made up her mind that she would buy the doll--in the morning when
the shop opened. It was a whimsical thing to do, to give herself a doll
at her time of life. But it would be in a sense symbolic. She had no
child to which to give it; she would give it to the child who was once
herself.

She came home with a lighter heart and with the knowledge of what she
had to do. She put on her blue house coat and sat down to her desk with
its embossed leather fittings, and there under the lovely, lamp which
Kingdon Knox had given her she wrote to Nannie.

She gave the letter to Nannie the next morning. "I want you to read it
when you are all alone. Then tear it up. It must always be just between
you and me, Nannie."

Nannie read the letter in the lunch hour. She got her lunch at a
cafeteria and there was a rest room. It was very quiet and she had a
corner to herself. She wondered what Mary had to say to her, and why she
didn't talk it out instead of writing about it.

But Mary had felt that she could not trust herself to speak. There would
have been Nannie's eyes to meet, questions to answer; and this meant so
much. Paper and pen were impersonal.

"It isn't easy to talk such things out, Nannie. I should never have
written this if I had not realized last night that your feet were
following the path which my own have followed for fifteen years.
And I knew that you were envying me and wanting to be like me; and
I am saying what I shall say in this letter so that I may save you,
Nannie.

"When I first came into Mr. Knox's office I was young like you, and
I had a lover, young and fine like Dick, and he satisfied me. We
had our plans--of a home and the happiness we should have together.
If I had married him, I should now have sons and daughters growing
up about me, and when Christmas came there would be a tree and
young faces smiling, and my husband, smiling.

"But Mr. Knox talked to me as he talked to you. He told me, too, to
wait--for Prince Charming. He told me I was too fine to be wasted.
He hinted that the man I was planning to marry was a plain fellow,
not good enough for me. He talked and I listened. He opened vistas.
I saw myself raised to a different sphere by some man like Mr.
Knox--just as well groomed, just as distinguished, just as rich and
wonderful.

"But such men don't come often into the lives of girls like you and