“Say, that’s something to think about!” cried Tom.  “If he opened the letters I’d like to make him confess.”

“Well, one thing is certain,” said Dick after the matter had been talked over for a while, “we missed a splendid chance to talk matters over with the girls.  It is too bad!” And his face showed his concern.

“And you didn’t even want to go to Hope with me,” commented Tom, with a humor he could not repress.

“Wish we had gone yesterday,” answered Sam bluntly.  He could read “between the lines” of the note he had received, and knew that Grace wanted to see him just as much as he wanted to see her.

Sam said he was going to write a letter that night, and finally Tom and Dick agreed to do the same.

“But I shan’t write much,” said Dick.  “I am not going to put my foot in it.”  Nevertheless he wrote a letter of four pages, and then added a postscript of two pages more.  And the communications Sam and Tom penned were equally long.

“We’ll not trust ’em to the college mail,” said Tom.  “We can take ’em to the post-office when we go to church to-morrow,” And this was done.

After the letters were posted the brothers waited anxiously for replies, and in the meantime buckled down once more to their studies.  It was now well along in December, and one morning they awoke to find the ground covered with snow.

“Snowballing to-day!” said Tom with a touch of cheerfulness, and he was right.  That day, after class hours, the students snowballed each other with a will.  The freshmen and the sophomores had a regular pitched battle, which lasted the best part of an hour.  All of the Rovers took part in the contest, and it served to make them more cheerful than they had been for some time.

“What’s the good of moping?” said Tom.  “We are bound to hear from the girls sooner or later.”  Yet, as day after day went by, and no letters came, he felt as downcast as did his brothers.

The boys were to go home for the Christmas holidays, and under ordinary circumstances they would have felt gay over the prospect.  But now it was different.

“Going to send Dora a Christmas present?” asked Tom of Dick, a few days before the close of the term.

“I don’t know.  Are you going to send anything to Nellie?”

“Yes, if you send something to Dora.”

“Sam says he is going to send Grace a writing outfit and a book of postage stamps,” went on Dick.

“That’s what they all need,” growled Tom.  “It’s a shame!  They might at least have acknowledged our letters.”

The boys did not know what to do.  Supposing they sent presents to the girls, and got them back?  They held a meeting in Dick’s room and asked Songbird’s advice.

“Send them the nicest things you can buy,” said the would-be poet.  “I am going to send a young lady a gift—­a beautiful autograph album, with a new poem of mine, sixteen verses in length.  It’s on ’The Clasp of a Friendly Hand.’  I got the inspiration once when I—­er—­But never mind that.  It’s a dandy poem.”