"You are the best fence-taker I ever saw for a girl." "That's one practical result of an hour's credit in gym-work," she laughed. "Sometimes, on lovely days like this, I feel almost as though I could pole-vault the way you do. It must be glorious to go sailing over the bar." "And hear it come clattering down after you?" They sat on the soft, new grass, and Lillian caught, one after another, the shy yellow faces peering at her through the long leaves. She looked so spring-like, so much a part of the fresh, young landscape in its robes of early February, as she half reclined to reach out for a blossom larger and yellower than the rest--a pose that she knew was good--that the Sophomore president put an end to suspense. "I had expected to lead the cotillion with Miss Martin," he began, "but she has gone South, so I'm badly left. I'm afraid you are engaged for it, aren't you?" Lillian gazed fixedly at the white cupola on a stockfarm building. Her heart was somewhere deep in hill-grass. She was the most luckless girl in the whole college! The opportunity of her Sophomore year had come too late. It was bitter enough for tears. "I had promised it to Mr. Perkins," she said, irresolutely. "I was afraid so. Of course, it was awfully late to ask you; but I would rather go with you than with any of the others, so I ventured." It was a desperate moment for Lillian. "I would rather go with you, too," she said, gazing up at him. "I'm sure I wish you could," he said, with sincerity. She was at her prettiest that day. "I will anyway," she declared. "But Ted----" "I don't care," she went on, "it was only that he asked me first. Couldn't I cut it and go with you? He ought to understand that I have a right to change my mind." Smith watched the antics of a gopher for a full minute before he replied. Although Perkins had said nothing to him of his intentions regarding the dance--the two had few confidences--Cap had held his theories. Still, he deemed he had a chance. Being a Sophomore, he believed that he was thoroughly acquainted with the co-educated sex and all their wiles and guiles; but a feeling of repulsion toward this frank readiness to throw down another man, one of his own, too, drowned his sense of self-satisfaction at finding himself preferred. "Of course, you and Ted must arrange all that," he said, and turned the conversation. Cap's lack of confidential relations with Perkins did not stand in the way of his mentioning the affair to him that night after dinner. "I thought you ought to know it, Ted," he concluded. "Of course, you will do as you please about the matter, only I shall not take her." "You don't think for a moment that _I_ still intend to, do you?" asked Perkins, fiercely. "I don't believe I'd blame you exactly if you backed out," said the complacent Sophomore; "but, of course, it's none of my funeral now; I'm only sorry I happened to ask her myself, and start the trouble."