Methinks I feel this youth's perfections,
With an invisible and subtle stealth,
To creep in at mine eyes.--_Shakespeare_.


It had come at last, the day of days, for the two great American
universities; Harvard and Yale were going to play their annual game of
football and the railroad station of Springfield, Mass., momentarily
became more and more thronged with eager partisans of both sides of the
great athletic contest.

All the morning trains from New York, New Haven, Boston and the smaller
towns had been pouring their loads into Springfield. Hampden Park was
a sea of eager faces. The weather was fine and the waiting for the
football game only added to the enjoyment--the appetizer before the
feast.

The north side of the park was a crimson dotted mass full ten thousand
strong; the south side showed the same goodly number blue-bespeckled,
and equally confident. Little ripples of applause woke along the banks
as the familiar faces of old "grads" loomed up, then melted into the
vast throng. These, too, were men of international reputation who had
won their spurs in the great battles of life, and yet, who came back
year after year, to assist by applause in these mimic battles of their
_Alma Mater_.

But the real inspiration to the contestants, were the softer, sweeter
faces scattered among the more rugged ones like flowers growing among
the grain--the smiles, the mantling glow of round young cheeks, the