friends. I won't need to be watchful for bad symptoms."

"Do you think me so unmanly that I couldn't fall in love?" he asked,
and his voice was curious, as though she had hurt him.

"Oh, of course, you'll fall in love," laughed Prudence. "All nice men
do.--But not with me,--that was what I meant I couldn't imagine a buggy
professor--oh, I beg your pardon! But the twins are so silly and
disrespectful, and they thought it was such a joke that I should even
look at a professor of biology that they began calling you the buggy
professor. But they do not mean any harm by it, not the least in the
world. They're such nice sweet girls, but--young, you know. Are your
feelings hurt?" she asked anxiously.

"Not a bit! I think the twins and I will be tremendously good friends.
I'm quite willing to be known as the buggy professor. But you were
trying to explain why I couldn't fall in love with you. I suppose you
mean that you do not want me to."

"Oh, not that at all," she hastened to assure him. Then she stopped.
"Yes," she said honestly, "that is true, too. But that isn't what I
was trying to say. I was just saying that no one realizes any more
than I how perfectly impossible it would be for a clever, grown-up,
brilliant professor to fall in love with such an idiot as I am. That's
all. I meant it for a compliment," she added, seeing he was not well
pleased.

He smiled, but it was a sober smile. "You said it was true that you
did not wish me to be--fond of you. Why? Don't you like me then,
after all?"