ired. "How do you
know?"

Mr. Parcher smiled. "How I happen to know is a secret," he said. "I
forgot about that. His little sister, Jane, told me that Mrs. Baxter had
hidden it, or something, so that Willie couldn't wear it, but I guess
Jane wouldn't mind my telling YOU that she told me especially as they're
letting him use it again to-night. I suppose he feels grander 'n the
King o' Siam!"

"No," Mrs. Parcher returned, thoughtfully. "I don't think he does, just
now." Her gaze was fixed upon the dancing-platform, which most of
the dancers were abandoning as the music fell away to an interval
of silence. In the center of the platform there remained one group,
consisting of Miss Pratt and five orators, and of the orators the most
impassioned and gesticulative was William.

"They all seem to want to dance with her all the time," said Mrs.
Parcher. "I heard her telling one of the boys, half an hour ago, that
all she could give him was either the twenty-eighth regular dance or the
sixteenth 'extra.'"

"The what?" Mr. Parcher demanded, whirling to face her. "Do they think
this party's going to keep running till day after to-morrow?" And then,
as his eyes returned to the group on the platform, "That boy seems to
have quite a touch of emotional insanity," he remarked, referring to
William. "What IS the matter with him?"

"Oh, nothing," his wife returned. "Only trying to arrange a dance with
her. He seems to be in difficulties."

XXVI

MISS BOKE

Nothing could have been more evident than William's difficulties. They
continued to exist, with equal obviousness, when the group broke up in
some confusion, after a few minutes of animated discussion; Mr. Wallace
Banks, that busy and executive youth, bearing Miss Pratt triumphantly
off to the lemonade-punch-bowl, while William pursued Johnnie Watson
and Joe Bullitt. He sought to detain them near the edge of the platform,
though they appeared far from anxious to linger in his company; and he
was able to arrest their attention only by clutching an arm of each. In
fact, the good feeling which had latterly prevailed among these three
appeared to be in danger of disintegrating. The occasion was too
vital; and the watchword for "Miss Pratt's last night" was
Devil-Take-the-Hindmost!

"Now you look here, Johnnie," William said, vehemently, "and you listen,
too, Joe! You both got seven dances apiece with her, anyway, all on
account of my not getting here early enough, and you