ear with cheerful resignation all the
V.P's., the B.B's., and chilly zeros they tagged on to my deportment,
but I would have worked myself into a family skeleton, before I would
permit another girl to outclass me in a test exam! I could forgive the
intellectual her sunset hair, but her Grecian nose--never!"

The methods employed by the two contestants as related by Zura had
called forth my unqualified sympathy for the teacher when once again the
gong on my front-door rang out and a voice was heard asking for Miss
Wingate.

Zura jumped up from her seat and greeted the visitor with frank delight.
"Oh!" she said, "it's Pinkey Chalmers! Who'd believe it! Hello, Pinkey!
My! but it is good to see somebody from home."

There was ushered into the room a well nourished looking chap, who
greeted Zura by her first name familiarly. I did not need to be told
that he was the young man with whom she had been seen on the highway.
He was introduced to me as Mr. Tom Chalmers; I was told he had earned
his nickname, "Pinkey," by contracting the pink-shirt habit.

The youth was carelessly courteous and very sure of himself. My
impression was that he had seen too much of the world and not enough of
his mother. He declined my invitation to dine, saying he had had late
tea before he left the ship which was coaling in a nearby port.

"I started early," he went on, "but maybe you think I didn't have a
great old time finding this place. You said in your note, Zura, it was
the 'Misty Star' at the top of the hill. Before I reached here I thought
it must be the last stopping-place in the Milky Way. Climbing up those
steps was something awful."

Mr. Chalmers mopped his rosy brow, but later conversation proved his
sensitiveness to feminine beauty quite overbalanced his physical
exhaustion, as on the way many pretty girls peeped out from behind paper
doors.

Page kept in the background, plainly arranging a mode of escape. He soon
excused himself on the plea of work, saying as he left, "I'll drop in
some time to-morrow for the book. You'll find it by then."

With the look of a disappointed child on her face, Jane called to her
little attendants, went to her room and resumed her knitting.

The unbidden guest was gaiety itself, and there was no denying the
genuine pleasure of the girl. As the night was warm and glorious, I
suggested that Zura and her guest sit on the balcony.

I picked up a book and sat by my reading lamp, but my eyes saw no
p