"But Davy was surely one awfully good fellow to get me through that other scrape as he did." All thought of football fled from Dan Dalzell's brain as he pulled the bellknob at the Preston house.
After all this was to be but the third meeting.

Dan fancied, however, that absence had made his heart fonder.

Since the night when he had Frenched it over the wall Dan had received two notes from Miss Preston, in answer to his own letters, but the last note was now ten days' old.
"May I see Mrs.Preston ?" asked Dan, as a colored servant opened the door and admitted him.
This was Dan's correct idea of the way to call on a young woman to whom he was not engaged, but half hoped to be, some day.
The colored maid soon came back.
"Mrs.Preston is so very busy, sah, that she asks to be excused, sah," reported the servant, coming into the parlor where Dan sat on the edge of a chair.

"But Mistah Preston will be down right away, sah." A moment later a heavier step was heard on the stairway.

Then May Preston's uncle came into the parlor.
"You will pardon Mrs.Preston not coming down stairs to-night, I know, Mr.Dalzell," said the man of the house, as he and the midshipman shook hands.