"Only for a moment, though." Miss Hamlyn reflected, and then added, brightly: "Now, most girls would have liked it, for it sounded all wool. And they would have gone into it, as you wanted, and have been very, very happy for a while. Then, after a time--after you had got a sonnet or two out of it, and had made a sufficiency of pretty speeches,--you would have gone for an admiring walk about yourself, and would have inspected your sensations and have applauded them, quite enthusiastically, and would have said, in effect: 'Madam, I thank you for your attention. Pray regard the incident as closed.'" "You are doing me," I observed, "an injustice. And however tiny they may be, I hate 'em." "But, Robin, can't you see," she said, with an odd earnestness, "that to be fond of you is quite disgracefully easy, even though--" Bettie Hamlyn said, presently: "Why, your one object in life appears to be to find a girl who will allow you to moon around her and make verses about her. Oh, very well! I met to-day just the sort of pretty idiot who will let you do it. She is visiting Kathleen Eppes for the Finals. She has a great deal of money, too, I hear." And Bettie mentioned a name. "That's rather queer," said I. "I used to know that girl. She will be at the K. A. dance to-morrow night, I suppose,"--and I put up my manuscript with a large air of tolerance. "I dare say that I have been exaggerating matters a bit, after all. Any woman who treated me in the way that Miss Aurelia did is not, really, worthy of regret. And in any event, I got a ballade out of her and six--no, seven--other poems." For the name which Bettie had mentioned was that of Stella Musgrave, and I was, somehow, curiously desirous to come again to Stella, and nervous about it, too, even then.... 3. _He Earns a Stick-pin_ "Dear me!" said Stella, wonderingly; "I would never have known you in the world! You've grown so fa--I mean, you are so well built. I've grown? Nonsense!--and besides, what did you expect me to do in six years?--and moreover, it is abominably rude of you to presume to speak of me in that abstracted and figurative manner--quite as if I were a debt or a taste for drink. It is really only French heels and a pompadour, and, of course, you can't have this dance. It's promised, and I hop, you know, frightfully.... Why, naturally, I haven't forgotten--How could I, when you were the most disagreeable boy I ever knew?" I ventured a suggestion that caused Stella to turn an attractive pink, and laugh. "No," said she, demurely, "I shall never never sit out another dance with you." So she did remember!