“Well, if you won’t go, you can settle it when he comes here, though I think we should all do better to confess coming home in the dark.”

“He won’t come here again, Dick.”

“Won’t he! that shows you don’t know Bopp as well as I. He’ll come to say good-by, to thank mother for her kindness, and you and me for the little things we’ve done for him (I wish I’d left the last undone!), and go away like a gentleman, as he is,—­see if he don’t.”

“Do you think so?  Then I must see him.”

“I’m sure he will, for we men don’t bear malice and sulk and bawl when we come to grief this way, but stand up and take it without winking, like the young Spartan brick when the fox was digging into him, you know.”

“Then, of course, you’ll forgive Fan.”

“I’ll be hanged if I do,” growled Dick.

“Ah ha! your theory is very good, sir, but your practice is bosh,” quoted Dolly, with a gleam of the old mischief in her face.

Dick took a sudden turn through the room, burst out laughing, and came back, saying heartily,—­

“I’ll own up; it is mean to feel so, and I’ll think about forgiving you both; but she may stop up the hole in the wall, for she won’t get any more letters just yet; and you may devote your epistolary powers to A. Bopp in future.  Well, what is it? free your mind, and have done with it; but don’t make your nose red, or take the starch out of my collar with any more salt water, if you please.”

“No, I won’t; and I only want to say that, as you owe the explanation to us both, perhaps it would be best for you to tell August your part of the thing as you come home to-morrow, and then leave the rest to fate.  I can’t let him go away thinking me such a heartless creature, and once gone it will be too late to mend the matter.  Can you do this without getting me into another scrape, do you think?”

“I haven’t a doubt of it, and I call that sensible.  I’ll fix it capitally,—­go down on my knees in the mud, if it is necessary; treat you like eggs for fear of another smash-up; and bring him home in such a tip-top state, you’ll only have to nod and find yourself Mrs. B. any day you like.  Now let’s kiss and be friends, and then go pitch into that pie for luncheon.”

So they did, and an hour afterward were rioting in the garret under pretence of putting grandma’s things away; for at eighteen, in spite of love and mischief, boys and girls have a spell to exorcise blue devils, and a happy faculty of forgetting that “the world is hollow, and their dolls stuffed with saw-dust.”

Dick was right, for on the following evening, after the lesson, Mr. Bopp did go home with him, “to say good-by, like a gentleman as he was.”  Dolly got over the first greeting in the dusky hall, and as her guest passed on to the parlor, she popped her head out to ask anxiously,—­

“Did you say anything, Dick?”

“I couldn’t; something has happened to him; he’ll tell you about it.  I’m going to see to the horse, so take your time, and do what you like,” with which vague information Dick vanished, and Dolly wished herself anywhere but where she was.