However, that there may be no misunderstanding at the outset, it is quite safe to affirm so far at least as Bunny was concerned, that he was hard hit. It was realization of this, a realization keen, active, that dismayed him. Of course he believed, as was his right, that Wilma liked him. But he more than liked her. He hardly felt it his privilege yet to tell her just how much he liked her, and doubtless could not even though he deemed the time had arrived to-day. Thus he fretted, and procrastinated. Even now as he walked beside her under the stars of a night in June that was full of fragrance, he felt himself floundering in a sea of uncertainty where edged the shores of which he knew not. So he sighed, then pulled himself together before she could seek to know the reason, and said: "You ought to have seen me this morning--ought to have seen me with a new acquaintance I made on the fair grounds." And he told her of Willie Trigger and his exploit. She heard him through in silence. "Do you know Willie?" he asked. "No," she said. After a moment she added, "Don't you rather hate to be followed about by the small boys as though you were--as though you were a circus parade?" He laughed. It was not the first time she had made fun, as he deemed her attitude to be, of his athletic attainments, and the admiration engendered by them among Ann Arbor youth. "It's great!" he exclaimed. "Simply great! You have no idea how it seems to know the small boys are gaping at you in wonder as you pass. I've watched them lots of times from the tail of my eye and seen them nudge their companions. Oh, I tell you it's satisfying!" Conscious as she was of the assumed vanity she affected a seriousness when she said:-- "But I should think you would rather grown-ups gaped at you." "But what can I do to make 'em?" he asked wonderingly. "Just point the way and I'll take it----" "Oh, there are lots of ways," she went on. "You're in the medical department, why don't you become a great doctor?" "I shall," he exclaimed, "but that takes time. Meanwhile I am steeling myself, practicing with the little boys, you know, so I shan't be overwhelmed when big people gape at me in wonder a little later----" "Oh, you can't be serious!" she cried petulantly. "What's the use?" he asked and laughed. "What's the use on such a night, with the stars overhead, the tree toads scraping, and--and--you here?" "But I want you to be," she said; and then ran on: "It has always seemed so silly to me when you great men come out in ridiculous clothes and run around and jump and play ball--just like overgrown babies." "That's what we are," he replied. "Ann Arbor is only a nursery. It's only different from other nurseries in that the nurses don't wear little caps and aprons." He chuckled. "Well, anyway, I wish you wouldn't," she said plaintively. She lifted her face and looked up at him. "Really?" He was in earnest now. "Yes." "Then I won't--that is not after Saturday."