ndles and
silver stars. "It shall be an old-fashioned tree," she said, "such as I
used to have when I was a child."

Sulie's raptures were almost solemn in their intensity. Richard sent
money, plenty of it, and Sulie and Nancy went to Baltimore and spent it.
"I never expected," Sulie said, "to go into shops and pick out things
that I liked. I've always had to choose things that I needed."

Now and then on Saturdays when Anne went with them, they rushed through
their shopping, had lunch at the Woman's Exchange and went to a matinee.

Nancy was always glad to get back home, but Sulie revelled in the
excitement of it all. Anne made her buy a hat with a flat pink rose which
lay enchantingly against her gray hair.

"I feel sometimes as if I had been born again," Sulie said quaintly;
"like a flower that had shriveled up and grown brown, and suddenly found
itself blooming in the spring."

Thus the days went on, and Christmas was not far away. Anne coming in one
afternoon found Nancy by the library fire with a letter in her hand.

"Richard hopes to get here on Friday, Anne, in time for the tree and the
children's festival. Something may keep him, however, until Christmas
morning. He is very busy--and there are some important operations."

"How proud you are of him," Anne sank down on the rug, and reached up her
hand for Nancy, "and how happy you will be with your big son. Could you
ever have loved a daughter as much, Mother Nancy?"

"I'm not sure; perhaps," smiling, "if she had been like you. And a
daughter would have stayed with me. Men have wandering natures--they must
be up and out."

"Women have wandering natures, too," Anne told her. "Do you know that
last Christmas I cried and cried because I was tied to the Crossroads
school and to Bower's? I wanted to live in the city and have lovely
things. You can't imagine how I hated all Eve Chesley's elegance. I
seemed so--clumsy and common."

Nancy stared at her in amazement. "But you surely don't feel that way
now."

"Yes, I do. But I am not unhappy any more. It was silly to be unhappy
when I had so much in my life. But if I were a man, I'd be a rover, a
vagabond--I'd take to the open road rather than be tied to one spot."

There was laughter in her eyes, but the words rang true. "I want to see
new things in new people. I want to have new experiences--there must be a
bigger, broader world than this."

Nancy gazing into the fire pondered. "It's the spirit of the age