as a very different matter.

"Thank you, Fred. It's nice of you to think of me. And I'm sure it's a
good story."

"They say it's awfully funny," said Fred.

Nothing seemed funny to Phil; but she exerted herself to be
entertaining. She was in a mood to be touched by his gift. Charles
Holton had sent her a box of roses from Indianapolis and they were
nodding from the tall vase on the mantel. She saw Fred eyeing them, and
hastened to say that books made the finest possible gifts.

"It must be lonely in the country to-day," remarked Nan. "But I suppose
you've spent the day in town."

"Only part of it," replied Fred. "I couldn't desert the live stock; and
I have a man there with me. We had our Christmas feast and I hopped on
the interurban."

"Turkey?" asked Phil.

"No; rabbit. Rabbit's much more wholesome for Christmas than turkey. We
sell turkeys to the city folks and feast on rabbits when we need them. I
poached this one, too. But don't tell Mr. Montgomery. It ran under his
fence into my pasture, and fearing it was my last chance for Christmas
dinner, I pulled the trigger. Is that a high crime, Mr. Kirkwood?"

"Not at all. We'll assume that it was really your rabbit that had just
been out for a stroll on Mr. Montgomery's side of the fence. I'll
promise to get you off if you're prosecuted."

"I should think it would be quite grand and splendid to own a farm and
go out and pick off game that way," said Phil musingly. "Monarch of all
you survey, and that sort of thing. When I had a Flobert rifle in my
enchanted youth and shot sparrows in our back yard, I had something of
the same exalted feeling. Only our estate here is too limited. The
neighbors kicked; so many wild shots. Absurd how sensitive people are.
But I suppose if I hadn't broken a few glasses of new quince preserves
the lady across our alley had put to sun in her kitchen window, I might
never have lost the gun."

"I don't seem to remember that incident of your career, Phil," said
Rose.

"I hope nobody does. The lady's husband happened to be the town marshal,
and he told daddy a lot of sad things that were going to happen to me
if I didn't stop shooting at his perfectly good wife as she followed her
usual avocations."

The Bartletts were relieved to find Phil restored to something like her
normal cheerful self. They all enlarged upon the impingement of her
bullets upon the marshal's wife's quinces, discussing the subject in the
mock-serious vein that