Theodora laughed at her outburst.

“I will do what I can for you, Cis; but I am afraid it is a forlorn hope.  I don’t believe he is a man who can be coaxed into talking shop, and I fear he hasn’t the least idea of accepting any invitations, while he is down here.  I will try to get him; but you may be driven into taking a piano down on the beach and discoursing sweet music to him, while he bathes.”

“Bathes!” Cicely’s tone was a faint echo of Phebe’s.  “He doesn’t bathe; he paddles.  No matter!  Some day, I’ll get what I want.”  But happily she had no foreknowledge of the circumstances under which she would talk of music with Gifford Barrett.

An hour later, Allyn and his father were driving away across the moors.  It takes good seamanship to bear the motion of a Quantuck box cart; it requires still better seamanship to navigate one of them along the rutted roads.  For some time, it took all of Dr. McAlister’s energy to keep from landing himself and Allyn head foremost in the thickets of sweet fern and beach plum.  By degrees, however, he became more expert in avoiding pitfalls and in keeping both wheels in the ruts, and he turned to Allyn expectantly.

“Well, Allyn, what was it?”

For two days, Allyn had been preparing himself on various circuitous routes by which he might approach his subject and slowly prepare his father’s mind for the plea he wished to make.  Now, however, his father had taken him by surprise, and accordingly he blurted out the whole plain truth.

“Papa, I don’t want to go to college.  I want to be an engineer.”

Back in the depths of Dr. McAlister’s eyes, there came an expression which, under other conditions, might have developed into a smile.  The boy’s tone was anxious and pleading, out of all proportion to the gravity of his subject; but Dr. McAlister wisely forbore to smile.  All his life, he had made it his rule never to laugh at the earnestness of his children, but to treat it with the fullest respect.

“A civil engineer?” he asked, thinking that Allyn was attracted by the profession of his brother-in-law.

“No; just a plain, everyday engineer that runs machinery.  I wish you’d let me.  There’s no use in my going through college; I’m too stupid about lots of things, and I never could make a decent doctor.”

“What makes you think you could make a decent engineer?” the doctor questioned keenly.

“Because I love it.  I like wheels and beams and valves so much better than I like syntax and subjunctives,” he urged.  “I’d be willing to work for it, papa; it’s interesting and it really counts for something, when you get it done.”

“Perhaps.  Is it a new idea, Allyn?”

The boy shook his head.

“It’s nearly as old as I am, I believe.  Ever since I remember, I have liked such things.  I’ve watched them, whenever I had a chance, and when I couldn’t do that, I’ve looked at pictures of them.  I don’t suppose I ought to have said anything about it, for I know you want to have me go through college; but I hate my school, and I don’t seem to get on any.”