cognising in her at once a
compatriot and a tit-bit.

Well, well! _Il faut souffrire pour etre--celebre_! When supper-time
arrived, and the lion's mask was removed, behold a countenance so
magenta with heat that compared with it even the Letter Box herself was
pale. The two sufferers were waited upon with the most assiduous
attention, as was indeed only fair. When one has voluntarily endured a
condition of semi-suffocation throughout an evening's "pleasuring" for
the unselfish reason of providing amusement for others, it's a poor
thing if one cannot be assisted to lemonade in return.

The Lion sat up well into the night combing out her mane; the Letter Box
had the first bad headache in her life, but both tumbled into bed at
last, proud and happy in the remembrance of an historic success.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

UNDERGRADUATE FRIENDS.

Hannah strolled into Darsie's study, open letter in hand. "Here's
games!" she announced. "An invitation from Mrs Hoare for myself and
friend--that's you--to go to tea on Sunday afternoon. That's because
I'm Dan's sister, of course. He'll be there, too, I expect, and the
handsome Percival, and lots more men. The question is, shall we go?"

Now Mrs Hoare was the wife of the head of that well-known college of
which Dan and Ralph were members, and the invitation was therefore the
fulfilment of one of Darsie's dreams.

"Of course we'll go!" she cried ardently. "Sunday tea at a man's
college is part of the Cambridge programme, and we want to see all that
we can. Personally, I consider that they might have asked us before."
She lay back in her seat, and stared dreamily at the wall, puckering her
brow in thought, the while Hannah chuckled in the background.

"I know what you are thinking about!"

"You don't!" cried Darsie, and blushed, a deep guilty blush.

"I _do_! Costume for Sunday, and the question of possibly squeezing out
three or four shillings to buy an extra bit of frippery to add to your
charms!"

"Boo!" cried Darsie impatiently; then with a sudden change of front:
"And if I _was_, I was perfectly right! Newnham girls are not half
careful enough about their appearance, and it tells against the cause.
A perfect woman, nobly planned, ought to be as clever as she is--er--
dainty, and as dainty as she is clever."

"Thank you for the concession! Very considerate of you, I'm sure. If
you had stuck to `beautiful,' I should have been hopelessly left out.
Even `dainty'