lf, "because she was a stranger," Kitty said.

Everybody knows what goes on in the Chapel, after the fight and
scramble are over. The rustle and buzz, the music, the oratory and the
poem, during which the men cheer and the girls simper; the professors
yawn, and the poet's friends pronounce him a second Longfellow. Then
the closing flourishes, the grand crush, and general scattering.

Then the fun really begins, as far as the young folks are concerned.
_They_ don't mind swarming up and down stairs in a solid phalanx; they
can enjoy half a dozen courses of salad, ice and strawberries, with
stout gentlemen crushing their feet, anxious mammas sticking sharp
elbows into their sides, and absent-minded tutors walking over them.
They can flirt vigorously in a torrid atmosphere of dinner, dust,
and din; can smile with hot coffee running down their backs, small
avalanches of ice-cream descending upon their best bonnets, and
sandwiches, butter-side down, reposing on their delicate silks. They
know that it is a costly rapture, but they carefully refrain from
thinking of the morrow, and energetically illustrate the Yankee maxim
which bids us enjoy ourselves in our early bloom.

Kitty did have "a rousing good time;" for Jack was devoted, taking
her everywhere, showing her everything, feeding and fanning her,
and festooning her train with untiring patience. How many forcible
expressions he mentally indulged in as he walked on that unlucky train
we will not record; he smiled and skipped and talked of treading on
flowers in a way that would have charmed Kitty, if some one else had
not been hovering about "The Daisy," as Fletcher called her.

After he returned, she neglected Jack, who took it coolly, and was
never in the way unless she wanted him. For the first time in her
life, Kitty deliberately flirted. The little coquetries, which are as
natural to a gay young girl as her laughter, were all in full play,
and had she gone no further no harm would have been done. But,
excited by the example of those about her, Kitty tried to enact the
fashionable young lady, and, like most novices, she overdid the part.
Quite forgetting her cousin, she tossed her head, twirled her fan,
gave affected little shrieks at college jokes, and talked college
slang in a way that convulsed Fletcher, who enjoyed the fun immensely.

Jack saw it all, shook his head and said nothing; but his face
grew rather sober as he watched Kitty, flushed, dishevelled, and