Each day brought a letter always addressed in a feminine handwriting, to be sure, or there would have been little chance of said letter ever reaching Petty. They were, she confided to every girl in the school under strictest promises of secrecy, re-addressed for "Reggy" by "darling mamma," for mamma, knowing how desperate was their devotion to each other, just simply could not help acting as a go-between. And she knew very well too that she, Petty, would not have remained at school a single day unless she did this. Why, mamma, herself, had eloped with papa before she was sixteen. One whole year younger than she, herself, was at that moment. "Wasn't that romantic?" "Where is papa now?" asked Beverly. She had never heard him mentioned. "Oh, why--well--he has business interests which keep him in South America nearly all the time, and--er," "Oh, you needn't go into details. It doesn't make any difference to me," said Beverly, and walked away with Sally. "Isn't she odious! And so perfectly callous to sentiment," cried Petty. "She's a dear, and it's a pity you hadn't a small portion of her common sense," championed Aileen emphatically. "I have sense enough to be engaged before I'm _seventeen_, and to know what it means to be _embraced_, which is more than any other girl in this school can boast," brindled Petty. "Well, I should hope it is!" was Aileen's disgusted retort. "And if you don't watch out you'll boast just once too often and Miss Woodhull will get wise to your boasting. Then there will be something stirring unless I'm mighty mistaken." "Pouf! Who cares for Miss Woodhull? I don't believe she ever had a proposal in all her life." "Well, you'd better be careful," was Aileen's final warning as she left the half-dozen girls of which Petty formed the bright particular star. "Those three feel themselves so superior yet they are such children," was Petty's withering remark. Aileen was two months her junior. Sally less than a year and Beverly exactly fifteen months. But being engaged very naturally developes and broadens one's views of life. Dear "Reggie" was just twenty, and had his lady love but known that interesting fact, had already been "engaged" to three other susceptible damsels during his brief sojourn upon the earth. Moreover, he was openly boasting of it to his fellow midshipmen and regarding it as a good joke. Oh, Reggie was a full-fledged, brass-buttoned heart-breaker. Happily he was not a representative among his companions. Most of them are gentlemen. They can do a good bit of "fussing" as they term it, but this wholesale engagement business is the exception, rather than the rule. Nevertheless, Petty had sang of the charms of Annapolis until all her set were wild to go there, and her enthusiasm had spread like chickenpox. If the affairs at Annapolis were all Petty pictured them and the midshipmen as fascinating, the place must, indeed, be a sort of Paradise.