the decision he thought she had made that
Christmas eve in returning the fox skin, had thought it hers, and
final. As the burden of a year fell from him he sat quietly, smoothing
at his stubborn, crown lock, the wistful twist of mouth ironed out by
a faint smile. He bent to read the letter again but after a few lines
the words were blurred out by a salty rush to his steady gray eyes.
Rising, he went into his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind
him, emerging in a few minutes. Perfect peace lay in his eyes and they
shone with the light that will never die in this world as long as men
live, and women.

Two days to Christmas, he thought, and he had sent her no remembrance.
He stood at the window, tasting the cool thickness of the evening,
breathing the fragrance of ylang-ylang: leaf and frond, stirred by the
monsoon, purred in gentle contact. In the starlight the old stone
church outlined its old-world, old-time architecture in friendly
shadows which veiled the pitiful scars and age-stains: the bamboo
shacks across the square--wry, flimsy, smutted by a hotly jealous
sun--had yielded to the magic of the night to become little golden
houses in which the fairies abode till the morning stars should fade.

A present for her ... he pondered long, the while he stifled his
desire to go outside and shout the joy that tugged at his restraint.
Suddenly he started, tightened as the idea fastened upon him, then
fairly ran to his desk. A hurried search for cable blanks and he wrote
in desperate haste that consumed four misused forms before he
accomplished an intelligible message:

Miss Deane Hunter, Crampville, Vermont.

Christmas greetings from palmed coast to snowy shore. Please
cable will you accept so humble a Christmas offering as an
equal share in the future of one

RICHARD TERRY.

Buttoning his blouse as he ran, he raced down out of the house and
over to his orderly room, where he typed the message and sent it out
by a soldier. The dozen Macabebes lounging in the _cuartel_, who had
sprung to attention when he passed, stared at him and then at each
other--this joyous, whistling boy was new to them! He crossed the dark
plaza: natives, looking out of raised windows, wondered who that
Americano was who walked in and out of the shadows of the great
acacias, singing:

When in thy dreaming
Moons like these shall shine again:

Being natives the