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340 "Yes?" encouraged Will. "Fire away."

"I suppose," Ruth continued, "you two are wondering when I am going home. I've been here nearly a month now and I ought to decide what I am going to do. I'd like your advice if you're not too busy."

"Certainly I'm not," Will responded heartily.

Ruth can be very complimentary and deferential when she chooses. She chose so to be now. Will closed his books. Ruth was standing by the table; her tapering finger-tips just reached the mahogany surface, she leaned lightly on them; her face was in the shadow, for the only light was Will's low reading-lamp, and her arms suddenly appearing out of the dark were startlingly white and pretty.

"It was Mr. Jennings who called to-night," she went on. "I saw him because he rather interested me last week when I met him at one of your Faculty Teas. I was talking with him to-night a little about my life. It came in after I had read him a few of my verses, which he said he would be kind enough to give me his opinion about, when I told him last week that I wrote a little. He suggested a plan that rather appealed to me. I don't know what you think of it, but he says that there are a lot of girls who take special courses here at Shirley (Shirley is the girls' college connected with the university) and that, even though I'm not a college girl, he thinks he could arrange for me to take a course or two in poetry and literature. He wants me to develop my talent. Oh, I'd love to do it!" Ruth exclaimed, suddenly enthusiastic. "Mr. Jennings is so encouraging! He thinks I really might write something worth while some day. I've always thought that poetry was the