"'Oh, for pity's sake, do stop and talk sense.' He looked as if he had never heard the word.
"'You're very hard to please,' he said in oh, such offended tones. 'What shall we talk about?'
"'Why not Fanny,' I suggested; 'she's the only subject we have in common, except flowers and birds and moonlight, and we seem to have exhausted those.'
"'But I'm very fond of Fanny!' he said quite feelingly. I told him I was too and that we ought to make the best of it. I explained how popular she was at school, and how she'd made the team, and raved at great length over her voice. And do you know what that boy did? When I stopped for breath he stood stock still in the middle of the path and looked at me, then he whistled.
"'Well, I'll be darned.' It was the first natural thing I'd heard him say. 'I never met a girl before in all my life that would talk that way about even her best friend,' he said.
"The music started then, and we had to hurry back—but, Bet, what do you suppose he meant?
"Lois evidently had much the same trouble understanding her partners. I heard her say—'how absurd' during supper, and it sounded so like you that I was startled for a second.
"Oh dear, I almost forgot to tell you the funniest thing that happened through the whole evening. Poor Fanny, being hostess, had to dance with all the clumsy, unattractive boys that were there, and every time I saw her, she seemed to be having a dreadful time of it. I think it was the eighth dance and I was sitting out with a boy named Wilfred Grey—the one Caroline cut Fanny out with, you remember? I was arguing with him about clothes—he said he preferred bright colors, and I insisted there was nothing as lovely as white. Of course we both knew he really meant Caroline, and Fanny. Well anyway, in the middle of the dance—we were in a sort of a little alcove—Fanny came by pulling a big, lanky youth after her. I never saw anything so funny; he was just walking, and making no kind of an effort to keep to the music. Mr. Grey and I laughed about it, and when they came around again, we were watching for them. Imagine our joy when they stopped just beside us, and we heard Fanny say, in that killing way of hers:
"'Look here, Sam Ramsby, if you'll get on my feet and stay there, I'll tote you around this room, but this jumping on and off is more than I can stand.' Betty, wasn't that rare—it was the best minute of the whole evening. Lo is furious that she missed it.
"Mercy! It's twelve o'clock and I must go to bed. Lo is going to add a P.S. to-morrow. Please appreciate this long letter as I've really spent much valuable time over it.