ind was not very keen, and she sauntered off on a tour
of inspection. She happened upon a pile of actors and actresses, and her
eye brightened as she singled out a large photograph of an unfamiliar
leading man, with curling mustache and dimpled chin and large appealing
eyes. He was dressed in hunting costume and conspicuously displayed a
crop. The picture was the last word in Twentieth Century Romance. And,
most perfect touch of all, it bore a London mark!

Patty unobtrusively deflected the rest of the committee from a
consideration of Fra Angelico, and the three heads bent delightedly over
the find.

"It's perfect!" Conny sighed. "But it costs a dollar and fifty cents."

"We'll have to go without soda water _forever_!" said Priscilla.

"It is expensive," Patty agreed, "but--" as she restudied the liquid,
appealing eyes--"I really think it's worth it."

They each contributed fifty cents, and the picture was theirs.

Patty wrote across the front, in the bold back hand that Mae had come to
hate, a tender message in French, and signed the full name, "Cuthbert
St. John." She had it wrapped in a plain envelope and requested the
somewhat wondering clerk to mail it the following Wednesday morning, as
it was an anniversary present and must not arrive before the day.

The picture came on the five-o'clock delivery, and was handed to Mae as
the girls trooped out from afternoon study. She received it in sulky
silence and retired to her room. Half a dozen of her dearest friends
followed at her heels; Mae had worked hard to gain a following, and now
it couldn't be shaken off.

"Open it, Mae quick!"

"What do you s'pose it is?"

"It can't be flowers or candy. He must be starting something new."

"I don't care what it is!" Mae viciously tossed the parcel into the
wastebasket.

Irene McCullough fished it out and cut the string.

"Oh, Mae, it's his photograph!" she squealed. "And he's per-fect-ly
beau-ti-ful!"

"Did you ever see such eyes!"

"Does he curl his mustache, or it is natural?"

"Why didn't you tell us he had a dimple in his chin?"

"Does he always wear those clothes?"

Mae was divided between curiosity and anger. She snatched the photograph
away, cast one glance at the languishing brown eyes, and tumbled it,
face downward, into a bureau drawer.

"Don't ever mention his name to me again!" she commanded, as, with
compressed lips, she commenced brushing her hair for dinner.

On the next Friday afternoon--