When he received her letter saying that she would come to Prom, he
yelled like a lunatic, pounded the astonished Vinton on the back, and
raced down-stairs to the living-room.

"She's coming!" he shouted.

There were several men in the room, and they all turned and looked at
him, some of them grinning broadly.

"What th' hell, Hugh?" Leonard Gates asked amiably. "Who's coming? Who's
she?"

Hugh blushed and shuffled his feet. He knew that he had laid himself
open to a "royal razzing," but he proceeded to bluff himself out of the
dilemma.

"She? Oh, yes, she. Well, she is she. Altogether divine, Len." He was
trying hard to be casual and flippant, but his eyes were dancing and his
lips trembled with smiles.

Gates grinned at him. "A poor bluff, old man--a darn poor bluff. You're
in love, _pauvre enfant_, and I'm afraid that you're in a very bad way.
Come on, tell us the lady's name, her pedigree, and list of charms."

Hugh grinned back at Gates. "Chase yourself," he said gaily. "I won't
tell you a blamed thing about her."

"You'd better," said Jim Saunders from the depths of a leather chair.
"Is she the jane whose picture adorns your desk?"

"Yeah," Hugh admitted. "How do you like her?"

"Very fair, very fair." Saunders was magnificently lofty. "I've seen
better, of course, but I've seen worse, too. Not bad--um, not very bad."

The "razzing" had started, and Hugh lost his nerve.

"Jim, you can go to hell," he said definitely, prepared to rush
up-stairs before Saunders could reply. "You don't know a queen when you
see one. Why, Cynthia--"

"Cynthia!" four of the boys shouted. "So her name's Cynthia. That's--"

But Hugh was half-way up-stairs, embarrassed and delighted.

The girls arrived on Thursday, the train which brought most of them
reaching Haydensville early in the afternoon. Hugh paced up and down the
station, trying to keep up a pretense of a conversation with two or
three others. He gave the wrong reply twice and then decided to say
nothing more. He listened with his whole body for the first whistle of
the train, and so great was the chatter of the hundreds of waiting
youths that he never heard it. Suddenly the engine rounded a curve, and
a minute later the train stopped before the station. Immediately the
boys began to mill around the platform like cattle about to stampede,
standing on their toes to look over the heads of their comrades,
shoving, shouting, dancing in their impatience.

Girls beg