wedding present."

"I wish you could," said Judy. "I'd like awfully to give her something.
You might tell me what you have got, Babs."

"It's some darning-cotton," said Babs in a whisper. "I buyed it last
week with twopence-halfpenny; you remember the day I went with Mrs.
Sutton to town. She said it was a very useful thing, for Hilda will want
to mend Jasper's socks, and if she hasn't darning-cotton handy maybe
he'll scold her."

"He wouldn't dare to," said Judy, with a frown; "she _shan't_ mend his
horrid socks. Why did you get such a nasty wedding present, Babs?"

A flush of delicate color spread all over Babs' little fair face. She
winked her blue eyes hard to keep back the tears which Judy's scathing
remarks were bringing to the surface, and said, after a pause:

"It's not a horrid present, it's lovely; and anyhow"--her voice becoming
energetic as this happy mode of revenge occurred to her--"it is better
than yours, for you has got nothing at all."

"Oh, I'll have something when the day comes," replied Judy, in a
would-be careless tone.

"But you hasn't any money."

"Money isn't everything. I'll manage, you'll see."

From this moment Judy's whole heart and soul were absorbed in one fierce
desire to give Hilda a present which should be better and sweeter and
more full of love than anybody else's.

After two or three days of anxious thought and nights of troubled
dreams, she made up her mind what her present should be. It should
consist of holly berries and ivy, and these holly berries and that ivy
should be picked by Judy's own fingers, and should be made into a
bouquet by Judy herself; and the very center of this bouquet should
contain a love-note--a little twisted note, into which Judy would pour
some of her soul. It should be given to Hilda at the very last moment
when she was starting for church; and though she was all in white from
top to toe--all in pure white, with a bouquet of white flowers in her
hand--yet she should carry Judy's bouquet, with its thorns and its
crimson berries, as a token of her little sister's faithful love.

"She shall carry it to church with her," said Judy, with inward passion.
"I'll make her promise beforehand, and I know she won't break her word
to me. It will be a little bit of me she'll have with her, even when she
is giving herself to that horrid Jasper."

The little girl quite cheered up when this idea came to her. She became
helpful and pleasant once more, and allow