And then there were books, animal books and fairy books and a book on games, and there were gloves, brown ones with fur at the wrists, and many, many things to which Charles went back, time and time and again, enjoying them all, but not quite sure which he wanted.

On the last page of the book was a picture of the Victory of Samothrace, the "Winged Victory," the description said, which was "a statue six inches high, to be had, charges prepaid, for one new subscriber," and this pleased Charles more and more each time he turned to it after carefully going over all the other premiums. He couldn't tell why he liked it, for by some error in the printing, its head and its arms and one foot were left out, but the wings were to his liking-such strong sweeping wings! Charles wished he could see a premium number where the head was on. It was too bad that his number should be so defective, and it was not at all thrifty to get a thing with out knowing first what it was even like. Again and again he made up his mind to choose the gloves or the fairy book, but each time he turned once more to the picture of the wings.

Charles smiled to himself now as he sat on the porch railing and waited for Friend Benjamin South and the mai! wagon. He was thinking about the Victory-the secret-as he had thought, oh, so many times since the carefully penciled note, with the two-dollar bill enclosed, addressed to the story paper, had been given into Friend Benjamin's hands. When it came, he would surprise mother and father with it. He knew they'd think it fine. The head would have to suit, and the arms too, because the wings were so satisfactory.

A robin in a lilac bush near by sang a few clear notes and flew into the first evergreen. Charles followed it with his eyes and wondered about the Victory's wings. Would they be the color of the robin's? He believed he'd rather have them like the blue pigeon's wings, all glinty in the sunlight. The premium book said nothing about the color, but all statues, Charles knew,

were colored. There was one on the organ in the front room, a flower girl in a pink dress and blue hat, with a match holder at her side. Father had bought her from a poor old peddler last summer. Still Charles didn't know but he'd rather have the wings gray, like the wings of the eagle he saw one time when he was out with Cousin Paul Haycock. My! but he wished he had wings like the Victory had. He'd fly-he could just feel himself go, oh, ever so high, just as it was when he "worked up" standing in the big swing in the grove. He could feel the thrill down his backbone now, as he thought how he'd sail in the air, higher and higher, and he smiled to himself, unconsciously straightening his back and taking deep breaths. He knew where he'd go, if he had wings. He'd go to the city and see Brother Samuel, and he'd fly far away in the winter, down south, where the flowers grow all the year around, and he'd bring lots of them to mother. And when he got big enough, and his wings very strong, why, he'd just take mother along to see things. She could ride on his back. Oh, it would be fine to be Victory himself! But to have the statue all for his own would be almost as good, and Charles measured with his finger about six inches on the post, so he could judge its size.

He had not been able to imagine how the head would look, but he was sure it would look all right. He could hardly wait for Friend Benjamin. He would run down to the road and sit on the big rock by the gate. To-day was seventh day, so he didn't have to go to school. On other days he always met Friend Benjamin on the way to school, but on seventh day it seemed a year after Charles had done his chores till Benjamin stopped at the gate and raised the cover to the tin mail box. To-day, it seemed forever.

Charles waited, impatiently throwing little lumps of earth at a patch of green across the road. At last he heard the hoof beats of a horse and then the rattle of the cart, and the rural free delivery wagon came around the bend

in the road, Friend Benjamin South sitting bent over on the seat, his broad hat pulled well down over his eyes.

Charles started up the road, his heart beating so hard and so fast that it seemed as if Friend Benjamin must hear it. But Friend Benjamin didn't even see Charles till he was quite up to the small boy, and then as Charles' excited voice called to him, "Good day, Friend Benjamin. Has thee anything for me to-day?" the horse was stopped with one jerk, and a jolly round face beamed at the boy, as he jumped up beside the driver.

"Anything for thee, Charles?" Friend Benjamin questioned, his blue eyes atwinkle. "Well, I should say so. Get up, Kitty," shaking the lines over the mare's gray back. "Now what would thee say, Charles, to a big package, addressed to thy very self? And what does thee think it contains? A box of monkeys from thy brother in the city, does thee think?"

Friend Benjamin chuckled at his own wit, as he drew Kitty to a stop at Charles' gate. He reached into a big bag and pulled out a box, the size of a small shoe box, and handed it to Charles. "Well, here it is. See, it has thy name in fine writing on the outside. And it's a heavy one-twenty four cents in stamps, it took."

Charles was in the road now, hugging the secret close to his blue shirt, and looking up at Friend Benjamin, who added, with a wink, "Maybe it's rubber boots Samuel has sent thee. Be sure thee wears them to school on second day, so I can see them. Will thee? Get up Kitty."

"Thank thee, Friend Benjamin, and good day to thee," Charles called after the cart. Then he sped up the incline between the evergreen trees to the the house. He went in the front way, and up the front stairs, so no one would see him, and into his own little room with its neat rag carpet on the floor, its small white bed in the corner, and its chair and dresser and little chest all primly against the white walls. And here he placed his box on the floor and

with hands a-tremble cut the strings. with his own jack-knife, whicn Samuel had sent him Christmas. Then wrapper after wrapper he took off the box; then the cover, and then in the excelsior his cold fingers felt something hard. Quickly he tore off the packing, and there was a wing, all alone. His heart fairly stopped beating. Was it broken? He laid it carefully on the floor, and plunged his fingers again into the excelsior, and another wing came to view. It would be a dreadful thing if it had been smashed on the way. A lump came into his throat. Again he felt the hard plaster in the box, and he pulled out the headless body. Charles set it down and for the first time noticed the fasteners on the wings. In a trice his nimble fingers had fitted the wings in place, and were back in the box for the head and arms. In every corner he searched, at last pulling the packing out of the box bit by bit in his effort to discover the rest of his Victory. Of course the head and arms were somewhere there, and would fit on as the wings had. But though he hunted everywhere, he could not find them. The box was solid, so they couldn't have lost out on the way, and if they had been broken, the pieces would be there. Slowly it came to him that the story people had forgotten to send them. His eyes filled with tears, and his lips trembled. In his disappointment over the lack of the head, of all parts the part he most wanted to see, it was quite a moment before he discovered that the Victory was all white -all of it-dead white. It was cheat. He had been fooled. They'd forgotten to send the most important part of it and they had sent him an all white Victory. He put his head down. in the excelsior and sobbed. If the head had only come, he believed, after a while, that he could stand the whiteness. But the idea of them forgetting its head seemed almost too preposterous. He would look once more for it. He sat up, and began to put the excelsior back into the box, looking carefully through every handful. After the last scrap was in, Charles shut his lips

a

tightly together. He would write to them and tell them about the mistake. He picked up the cover to the box, and -why! there was the same picture on it that was in the premium book, only larger, and this one was without a head or arms, too. How queer. He looked at the statue in the middle of the floor, and compared it detail by detail with the picture. It was just the same. Even the foot was gone. Charles sat quite still and thought it all out. It wasn't a mistake in the picture then. It wasn't a trick of the story paper people, for they had been perfectly honest about it. There weren't any fasteners for a head or arms as there were for the wings. That was all there was to the Victory. It didn't have any head. It didn't have any arms or feet. He supposed it was even meant to be white. His fingers felt numb and cold. His lips were dry. He pushed his hat from his head and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Then slowly he reached for the Victory, removed the wings, put the three parts in the box, placed the cover on it, and bundling the wrappers about it, pushed the whole thing under his bed, just as far as it would go, and hurrying upstairs and out into the back yard, he climbed the tallest apple tree, just beginning to show its green leaves, and stayed among its branches till the dinner bell rang.

All that afternoon and the next day Charles was very quiet. His mother began to wonder if he was sick, and stirred him up a dose of molasses and sulphur for his blood.

Charles tried not to think of the Victory, but it had been his one thought for so many days, that to drop it absolutely, with nothing to take its place, was impossible. In meeting on first day, he tried very hard to listen when the spirit moved Friend Esther Starbuck and Friend Ezra Hadley to speak, but all the time he was wondering to himself if Friend Rebecca Hadley, Ezra's daughter, who taught Charles' Sabbath School class, hadn't herself the very head for the Victory. He believed she had, and he grew so

excited thinking about it, that he could hardly wait to get home.

After dinner he slipped away to his room, pulled out the box from under the bed, brought forth the body and wings, fitted them together and stood the whole thing on his bureau. It was a bad bargain, he had to admit to himself, but it was his own fault, and the wings were just as beautiful as he could have dreamed them, and he was almost glad they were white. And since he had it, he would look about among his friends and find a head to fit, and then imagine it on. Of course, somewhere there was a head beautiful enough for the wings. But Friend Rebecca's head wouldn't do. He couldn't just say why, but he was sure it wouldn't.

When his mother came to his room some time later, to see if he was sick, he pointed out his Victory to her. "I got it with the subscription Cousin Paul gave me to the story paper," he explained hurriedly. "It came yesterday. I was going to surprise thee and father, but thee sees it wasn't a good bargain, because there isn't any head nor arms."

"Why, did they break coming. Charles?" she asked, examining the statue with interest.

"No. It broke before." Charles explained. "There weren't any pieces in the box. I'd better have had the gloves or the fairy book, but thee sees, mother, how fine the wings are, and I loved the wings in the picture." He looked up at her puzzled face, and she bent and kissed him.

"Never mind, dearie. It's too bad thee was disappointed, but as thee says, the wings are beautiful, and thee will know better next time." She smiled at him and held out her hand. "If thee will come down now, I'll read thee a Bible story."

But though she read the most interesting of the Bible stories, though she held Charles close to her on her lap, and rocked back and forth, it was not the story, and it was not her sweet voice that Charles was thinking of; but he was thinking that if his mother's

hair wasn't quite so gray, her head would be just the one for his Victory. Her face was exactly right, but he didn't believe, even if the Victory were colored, that it would have gray hair. The next day at school, Charles examined with interest each of the little girl's heads. He was surprised at first how far they all came from fitting the Victory. Not one would do. But the teacher-Charles stared so long at her that her face got quite pink, and she stepped into the hall where the mirror was, for a moment. She never knew how near hers came to be the head for the Victory of Samothrace. Charles felt she was almost the one, but alas, she wore eye glasses, and they never would do for this statue. Some statues had them, he knew. The grandfather statue at Cousin Paul's wore eyeglasses, but Charles was sure his Victory wouldn't-not even those with a gold chain, like teacher's.

Aunt Rachel, his mother's cousin, was very beautiful, Charles thought, and her hair was not gray, but black and curly. She didn't wear eyeglasses either, but he heard mother say one time, with a shake of her head, that Rachel was the only worldly one in the family, and surely those wings couldn't have a worldly head, no matter how beautiful.

And so all of Charles' friends and relatives had their turn, and one by one they were checked off as lacking this or that which the Victory must have. It seemed very soon, that not the head alone, but the owner also, must in every way reach Charles' ideal of the Victory.

Each morning, as he left his room, Charles looked back at the spreading wings and said to himself that maybe this would be the day he'd find the perfect head; and each night his last thought was, "To-morrow I'll find it."

It was one rainy day when he conceived the idea of looking through the big illustrated Bible for his Victory head, for surely he could find it in the Bible, if anywhere. So he spent the afternoon stretched out on the floor, his head propped with one hand, turning page after page of the big Bible. It took a good while to look at all the pictures and Esther and Ruth and Rebecca and Mary Magdeline were all given a fair chance, but none of them fitted, and Charles closed the book at last, got to his feet, and looked out of the window for a long time, his nose pressed hard against the cool glass and the lump in his throat very, very big. The Bible had failed him, none of his friends or acquaintances would do, and he felt as gray and as cold as the sky looked.

But early the next morning the sun streamed into Charles' room, striking the little mirror of the dresser and casting a rainbow over the spreading wings of the Victory. A bluebird sang on the window-sill and Charles awoke, his eyes on the little statue. He lay quite still for several seconds, watching the delicate bar of colors. Then suddenly sliding from bed, he stood in his long white gown before the Victory, and exclaimed joyfully,

"I'm glad thee hasn't any head, Victory. There isn't any head in the whole wide world beautiful enough for thee!"