"Jean?" John laughed. "She wasn't saying anything to anybody but old Bags when I came away. Boys, oh! If I didn't forget. She cautioned me to break the news that they were engaged." "Engaged! Who?" "Why, Jean and Bagsley." "Jean and--and what?" screamed Elizabeth. "Not the bone man?" "Yes, why not? He's all right I tell you, Lizzie. Finest chap in our year. Going to be gold medalist, sure." "But how on earth?--what in the world?--John Gordon, are you telling me the truth or is it a joke?" "Both. Mac and I nearly took hysterics the night Bags told us. We never suspected it. He never met a girl on the street without shying, and how he and Jean made it up is a mystery. But it's all right, and Aunt Margaret 'll be tickled to death. Say, you must tell her. Go and do it now like a good kid. I'm going over to have a chat with Tom." But Elizabeth would not let him go. She had not recovered from the shock. For the first time since her return home she felt her old spirits return. As yet, to Elizabeth, all love-making was something of a joke, and this was undoubtedly the funniest thing that had ever happened in Cupid's line. She deluged John with questions. What had put it into the bone-collector's shaggy head? And having got it there, where did he get the courage to propose? He must have done it by telephone, and long-distance, too. Or did he come stumbling into Jean's study and inquire in awful tones, "Miss Gordon, will you lend me your heart?" and then dash out and fall downstairs? And even if one could imagine his offering himself, how could anyone who knew Jean conjure up a picture of her stopping her mathematics long enough either to accept or reject? What a "come-downer" it would be for Jean to be merely married! The brother and sister laughed together, in the disrespectful way that younger brothers and sisters have, and Miss Gordon, seated at her sewing by the open parlor window, heard Elizabeth's gay voice with rising resentment. The care-free laughter seemed to her but another indication of the girl's defiant indifference to her wishes. Elizabeth entered, radiant with her news, but the sight of her aunt's face smote her. Miss Gordon had aged under her disappointment, and looked pale and dispirited. "Is your head aching, Aunt Margaret?" the girl asked timidly. "No, I thank you, Elizabeth," was the answer in the tones of stately politeness which Miss Gordon always used towards her wayward niece. "I am merely worried. But I have become accustomed to that lately."