her of one middle-sized
sister was evidently demanding it from Miss Leavitt.

In any case, their heads were close together over a Tango Tea doll who
tried to look as if she had been dressed by Poiret. It stood to reason
that a man might want a woman to tell him whether that was the sort of
thing a middle-sized child would like, but though their heads were
bent over the doll, their eyes turned occasionally toward Miss Child.

"Keep the change and buy yourself and your friends some little thing
for Christmas," Win heard Logan say at last when, discouraged by the
interminable length of grandma's visit, he had resigned himself to go
away.

The girl glanced involuntarily at Miss Leavitt's hand, which was
clenched into a fist. In it was a crisp-looking new greenback on which
at one end she thought she saw the word "Ten."

Ten dollars! The man had made Lily Leavitt a present of ten dollars,
and she had accepted it! Would he have tried to do the same with
_her,_ or would he have attempted to be even more generous if she had
not been chaperoned by the grandmother of five? Also, was it just the
Christmas spirit, or had Lily done something special to earn the
money?

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BIG BLUFF

Lily Leavitt's gratitude was immense. She was a changed girl from that
moment. Not that she ceased to like Earl Usher, who awkwardly resented
her overtures and was boyishly ashamed of them, but her jealousy
seemed, after the handing over of Mr. Logan, to lose its bitterness.

She no longer glared and talked "at" Miss Child, asking if she "wore
her hair that way for a bet," and "why some people wanted to take up
all the room clerking in stores when they could get better money doing
giantess stunts in a Bowery show?" Instead she did her best to make
friends with Win and her smart little watchdog, Sadie Kirk.

She brought them presents of hothouse fruit and chocolates, which Win
refused and Sadie nonchalantly accepted, wondering "where the Leavitt
creature picked 'em up. They didn't grow on blackberry bushes, no
fear. And _she_ wasn't going to let 'em spoil!"

As the desperate days before Christmas raged furiously on, Win was
still unable to guess Mr. Meggison's real motive for putting her into
the toy department. Her duties were more exhausting than they had been
downstairs That suggested penance. On the other hand, they had more
variety and amusement, for there were five hundred different kinds of
toys to sell to five