"Mercy!" she cried. "I forgot all about that stuff I left upstairs."

Instantly sobered, she hurried away to its rescue. She had intended to
go down only long enough to discover the caller's errand, and then
excuse herself until the candy could be safely left. But more than a
quarter of an hour had gone by. Somewhere about the premises, and for
some reason unknown to her, a greater pressure of gas had been turned
on, and the thin blue flame under the kettle had shot up to a full
blazing ring. A smell of burnt sugar greeted her as she opened the door.
There was no need to look into the kettle. She knew before she did so
that the candy was burnt black, and Jack's fob no longer attainable.

Her first impulse was to run to Betty for comfort. It would be easy
enough to borrow the money she needed from her, and pay her back after
the holidays, but--a sober second thought stopped her. Probably the
girls wouldn't want her candy then. Each of the boxes had been ordered
as a special Christmas offering for some relative with a well-known
sweet tooth. And Mary had a horror of debt, that was part of her
heritage from her grandfather Ware. It was his frequent remark that "who
goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing," and it lay heavy on the conscience
of every descendant of his who stepped aside even for a moment from the
path of his teachings. She felt that it would be dishonest to send Jack
a present that wasn't fully paid for, and yet the disappointment of not
being able to send it was so deep, that she could not keep the tears
back. They splashed down like rain into the kettle as she scraped away
at the scorched places on the bottom.

It was a long time before she went back to her room. Ethelinda looked up
curiously.

"Where's your candy?" she asked.

"Spoiled. It scorched and I had to throw it out." Her face was turned
away, under pretence of searching for a book, but her voice was subdued
and not altogether steady.

"Too bad," was the indifferent answer, and Ethelinda went on with her
lesson, but presently a faint sniff made her glance up to see that Mary
was not studying, only staring at her book with big tears dropping
quietly on the page. In all the weeks they had been together she had
never seen Mary in this mood before, and it seemed as strange that she
should be crying as that rain should drop from a cloudless sky.

The sight of Mary in trouble awakened a feeling that seldom came to the
surface in Ethelinda. She felt m