to pick out the subjects, but every girl gets a pretty card."

Jane got swiftly to her feet. "Michael Daragh, do you know what I'm going
to do?" She hadn't known herself an instant earlier. "I'm not going home
to Vermont for the holidays! I'm going to stay and help with the
Christmasing here--and I'll spend the money I would have spent on my
trip. I'm going to buy holly and greens and miles of red ribbon and acres
of tissue paper and a million stickers, and seventeen presents--seventeen
perfectly useless, foolish, unsuitable, beautiful things! Do you hear,
Michael Daragh?"

"I hear," he said, and again his lean face lighted oddly from within, "I
hear, God save you kindly, and I'm rare and thankful to you, Jane Vail!"

CHAPTER VII

The doorbell cut jaggedly into Jane's exalted mood and she went into the
office and sat down to work on the Merry Christmas sign. She meant to
replace it with a joyful scarlet one, but meanwhile it would keep her
fingers busy and give her an excuse for lingering until Ethel came back
with the news of her confession and its results, and she could be
planning the holiday cheer she meant to make in this melancholy house.
She was still rather startled at her sudden decision but pleased with
herself beyond words. To give up the festive return to the village ...
her Aunt Lydia's damp-eyed delight, the "little gatherings of the young
people" in her honor, the gay and jingling joy of the season ... and stay
in a boarding house and make determined merriment for the Agnes
Chatterton home. Then, tracing a large and ugly M, she laughed aloud. The
truth was, she told herself flatly, she was pleased to the marrow of her
bones to be here instead of there, not only in fresh fields and pastures
thrillingly and picturesquely new, but away from the reckless necessity
for settling the Marty Wetherby matter once and for all. And the big
Irishman seemed almost pathetically pleased at her announcement, and it
was entirely conceivable that Rodney Harrison would provide flesh-pots
and diversions. All in all, she was cannily glad to abide by her hasty
and handsome offer, and she worked steadily at her letters while Mrs.
Richards wrote at her littered desk.

The doorbell rang again and Mrs. Richards peered out into the hall.

"Well, there's Irene, come for Billiken! That doesn't look much as if
Ethel had told him." There was a good deal of triumph in the glance she
flung at J