"Where are you going?" inquired Gordon in surprise. But Ursula approached them at that moment, and Dick gave a warning signal for silence which Gordon saw and understood.
"Good-bye, Gordon," she said prettily, and Gordon suddenly regretted that so many of the boys and girls were there to bid him farewell. He would have much preferred to say his adieus to Ursula with no others present. Strange he never before realized what a beautiful girl she had become, with her blue eyes looking straight out at one from under the black eyebrows and the hair blowing about her delicately tinted cheeks.
"A-l-l A-b-o-a-r-d!" rang the voice of the conductor, standing watch in hand ready to give the starting signal to the engineer. The porters were picking up their little steps and getting ready to depart.
"Good-bye, Ursula," said the lad simply, wringing her hand with a heavier clasp than he knew, and though he nearly crushed the bones, she never gave the least sign of the pain he was causing her; perhaps she did not really feel it.
"Kiss me, Gordon," cried his mother, as she threw her arms around him. "Don't forget to write immediately on arriving."
"Come on, my son, time to jump aboard," cautioned his father in a suspiciously gruff tone, and in a moment more Gordon mounted the steps where from the platform of the moving train he stood waving his hat in farewell.
"Give him the school yell, fellows," shouted Tommy Turner at the top of his lungs, and with that rousing cry ringing in his ears Gordon Graham started on life's real journey.
That same evening while Dick's father was engaged with some business papers, the boy came quietly into the room.
"Father, may I interrupt your work for a little while?" he inquired.
"Nothing important, Dick, my boy," answered Mr. Comstock, laying aside the document he was reading; "what can I do for you?"