And there she was now, over by the window, painfully aware of the garden and fidgeting ever so little with the curtain. Perhaps this might not be such a bad time to repeat his question, after all. Had she not of her own free will come to the Norris house, at which she knew that he was almost a daily visitor? There was in that something to give him heart. As if he hadn't enough evidence without it! "You will admit, though, Nancy, that it was an awfully stupid thing for him to eat the cherries and milk, won't you? Everyone knows that it can't be done." Tom moved over nearer to her, but she did not answer him. Instead, she fixed her eyes steadily on the bulging root of an elm in the garden. She must concentrate everything on that to keep from being an utter fool. But what an hour it had been! First the dreadful news about Furbush and that thing in the paper, and then Tom's unexpected entrance. How wonderful he looked as he came into the room; he had been so self-possessed, and she should have been such a ninny in his place! Tom took a step nearer. "Nancy," he said very tenderly. The root was waving now; it _would_ become indistinct. How gentle he was, and how different from Henry! "Nancy!" he repeated. Then the root became altogether blurred and meaningless, and she felt him take her in his arms and kiss her. "Darling Nancy," he was saying; and, somehow, to her great relief, she found an apparently adequate reply. * * * * * It was decided that a long engagement was altogether unnecessary, a decision which was without repeal, in view of the absence of parental supervision. Why waste the perfectly good summer? Why indeed? And so the wedding was set for a few days after Commencement. "That will give me just about enough time to get ready," said Nancy, "and I really think you must get a new cutaway." Then at last Commencement was over. The electricians bore away for another year the last of the class numeral signs which had hung from their respective Headquarters. The Headquarters themselves had been swept and cleaned and restored to their owners, and one by one the dwellers, in Tutors' Lane prepared to board up their houses for the summer and depart for the mountains or for the shore.