by his dress and manner; he might, in the most casual meeting on the campus, have raised his hands in benediction without doing anything at all extraordinary.  Ware belonged to a strikingly different order, and Sylvia did not understand him.  He had been a soldier; and Sylvia could not imagine Dr. Wandless in a cavalry charge.  Ware flung the match-stick away and settled himself comfortably into his chair.  The others were talking amongst themselves of old times, and Sylvia experienced a sense of ease and security in the minister’s company.

“Those people across there are talking of the Hoosiers that used to be, and about the good folks who came into the wilderness and made Indiana a commonwealth.  I’m a pilgrim and a stranger comparatively speaking.  I’m not a Hoosier; are you?”

“No, Mr. Ware; I was born in New York City.”

“Ho!  I might have known there was some sort of tie between us.  I was born in New York myself—­’way up in the Adirondack country.  You’ve heard of Old John Brown?  My father’s farm was only an hour’s march from Brown’s place.  I used to see the old man, and it wasn’t my fault I wasn’t mixed up in some of his scrapes.  Father caught me and took me home—­didn’t see any reason why I should go off and get killed with a crazy man.  Didn’t know Brown was going to be immortal.”

“There must have been a good many people that didn’t know it,” Sylvia responded.

She hoped that Ware would talk of himself and of the war; but in a moment his thoughts took a new direction.

“Stars are fine to-night.  It’s a comfort to know they’re up there all the time.  Know Matthew Arnold’s poems?  He says ’With joy the stars perform their shining.’  I like that.  When I’m off camping the best fun of it is lying by running water at night and looking at the stars.  Odd, though, I never knew the names of many of them; wouldn’t know any if it weren’t for the dippers,—­not sure of them as it is.  There’s the North Star over there.  Suppose your grandfather knows ’em all.”

“I think he does,” replied Sylvia.  “He still lectures about them sometimes.”

“Wonder what that is, just across the farthest tip of that maple?  It’s familiar, but I can’t name it.”

“That,” said Sylvia, “is Cassiopeia.”

“So?  How many constellations do you know?”

Sylvia was silent a moment.  She was not sure that it was polite to disclose her knowledge of the subject to a man who had just confessed his ignorance.  She decided that anything beyond the most modest admission would be unbecoming.

“I know several, or I think I do.  This is June.  That’s the North Star over the point of that tree, as you said, and above it is Ursa Minor, and winding in and out between it and the Big Dipper is Draco.  Then to the east, higher up, are Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila.  And in the west—­”

She paused, feeling that she had satisfied the amenities of conversation with this gentleman who had so frankly stated his lack of knowledge.