“As I was crossing the Common I met my cousin Archibald apparently waiting for some one. I stopped for a second to speak to him, and of course I asked whom he was waiting for.”
“Of course.”
“Well, it seems that Somers Brown is up for one of those Greek letter societies,—I’ve forgotten which, and part of the programme, the novitiate, or whatever they call it, is for him to bring a book-plate away from the Radcliffe Library by means of some bluff. He wasn’t to get it by breaking and entering, but he was to have it freely given to him by some one in the college. So he decided to rig up as an Englishman, and call himself a descendant of Anne Radcliffe’s family, and—”
“I know,” said Polly, smiling.
“Oh, then you saw him? Perhaps it was you who gave him the book-plate?”
“Not I,” replied Polly, “although I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Radcliffe.”
“Surely neither the Dean nor the Librarian gave it to him.”
“No, indeed! It was Annabel. He ran across her when he started on his search for information. Poor Annabel, she believed every word he said, although she prides herself so on her insight. She gave him any amount of information about Harvard as well as about Radcliffe. But then, he really had an English accent.”
“Oh, yes, but imagine Annabel’s rage when she finds that she has been imposed on! I shouldn’t like to break the news to her.”
“But she ought to know.”