Polly shook her head. “No,” she agreed. “If only he and his sister could exchange faces! Maybe, after all, it is she that flavors my opinion of him.” “Marietta?” “Yes.” She was making little jabs in the soft moss with her slender forefinger, and a faint smile began to curve her lips. “She is a brainy girl,” was the somewhat stiff response, “and she has always been very pleasant to me.” “She is brainy enough,” replied Polly; “the trouble is, she knows it and she shows that she knows it.” “If she did not know it, there would be nothing to know,” said David severely. Polly’s smile broadened. “I was thinking,” she resumed, “of what Patricia said the other day. Marietta has just been elected president of the Much Ado Club in place of Ruth Mansfield. You know the Mansfields are going to live in California. Ruth has grown pretty stout, and Marietta looks as if she would blow away. Somebody was wondering if she could fill Ruth’s place, and Patricia said very soberly, ‘I think she’ll wabble about a little.’ Wasn’t that bright?” “Unkind,” he answered forbiddingly. “Oh, David!” she sighed, “you are so matter-of-fact. You don’t like Patty any better than ever.” “There is not much of her to like,” he said quietly. “David Collins!” “It is true.” “Every one but you thinks she is lovely,” asserted Polly. “Probably they don’t require depth.” “Patricia isn’t shallow,” she retorted. “It appears so to an outsider. Look at her and her gang!” “Gang!--David!” He gave a short laugh. “The truth is, Polly, seeing we are talking plainly, I don’t like the girls with whom you are so popular--the girls that have made you their queen. They--” “Queen! What are you talking about, David?” Polly broke in without ceremony. Her voice was scornful. “Yes, queen,” reiterated the young man. “Only they rule you, not you them.” “You don’t like it because I said yesterday I hadn’t time to have a flower garden,” accused Polly. “No,” denied David, “I was thinking of something else. You have too many clubs on your hands.” “They don’t amount to much in the way of time,” returned Polly. “They must be a great bore.” “No; they keep me out of a rut, put me in touch with everything.” “H’m!” scorned David. “I am glad I don’t need a posse of chattering girls to keep me up to date. Not a single club for me in vacation! Cut them out, Polly, every one! Why not?” The girl laughed. “What a queer fellow you are! I’ll write to you every day if you wish,” she added with seeming irrelevance, remembering a certain request when they had separated at the beginning of the last college year. David brightened perceptibly--until a sparkle of fun in her brown eyes swiftly altered his expression. “Yes, you will have as much as three minutes a day to give to me, won’t you!” he flashed, a tinge of bitterness in his tone.