let-ful.

Now every vestige of sentiment was gone, and she was sitting up straight
and eager, repeating the old Colonel's words. They were making her
unspeakably happy. "She has it in her to make herself not only an honor
to her sex, but one of the most interesting women of her generation."
"To make herself an honor,"--why, that would be winning the third leaf
of the magic shamrock--the _golden_ one! Betty had said that she
believed that every one who earned those first three leaves was sure to
find the fourth one waiting somewhere in the world. It wouldn't make
any difference then whether she was an old maid or not. She need not be
dependent on any prince to bring her the diamond leaf, and that was a
good thing, for down in her heart she had her doubts about one ever
coming to her. She loved to make up foolish little day-dreams about
them, but it would be too late for him to come when she was a
grandmother, and she wouldn't be beautiful till then, so she really had
no reason to expect one. It would be much safer for her to depend on
herself, and earn the first three in plain, practical ways.

"To make herself an honor." The words repeated themselves again and
again, as she rapidly outlined an arrow-head on the tiny moccasin in
amber and blue. Suddenly she threw down the needle and the bit of kid
and sprang to her feet. "_I'll do it!_" she said aloud.

As she took a step forward, all a-tingle with a new ambition and a firm
resolve, she came face to face with her reflection in one of the
polished glass doors of the bookcase. The intent eagerness of its gaze
seemed to challenge her. She lifted her head as if the victory were
already won, and confronted the reflection squarely. "I'll do it!" she
said, solemnly to the resolute eyes in the glass door. "You see if I
don't!"

Only that morning she had given a complacent glance to the long shelves
of fiction, with which she expected to while away the rest of the
summer. There would be other pleasant things, she knew, drives with Mrs.
Sherman, long tramps with the girls, and many good times with Elise
Walton; but there would still be left hours and hours for her to spend
in the library, going from one to another of the famous novelists, like
a bee in a flower garden.

"With the proper direction in her reading," the old Colonel had said,
and Mary knew without telling that she would not find the proper
beginning among the books of fiction. Instinctively she felt she must
tur