Both the boys were good trackmen. Both were good students. Both were planning to be engineers. But, temperamentally, they were as far apart as the two countries whence came their father's stock.
Uncle Denny did not approve fully of Saradokis, but finally he decided that it was good for Jim to overcome some of his New England prejudice against the immigrant class and he encouraged the young Greek to come to the house.
It was when Jim was a freshman, too, that Penelope came from Colorado to live with her Uncle Denny. Her father, Uncle Denny's brother, had married a little Scotch girl and they had made a bare living from a small mine, up in the mountains, until a fatal attack of pneumonia claimed them both in a single month. Penelope stayed on at a girl's school in Denver for a year. Then, Jim's mother urging it, Mr. Dennis sent for her. Jim, absorbed in the intricate business of being a freshman, did not give much heed to the preparations for her coming.
One spring evening he sauntered into the library to wait for the dinner bell. As he strolled over to the fireplace, he saw a slender young girl sitting in the Morris chair.
"Oh, hello!" said Jim.
"Hello!" said the young girl, rising.
The two calmly eyed each other. Jim saw a graceful girl, three or four years younger than himself, with a great braid of chestnut hair hanging over one shoulder. She had a round face that ended in a pointed chin, a generous mouth, a straight little nose and a rich glow of color in her cheeks. These details Jim noted only casually, for his attention was focused almost immediately on her eyes. For years after, whenever Jim thought of Penelope, he thought of a halo of chestnut hair about eyes of a deep hazel; eyes that were large, almost too large, for the little round face; eyes that were steady and clear and black sometimes with feeling or with a fleeting shadow of melancholy that did not belong to her happy youth.
Penelope saw a tall lad in a carefully dressed Norfolk suit. He had a long, thin, tanned face, with a thick mop of soft hair falling across his forehead, a clear gaze and a flashing, wistful, fascinatingly sweet smile as he repeated:
"Hello, Penelope!"
"Hello, Still Jim!" replied the girl, while her round cheeks showed dimples that for a moment made Jim forget her eyes.