Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/68

 He was working at his mathematics when his father came in. "So ... you have gone to your uncle for money."

Don answered, with his heart in his mouth: "I have to go to college. I don't care how I get there." He did not look up. He drew a shaking line under the problem he had finished, and turned the page to the next.

His father took one quick stride into the room—and stopped. He had never struck Don since that 24th of May. He tried to be strictly just with his boys, and he expected to be strictly obeyed. He saw the defiance in his son's face. "Very good," he said. And without another word, he went out.

Don worked until midnight. Then he took her note from his breast pocket, and knelt down to his prayers with it clasped in his hands. When he went to bed, it was under his pillow.

Two evenings later he received a reply to his love-letter. It was from Mrs. Richardson. "My dear Donald," it read. "Margaret, of course, has shown me your letter. You are both too young to think of such things for years yet. Certainly Margaret is, and I do not wish her to think of them until she has finished her schooling, at least, and is old enough to know her own mind. You have your studies to attend to, and I do not think that either of you should waste your time in sentimental correspondence. When you have taken your degree—however, it is better not to think of it. You are both much too young. I was sorry to hear that your pretty dog