"Rose Ellis? Well, yes; but she's rather young."

"Oh, that's all right," Maurice assured her. "(I wish I hadn't told him
she is older than I am. Trouble with me is, I always plunk out the
truth!) The fellows like 'em young," he said. Then he told her who the
fellows were: "I don't know 'em very well; they're just boys; not in
college. Younger than I am, except Tom Morton. Mort's twenty, and the
brainiest man I know. And Hastings has a bag of jokes--well, not just
for ladies," said Maurice, grinning, "and you'll like Dave Brown. You
rake in three girls. We'll have a stunning spread, and then go to the
theater." He caught her in his arms and romped around the room with her,
then dropped her into a chair, and watched her wiping away tears of
helpless laughter.

"Yes--I'll rake in the girls!" she gasped.

She wasn't very successful in her invitations. "I asked Rose, but I
had to ask her mother, too," she said; "and one of the teachers at the
Medfield school."

Maurice looked doubtful. Rose was all right; but the other two? "Aren't
they somewhat faded flowers?"

"They're about my age," Eleanor teased him. As for Maurice, he thought
that it didn't really matter about the ladies, faded or not; they were
Eleanor's end of the shindy. "Spring chickens are Mort's meat," he
said...

The three rather recent acquaintances who were Maurice's end of the