I do," said Edith promptly.

"And you, Mary, are you sure of yourself? Suppose that, when you see
her, you change your mind?"

"I've given my word,", she answered. "I promise to take her."

"That's all I want," said John.

* * * * *

"How could you, John? How could you?" sobbed Edith. "How could you tell
us--?"

"I told you nothing but the absolute truth. I meant her to be your
Christmas present, but you have resigned her 'with all her works and all
her pomps' to Mary."

"Ah! but if I refuse to take her from Edith?" Mary suggested.

"Then I get her," answered Dick blithely, "and she'd be safer with me. I
know what you two girls are thinking of. You are going to borrow her
clothes and make a Cinderella of her. They are what you care about. But
I love her for herself, her useless hands, her golden hair, her lovely
smile--well, no, I guess we'll cut out the smile," he corrected when
Maudie, agitated by the appraising hands of the two girls, swung her
head completely round and beamed impartially upon the whole assembly.
"It don't look just sincere to me."

But there was no insincerity about Maudie. She was just as
sweet-tempered as she looked. Uncomplainingly, she allowed herself to be
despoiled of her finery and wrapped in a sheet while Mary wriggled
ecstatically in the heavenly blue dress, pinned the plumed hat on her
own bright head and threw the muff into a corner of the darkened
drawing-room when she found that it interfered with the free expression
of her gratitude to John.

And some months later when the trousseau was in progress, the once
despised Christmas guest, now a member in good-standing of Mary's
household, did tireless service, smilingly, in the sewing-room.

"WHO IS SYLVIA?"

"Lemon, I think," said Miss Knowles, in defiance of the knowledge, born
of many afternoons, that he preferred cream. She took a keen and
mischievous pleasure in annoying this hot-tempered young man, and she
generally succeeded. But to-day he was not to be diverted from the
purpose which, at the very moment of his entrance, she had divined.

"Nothing, thank you," he answered. "I'll not have any tea. I came in
only for a moment to tell you that I'm going to be married."

"Again?" she asked calmly, as though he had predicted a slight fall of
snow. But her calm did not communicate itself to him.

"Again?" he repeated hotly. "What do you mean by 'again?'"

"Now, Jimmie," she remonst