did. She wished he might have seen it in the morning when the sun was

shining warmly on the red brick walls and the sky was blue overhead. She was disappointed. Dick seemed a rather nice sort, if somewhat too--too self-assured, and it would have pleased Harry hugely to have wrested a prospective student away from the rival school. Besides, the sum of money which the advent of another student meant was not to be sneered at; Ferry Hill’s expenses so nearly matched her income that a half-year’s tuition and board might mean quite a little when the accounts were balanced. Doctor Emery, as Harry well knew, had been rather discouraged for the last two or three years. There was only the one dormitory hall and forty-six boys filled it to overflowing, and for that many students the expense was as great as it would be for twice the number. The Doctor wanted a new dormitory, but didn’t know how he was going to get it. With room for say twenty more students the school would pay very well. As it was, it sometimes didn’t pay at all; there were years when the books balanced the wrong way and the Doctor and his family stayed at Ferry Hill all through the hot weather. Harry thought of all this as she led the way down the hill through the dim grove, and as a result what conversation ensued was somewhat spasmodic. At the boat-house Dick busied himself with his skates and Harry looked on silently; but finally:

“I don’t believe you had any idea of leaving Hammond, anyway,” she exclaimed aggrievedly.

“Why not?” asked Dick.

“Because--because how could you, if your folks wanted you to go there--”

“My folks didn’t have much to do with it,” answered Dick, pulling his gloves on. “There’s only my dad, anyway. He didn’t know anything about the schools here and left it to his lawyer in New York. I said I didn’t much care, and Mr. Warwick said he’d heard that Hammond was a very good place, so after Dad sailed I came up here.”

“Is your father a sailor?” asked Harry.

“Oh, no,” laughed Dick, “he’s a mining man. He owns mines and buys and sells them. My mother died a couple of years ago and we broke up housekeeping and went moseying around, Dad and I. Then when he found he’d have to go to London and Paris for two or three months he didn’t know what to do with me. So I said I’d go to school somewhere in the East; I’d never been very much, anyway. So that’s how it happened; savvy?”

“Yes, but what’s ‘savvy’?” asked Harry.

“Oh, it means ‘Do you understand?’”

“Then if--if you did want to leave Hammond you could?” she asked. Dick nodded.

“Sure as shooting! Why not? I told Dad I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t like it, and he said in that case I could go back to Helena or join him in London.”

“My!” exclaimed Harry. “Why don’t you go to London?”

“I’ve been there twice,” Dick answered.

“Then--then you--you’ll stay at Hammond?” asked Harry wistfully.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Dick. “Maybe.”

“And you didn’t like Ferry Hill?”

“Oh, yes, I did,” he answered stoutly. “It seems a mighty nice school.”

“But you won’t come?”

Dick hesitated, skating about backward and forward along the edge of the ice and swinging his arms to keep warm.

“I don’t know,” he answered finally. “I’ll think it over. When does school begin?”

“Day after to-morrow, but you’d have to get here to-morrow before six in the evening.”

“Well, if I come--I’ll think about it anyway. And thanks for showing me around. I’ve had a real jolly time. Good-night, Miss Emery.”

“Good-night,” answered Harry sadly. “I--I wish you’d decide to come.”

“Well, maybe I will,” he shouted back as he skated off. “But if I’m not here by six to-morrow tell your father not to wait supper for me. Good-night!” And laughing at his joke Dick Somes sped off into the darkness across the frozen river.

Harry stood there shivering until she could no longer hear the ring of his skates. Then she turned and went disappointedly back up the hill.