“I knew it,” trilled Judith.  “No one could possibly miss her.  She’s Jane Allen.”

“Jane Allen!” he almost interrupted.  “She whose pater is a benefactor of Wellington?”

“Yes, the only Jane,” answered Judith glibly.  “Come over and meet her.  I know you will like her even better on acquaintance.  I don’t mind being generous, for Jane and I started together here, and from present appearances we seem liable to end it together.”

While she spoke they had ceased dancing, and Judith fancied she just caught a look of question on the young man’s face.  This coupled with his inquiry about Jane’s father, Judith at once assigned to his knowledge of the scholarship Bobbie had obtained.  But even that was not just a correct guess, and it seemed the actual presence of this good looking boy from Yorktown threatened to add new complications to those already surrounding the mysterious freshmen.

Both reached Jane’s side as Judith and her partner came up.  Judith presented the much talked of “lovely Ted” and perhaps a part of Jane’s ebullition was attributable to the code shot out from Judith’s flashing eyes.  It said plainly: 

“Now isn’t he lovely?  I told you so!”

While Jane remembered her own wish: 

“I hope he’s big, clumsy, ugly, etc.,” and of course he wasn’t.

He claimed the dance and presently swept the Golden Girl from her place in the little circle.

“Your cousin?” questioned Judith with a very comprehensive smile.  “Bobbie, I never saw a girl blush as you did when a coz whispered into her dancing ear.”

Wise, discerning Judith!

Bobbie blushed again, but she was not going to be tricked into telling her secret.  Her eyes flickered until they rested on Nettie Brocton.

“I must ask Net for a dance,” she said.  “I suppose it is perfectly proper for a mere freshie to do so?”

“Absolutely,” replied Judith, “but you are not slighting me?”

“Not for worlds, Judy.  May I have the next?”

“What’s your hurry just now Bobbie?  Trying to duck me?”

But a sly glance of challenge gave Judith answer, as Bobbie hurried away to dance with Nettie Brocton.

CHAPTER XXIV

KING PIN OF THE FRESHIES

Music and laughter, youth and happiness!

What a splendid affair the dance turned out to be!  Even the staid faculty, acting as patronesses, looked on with generous smiles of absolute approval.

As if to add to the gentle flame of curiosity in Jane’s circles, she accepted a number of dances from Teddy—­in fact the big fanciful “T” which Jane remembered so well in the spook letter, was scribbled all over her dancing card, while Judith accepted Ray Mann, a chum of Ted’s, in complacent substitution.  Ray was a capital fellow, with such a stock of chestnut hair he might have matched up pretty well with Bobbie, if her spare time had not been so filled in with Dave Jordan, also a “Yorktown man.”