“Well, I have just heard of him.  Rhodes—­you remember Rhodes?  Grinnell Rhodes?  Used to be stroke, the greatest stroke ever was.  Well, Rhodes has been down South and stayed at Keith’s father’s home.  He says it’s a beautiful old place, and now belongs to Mr. Wickersham, Ferdy’s father, and the old gentleman, General Keith, who used to own it farms it for him.  Think of that!  It’s as if father had to be a bookkeeper in the bank!  Rhodes says he’s a fine old fellow, and that Gordon is one of the best.  He was down there running a railway line for Mr. Wickersham, and took Gordon with him.  And he says he’s the finest sort of a fellow, and wants to go to college dreadfully, but hasn’t a cent nor any way to get anything.  Rhodes says it’s awful down there.  They are so poor.”

Mrs. Wentworth smiled.  “Well?”

Norman blushed and stammered a little, as he often did when he was embarrassed.

“Well, you know I have some money of my own, and I thought if you don’t mind it I’d like to lend him a little.  I feel rather piggish just spending it right and left for nothing, when a fellow like that would give his eyes for the chance to go to college.  Grinnell Rhodes says that he is ever so fond of me; that Ferdy was blowing once and said something against me, and Gordon jumped right into him—­said I was a friend of his, and that Ferdy should not say anything against me in his presence.  He knocked Ferdy down.  I tell you, when a fellow is ready to fight for another years after he has seen him, he is a good friend.”

Mrs. Wentworth’s face showed that she too appreciated such a friend.

“How do you know he needs it, or would accept it if he did?”

“Why, Rhodes says we have no idea of the poverty down there.  He says our poorest clerks are rich compared with those people.  And I’ll write him a letter and offer to lend it to him.  I’ll tell him it’s mine.”

Mrs. Wentworth went over and kissed the boy.  The picture rose to her mind of a young man fresh from fields where he had won renown, honored by his State, with everything that wealth and rank could give, laying his honors at the feet of a poor young girl.

“All right, my son.”

That night Norman sat down and wrote a letter.

A few days later than this, Gordon Keith received a letter with the post-mark “New York.”  Who was there in New York who could know him?  Not his young engineer.  He knew his hand.  He was now abroad.  As he read the letter he wondered yet more.  It was from Norman Wentworth.  He had met an old friend, he said, who had told him about Gordon and about his father’s misfortunes.  He himself, he said, was at college, and he found himself in a position to be able to help a friend.  He did not know to what extent aid might be of service; but he had some means of his own, and he asked that Gordon would allow him to make him a loan of whatever might be necessary to relieve his father and himself.