ool and stiff when he's about, not a bit like
she is with the other professors."

Well, Ruggles wrote the letter. At first he tried to pass it off on me
as his own composition. But I know a few little things, and one of
them is that Ruggles couldn't have made up that letter any more than
he could have written a sonnet. I told him so, and made him own up. He
had a copy of an old letter that had been written to his sister by her
young man. I suppose Ruggles had stolen it, but there is no use
inquiring too closely into these things. Anyhow, that letter just
filled the bill. It was beautifully expressed. Ruggles's sister's
young man must have possessed lots of ability. He was an English
professor, something like Micky, so I suppose he was extra good at it.
He started in by telling her how much he loved her, and what an angel
of beauty and goodness he had always thought her; how unworthy he felt
himself of her and how little hope he had that she could ever care for
him; and he wound up by imploring her to tell him if she could
possibly love him a little bit and all that sort of thing.

I copied the letter out on heliotrope paper in my best imitation of
the Old Fellow's handwriting and signed it, "Yours devotedly and
imploringly, George Osborne." Then we mailed it that very evening.

The next evening the Cad girls gave a big reception in the Assembly
Hall to an Academy alumna who was visiting the Greek professor's wife.
It was the smartest event of the term and everybody was
there--students and faculty and, of course, Sylvia Grant. Sylvia
looked stunning. She was all in white, with a string of pearls about
her pretty round throat and a couple of little pink roses in her black
hair. I never saw her so smiling and bright; but she seemed quieter
than usual, and avoided poor Micky so skilfully that it was really a
pleasure to watch her. The Old Fellow came in late, with his tie all
crooked, as it always was; I saw Sylvia blush and nudged Ruggles to
look.

"She's thinking of the letter," he said.

Ruggles and I never meant to listen, upon my word we didn't. It was
pure accident. We were in behind the flags and palms in the Modern
Languages Room, fixing up a plan how to get Em and Jennie off for a
moonlit stroll in the grounds--these things require diplomacy I can
tell you, for there are always so many other fellows hanging
about--when in came Sylvia Grant and the Old Fellow arm in arm. The
room was quite empty, or they thoug