chaperon. She wouldn't have minded introducing him to Elise if she had never painted him to her in such glowing colours as her hero. She wished she hadn't told her it was Jimmy who was coming. She could have called him by his middle name, Gordon — Mr. Gordon, and passed him off as some ordinary acquaintance in whom Elise could have no possible interest.

It was a relief when Elise turned her attention to Mary's affairs, and when she saw that her turn was coming again, she set her teeth together grimly, determined to make no answer.

Presently, to her surprise, Elise relapsed into silence, and stood looking out of the window, tapping on the kettle with her spoon in a preoccupied way. Then she laughed suddenly as if she saw something funny, and being questioned, refused to give the reason.

66

I just thought of something," she said, laughing again. "Something too funny for words. I'll have to go now," she added, as if the cause of her mysterious mirth was in some way responsible for her departure.

"Thanks mightily for the candy, Mary. It's the best ever. You're going to be overflowed with orders, I'm sure. Well, farewell friends and fellow citizens. I'll see you later."

085514

"What do you supose it was that made her laugh so," asked A.O., suspiciously. "There's always some mischief brewing when she acts that way. I don't dare leave her by herself a minute for fear she'll plot something against me. I'll have to be going, too, Mary."

Left to herself, Mary began washing the utensils she had used. By the time she had removed every trace of her candy-making, the confections set out on the window sill in the wintry air were firm and hard, all ready to be wrapped in the squares of paraffine paper and packed in the boxes waiting for them. She whistled softly as she drew in the plates, but stopped with a start when she realized that it was Elise's song she was echoing:

"Amang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo'e mysel'."

"It must be awfully nice," she mused, "to have somebody as devoted to you as the Lieutenant is to Elise and Jimmy is to A.O. If I were A.O. I wouldn't care if the whole school came down to meet him. I'd want them to see him. I made up my mind at Eugenia's wedding that it was safer to be an old maid, but I'd hate to be one without ever having had an 'affair' like other girls. It must be

lovely to be called the Queen of Hearts like Lloyd, and to have such a train of admirers as Mister Rob and Mister Malcolm and Phil and all the others."

There was a wistful look in the gray eyes that peered dreamily out of the window into the gathering dusk of the December twilight. But it was not the wintry landscape that she saw. It was a big boyish figure, cake-walking in the little Wigwam kitchen. A handsome young fellow turning in the highroad to wave his hat with a cheery swing to the disconsolate little girl who was flapping a farewell to him with her old white sunbonnet. And then the same face, older grown, smiling at her through the crowds at the Lloydsboro Valley depot, as he came to her with outstretched hands, exclaiming,

66

Goodbye, little Vicar! Think of the Best Man whenever you look at the Philip on your shilling."

She was thinking of him now so intently that she lost count of the pieces she had packed into the box she was filling with the squares of sweets, and had to empty them all out and begin again. But as she recalled other scenes, especially the time she had overheard a conversation not intended for her about a turquoise he was offering Lloyd, she said to herself, "He is for Lloyd. They are just made for each other, and I am glad that the nicest man I

ever knew happens to like the dearest girl in the world. And I hope if there ever should be a swain amang the train' for me, he'll be as near like him as possible. I don't know where I'd ever met him, though. Certainly not here and most positively not in Lone-Rock."

"Not like other girls," she laughed presently, recalling the title of the book Ethelinda was reading. "That fits me exactly. No Lieutenant, no Jimmy, and no birthstone ring, and no prospect of ever having any. But I don't care much. much. The candy is a success and Jack is going to have his bloodstone fob."

With her arms piled full of boxes, she started down to her room. As she opened the door a burst of music came floating out from the gymnasium where the carol-singers were practising for the yearly service. This one was a new carol to her. She did not know the words, but to the swinging measures other words fitted themselves; some lines which she had read that morning in a magazine. She sang them softly in time with the carol-singers as she went on down the stairs:

"For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill. And come not by the far sea way, yet come he surely will. Close all the roads of all the world, love's road is open still.”

CHAPTER VI

JACK'S WATCH - FOB

ELISE spent Saturday and Sunday in Washington with the Claiborne family, and A.O. almost prayed that Jimmy would make his visit in her absence. On her return she had so much to tell that she did not mention his name, and A.O. hoped that he was forgotten. All Monday afternoon she went around in a flutter of nervousness," feeling in her bones " that Jimmy would be there that night, and afraid that Elise would find some way in which to carry out her threat of seeing him at all hazards. One of the ways she had suggested trying, was to sound a burglar or a fire alarm, so that every one would rush out into the hall. But when the dreaded moment actually arrived and A.O. stood in the middle of the floor with his card in her hand, Elise merely looked up from her book with a provoking grin.

"Oh, haven't I had you going for the last week!" she exclaimed. "Really made you believe that I wanted to see your dear Jimmy-boy! A.O., you