follows:

DEAR JACK,

I'm writing you for Clara, who is, as you know, a
dreadfully lazy person. School is over and I shall
bring Clara back to Trenton with me day after
to-morrow. Are you so bored with my dreadful sex
or have you made a little exception? Any way, this
is to warn you that you may have to be my cavalier
once more if we decide to go again to Princeton.

Faithfully yours,
MIMI.

I saw Cora Lantier in New York. She is going up to
the Williams Commencement with a _very dear_
friend. Don't tell this to Mr. Sidell.

There are, of course, three ways of contemplating a letter written by a
young lady, according to whether the recipient be a friend, is in love,
or being in love, loves without hope. Skippy used all three methods.
That night he placed four pairs of trousers to press under his mattress,
discarded the dicky (a labor saving device formed by the junction of two
cuffs and a collar which snapped into place and fulfilled the
requirements of table etiquette), and painted the ends of his fingers
with iodine to break himself of the habit of living on his nails.

On the following Saturday, Mr. Sidell being still, as it were, under
absent treatment, Mr. Turkey Reiter making the fourth, Skippy
experienced the terrifying joy of sitting in the back seat next to Miss
Mimi Lafontaine.

"You bad boy, why didn't you answer my letter?" said that young lady,
after a careful inspection of the embarrassed Skippy had resulted in
much increased satisfaction.

"I wrote you three times," he said, staring at his shoes.

"Three--then they must have gone to the school."

"I tore them up," he said, under his voice.

Between a feminine nineteen and a masculine fifteen, much is
permissible. Miss Mimi, under protection of the rug, slid her little
hand into his painfully-scrubbed one.

"Poor fellow!" she said softly.

"Gee!"

It was not exactly the last word in romance, but it came from the heart,
a sort of final gasp as Skippy felt the waters closing above him. With
her hand in his, something rose in his throat and he had to fight back
the dimming of his eyes. By the time they rolled into Princeton there
was no longer need of explanation. He felt that she knew beyond the
shadow of a mistake, just what he felt for her,