“ISN’T it pretty, Tia?” Jacquette demanded with just as fresh and eager a note as if she had not asked the question a hundred times before.

“The prettiest one I ever saw,” Aunt Sula agreed, entirely forgetting that she had ever answered it until that minute.

“Very handsome, very handsome,” Mr. Granville pronounced. Then, leaving the enthusiastic couple in the doorway, he walked toward the glittering Christmas tree which loomed at the other end of the brightly lighted room. “What’s this queer-shaped bundle down here under the branches, girls?” he asked, touching it with his cane.

“Grandpa Granville, you’re as bad as a little boy!” Jacquette cried out, darting forward and drawing him away. “What right have you to pry into that package, I’d like to know, sir?”

“Oh, ho!” he laughed guiltily, casting a furtive backward glance. “We might open that one, now, Jacquette, and have it over with.”

“No, indeed! Not till everyone is here. The very idea!” she exclaimed. “You must come right in the other room, and draw the curtains. That’s the only way to keep you out of mischief. Doesn’t Tia look beautiful in that creamy gown, Grandpa? Isn’t her dark hair lovely with it, and don’t you think it’s pretty, waved that way? I’m the hair-dresser.”

Mr. Granville’s eyes rested first on his smiling daughter, then on the tall girl at her side, whose snowy muslin gown was scarcely whiter than the pretty neck and arms it bared. Around Jacquette’s throat was a necklace of pearls which had belonged to her mother, and, though she wore no other ornament, she seemed aglow with colour, for her lips were scarlet, her cheeks were roses, her eyes had the sparkle of jewels and her beautiful hair glittered like gold under sunlight.

“I’m very proud of you both,” he said, pausing in the doorway to attempt a gallant bow, but, before it was half done, a pair of soft arms caught him round the neck.

“That’s what you get for standing under the mistletoe,” Jacquette explained as she let him go. “You’d better be more cautious after the girls get here, grandpa!”

“I’d like to know how anyone’s going to help getting under it in this house, to-night,” he answered, pretending to look injured, as he glanced up at the wreaths and festoons of green overhead. “It looks innocent enough—all that holly and red Christmas bells dangling around—but the mistletoe’s tucked in everywhere, I suspect. It’s a trap. I’m going to warn Bobs about it, the minute he gets here.”

“Warn Bobs, indeed!” Jacquette repeated, laughing back into his face. “You must remember, grandpa, that Bobs is terribly grown up, this vacation. And I’m a senior, too. You’d better be careful how you joke.” Then she added, irrelevantly, “I’ve just had an awful thought. What if we’ve invited more people than we’ll have room for?”

“No danger, child. Don’t you worry. Your grandmother always said our house was elastic when it came to taking in friends, and I rather think Sula’s inherited the knack of making it stretch.”

“It isn’t as if they were going to stay all night,” said Aunt Sula, with a smile. “Father, do you remember the winter we lived in the little brown house, how Mac had to sleep on the hall couch so often that he threatened to put up a sign, ‘Malcolm’s Guest-room,’ over his bedroom door?”

“Do I?” Mr. Granville laughed softly. “We gave house-parties in those days, only we didn’t call them that, did we?”

“But aren’t times changed?” Jacquette put in, greatly amused. “Think of Uncle Mac now, giving up his splendid room and sleeping on a hall couch! Or imagine Quis doing it. Aunt Fanny would hold up her hands in horror at the thought.”

“I’ve seen times since we came to Channing when I thought it might do Quis good to give up a few things,” said the old gentleman, thoughtfully, “but I guess the boy’s coming out all right, in spite of the money. As for Malcolm, it hasn’t hurt him a bit. He’s the same good boy at heart that he always was.”

“Speaking of angels, there he is, now!” Jacquette exclaimed. “No, it isn’t Uncle Mac, either,” she added as she flung the front door wide open and peered out into the snowy night. “It’s someone in a closed carriage. Why, Tia, it’s Mrs. Howland! Would she come away and leave Margaret? Probably Margaret made her do it, but she told me yesterday that the worst thing typhoid fever had done to her, next to putting off her graduation, was keeping her away from our Christmas party. Why, look! Who’s that? Who is it?”

“It’s a Christmas surprise for you,” said Aunt Sula as Mrs. Howland led a much-bundled little figure into the hall.

“It’s Margaret! It’s Margaret! Oh, how beautiful!” Jacquette cried, on tip-toe with joy as she tried to unwind the veils and shawls that Margaret’s anxious mother had wrapped her in. “I never dreamed the doctor would let you come out at night. I didn’t think you were strong enough, yet. O-o-oh, Margaret!” she broke off, as she actually found her friend at last, inside all the muffling. “You look like a doll! Your eyes are so big—and that short curly hair—you darling! Oh, why can’t we all look as sweet as that, and go to parties in pink wrappers!”

“There! Let her go,” Aunt Sula interposed. They were all laughing, but the tears were near the surface, for each one was remembering that Margaret had been close to the gate of death in the long hard weeks just past. “We’ll put her in this easy-chair and have her mother stand guard over her. The doctor said we might keep her for an hour or two if we’d be very careful of her.”

“Will he mind my hugging her every few minutes?” Jacquette asked, anxiously. “I’m so glad—so glad you’re here, Margaret!” she whispered, making sure of one more hug, on the instant. “The evening couldn’t have been perfect without you.”

There was no need for Margaret to answer in words, even if she could have found a chance. Her happiness was shining in her face, while her mother and Aunt Sula and Jacquette, generaled by old Mr. Granville, all bustled about, lining the deep chair with pillows, and tucking the little convalescent in among them. When she was seated, they spread a thick, fleecy white shawl over her knees, like a laprobe.

“There! But we won’t cover up her pretty pink slippers,” Jacquette declared, slipping a hassock under Margaret’s feet. “At least we must let the toes peep out—so!—or I know she won’t have a bit good time!”

“Jack, you tease!” Margaret protested, but she gave a contented little ripple of laughter as she leaned back among the pillows. “Hark!” she added. “Isn’t that your Uncle Mac’s voice?”

Jacquette flew out into the hall to see, and, from that minute the bell kept ringing, until the rooms were filled with happy, laughing, chattering people. The atmosphere seemed charged with secrets and surprises that were in danger of going off at any instant, and Jacquette’s eyes grew bigger and brighter and darker with every guest she greeted.

At last a peculiar series of rings brought her dancing downstairs from the room where she had just left a bevy of girls, removing their wraps.

“That’s Quis! I know his ring!” she cried, as she came. “I must be there to open the door this time, Mollie.”

But, when she had opened it, she saw, instead of Quis, a vision in a long, pale blue party cloak, and, after one astonished look at its laughing eyes and rosy red cheeks, she opened both arms with a cry of delight.

“Louise Markham! Oh, joy! Uncle Mac said your train was ice-bound, and you might not get in before morning.”

“So it was, but we made up time, and wired again later,” Louise explained merrily, as she emerged from Jacquette’s embrace. “Your uncle was bound to make a Christmas surprise of us, that’s all!”

“Us? We? Of course! Quis was on the same train with you. Where’s he?”

“Freezing in a dark corner until you remember to ask for me,” was the prompt response, and a tall figure stepped into the light of the doorway.

“Oh, Quis—Quis! Goody! Ask for you! Didn’t I fly to the door because I knew your ring? Never mind that snow on your feet. Come in!” she cried, drawing them both into the bright warm house. “Uncle Mac, you sinner!” she added in the next breath, as he came out into the hall, his big face beaming. “You made me think they couldn’t get here, but I’ll forgive you, now! Tia, here’s this darling Louise, after all, and only look at our splendid Quis! You never can reach up to kiss him! Come Louise—a lot of the girls are upstairs!” The white dress and blue cloak disappeared up the stairway together, and the lively sounds that floated down a minute later faintly suggested the reception that was going on above. Blanche and Etta and Mamie and Flo had all rushed at Louise together, while Jacquette hovered round the edges, too happy for words.

While the exclaiming and the hugging were still at their height, something called her away, and a little later, she appeared on the threshold of the room just long enough to say, “I’ll have to go down, girls. Come whenever you’re ready, please.”

“Sh!” Blanche Gross was whispering to Louise, as Jacquette turned away. “She’s so excited, she hasn’t noticed, yet. Don’t say a word until she does. We planned it for a Christmas surprise.”

At the foot of the stairs Jacquette came suddenly on the three Maries, trying to conceal a bulky hatbox, as they caught sight of her.

“What’s that, girls? Shan’t I take it?” she inquired, with gleeful innocence.

“No, thank you!” Marie Stanwood answered, emphatically, thrusting the box behind her. “Where’s your Aunt Sula?”

“Oh! A thousand pardons!” Jacquette apologised, with a mischievous laugh. “Tia, you’re needed here.”

Then on she went in search of Quis, beckoning him, as soon as she caught his eye, to follow her into the empty dining-room.

“Quis,” she began, breathlessly, as soon as they were alone together, “there’s one thing I’m nervous about, to-night, because I don’t know how you’ll take it. Please promise that you’ll be all right before I tell you. Please!”

“How could I help it, fairy princess?” he answered, smiling, and, as he spoke, his thoughts and hers flew back to the night when he had met his Brookdale cousin at the train, more than three years before. “I’ll promise anything you say.”

“Oh, thank you! It’s—well, you know little Mary Elliott—the girl I like so much? She and her father moved here last fall, and only lately I’ve found out the most surprising thing! Clarence Mullen is some sort of a cousin of hers.”

“Well?”

“Well—this,” she hurried on. “Clarence’s father and mother are abroad this year and he’s spending the holidays with Mary and her father, and I just had to invite him to-night, and, really, Quis, you don’t know how that boy has improved. He stands up as straight in his uniform, and it’s just as becoming, and he acts so gentlemanly! If you only could forgive him, and be nice to him——”

Marquis’s laugh interrupted right there. “Forgive!” he echoed. “Do you s’pose I’m holding that baby grudge all this time? Not much! Besides, I always knew, in my heart, that Daddy Branch was right in putting the blame for that thing on us older fellows. Of course I’ll be nice to him! By the way, Jack, has Bobs come?” he broke off, cutting her thanks short with the question.

“No, not yet.”

“Not yet! Won’t he be here this evening?”

“Oh, yes, of course! You meant had he come to town? He came yesterday. He’s been here nearly all day, helping me trim the tree.”

“Oh, ho! Telephoned you from the station, I suppose, as soon as his train struck Channing?”

“How did you know?” she demanded, and then the colour flew to her face, as Marquis laughed delightedly.

“But you’re on the wrong track, Quis,” she added, recovering herself in a flash. “Just wait till you see who’s coming here with him to-night, if you want to know the one he really likes.”

“Pooh! Who is it?” he asked, his laugh subsiding into an incredulous grin.

“Oh, the blindness of some people! Why, he always admired her at Marston, and they’ve been corresponding regularly ever since he went to Tech. She thinks the world of him; she told me so.”

Marquis was honestly curious by this time. “Not Bess Bartlett?”

“And why not? You needn’t speak in that disgusted tone. Bess has changed since you saw her. That trouble she got into just brought her to her senses, Quis. You know she was always bright enough, only she didn’t care, and when she found herself suspended that time, things looked serious for the first time in her life. You ought to see the good work she’s been doing this year. We call her ‘teacher’s pet’ nowadays!”

“Bess Bartlett teacher’s pet! Say, what is this occasion, to-night, Jack? A round-up of black sheep? Clarence Mullen and Bess Bartlett! And I suppose Bess’s reform has all come since she broke loose from the iniquitous sorority?”

“Don’t tease about that, Quis—you mustn’t! It was no joke for Bess to take off her pin. I s’pose you think ’twas just foolish?” There was a pleading note in Jacquette’s voice, and Marquis met it seriously.

“N—no; perhaps not, Jack. I’ve modified my ideas about that. Of course I think fraternities are all right, but—well, it may turn out that sororities aren’t the best thing in the world for girls. There, now, calm yourself! Don’t you begin to argue that!”

“But it’s so unreasonable! I tell you, Quis——”

“Tell me not in mournful numbers! I tell you it’s Christmas Eve. Say, what do you think of Louise? Stunning?” “Beautiful as ever. Have you just discovered her?”

He shrugged his shoulders and tried to look unconcerned.

“I’ve discovered that Bobs Drake has less discrimination than I gave him credit for. Bess Bartlett!”

The smiles broke out on Jacquette’s face again.

“Don’t you worry about Bobs!” she said. “You’ll see that he’s going to bring the belle of the evening here, to-night. Come on, Quis, we mustn’t stay out here, alone.”

There was a mystified look on Marquis’s face as he followed Jacquette back into the jolly crowd, and just at that moment he heard the shout, “Bobs! Here’s Bobs, at last!”

Everybody tried to get into the hall at once, while Bobs lingered at the door to brush the snow from the slight figure at his side, and Marquis, following the others, drew himself to his full height and peered over the heads and shoulders, trying to discover who it really was that had come with Bobs. When at last he did catch a glimpse, a pleased smile broke over his face, and, seeing a chance at another doorway he managed to slip through to where Jacquette was already welcoming her guests.

“Mademoiselle! This is fine!” he exclaimed, in honest pleasure. “I didn’t know you were coming! And Bobs, old fellow, how are you? Isn’t it great to be home?” Then—under his breath to Jacquette, “I’ll get even with you, young lady before the mistletoe’s down! Bess Bartlett, indeed!”

“But look up at them, dearie!” Mademoiselle was saying to Jacquette, in mimic awe. “Isn’t it wonderful how big and beautiful they grow in just a few years at college?”

“Not so beautiful as they grow at Marston in the same length of time,” Bobs answered her gallantly, but Mademoiselle, following his unconscious glance, gave a teasing smile, as she whispered,

“Quite right, lambkin. A non-sorority high-school course is a great beautifier.”

“Oh, Mademoiselle, at your old tricks!” he laughed back. “Always knowing more than you’ve been told!”

“Now, then! Now, then, Bobs and Marquis!” came Uncle Mac’s big voice from the parlour doorway. “No more time for falling on each other’s necks. As soon as Mademoiselle is ready, you’re to follow me into this room. There’s important business to transact.”

Margaret Howland, in the great easy chair, had already been moved into the room where the Christmas tree was waiting, and in a few minutes more the rest of the party had gathered there. It seemed to old Mr. Granville, as he sat in his comfortable corner near Margaret and watched Jacquette flitting about, seating the right ones together and making everyone comfortable and happy, that somebody else besides her Aunt Sula had inherited the knack of making a small place elastic. Nor were his the only pair of eyes that followed the gracious little hostess admiringly, for, while he was thinking it, practical Aunt Fanny was whispering to her husband’s sister,

“Sula, I may as well acknowledge that you knew what you were doing. Giving up her sorority hasn’t cost her one friend worth having, and she certainly is a picture of health. Besides, Malcolm heard something about her last night——”

“Ladies and gentlemen! Attention, please!” Uncle Mac’s jolly voice broke in just then. The distribution of gifts from the great, sparkling, glowing Christmas tree had begun, and the first one to be presented was a long, narrow package, labelled,

“Merry Christmas to the best grandfather in the world! Another gold-headed cane, to be used when I’m at school.

“Jacquette.”

“Another?” Marquis questioned, as he read the tag aloud. “I didn’t know you had the first one, Grandpa.”

But, though Jacquette’s loving eyes found her grandfather’s, and they two understood, there was no chance to explain to anyone else in the midst of the happy hubbub that was waxing louder with every minute.

Uncle Mac, as master of ceremonies, was making a new hit with each new presentation speech, and he kept Jacquette and Marquis so busy delivering presents to the others that Quis soon turned and asked Clarence Mullen to come and help them, winning a quick little glance of thankfulness from Jacquette as he did so.

There were no great sums of money represented in the surprises on that tree, but there never was more Christmas fun tied up in packages. For a steady hour the room was ringing with laughter, and, all the time, nobody seemed to care in the least that scarcely any two in the crowd knew what the next two were laughing about.

At the same time, behind the curtain of the noise, there were tender, quiet moments when eyes looked into eyes, and two people were glad that no one else knew. One of these was when Tia opened the locket Jacquette had given her, and saw her girl’s face laughing out; another was when Jacquette drew back into the shadow of the great tree to look at the little package which Uncle Mac had slipped into her hand.

It was labelled, “Your mother’s own girl,” and the tears sprang to her eyes when she found a beautiful miniature of her own mother at seventeen.

Uncle Mac heard the little cry she gave, and, looking over her shoulder, whispered, “It was made from a picture I’ve had ever since I was a boy. You’re very like her, my dear—very like.”

Jacquette went farther into the shadow, after that, and Uncle Mac understood. Bobs found her there, presently, wiping her eyes, and, for explanation, she laid the miniature in his hand.

“It’s you,” he said. “No, not you, either.”

“My mother, Bobs,” she told him, and after that they looked at the picture together, without a word.

Jacquette spoke first. “I’m going to put it away here,” she said, turning to a cabinet that stood in the corner. “I’ll show it to Tia after everyone has gone.” Then, as she closed the little drawer on the precious keepsake, a sense of her duty as hostess brought back the smile to her face.

“Just peep through these branches, Bobs,” she said. “See what a pretty picture it makes. How Mary Elliott hovers over Margaret’s chair! She’s always trying to do something for somebody. And isn’t Margaret like a wax doll in that pink gown? Poor girl! Wasn’t it hard she had to break down again? When she had that dreadful illness last winter, and had to go away, she set her heart on finishing in February this year, and then along came typhoid fever, and spoiled that, too.”

“Was it too much sorority, Jack?” Bobs asked, confidentially.

“I’m afraid so. But I tell Margaret there’s one compensation; she and I can be graduated together next June. Oh, Bobs, look at Louise and Quis over there by the door! They’ve forgotten that there’s anyone else on earth. He seems to appreciate her more than ever, Bobs.”

“That’s right,” Bobs agreed. “It’s been mighty handy for him, having her right over at Wells College while he was at Cornell. That would go a long way toward keeping a fellow from being homesick.”

“Don’t you wish you were at Cornell?” she said.

Bobs looked down at her for a minute, with the old smile. Then he answered slowly, shaking his head. “Boston and the United States mails are good enough for me.”

“Oh, dear! I fished for that and now I’ve caught it I don’t know what to do with it!” she exclaimed, trying to laugh away the queer little flutter that Bobs’s words had thrown her into. “Don’t stay behind that tree any longer,” she added archly, over her shoulder, “you’ll be lonesome!”

“Jacquette, you’re wanted here,” called Uncle Mac’s voice, as she appeared. “The girls say you’re to present this to Mademoiselle.”

A silence fell in the room, as Jacquette took the tiny box from her uncle and bending before the French teacher, said, simply,

“To our dear Mademoiselle, with the love of her little peacocks, Blanche, Etta, Mamie, Flo, Bess, the three Maries, and Jacquette.”

“My chickens! My little chickens!” Mademoiselle murmured, actually with tears in her eyes, as Jacquette opened the box and taking out an exquisite little necklace clasped it round Mademoiselle’s throat. But, the next minute, before the tears were dried, she and everyone else had begun to laugh together, for Uncle Mac had just announced impressively, “To Robin Sidney Drake, from his friend, Bud Banister: A photographic study, entitled ‘Bobs’s Rest-cure’”—and the picture which was being passed from one to the other had proved to be nothing else than a small snap-shot of the barred gymnasium windows at Marston High.

Then, suddenly, when it was merriest, the laugh faltered. There stood Clarence Mullen, in the middle of the room, awkward and uncomfortable. Bud had never thought of such a thing as his being there, when he had planned his little joke.

For an instant, no one made a sound. Then Bobs clapped the younger boy on the shoulder, and cried out, “Come on, Clarence—laugh with us! That’s all past and gone. Besides, the rest-cure did me a lot of good, I tell you, boy!”

“I believe it, Bobs,” Marquis chimed in, taking the cue. “We were all half crazy that day. A quiet half hour alone might have helped some of the rest of us. Don’t you say so, Mademoiselle?”

“Not a doubt of it, my lambkin!” she agreed, so emphatically that the laugh was turned on Marquis, much to his own delight. As soon as his voice could be heard, he said,

“Once, that would have crushed me, Mademoiselle. I never thought to live to see the day when I shouldn’t be afraid of you.”

“You haven’t lived to see it yet, sir,” Louise Markham told him, saucily. “Not one of us ever will. I’ve been trembling all the evening for fear she’d say something about my laugh.”

“Dearie, am I so ferocious?” Mademoiselle reproached her with a soft, upward glance.

“Oh, I know exactly how you feel, Louise!” Jacquette cried, with a roguish nod. “Haven’t you noticed the way I tip-toe around? That’s all owing to something Mademoiselle did, the first week I was at Marston. I happened to come into the study-room and walk across the floor after everyone was seated, and she just shook her head at me and said, very solemnly, as if she were talking to herself, ‘And she so fair—so blonde!’ Then she went to the blackboard and wrote, ‘The light girl with the heavy tread—alas!’” Everybody laughed except Bobs. He was glancing down at Jacquette’s white slippers and whispering, “As if Cinderella ever had a heavy tread!”

“That venomous little old French lady!” Mademoiselle murmured, shaking her head.

“Oh, I deserved it!” Jacquette went on gaily, answering Bobs, but looking at Mademoiselle. “That was mild, though, compared with what you said to Flo the time she complained in class that her mother made her do too much housework and didn’t leave her time to study her French. Do you remember, Flo?”

“Do I!” said Flo expressively.

“Tell us, Flo,” Bud Banister put in, grinning in advance.

“Oh, she just looked me over, calmly, and then said in her sweetest tone, ‘Throw her in the lake, honey—throw her in the lake! That’s what mothers are for—to throw in the lake!’” “Mr. Granville! Mr. Granville!” Mademoiselle raised her voice and appealed to Uncle Mac out of the gale around her. “Isn’t it time for something else to happen?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle,” he answered from the other end of the room, lifting his head from a whispered consultation with the three Maries. “Something else is going to happen right away. Jacquette, my dear, will you stand here?” he added, stepping forward and placing his niece directly in front of the tree.

As she stood there surprised, expectant, with the broad green branches spreading behind her, Mary Elliott dropped a red silk cushion on the floor at her feet, and Jacquette, required to kneel on the cushion, saw the other Maries coming toward her, bearing a wonderful diadem of gold filagree, set with sparkling rhinestones, and suddenly found herself being crowned Queen with all pomp and ceremony. The room was absolutely still until the glittering circlet was finally placed on the fair bent head. Then came a burst of applause.

“Long live the Queen!” called somebody. “Vive la Reine!” cried somebody else, and as Jacquette rose to her feet, everyone took up the words together.

For one instant, the startled Queen looked at the doorway, but, before she could fly, Uncle Mac had stepped forward and slipped his arm around her.

“Friends,” he said, in a voice very different from the rollicking one he had been speaking in all the evening. Then he held up his right hand until the cheering had been silenced. “Friends,” he said again, “this act of devotion to our little girl has touched me deeply. I’m glad you all know that she’s a brave little Queen, but I think perhaps you don’t all know what I’m going to tell you. I rode out from town last night with Mr. Branch, your principal. He said to me that there had been a wonderful revolution of sentiment at Marston, in regard to secret societies, and he says he gives the credit for it almost entirely to the personal influence of one girl.”

“Oh, Uncle Mac—please!” Jacquette implored, but his arm held her close, and he went on firmly,

“Mr. Branch says that when this girl made up her mind it was right for her to leave her sorority, she fully expected all her friends to turn against her. They didn’t. Instead of that, two or three of them went out with her on the spot, and, somehow, the respect for her motives was such that, instead of dishonourably expelling her and the others who withdrew, as would naturally have been done according to the rules of the organisation, it was agreed to let them resign quietly. That isn’t all. Right here in our own little circle I want to tell you the whole story. Mr. Branch says this girl has gone on in her high-school work, making a splendid record; she has kept all her old friends, and made new ones; and the result of her steadfast, womanly course is that, yesterday, all the remaining members of her old sorority came to Branch in his office, and told him that they had decided to disband the Marston chapter of Sigma Pi Epsilon, on account of the example set them by Jacquette Willard.”

“Oh!” came a little gasping cry from Jacquette. Her face, under the glittering crown, was white with excitement, as her eyes flew from Blanche to Mamie—to Flo—to Etta. Not a Sigma Pi pin in sight. It was true!—it was true!

“Long live the Queen of us all!” cried a happy little treble from the arm-chair, and there sat Margaret Howland, too, without a sign of a Kappa Delta pin on her pink gown!

“Long live——” the rest began—but Jacquette’s voice checked them. “Please—please listen—all of you!” she begged, with one white arm outstretched before her uncle as if barring his possible objection. “Let me tell you how it was. I haven’t done it. If I’ve ever helped anyone at all, it isn’t any credit to me—truly it isn’t. It’s—it’s Tia—and it’s Mademoiselle—it’s Louise and Bobs, and—little Mary! It’s—oh, it’s all of you!” Her voice broke suddenly, and without an instant’s warning she flew across to her little Aunt Sula, caught her in her arms, and whirling her to the doorway where the mistletoe hung thickest, kissed her again and again. The next minute they had both disappeared behind the portieres, and Jacquette was whispering,

“Tia, you’re crying! That’s why I brought you away. I saw you crying!”

“Yes, I know—but let me!” was the answer. “I love to cry—this way.”

“Now, this won’t do!” put in a third voice, and Bobs’s laughing face appeared between the curtains. “Oh!” he added, quickly, drawing back.

“It’s all right, Bobs,” whispered the tall young Queen, smiling through her tears, as she reached over Aunt Sula’s shoulder to clasp his hand. “Just go back and keep them laughing for a minute, can’t you? We—we’re having the loveliest cry you ever heard of!”

Finis.

Transcriber’s Note:

Changes to the original publication have been made as follows:

• • Page 74
    Bob’s desk as she passed changed to
    Bobs’s desk as she passed
• • Page 90
    Bobs’ face was blank changed to
    Bobs’s face was blank
• • Page 107
    but think of Bob’s kick changed to
    but think of Bobs’s kick
• • Page 267
    The very idea!” she exclaimel changed to
    The very idea!” she exclaimed