"Now what about being born in Mars' month!" she demanded triumphantly of Elise as soon as she could get her breath. "A bloodstone will do more for you any day than an agate."

Taking this as a challenge, all sorts of feats were attempted to prove the superior virtues of each girl's birthstone charm, so that the performance ended in a gale of romping and laughter. Then at the last, to the tune of "They kept the pig in the parlour and that was Irish too," Mary was gravely presented on behalf of the sorority with the gift it had chosen for her.

"For your dowry," it was marked. It was a toy savings-bank in the form of a china pig, with a slit in its back, into which each member dropped seventeen pennies, as they sang in jolly chorus,

"Because it's your seventeenth birthday,
March seventeen shall be mirth-day.
Oh, may you long on the earth stay,
With pence a-plenty too."

"That's an example in mental arithmetic," cried A.O. "Quick, Mary! Tell us how much your dowry amounts to. Seventeen times sixteen-"

But Mary was occupied with a discovery she had just made. "There are just seventeen of us count

ing me!" she cried. "I never knew such a strange coincidence in numbers."

"If you save all your pennies till you have occasion for a dowry you'll have enough to buy a real pig," counselled Cornie wisely.

More like a whole drove of them," laughed Mary. "That time is so far off."

"Not necessarily so far," was Cornie's answer. "Sometimes it is only a few steps farther when you are seventeen. Come on, before they turn out the lights on us."

Mary stopped in the door to look back at the room in which they had spent such a jolly evening. “I'd like to stop the clock right here," she declared," and stay just at this age for years and years. It's so nice to be as old as seventeen, and yet at the same time to be as young as that."

Then she went skipping off to her room with the dowry pig in one hand and a green candle from the cake in the other, to report the affair to Ethelinda. They were not members of the same sorority, but they had many interests in common now. They had learned how to adjust themselves to each other. Mary still reserved her deepest confidences for her shadow-chum, but Ethelinda shared the rest.

CHAPTER XI

TROUBLE FOR EVERYBODY

Up in Joyce's studio, Easter lilies had marked the time of year for nearly a week. They had been ordered the day that Betty and Mary arrived to spend the spring vacation, and still stood fresh and white at all the windows, in the glory of their newly opened buds. They were Henrietta's contribution. Mrs. Boyd and Lucy were away.

On the wall over the desk the calendar showed a fanciful figure of Spring, dancing down a flowerstrewn path, and Mary, opening her journal for the first time since her arrival, paused to read the couplet at the bottom of the calendar. Then she copied it at the top of the page which she was about to fill with the doings of the last five days.

"How noiseless falls the foot of time

That only treads on flowers."

"That must be the reason that I can hardly believe that three whole months have gone by since the Christmas holidays. I've trodden on nothing

but flowers. Even though the school work was a hard dig sometimes, I enjoyed it, and there was always so much fun mixed up with it, that it made the time fairly fly by. As for the five days we have been here in New York, they have simply whizzed past. Miss Henry' has done so much to make it pleasant for us. She is great. She calls herself a bachelor-maid, and if she is a fair sample of what they are, I'd like to be one. The day after we came she gave a studio reception, so that we could meet some of her famous friends. She wrote on a slip of paper, beforehand, just what each one was famous for, and the particular statue or book or painting that was his best known work, and instead of copying it, I'll paste the page in here to save time.

"It was a great event for Betty. Mrs. LaMotte, who does such beautiful illustrating for the magazines had seen Betty's last story, and asked her for her next manuscript. If she illustrates it, the pictures will be an open sesame to any editor's attention. She gave her so much encouragement too, and made some suggestions that Betty said would help her tremendously.

One of the best parts of the whole affair to me was to see Joyce playing hostess in such a distinguished company. They all seem so fond of her,

and so interested in her work, that Miss Henrietta calls her Little Sister to the Great.'

"I thought that I'd be so much in awe of them that I couldn't say a word. But I wasn't. They were all so friendly and ordinary in their manners and so extraordinary in the interesting things they talked about that I had a beautiful time. I helped serve refreshments and poured tea. After they

had all gone Joyce came over and took me by the shoulders, and said 'Little Mary, is it Time or Warwick Hall that has made such a change in you? You are growing up. You've lost your self-conscious little airs with strangers and you are no longer a chatter-box. I was proud of you!'

"Maybe I wasn't happy! Joyce never paid me very many compliments. None of my family ever have, so I think that ought to have a place in my good times book.

"I've had a perfect orgy of sight-seeing-gone to all the places strangers usually visit, and lots besides. We've been twice to the matinee. Phil has been here once to lunch, and is coming this afternoon to take us away out of town in a big touringcar. We're to stop at some wayside inn for dinner. Then we'll see him again when we go out to Eugenia's for a day and night. We've saved the best till the last."