you're going to
make my Christmas present out of it this year again. Where's Tish's
wreath?"

"Here." Aggie pointed dispiritedly to the bundle in her lap and went on
rocking.

"That! That's no wreath."

In reply Aggie lifted the tissue paper and shook out, with hands that
trembled with indignation, a lace-and-linen centerpiece. She held it up
before me and we eyed each other over it. Both of us understood.

"Tish is changed, Lizzie," Aggie said hollowly. "Ask her for bread these
days and she gives you a Cluny-lace fandangle. On mother's anniversary
she sent me a set of doilies; and when Charlie Sands was in the hospital
with appendicitis she took him a pair of pillow shams. It's that Syrian!"

Both of us knew. We had seen Tish's apartment change from a sedate and
spinsterly retreat to a riot of lace covers on the mantel, on the backs
of chairs, on the stands, on the pillows--everywhere. We had watched
her Marseilles bedspreads give way to hem-stitched covers, with bolsters
to match. We had seen Tish go through a cold winter clad in a succession
of sleazy silk kimonos instead of her flannel dressing-gown; terrible
kimonos--green and yellow and red and pink, that looked like fruit
salads and were just as heating.

"It's that dratted Syrian!" cried Aggie--and at that Tish came in. She
stood inside the door and eyed us.

"What about him?" she demanded. "If I choose to take a poor starving
Christian youth and assist him by buying from him what I need--what I
need!--that's my affair, isn't it? Tufik was starving and I took him
in."

"He took you in, all right!" Aggie sniffed. "A great, mustached, dirty,
palavering foreigner, who's probably got a harem at home and no respect
for women!"

Tish glanced at my sheaf and at the centerpiece. She was dressed as she
always dressed on Mr. Wiggins's day--in black; but she had a new lace
collar with a jabot, and we knew where she had got it. She saw our eyes
on it and she had the grace to flush.

"Once for all," she snapped, "I intend to look after this unfortunate
Syrian! If my friends object, I shall be deeply sorry; but, so far as
I care, they may object until they are purple in the face and their
tongues hang out. I've been sending my money to foreign missions long
enough; I'm doing my missionary work at home now."

"He'll marry you!" This from Aggie.

Tish ignored her. "His father is an honored citizen of Beirut, of the
nobility. The family is impoverished, being Ch