yet she enjoyed the morning, for it held an
entirely new sensation, that of helping some one else get ready for
Christmas.

"Done!"

"We never should have finished if you hadn't helped! Thank you, Betty
Luther, very, _very_ much! You're a duck! Let's run to luncheon
together, quick."

Somehow the big corridors did not seem half so bleak echoing to those
warm O'Neill voices.

"This morning's just spun by, but, oh, this long, dreary afternoon!"
sighed Betty, as she wandered into the library. "Oh, me, there goes
Alice Johns with her arms loaded with presents to mail, and I can't give
a single soul anything!"

"Do you know where 'Quotations for Occasions' has gone?" Betty turned to
face pretty Rosamond Howitt, the only senior left behind.

"Gone to be rebound. I heard Miss Dyce say so."

"Oh, dear, I needed it so."

"Could I help? I know a lot of rhymes and tags of proverbs and things
like that."

"Oh, if you would help me, I'd be so grateful! Won't you come to my
room? You see, I promised a friend in town, who is to have a Christmas
dinner, and who's been very kind to me, that I'd paint the place cards
and write some quotation appropriate to each guest. I'm shamefully late
over it, my own gifts took such a time; but the painting, at least, is
done."

Rosamond led the way to her room, and there displayed the cards which
she had painted.

"You can't think of my helplessness! If it were a Greek verb now, or a
lost and strayed angle--but poetry!"

Betty trotted back and forth between the room and the library, delved
into books, and even evolved a verse which she audaciously tagged "old
play," in imitation of Sir Walter Scott.

"I think they are really and truly very bright, and I know Mrs. Fernell
will be delighted." Rosamond wrapped up the cards carefully. "I can't
begin to tell you how you've helped me. It was sweet in you to give me
your whole afternoon."

The dinner-bell rang at that moment, and the two went down together.

"Come for a little run; I haven't been out all day," whispered Rosamond,
slipping her hand into Betty's as they left the table.

A great round moon swung cold and bright over the pines by the lodge.

"Down the road a bit--just a little way--to the church," suggested
Betty.

They stepped out into the silent country road.

"Why, the little mission is as gay as--as Christmas! I wonder why?"

Betty glanced at the bright windows of the small plain church. "Oh, some
Christmas-eve d