Tom finished his first year at high school with credit, attended the graduation exercises--he had already gone to a moonlight picnic given by the senior class--and thus, so to say, made his entrance into Society. He had been presented to numerous young ladies, always to his embarrassment, and had secretly wished he could dance. As he could not, he had watched the others rather enviously and had felt somewhat awkward and out of it. Sidney wanted to enlist the services of a girl friend in Tom’s behalf. “She’ll teach you in an hour, Tom. She’s a wonder at it! What do you say?” But Tom had drawn back in unfeigned alarm and shaken his head with a vigour that had left no doubt in his chum’s mind as to his meaning. All that summer one of the worst experiences that could happen to Tom was to meet on the street one of the girls he had been introduced to. More than once, discerning a young lady in the distance, he crossed over to the other sidewalk and became absorbed in the window displays. There was one awful occasion--Tom couldn’t think of it without a shudder for weeks!--when he had encountered May Warner three blocks from the store and, in some mysterious way, had suddenly found himself walking beside her along the street. How it had happened he never did know, but it was certainly due to no effort on his part! The young lady, who was a very pretty girl of about his own age, had done most of the talking, Tom merely according an embarrassed “yes” or “no” now and then, but those were three of the longest blocks he had ever travelled. When they reached the doorway of Cummings and Wright’s, Tom fled without ceremony. Naturally he soon gained a reputation for bashfulness, and the girls, instead of taking pity on him and letting him alone, seemed to go out of their way to speak to him, getting a good deal of amusement from poor Tom’s unhappiness. Sidney was to leave Amesville for the summer the last of July, his often expressed desire to spend the warm weather in town failing to impress his parents. Tom knew he was going to miss Sidney a good deal and he looked forward regretfully to the latter’s departure. Once, in June, Sidney accompanied Tom out to Derry to remain over Sunday and enjoyed the visit so much because of the novelty of it that he declared his intention of going again. Star had a fine time then, receiving more attention and petting than falls to the lot of most dogs in the short space of a day. Tom’s uncle was as gracious to the visitor as he ever was to anyone, but Sidney secretly voted Farmer Bowles “an old curmudgeon.” He got on finely with Aunt Patty, however. But for that matter Aunt Patty, in spite of her sharp tongue, would have been kind to a chimney-sweep had he been honoured with Tom’s friendship.