from my grandmother. I saw it all. It was a trap sure enough. And if I was to get out I would have to have the letter.

IT WAS THE LETTER THAT PUT ME IN HIS POWER.

The next day was Christmas. I got a lot of things, including the necklace, and a mending basket from Sis, with the hope that it would make me tidy, and father had bought me a set of silver fox, which mother did not approve of, it being too expensive for a young girl to wear, according to her. I must say that for an hour or two I was happy enough.

But the afternoon was terrible. We keep open house on Xmas afternoon, and father makes a champagne punch, and somebody pours tea, although nobody drinks it, and there are little cakes from the club, and the house is decorated with poinsettias.

At eleven o'clock the mail came in, and mother sorted it over, while father took a gold piece out to the post-man.

There were about a million cards, and mother glanced at the addresses and passed them round. But suddenly she frowned. There was a small parcel, addressed to me.

"This looks like a gift, Barbara," she said. And proceeded to open it.

My heart skipped two beats, and then hammered. Mother's mouth was set as she tore off the paper and opened the box. There was a card, which she glanced at, and underneath, was a book of poems.

"Love Lyrics," said mother, in a terrible voice. "To Barbara, from H——"

"Mother——" I began, in an earnest tone.

"A child of mine receiving such a book from a man!" she went on. "Barbara, I am speechless."

But she was not speechless. If she was speechless for the next half hour, I would hate to hear her really converse. And all that I could do was to bear it. For I had made a Frankenstein—see the book read last term by the Literary Society—not out of grave-yard fragments, but from malted milk tablets, so to speak, and now it was pursuing me to an early grave. For I felt that I simply could not continue to live.

"Now—where does he live?"

"I—don't know, mother."

"You sent him a letter."

"I don't know where he lives, anyhow."

"Leila," mother said, "will you ask Hannah to bring my smelling salts?"

"Aren't you going to give me the book?" I asked. "It—it sounds interesting."

"You are shameless," mother said, and threw the thing into the fire. A good many of my things seemed to be going into the fire at that time. I cannot help wondering what they would have done if it had all happened in the summer, and no fires burning. They would have felt quite helpless, I imagine.

Father came back just then, but he did not see the book, which was then blazing with a very hot red flame. I expected mother to tell him, and I daresay I should not have been surprised to see my furs follow the book. I had got into the way of expecting to see things burning that do not belong in a fireplace. But mother did not tell him.

I have thought over this a great deal, and I believe that now I understand. Mother was unjustly putting the blame for everything on this School, and mother had chosen the School. My father had not been much impressed by the catalog. "Too much dancing room and not enough tennis courts," he had said. This, of course, is my father's opinion. Not mine.

The real reason, then, for mother's silence was that she disliked confessing that she made a mistake in her choice of a School.

I ate very little luncheon and my only comfort was my seed pearls. I was wearing them, for fear the door-bell would ring, and a letter or flowers would arrive from H. In that case I felt quite sure that someone, in a frenzy, would burn the pearls also.

The afternoon was terrible. It rained solid sheets, and Patrick, the butler, gave notice three hours after he had received his Christmas presents, on account of not being let off for early mass.

But my father's punch is famous, and people came, and stood around and buzzed, and told me I had grown and was almost a young lady. And Tommy Gray got out of his cradle and came to call on me, and coughed all the time, with a whoop. He developed the whooping cough later. He had on his first long trousers, and a pair of lavender socks and a tie to match. He said they were not exactly the same shade, but he did not think it would be noticed. Hateful child!

At half past five, when the place was jammed, I happened to look up. Carter Brooks was in the hall, and behind him was H. He had seen me before I saw him, and he had a sort of sickly grin, meant to denote joy. I was talking to our bishop at the time, and he was asking me what sort of services we had in the school chapel.

I meant to say "non-sectarian," but in my surprise and horror I regret to say that I said, "vegetarian." Carter Brooks came over to me like a cat to a saucer of milk, and pulled me off into a corner.

"It's all right," he said. "I phoned mama, and she said to bring him. He's known as Grosvenor here, of course. They'll never suspect a thing. Now, do I get a small 'thank you'?"

"I won't see him."

"Now look here, Bab," he protested, "you two have got to make this thing up You are a pair of idiots, quarreling over nothing. Poor old Hal is all broken up. He's sensitive. You've got to remember how sensitive he is."

"Go, away" I cried, in broken tones. "Go away, and take him with you."

"Not until he had spoken to your Father," he observed, setting his jaw. "He's here for that, and you know it. You can't play fast and loose with a man, you know."

"Don't you dare to let him speak to father!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"That's between you two, of course," he said. "It's not up to me. Tell him yourself, if you've changed your mind. I don't intend," he went on, impressively, "to have any share in ruining his life."

"Oh piffle," I said. I am aware that this is slang, and does not belong in a theme. But I was driven to saying it.

I got through the crowd by using my elbows. I am afraid I gave the bishop quite a prod, and I caught Mr. Andrews on his rotating waistcoat. But I was desperate.

Alas, I was too late.

The caterer's man, who had taken Patrick's place in a hurry, was at the punch bowl, and father was gone. I was just in time to see him take H. into his library and close the door.

Here words fail me. I knew perfectly well that beyond that door H, whom I had invented and who therefore simply did not exist, was asking for my hand. I made up my mind at once to run away and go on the stage, and I had even got part way up the stairs, when I remembered that, with a dollar for the picture and five dollars for the violets and three dollars for the hat pin I had given Sis, and two dollars and a quarter for mother's handkerchief case, I had exactly a dollar and seventy-five cents in the world.