u will, providing for the daily needs of two
persons does take time; but she liked her cares and rarely felt tired. The
elastic and vigorous air seemed to build up her forces from moment to
moment, and each day's fatigues were more than repaired by each night's
rest, which is the balance of true health in living.

Little pleasures came from time to time. Christmas Day they spent with
the Hopes, who from first to last proved the kindest and most helpful of
friends to them. The young men from the High Valley were there also, and
the day was brightly kept,--from the home letters by the early mail to the
grand merry-making and dance with which it wound up. Everybody had some
little present for everybody else. Mrs. Wade sent Clover a tall
india-rubber plant in a china pot, which made a spire of green in the
south window for the rest of the winter; and Clover had spent many odd
moments and stitches in the fabrication of a gorgeous Mexican-worked
sideboard cloth for the Hopes.

But of all Clover's offerings the one which pleased her most, as showing a
close observation of her needs, came from Geoff Templestowe. It was a
prosaic gift, being a wagon-load of pinon wood for the fire; but the
gnarled, oddly twisted sticks were heaped high with pine boughs and long
trails of red-fruited kinnikinnick to serve as a Christmas dressing, and
somehow the gift gave Clover a peculiar pleasure.

"How dear of him!" she thought, lifting one of the big pinon logs with a
gentle touch; "and how like him to think of it! I wonder what makes him so
different from other people. He never says fine flourishing things like
Thurber Wade, or abrupt, rather rude things like Clarence, or
inconsiderate things like Phil, or satirical, funny things like the
doctor; but he's always doing something kind. He's a little bit like papa,
I think; and yet I don't know. I wish Katy could have seen him."

Life at St. Helen's in the winter season is never dull; but the gayest
fortnight of all was when, late in January, the High Valley partners
deserted their duties and came in for a visit to the Hopes. All sorts of
small festivities had been saved for this special fortnight, and among the
rest, Clover and Phil gave a party.

"If you can squeeze into the dining-room, and if you can do with just
cream-toast for tea," she explained, "it would be such fun to have you
come. I can't give you anything to eat to speak of, because I haven't any
cook, you know; but you can all