Will and Mott at once departed after bidding Peter John good-bye, and when they were out on the sidewalk Mott began to laugh.

“What’s struck you?  I don’t see anything so very funny,” said Will irritated by his companion’s manner.

“Peter John has made a clean breast of it.”

“What of it?”

“Oh, nothing much.  Only when the ’devil was sick the devil a monk would be.’  You know the words probably.  It strikes me as absolutely funny.”

“I don’t see anything to laugh about,” retorted Will warmly.

“You wait and maybe you will later, Phelps.  Tra, la, freshman!” and Mott abruptly departed.

His words, however, still lingered in Will’s mind, and throughout the evening the jingling rhyme that the sophomore had repeated kept running through his thoughts.

CHAPTER XXI

THE EXAMINATION

Vacation had come and gone.  How Will Phelps did enjoy that break in his work!  He almost begrudged the swiftly passing hours while he was at home, and as the vacation drew near its close he found himself computing the hours and even the minutes that yet remained before he must return, just as he had previously reckoned the time that must pass before he could return to Sterling.  It was not that he did not enjoy his college life, for as we know he had entered heartily into its spirit, but the work was hard and his handicap in the one subject had robbed him of the enthusiasm which perhaps otherwise he might have had.

When the day at last arrived when he was to return he was unusually quiet and seldom had a word to say to any one.  Uppermost in his thoughts was the expression of the principal of the school where he had prepared for college, who had said to him:  “Well, Will, with all the fun of college there is still another side to it, and that is, that when a fellow enters college he really is leaving home.  From that time forward he may come back for his vacations, but it is nevertheless the break that sooner or later comes to every man.”  Will had thought much of the saying, and its truthfulness was so apparent that he was unable entirely to shake off the somewhat depressing effect it had produced upon himself.

When the hour came and the good-byes must be said he strove desperately to be calm, but he dared not trust himself to say much.  He did not once glance behind him as he walked away from the house to the street, though he knew that his father and mother were standing on the piazza and were watching him as long as his sturdy form could be seen by them.

On the train he found several of his college friends and it became somewhat easier for him in their company to forget his own heaviness of heart, and as he sped on toward Winthrop the numbers increased and the noisy shouts of greeting and the enthusiasm of the students diverted him from the feeling to which otherwise he might have yielded.