k of what it _did_ remind him. Later, it came to him,
as he continued to watch her. Not for naught had Mary set up a shrine to
her idolized Princess Winsome and striven to grow like her in every way
possible. Not in feature, of course, but often in manner there was a
fleeting, shadowy undefinable something that recalled her.

In her younger days she would have appropriated Phil as her rightful
audience, and would have swung along beside him, amusing him with her
original and unsolicited opinions of everything they passed. But a
strange shyness seized her when she looked up and saw how much older he
was in reality than he had been in her recollections. She had no answer
ready when he began his accustomed teasing. Instead she clung to Joyce
when they left the street-car, leaving Betty to walk with Phil as they
threaded their way through the crowded thoroughfares. It was so good to
be with her again, and as they hurried along she squeezed the arm linked
in hers to emphasize her delight.

For the time, Joyce found no change in her, for with child-like abandon
she exclaimed over the strange sights. "Oh, Joyce! Snow!" she cried,
when a falling flake brushed her face. "After all these years of
orange-blossoms and summer sun at Christmas, how good it seems to have
real old Santa Claus weather! I can almost see the reindeer and smell
the striped peppermint and pop-corn. And oh, _oh_! look at that
shop-window. It is positively dazzling! And the racket--" she put her
hands over her ears an instant. "I feel that I've never really heard a
loud noise till now."

Joyce laughed indulgently, and stopped with her whenever she wanted to
gaze in at some particularly attractive show window. When they reached
the flat, Mary still kept near her, "tagging after her," as she would
have expressed it in her earlier days, so much like the little sister of
that time, that Joyce still failed to see how much she had changed
during their separation.

"You see it's just like a doll-house," Joyce said as she led them
through the tiny rooms on a tour of inspection. "All except the studio.
We had a partition taken out and two rooms thrown together for that. Now
the company will have to go in there and entertain themselves while I
put the finishing touches to the dinner. The kitchenette will only hold
one at a time."

Betty and Phil obediently went into the studio to renew their
acquaintance of two years before, begun at Eugenia's wedding, and
wander