you decided to come today. It would have been a shame if none of you were
here." She made a feint of dropping her voice, with a glance at Dan
Mavering. "He's such a nice boy," which made him laugh, and cry out--

"Oh, now? Don't poison my father's mind, Mrs. Saintsbury."

"Oh, some one would be sure to tell him," retorted the Professor's wife,
"and he'd better hear it from a friend."

The young fellow laughed again, and then he shook hands with some ladies
going out, and asked were they going so soon, from an abstract
hospitality, apparently, for he was not one of the hosts; and so turned
once more to Miss Pasmer. "We must get away from here, or the afternoon
will get away from us, and leave us nothing to show for it. Suppose we
make a start, Miss Pasmer?"

He led the way with her out of the vestibule, banked round with pots of
palm and fern, and down the steps into the glare of the Cambridge
sunshine, blown full, as is the case on Class Day, of fine Cambridge
dust, which had drawn a delicate grey veil over the grass of the
Gymnasium lawn, and mounted in light clouds from the wheels powdering it
finer and finer in the street. Along the sidewalks dusty hacks and
carriages were ranged, and others were driving up to let people dismount
at the entrances to the college yard. Within the temporary picket-fences,
secluding a part of the grounds for the students and their friends, were
seen stretching from dormitory to dormitory long lines of Chinese
lanterns, to be lit after nightfall, swung between the elms. Groups of
ladies came and went, nearly always under the escort of some student; the
caterers' carts, disburdened of their ice-creams and salads, were
withdrawn under the shade in the street, and their drivers lounged or