“I feel as if I could spend an entire day on this beautiful spot,” murmured Laura contentedly.

“Let me fix a seat for you,” begged Dick, spreading his handkerchief on a flat rock.

Laura thanked him and sat down.  Dick threw himself on the grass beside the rock.

Then Laura told him a lot of the home-town news, and they talked over the High School days to their hearts’ content.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a beautiful spot as it is right at this part of the walk,” spoke Laura presently, after a few couples had strolled above them.  “And such beautiful wild flowers!  Look at the honeysuckle up there.  I really wish I could get some of that to take back to the hotel.  I could press it before it withered.”

“It is easily enough obtained,” smiled Dick, rising quickly.

“O-o-o-h!  Don’t, please!” called Miss Bentley uneasily, for Dick, after examining the face of the little cliff for footing, had begun to scale up toward the honeysuckle.

“Hold your parasol—–­open,” he directed, looking down with a smile.

In another moment he was tossing down the beautiful blossoms into the open parasol that Miss Bentley held upside down.

“How would you like some of these ferns?” Dick called down, pulling out a sample by the roots and holding it out to view.

“Oh, if you please!”

Several ferns fell into the upturned parasol.  Then Dick scrambled down, resuming his lounging seat on the grass, while Laura examined her treasures and chatted.

“What a splendid, thoroughbred girl she has become!” kept running through Prescott’s mind.

Every detail, from the tip of her small, dainty boot, peeping out from under the hem of the skirt, up to the beautiful coloring of her face and the purity of her low, white feminine brow Dick noted in turn.  He had never seen Laura look so attractive, not even in her dainty ball finery of the night before.  He had never felt so strongly drawn toward her as he did now.  He longed to tell her so, and not lightly, either, but with direct, manly force and meaning.

Though Cadet Prescott’s face showed none of his temptation, he found himself repeatedly on the dangerous brink of sentimentality.  Since coming to West Point he had seen many charming girls, yet not one who appealed to him as did this dainty one from his own home town and the old, bygone school days.

But Dick tried to hold himself back.  He had, yet, nothing to offer the woman whom he should tell of his love.  He was by no means certain that he would finally graduate from the Military Academy.  Without a place in life, what had he to offer?  Would it be fair or honorable to seek to capture the love of this girl when his own future was yet so uncertain?

Yet caution and prudence seemed more likely to fly away every time he glanced at this dear girl.  In desperation Dick rose quickly.