Betty was glad he had come, for though they had met only a few times, they were good friends, and it was a compliment indeed that he had given her himself as a fate! Of course it was just for that evening, and Betty thought it was very jolly. With shining eyes and rosy cheeks, she rejoined the others. “Let’s play a joke on Betty,” said Dorothy to Jeanette, as it neared supper-time. “How do you mean?” “This way. Lena says we girls each have to select our partner for supper. She says she won’t have the old-fashioned way of pairing off by matched nuts or flowers or things. Each girl has to ask a boy herself. Now, of course, nobody will ask the boy she really likes best. I wouldn’t myself!” “Well,” asked Jeanette, “what’s the joke on Betty, then? She won’t ask either Harry or Ralph, and we know she likes them best.” “That’s just it! Of course Lena will make her choice last, as she’s hostess. Let’s fix it so Betty will be next to last, and let’s leave those two boys till the last. Then Betty will _have_ to choose one or the other of them, and that will be a good joke on her.” “Yes, it will! And it isn’t a mean joke, either. If there are only those two, she’ll have to select one.” “But how can we be sure nobody else chooses either Harry or Ralph?” “Oh, nobody will. They’ll know enough to leave them for Betty. But I’ll whisper to Constance and a few of the girls to make sure.” The scheme worked well. Lena, in burlesque authority, ordered each fair damsel to choose the knight she most admired, to escort her to supper. This made great fun, as each girl deliberately ignored the boy she liked best, and chose a brother or a comparative stranger. Betty had made up her mind to choose Jack, and thus evade an embarrassing decision between her two admirers. But, as one girl after another was called, Betty began to surmise there was some joke in progress. But Lena said to her, casually, “You and I will go last, Betty,” and so she really suspected little. But at last no boys were left but Ralph and Harry, and, as Lena announced with twinkling eyes that Betty must make her choice, she saw at once that the girls had pre-arranged this. It was a difficult situation. Betty had no wish to offend either boy by choosing the other, and she was decidedly in a quandary. She stood looking at them and smiling. “It’s so hard to choose between you,” she said, provokingly, but really to gain time. Suddenly she bethought herself of the penny in her pocket! Ah, here was a way to circumvent those mischievous girls! “I’m sorry,” she said, with a little sigh, “that I can’t choose either of you very gentlemanly appearing boys. But my Fate was foretold me, and the talisman that I have here bids me await the coming of the knight appointed for me by Destiny.” Betty held up her bright penny with a roguish look. “What do you mean?” exclaimed Lena, who knew nothing of what Hal had said to Betty in the Room of the Fates.