he
did. Another plum for unengaged Roble."

Perkins would have been less at ease over the condition of engaged Roble
could he have looked into the little east music-room where Lillian
played accompaniments, and Cap Smith, leaning over a wicker chair, went
through the music of his part. These cozy rehearsals in the quiet
afternoons had resulted in Smith's asking himself, during a cut home
through the Quad, why he had never noticed Lillian Arnold in particular.
Connor, the director, had a keener eye, evidently. She was pretty,
dashing and real good fun. Perkins was entitled to respect for his
selection. Lillian was "all right;" this is a masculine term which may
mean anything from mild approval to the rapture of "just one girl." The
mild interpretation, of course, is to be put upon Smith's use of the
term, even after he had been to Roble two evenings. Their talk was about
the opera, nothing further, and when he had taken his high note with
just the proper emotional slur, they both laughed. To be honest, there
had been one chat on the moonlit steps of the Museum, but all of this
went down on the blue fraternity-paper among other confidences.

One afternoon, in the middle of a Spring-time walk, Smith gave utterance
to a decision concerning which he had already written, dutifully, to an
interested party in the South. They had passed the willow-fringed bank
of Lagunita, the red boathouse, the double avenue of young pines, and,
crossing into the back road, strolled down to the low gate opposite the
Farm; this they climbed and came into a little hollow where knowing
people find yellow violets. He had just given her a frank compliment.

"You are the best fence-taker I ever saw for a girl."

"That's one practical result of an hour's credit in gym-work," she
laughed. "Sometimes, on lovely days like this, I feel almost as though I
could pole-vault the way you do. It must be glorious to go sailing over
the bar."

"And hear it come clattering down after you?"

They sat on the soft, new grass, and Lillian caught, one after another,
the shy yellow faces peering at her through the long leaves. She looked
so spring-like, so much a part of the fresh, young landscape in its
robes of early February, as she half reclined to reach out for a blossom
larger and yellower than the rest--a pose that she knew was good--that
the Sophomore president put an end to suspense.

"I had expected to lead the cotillion with Miss Martin," he began, "b