Eugenia with a smile. Then he laid it on the table, and taking
up his papers, passed back into his den.

"That's the first time I ever heard my name in a poem," said Phil. "By
rights I ought to draw that shilling in my share of cake. If I do I
shall take it as a sign that history is going to repeat itself, and
shall look around for a ladye-love named Mary. Now I know a dozen songs
with that name, and such things always come in handy when 'a frog he
would a-wooing go,' There's 'My Highland Mary' and 'Mary of Argyle,'
and 'Mistress Mary, quite contrary,' and 'Mary, call the cattle home,
across the sands of Dee!'"

As he rattled thoughtlessly on, nothing was farther from his thoughts
than the self-conscious little Mary just behind him. Nobody saw her face
grow red, however, for Lloyd's exclamation over the last token made
every one crowd around her to see.

It was a small heart-shaped charm of crystal, probably intended for a
watch-fob. There was a four-leaf clover, somehow mysteriously imbedded
in the centre.

"That ought to be doubly lucky," said Eugenia. "Oh, _what_ a dear Stuart
was to take so much trouble to get the very nicest things. They couldn't
be more suitable."

"Eugenia," asked Betty, "have you thought of that other rhyme that
brides always consider? You know you should wear

"'Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, something blue.'"

"Yes, Eliot insisted on that, too. The whole outfit will, itself, be
something new, the lace that was on my mother's wedding-gown will be the
something old. I thought I'd borrow a hairpin apiece from you girls,
and I haven't decided yet about the something blue."

"No," objected Lloyd. "The borrowed articles ought to be something
really valuable. Let me lend you my little pearl clasps to fasten your
veil, and then for the something blue, there is your turquoise
butterfly. You can slip it on somewhere, undah the folds of lace."

"What a lot of fol-de-rol there is about a wedding," said Rob. "As if it
made a particle of difference whether you wear pink or green! _Why_ must
it be blue?"

There was an indignant protest from all the girls, and Rob made his
escape to the library, calling to Joyce to come and finish the game of
chess.

That evening, Mary, sitting on the floor of the library in front of the
Poets' Corner, took down volume after volume to scan its index. She was
looking for the songs Phil had mentioned, which contained her n