Nothing could exceed Allan McClain's amazement when, upon meeting his parents at the railway-station in Philadelphia, he found them in company, and apparently upon terms of intimate acquaintance, with two of his friends from the Raven Brook Colliery. He was delighted to learn that Derrick and Paul had come to the city to live, and promised to call the next day and arrange all sorts of plans with them.

Mr. Halford, who was also at the station, was almost equally surprised to see them with the McClains, who, he afterwards told Derrick, were among the best families in the city. His carriage was at the station, and in a few minutes more the two boys, who but a short time before had been only poor colliery lads, were ushered into a handsome house, where Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie were waiting to give them a cordial welcome.

Two days later they were established in pleasant rooms of their own, had begun their studies, and, above all, found themselves surrounded by a circle of warm friendships.

Very nearly five years after the date of this chapter, just before sunset of a pleasant summer's day, a barge party of gay young people rowed out over the placid Schuylkill from the boat-house belonging to the University of Pennsylvania. In the stern of the barge, acting as coxswain, sat a young man of delicate frame and refined features. His pale, thoughtful face showed him to be a close student, and the crutch at his side betrayed the fact that he was a cripple.

On each side of the coxswain sat a young lady, both of whom were exchanging good-natured chaff with the merry-faced, stalwart fellow who pulled the stroke oar.

"I don't believe rowing is such hard work after all," said one of them, "though you college men do make such a fuss about your training and your practice spins. I'm sure it looks easy enough."

"You are quite right, Miss Nellie," answered the stroke; "it is awfully easy compared with some things—cramming for a final in mathematics, for instance."

"Oh, Derrick!" exclaimed the other young lady, "you can't call that hard work. I'm sure it doesn't seem as though you had spent your time anywhere but on the river for the past two months. If you can do that, and at the same time graduate number one in your class, with special mention in mathematics, the 'cramming,' as you call it, can't be so very difficult."

"All things are not what they seem," chanted Derrick. "It may be, sister Helen, that there are some things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in your philosophy, after all!"

"Oho!" laughed Nellie Halford. "Pinafore and Shakespeare! What a combination of wit and wisdom! It's quite worthy of a U. P. Senior."

"He's not even a U. P. Senior now," said the coxswain, from the stern of the barge. "He has gone back in the alphabet, and is only an A. B."

"An idea for your next cartoon, old man," cried Derrick. "The downfall of the Seniors, and their return to the rudimentary elements of knowledge. By-the-way, Polly," he added, more soberly, "do you remember that to-day is the anniversary of your entering upon the career of breaker-boy five years ago?"

"It is a day I never forget, Dare," answered Paul Evert, gravely, as he gazed into the handsome sun-tanned face in front of him, with a look in which affection and pride were equally blended.

THE END

1

A law of the State of Pennsylvania forbids the employment of boys less than twelve years old in breakers, or less than fourteen in mines. This law is not, however, strictly enforced.

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