have a K and G on them in
monogram. There are such flowers for decorations as most of those people
never saw. I don't need to tell you whose doing this is."

He had the reward he had anticipated for the telling of this
news--Roberta's cheek coloured richly, and her eyes fell for a moment
to hide the surprise and happiness in them.

"That may seem like enough," he went on gently, "but it wasn't enough
for him. At every children's hospital in this city, and in every
children's ward, there is a Christmas tree to-night, loaded with gifts.
And I want you to know that, busy as he has been until to-day, he picked
out every gift himself, and wrote the name on the card with his own
hand."

It was too much to tell her all at once, and he knew it when he saw her
eyes fill, though she smiled through the shining tears as she murmured:

"And he didn't tell me!"

"No, nor meant to. When I remonstrated with him he said you might think
it a posing to impress you, whereas it simply meant the overflow of his
own happiness. He said if he didn't have some such outlet he should
burst with the pressure of it!"

Her moved laughter provided some sort of outlet for her own pressure of
feeling about these tidings. When she had recovered control of herself
she turned to glance toward her husband, and Hugh's heart stirred within
him at the starry radiance of that look, which she could not veil
successfully from him, who knew the cause of it.

It was the Alfred Carsons who came to her last; the young manager
beaming with pleasure in the honour done him by his invitation to this
family wedding, to which the great of the city were mostly intentionally
unbidden; his pretty young wife, in effective modishness of attire by no
means ill-chosen, glowing with pride and rosy with the effort to
comport herself in keeping with the standards of these "democratically
aristocratic" people, as her husband had shrewdly characterized them. As
they stood talking with the bride, two of Richard's friends standing
near by, former close associates in the life of the clubs he was now too
busy to pursue, exchanged a brief colloquy which would mightily have
interested the subject of it if he could have heard it.

"Who are these?" demanded one of the other, gazing elsewhere as he
spoke.

"Partner or manager or something, in that business of Rich's up in
Eastman. So Belden Lorimer says."

"Bright looking chap--might be anybody, except for the wife. A bit too
cons