be having such a good time with you and the twins, or father?  Can a girl tell a man she prefers to go home with her family, without hurting his feelings?  Is there any way to turn a person down without letting him know it?  He’s so nice I wouldn’t hurt his feelings for anything, but—­it’s such a bother!  I’m too young for beaus, and since I’m never going to get married it’s just a waste of time.”

And Fairy screamed with laughter, but told Prudence she must solve her own love problems!  And Prudence, unwilling to give offense, and preferring self-sacrifice, endured his company until a gay young college lad slipped in ahead of him.  “First come, first served,” was the motto of heartless Prudence, and so she tripped comfortably away with “Jimmy,” laughing at his silly college stories, and never thinking to give more than a parting smile at the solemn face she left behind.

After Jimmy came a grocery clerk named Byron Poe Smith, and after him somebody else, and somebody else, and somebody else.  And Prudence continued to laugh, and thought it “awfully amusing, Fairy, but I keep wondering what you and the twins are laughing about!”

But it was Fairy herself who brought a real disturbing element into the life of Prudence.  One of the lightest-minded of the many light-minded college men, had been deeply smitten by the charms of dignified Fairy.  He walked with her, and talked with her,—­this young man was a great deal of a talker, as so pathetically many college men are!  He planned many little expeditions and entertainments for her amusement, and his own happiness.  His name was Eugene Babler.

“Oh, he talks a lot,” said Fairy coolly, “but he certainly shows one a good time, and that’s the point, you know!”

She came in from college one afternoon and rattled off this little tale to Prudence.

“A few of us were on the campus to-day, and we decided to go down the creek to-morrow afternoon and take our suppers.  There’ll be Ellen Stark, and Georgia Prentiss, and myself.  And the boys will be Tom Angell, and Frank Morris, and Eugene Babler.  And Professor Rayburn was there when we were talking about it, and so we asked him to go along, but we told him he must take a girl.  And he said, ’I wonder if your sister wouldn’t go?  I have only met her once, but perhaps on your recommendation, Miss Fairy——­’ and he paused with his breath in the air, inquiringly.  So I said, ’Do you mean Prudence, or one of the twins?’ He smiled very kindly and said, ‘I mean Prudence.’  I said I was sure you would go, and so you’ll have to do it.  It’s a great honor, Prue, for all the upper-class girls, and even the unmarried women on the Fac. are crazy about him.  He’s so aloof, you know, and very intelligent.  I swelled with pride at the public tribute to the parsonage!”

“Professor Rayburn!  Of the Fac.!” gasped Prudence.  “Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean me, Fairy.  You must have misunderstood him.  Why, I wouldn’t know what to say to a professor, you know!  What is his line?”