"You can one of these days, sir."
"When will that day come?"
"It will come, sir, when public-spirited citizens everywhere go in strongly for athletics in the High Schools, as they did in the town where Holmes and I received our earlier training."
The letter from Cadet Prescott's mother came almost by return mail. She had never for a moment lost faith, she wrote, that all would come out right with her boy, and she was heartily glad that her faith had been justified. She was sorry, indeed, for that unfortunate other cadet whose enmity for Dick had been his own undoing in the long run.
It was some days later when Laura's letter reached the now eager pitcher of the Army nine.
Now that letter was cordial enough in every way, and Laura made no secret of her delight and of her pride in her friend.
"Yet there's something lacking here," murmured Prescott uneasily, as he read the letter through once more. "What is it? Laura writes as if she were trying to show more reserve with me than she did once. What is the matter? Has she cooled toward me at just the time when I shall soon be able to offer her my name and my future?"
The thought was torment. Nor, of course, did Dick fail to remember all about that prosperous and agreeable Gridley merchant, Leonard Cameron, who, for upwards of two years, had been one of Miss Bentley's most devoted admirers.
"I suppose he's the kind of fellow who is calculated to please a woman," mused Dick with a sinking at heart. "And Cameron has had the great advantage of being right on the spot all the time. Moreover, he has had his future mapped out for him, while I wasn't assured about my own, and he hasn't been afraid to speak. Great Scott, I must wait until the night of the graduation ball before I can speak and find out how the land lies for me. But is Laura coming to that hop?"
Again Dick ran hastily through the letter. Yet, look as he would, he could find no allusion of Laura's to coming on for the Graduation Hop.