Page:Dave Porter and his Classmates.djvu/119



was to be a skating race that afternoon and Dave had thought to take part. But now he was in no humor for mingling with his fellow-students and so took a long walk, along the snow-covered road beyond Oak Hall.

At first his mind was entirely on Link Merwell, and on his sister Laura and the letters she had written to the bully. To be sure, Laura had told him that the letters contained only a lot of girlish nonsense, yet he was more than sorry Merwell held them and he would have given much to have gotten them away from the fellow he despised.

Returning to the Hall some time before supper, Dave went up to his dormitory. Only Bertram Vane was there, translating Latin.

"Come to study, Dave?" he questioned pleasantly, hardly glancing up from his work.

"I've come to work on that essay, Polly," Dave answered.

"You mean the Past and Future of Our Country?"