Edgar’s whole heart went out in a burst of sympathy and manly tenderness.  In that moment he felt willing to give up every personal pleasure, if he might lift a feather’s weight of care from the fragile woman who spoke to him with such sweetness and trust.  For there is nothing hopeless save meanness and poverty of nature; and any demand on Edgar Noble’s instinct of chivalrous protection would never be discounted.

“I will come gladly, gladly, Mrs. Oliver,” he said, “if only I can be of service; though I fear it will be all the other way.  Please borrow me for a son, just to keep me in training, and I ’ll try to bear my honors worthily.”

“Thank you, dear boy.  Then it is settled, if you are sure that the living in the city will not interfere with your studies; that is the main thing.  We all look to you to add fresh laurels to your old ones.  Are you satisfied with your college life thus far?”

("They have n’t told her anything.  That ’s good,” thought Edgar.) “Oh yes; fairly well!  I don’t—­I don’t go in for being a ‘dig,’ Mrs. Oliver.  I shall never be the valedictorian, and all that sort of thing; it does n’t pay.  Who ever hears of valedictorians twenty years after graduation?  Class honors don’t amount to much.”

“I suppose they can be overestimated; but they must prove some sort of excellence which will stand one in good stead in after years.  I should never advise a boy or girl to work for honors alone; but if after doing one’s very best the honors come naturally, they are very pleasant.”

“Half the best scholars in our class are prigs,” said Edgar discontentedly.  “Always down on the live fellows who want any sport.  Sometimes I wish I had never gone to college at all.  Unless you deny yourself every pleasure, and live the life of a hermit, you can’t take any rank.  My father expects me to get a hundred and one per cent. in every study, and thinks I ought to rise with the lark and go to bed with the chickens.  I don’t know whether he ever sowed any wild oats; if he did, it was so long ago that he has quite forgotten I must sow mine some time.  He ought to be thankful they are such a harmless sort.”

“I don’t understand boys very well,” said Mrs. Oliver smilingly.  “You see, I never have had any to study, and you must teach me a few things.  Now, about this matter of wild oats.  Why is it so necessary that they should be sown?  Is Margery sowing hers?  I don’t know that Polly feels bound to sow any.”

“I dare say they are not necessities,” laughed Edgar, coloring.  “Perhaps they are only luxuries.”

Mrs. Oliver looked at the fire soberly.  “I know there may be plenty of fine men who have a discreditable youth to look back upon,—­a youth finally repented of and atoned for; but that is rather a weary process, I should think, and they are surely no stronger men because of the ‘wild oats,’ but rather in spite of them.”