But the latter was not altogether happy. Of course it was fine to be the chosen one of the boy from town, but there were drawbacks. Horace was not strong enough to play baseball, and his mamma had forbidden him to play shinney, so he always stayed with the girls at recess, which was often very inconvenient when Elizabeth and Rosie wanted to teeter by themselves or stay indoors and tell secrets. Then, too, John and the Pretender teased her unmercifully. They called her beau "Booby" Oliver and said he should have been a girl. She took his part valiantly, but she did wish he wouldn't say "papa" and "mamma," it made her ashamed of him. On the whole, Elizabeth was not sorry when his two-weeks' visit to the Cleggs' ended and he went back to Cheemaun. Rosie did not regret his departure either; he had served his day. For there was no doubt the age of chivalry was drawing to a close. Winter was coming on and the mantle of squire of dames was slipping off the boys' shoulders. The spirit of chivalry did not thrive in the day of snowballs. The first news of the change in affairs came to Elizabeth, as usual, through Rosie. The latter confided to her friend that she didn't believe she liked Hector McQueen half so well as she used to. He had just been horrid mean only that morning. He had thrown a snowball right at her. Of course he didn't hit her, but she was mad at him, so she was, and if he wrote her a note she just wouldn't answer it, see if she would. This was but one indication of the decay of chivalry. There were many others, and at last it was swept away altogether in a new fashion that shortly broke out. Jessie Robertson's uncle from Vancouver came home, bringing all the Robertsons presents, Jessie's being an autograph album. She brought it to school and each of her friends proudly inscribed their names therein, attached to verses sentimental or otherwise. Within a week every girl in the Fourth Book had an autograph album, even if it were only one made of foolscap and trimmed with tissue-paper such as Rosie made for Elizabeth. It proved far more interesting and twice as tractable as a beau. A new era dawned in Forest Glen, an age of learning, when one racked one's brains to compose a poem for a friend's book, and the age of chivalry was forgotten. CHAPTER VIII A BUDDING ACTRESS During those golden autumn months, the spirit of chivalry had been manifesting itself in other parts of Forest Glen beside the schoolroom. That in which the grown-up part of the community shared centered round Sandy McLachlan's little clearing. The lawyers had made a bad mess of poor Sandy's affairs, the country declared. He had virtually lost his farm, as far as the law went, and all because of some technicality regarding the lack of a fence on all sides, one which the rural mind considered highly absurd. And not only that, but the place had been sold to Jake Martin, who had given Sandy notice to leave early in October.