What Cynthia might have answered it is impossible to guess, but at that critical moment the hat, which was several sizes too large, tilted to one side, and allowed Raymonde's hair to escape down her back. Cynthia's agitated shriek brought a crowd of witnesses from out the laurel bushes. They did not spare their victim, and a perfect storm of chaff descended upon her. "Did it go to meet its ownest own?" "Did you call him Algernon, or Augustus?" "Did he tell you his family pedigree?" "Where's his motor-car, please?" "Is the engagement announced yet?" "I think you're a set of beasts!" whimpered Cynthia, leaning her head against the gate and sobbing. "If you hadn't been such a silly idiot you wouldn't have been taken in by such a transparent business," returned Raymonde, pulling off her moustache. "Look here, we don't care about this sickly sort of stuff, so the sooner you drop it the better. Gracious, girl! Turn off the waterworks! Be thankful Gibbie didn't scent out your romance, that's all! If the Bumble knew you'd put that card inside that strawberry basket, she'd pack up your boxes and send you home by the next train. Crystal clear, she would!" For at least a week after this, Cynthia Greene suffered a chastened life, and shed enough tears to make her pocket-handkerchiefs a conspicuous item in her laundry bag. She began to wish that the names of Augustus and Algernon could be expunged from the English language. Her Form mates hinted that she might receive a present of Debrett's _Peerage_ on her next birthday. If she missed a ball at tennis, or slacked a little at cricket, somebody was sure to enquire: "Thinking of him?" She found a picture of two turtle-doves attached to the pin-cushion on her dressing-table, and drawings of hearts and darts were scrawled by unknown hands inside her textbooks. Moreover, she lived in constant dread lest somebody should have really found the card inside the strawberry basket, and should send an answer by post, which would fall into the hands of Miss Beasley. The prospect of expulsion from the school haunted her. Fortunately for her, nobody troubled to notice her request for correspondence, the basket of strawberries having probably found its way to some snuffy individual at a greengrocer's stall, who took no interest in the loneliness of blue-eyed, fair-haired damsels. As for her volume of _Poems of Love_, Hermie confiscated it until the end of the term, and recommended a _Manual of Cricket_ instead. CHAPTER XV On the River