name of the bank. But the glimpse she caught of her worried face in a mirror in the hall made her pause to smooth the pucker out of it.

"It is foolish of me to let it spoil my Christmas day like this," she reasoned with herself. "If I can't keep inflexible any better than this I don't deserve to have fortune change in my favour."

So armed with the good vicar's philosophy, she went down to the group in the library. Almost immediately she had her reward.

“Well, what did you think of the offertory, Miss Mary?" asked Stuart, who had just come in, and was listening to the account that the girls were giving Eugenia of the morning's music. "Your sister thinks the soloist had the voice of an angel."

"I'll have to confess that I didn't pay as much attention to that as I did to the first solos," said Mary honestly. "I was so busy staring at the fat man who took up the collection in our aisle. He had at least four chins and was so bald and shiny he fascinated me. His poor head looked so bare and chilly I really think that must have been what made me sneeze just pure sympathy."

"He

“Oh, you mean Oatley," laughed Stuart. considers himself the biggest pillar in St. Boniface, if not its chief corner-stone. Awfully pompous and

important, isn't he? But they couldn't get along without him very well. He is a joke at the bank, where he is a sort of fifth wheel. They made a place for him there, because he married the president's daughter, and it was necessary for him to draw a salary."

One question more and Mary breathed easier. She had learned the name of the bank, and early in the morning she intended to start out to find it. With that matter settled it was easy for her to throw herself into the full enjoyment of all that followed. The Christmas dinner was served in the middle of the day instead of at night, and the afternoon flew by so fast that Eugenia protested against their going when the time came, saying that she had had no visit at all. Joyce explained that she had promised Mrs. Boyd to help with an entertainment that night for a free kindergarten over on the East Side, and that she must get to work again early in the morning to fill an order for some menu cards she had promised to have ready for the twenty-seventh.

Betty, also, had promised to go back. Mrs. Boyd was sure she would find material and local colour for several stories, and she felt that it was an opportunity that she could not afford to miss.

"Then Mary must stay with me," declared Eu

genia, and Mary found it hard to refuse her hospitable insistence. Had it not been for the lost shilling she would have stayed gladly, and once, she was almost on the verge of confessing the real reason to Eugenia.

"I don't see why I should mind her knowing how much I think of it," she mused. "But I don't want anybody to know. They'd remember about its being a Philip and Mary shilling,' and they'd smile at each other behind my back as if they thought I attached some importance to it on that account."

To the delight of each of the girls, the invitation which they felt obliged to decline was changed to one for the week-end, so when they waved good-bye from the sleigh on their way to the station, it was with the prospect of a speedy return.

"And they had feasting and merry-making for seventy days and seventy nights," quoted Mary, as the train drew into the city. "I used to wonder how they stood it for such a long stretch, but I know now. We have been celebrating ever since the mock Christmas tree at Warwick Hall

ages ago it seems but there has been such constant change and variety that my interest is just as keen as when I started."

Mrs. Boyd and Lucy were at the flat waiting

for them when they arrived, and after a light supper, eaten picnic fashion around the chafing-dish, they started off for the novel experience of a Christmas night among the children of the slums. Betty did find the material which Mrs. Boyd had promised, and came home so eager to begin writing the tale, that she was impatient for morning to arrive. Joyce found suggestions for two pictures for a child's story which she had to illustrate the following week, and Mary came home a bundle of tingling sympathies and burning desires to sacrifice her life to some charitable work for neglected children.

She was also a-tingle with another thought. At the corner where they changed cars on the way to the Mission, she had made a discovery. The bank where St. Boniface deposited its money loomed up ahead of them, massive and grim. The name showed so plainly on the brilliantly illuminated corner, that it almost seemed to leap towards them. It would be an easy matter to find by herself. Now she need not ask anybody, but could slip away from the girls early in the morning, and be on the steps first thing when the doors opened.

Fortunately for her plans, Joyce announced that they would have an early breakfast, in order that she might begin work as soon as possible. Mrs.

Boyd and Lucy had not returned with them the night before, but had gone back to Brooklyn to finish their visit with their friends immediately after the exercises at the Mission. So only a small pile of dishes awaited washing when their simple breakfast was over. Mary insisted on attending to them by herself so that Betty could begin her story at

once.

"Strike while the iron is hot!" she commanded dramatically. Open while opportunity knocks at the door, lest she never knock again! I'll gladly be cook-and-bottle-washer in the kitchen while genius burns for artist and author in the studio! Scat! Both of you!"

So they left her, glad to be released from household tasks when others more congenial were calling. They heard her singing happily in the kitchenette, as she turned the faucet at the sink, and then forgot all about her, in the absorbing interest of the work confronting them. With so many conveniences at hand the washing of the dainty china was a pleasure to Mary, after her long vacation from such work. Quickly and deftly, with the ease of much practise, she polished the glasses to crystal clearness, laid the silver in shining rows in its allotted place, and put everything in spotless order.