ut
she has gone South, so I'm badly left. I'm afraid you are engaged for
it, aren't you?"

Lillian gazed fixedly at the white cupola on a stockfarm building. Her
heart was somewhere deep in hill-grass. She was the most luckless girl
in the whole college! The opportunity of her Sophomore year had come too
late. It was bitter enough for tears.

"I had promised it to Mr. Perkins," she said, irresolutely.

"I was afraid so. Of course, it was awfully late to ask you; but I would
rather go with you than with any of the others, so I ventured."

It was a desperate moment for Lillian.

"I would rather go with you, too," she said, gazing up at him.

"I'm sure I wish you could," he said, with sincerity. She was at her
prettiest that day.

"I will anyway," she declared.

"But Ted----"

"I don't care," she went on, "it was only that he asked me first.
Couldn't I cut it and go with you? He ought to understand that I have a
right to change my mind."

Smith watched the antics of a gopher for a full minute before he
replied. Although Perkins had said nothing to him of his intentions
regarding the dance--the two had few confidences--Cap had held his
theories. Still, he deemed he had a chance. Being a Sophomore, he
believed that he was thoroughly acquainted with the co-educated sex and
all their wiles and guiles; but a feeling of repulsion toward this frank
readiness to throw down another man, one of his own, too, drowned his
sense of self-satisfaction at finding himself preferred.

"Of course, you and Ted must arrange all that," he said, and turned the
conversation.

Cap's lack of confidential relations with Perkins did not stand in the
way of his mentioning the affair to him that night after dinner.

"I thought you ought to know it, Ted," he concluded. "Of course, you
will do as you please about the matter, only I shall not take her."

"You don't think for a moment that _I_ still intend to, do you?" asked
Perkins, fiercely.

"I don't believe I'd blame you exactly if you backed out," said the
complacent Sophomore; "but, of course, it's none of my funeral now; I'm
only sorry I happened to ask her myself, and start the trouble."

"I think I'll walk home with her after rehearsal," said Perkins.

"Well, I shan't say anything about it one way or the other," said Smith,
and he started toward the Gym with a pleasant sense of having galled
somebody a bit.

Meanwhile, Lillian had eaten her dinner with relish. The prospect o