topic would draw him out.

"You bet." Jim's eyes shone with pleasure. "Eleanor's a trump when she
gets started. She was splendid at home this summer. Of course you know"--
Jim flushed again under his tan--"my mother--I'm awfully fond of her too,
but of course her being so young makes it queer for Eleanor. But Eleanor
fixed everything all right. She made dad and me, and mother too, just
fall dead in love with her. You know the way she can."

Betty nodded. "I know."

"And I guess she's made good here, too," said Jim, proudly, "though you'd
never find it out from her. Do you know, Miss Wales, she never wrote us a
word about her story that came out in the college magazine."

"Didn't she?" said Betty, faintly.

"Nor about getting into some club," continued Jim, earnestly. "I forget
the name, but you'll know. Isn't it considered quite an honor?"

"Why, yes," said Betty, in despair, "that is, some people consider it--
Oh, Mr. Watson, here's the bridge!"

Poor Jim, unhesitatingly attributing Betty's embarrassment to some
blunder on his part, was covered with mortification. "It's evidently a
secret society," he decided, "and that other fool girl didn't know it,
and got me into this mess."

So he listened with deferential attention while Betty tried to tell him
how lovely the snowy meadows and the bleak, ice-bound river looked on a