cottage and children....

But words and elegant, burning phrases are never enough for a woman.

In a week I noticed her going by on the arm of a mill-hand.

* * * * *

And, broke again, I wrote to my grandmother that I must have fifty dollars to get back to school on.  And, somehow, she scraped it together and sent it to me.  My first impulse was to be ashamed of myself and start to return it.  Then I kept it.  For, after all, it was for poetry’s sake.

* * * * *

On the train to Hebron, as I walked up the car to my seat, health shining in my smooth, clear face and skin, the women and girls gave me approving, friendly glances, and I was happy.

A summer of control from unhealthy habits had done this for me, a summer of life, naked, in the open air, plus exercise.  I had learned a great lesson.  To Barton I owe it that I am still alive, vigorously alive, not crawlingly ... but I suffered several slumps before I attained and held my present physique.  For the world and life afford complications not found in “Perfection City.”

* * * * *

The school hill lay before my eyes again.  From it spread on all sides the wonderful Connecticut valley.  Up and down the paths to the dining hall, the buildings in which classes were held, the Chapel crowning the topmost crest, wandered groups of boys in their absurd, postage-stamp caps, their peg-top trousers, their wide, floppy raglan coats.

I was a senior now.  At first my change in bodily build and bettered health rendered me hardly recognisable to my friends.

The very first day I reached Hebron again I was out on the wide, oval field, lacing around the track.  In a month would come the big track-meet and I was determined this time, to win enough points to earn me my “H.”

* * * * *

Principal Stanton sent for me, the second day after my arrival.

“I wanted to have a long talk with you before you got settled, Gregory.”

His steely, blue eyes gleamed through his gold-rimmed eyeglasses.

“Sit down.”

And we had a talk lasting over an hour ... about religion mainly.  He was surprised to learn that I knew a lot about the early Church fathers, had read Newman, and understood the Oxford controversy ... had read many of the early English divines....

“Gregory,” he cried, putting his hand on my knee, “what a power for God you would be, if you would only give over your eccentricities and become a Christian ... a chap with your magnetism—­in spite of your folly!—­”