Ravenel, who was the only other person in the party to whom the sight of such juvenile gallants was a rarity. She bit her lips to repress a smile, and desperately opened the conversation.

"I am so anxious to see the Eagle's Nest," she said to one of the students.

"Oh! you never saw it?" he replied.

There were two things in this response which surprised Miss Ravenel. In the first place the young gentleman blushed violently at being addressed; in the second, he spoke in a very hoarse and weak tone, his voice being not yet established. Unable to think of anything further to say, he turned for aid to the maiden of thirty-five, between whom and himself there was a tender feeling, as[Pg 47] appeared openly later in the day. She set him on his intellectual pins by commencing a conversation on the wooden-spoon exhibition.

[Pg 47]

"What is the wooden-spoon?" asked Lillie.

"It is a burlesque honor in college," answered the youth. "It used to be given to the stupidest fellow in the graduating class. Now it's given to the jolliest fellow—most popular fellow—smartest fellow, that doesn't take a real honor."

"Allow me to ask, sir, are you a candidate?" inquired the Lieutenant-Colonel.

Miss Ravenel cringed at this unprovoked and not very brilliant brutality. The collegian merely stammered "No, sir," and blushed immoderately. He was too much puzzled by the other's impassable stare to comprehend the sneer at once; but he studied it much during the day, and that night writhed over the memory of it till towards morning. Both Carter and the lady of thirty-five ought to have been ashamed of themselves for taking unfair advantage of the simplicity and sensitiveness of this lad; but the feminine sinner had at least this excuse, that it was the angelic spirit of love, and not the demoniac spirit of scorn, which prompted her conduct. Perceiving that her boy was being abused, she inveigled him into a corner of the vehicle, where they could talk together without interruption. The conversation of lovers is not usually interesting to outsiders except as a subject of laughter; it is frequently stale and flat to a degree which seems incomprehensible when you consider the strong feelings of the interlocutors. This is the ordinary sort of thing, at least in New Boston:—

Lady. (smiling) Did you go out yesterday?

Gent. (smiling) Yes.

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