"No," she answered, "I do not; and yet I heard this week that some one over in town who is active in the church said it was a disgrace to all who were there. I wish people thought differently about such things. I enjoyed the dance ever so much, but I do not like to be considered as acting disgracefully. Do you?"
"I presume you will be so considered," he responded, with a shade of annoyance on his face, "if you go to dances in this town. I wish the busybodies of that church would mind their business."
He made no further comment regarding the dance, but sat looking gloomily at the fire.
"What ails you to-night?" asked Liddy, finally breaking the silence; "you seem out of sorts."
"I am all right," he replied, with forced cheerfulness. "I have been trying to solve the problem of a future vocation when I leave school next spring, and I do not know what to do."
Liddy was silent. Perhaps some intuitive idea of what was in his mind came to her, for, although he had never uttered a word of love to her except by inference, she knew in her own heart he cared for her and cared a good deal.
"Come, Charlie," she said at last, "don't worry about a vocation now. It's time enough to cross bridges when you come to them. Do you know," she continued, thinking to take his mind from his troubles, "that I have discovered why Mr. Webber does not like me? It's simply because I do not flatter him enough. I have known for a long time I was not a favorite of his, and now I know why. You know what a little bunch of mischief Alice Barnes is. She whispers more than any other girl in school, and makes more fun of him, and yet she is one of his prime favorites. Well, one day last week, at noontime, while she was talking with three or four of us girls, he came along, and she up and asked him if he wouldn't read 'The Raven' the next Wednesday afternoon when, you know, we all have compositions, and then she winked at us. He took it all right, and you ought to have heard the self-satisfied way in which he said: 'Certainly, Miss Barnes. I shall be very happy to read it for you.' The way he strutted across the schoolroom after that! Lida Stanton said he reminded her of a turkey gobbler."
Manson laughed.
"Webber doesn't like me, either," he said, "and never has from the first. I don't care. I came to the academy to learn, and not to curry favor with him. Willie Converse is another of his pets and is cutting up all the time, but he never sees it, or makes believe he does not."
The discussion of school affairs ended here, for even Manson's evident dislike of the principal was not strong enough to overcome the mood he was in. He sat in glum silence for a time, apparently buried in deep thought, while Liddy rocked idly in her low chair opposite. The crackling fire and the loud tick of the tall clock out in the hall were the only sounds.