king young man who had at that moment joined the group.

The lunging youth brought up short with, "Hello, Hal, I thought you had
gone."

"So I had. Got halfway home and found I'd left my pocketknife here.
Maybe I didn't hotfoot it back though. Hope the girls will like the
looks of things." He cast approving eyes about the transformed
gymnasium. "Jerry's been raving to me ever since school began about her
new friend, Marjorie Dean. Have you met her? I understand she is coming
to-night."

"Not I, I can't tell one of those girls from another," grumbled the
Crane. "You know just how much I like girls. I don't mind helping get
ready for this business, but I'd rather take a licking than come back
here to-night. You'll see me vanishing around the corner and out of here
at the very first chance. Girls are an awful nuisance anyway."

"Nothing like true chivalry," murmured the freckle-faced freshman. An
instant later he was sprinting down the gymnasium as fast as his short
legs could carry him, the Crane in hot pursuit.

"Cut it out, fellows," laughed Harold Macy. "You'll upset something or
other, and then, look out."

"If we do it will be the Crane's fault," came plaintively from the
freckle-faced freshman, as he dodged his pursuer with an agility born of
long practice. "I don't see why he wants to chase me. I merely made a
simple remark."

"Now that you've owned up to its being simple I'll let you off this
time," declared the Crane, magnanimously, "but see that it doesn't
happen again."

"I will," was the glib promise. "I'm sorry I said you were a
grasshopper. You look more like a giraffe."

Then he made a hurried exit through a nearby side door, leaving the
Crane to vow dire vengeance the next time he ventured within reach.

A little further loitering and the group of boys broke up, and, leaving
the gymnasium, went home to get ready for the evening's fun and be back
in good season to help receive their guests.

There were two guests, however, who dressed for the party with entirely
different emotions. To Constance it was the most wonderful night of her
life. She stole frequent, half-startled glances at her blue satin-shod
feet and even pinched a fold of her chiffon gown between her fingers to
feel if it were real. Mrs. Dean had arranged the girl's fair curling
hair in precisely the same fashion that Mary Raymond wore hers, and when
she had been hooked into the precious gown, with its exquisite little
sprays of ro