panding arms to the limit, and back again, punctuating
each outward stretch with a kiss, it wasn't so bad. He was sorry it
wasn't six yards instead of three. He could stand it if Liddy
could--only he hoped that no one had noticed that gap. On the next
round, Jim Pratt was ordered to stand in a well four feet deep and
choose a girl to pull him out. As four feet meant four kisses, and Jim
knew a good thing when he saw it, he chose Liddy. And then the boy felt
like licking him.

After button came post office, and the boy had a letter from Nellie
Barnes, with five cents postage due, which called for his catching
Nellie and kissing her five times. By this time he had forgotten he was
at a party with abbreviated pants, and was having no end of a good time.
Then some one started the good old frolic of run 'round chimney, and as
the Stillman house was admirably adapted for that, the fun waxed fast
and furious. It was catch any girl you wanted to, and kiss her if you
did. In the romp the boy's collar came off, and he asked Liddy to pin it
on, and when she purposely pricked him a little, he grabbed her and
kissed her a few times extra, just for luck. He was rapidly realizing
why he was there, and what for. And that gap had passed entirely out of
his mind.

Then the boys, all rather warm and excited, were requested to go into
the kitchen and carry refreshments to the girls, and our boy and Liddy
were soon ensconced in a cosy corner with two plates filled with a
medley of frosted cake, mince pie, tarts and the like, and as happy as
two birds in a nest. It was the first time he had ever eaten with her,
and an event in his life of no small importance. They also talked as
fast as they ate. She told him all her little plans about going to the
village academy the next term, and what she liked to study, and all
about a little white rabbit that her father had given her on her last
birthday and how cunning it was. The boy decided at once that he would
have a white rabbit if he had to steal one. He also told her that he had
found a nest of young foxes that summer and had kept them ever since in
a pen, and he offered to give her one. He also assured her he, too,
meant to go to the academy if his parents would let him. It was a
charming visit, and the boy's heart warmed in a wonderful way, and
Liddy's blue eyes looked into his brown ones so sweetly that he felt as
if heaven was just ahead. Like a wise boy he asked her then and there if
he c