boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair;
life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from
her fingers.

We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are
the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them
as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose
people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth.



THE GOLDEN ROAD


CHAPTER I

A NEW DEPARTURE


"I've thought of something amusing for the winter," I said as we
drew into a half-circle around the glorious wood-fire in Uncle
Alec's kitchen.

It had been a day of wild November wind, closing down into a wet,
eerie twilight. Outside, the wind was shrilling at the windows
and around the eaves, and the rain was playing on the roof. The
old willow at the gate was writhing in the storm and the orchard
was a place of weird music, born of all the tears and fears that
haunt the halls of night. But little we cared for the gloom and
the loneliness of the outside world; we kept them at bay with the