ll take the suggestion to heart, Miss
Betty, and let my memory and the fern-ball grow green together."

Then, Mary, realizing what she had said when it was too late to unsay
it, clapped her hands over her mouth and groaned. Apologies could only
make the matter worse, so she tried to hide her confusion by passing
around the box of candy. It passed around so many times during the
course of the afternoon that the box was almost empty by train-time.
Mary returned to it with unabated interest after the guests were gone.
It was the first box of candy she had ever owned, and she wondered if
she would ever have another.

"I believe I'll save it for a keepsake box," she thought, gathering it
up in her arms to follow Betty up-stairs. Rob had come back with them
from the station, and, taking the story of "Abdallah," he and Lloyd had
gone to the library to read it together.

Betty was going to her room to put the fern-ball to soak, according to
directions. Feeling just a trifle lonely since her parting from Joyce,
Mary wandered off to the room that seemed to miss her, too, now that
all her personal belongings had disappeared from wardrobe and
dressing-table. But she was soon absorbed in arranging her keepsake box.
Emptying the few remaining scraps of candy into a paper bag, she
smoothed out the lace paper, the ribbons, and the tinfoil to save to
show to Hazel Lee. These she put in her trunk, but the gilt tongs seemed
worthy of a place in the box. The Pilgrim Father's card was dropped in
beside it, then the heart-shaped dream-cake box, holding one of the
white icing roses that had ornamented the bride's cake. Last and most
precious was the silver shilling, which she polished carefully with her
chamois-skin pen-wiper before putting away.

"I don't need to look at _you_ to make me think of the Best Man," she
said to the Philip on the coin. "There's more things than you that
remind me of him. I certainly would like to know what sort of a fate you
are going to bring me. There's about as much chance of my being an
heiress as there is of that nightmare coming true."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GOLDEN LEAF OF HONOR

It was a compliment that changed the entire course of Mary's summer; a
compliment which Betty gleefully repeated to her, imitating the old
Colonel's very tone, as he gesticulated emphatically to Mr. Sherman:

"I tell you, Jack, she's the most remarkable child of her age I ever
met. It is wonderful the information she ha