hey entered the little gray house again, just in time
to hear remonstrative squeaks from the E string of the diminutive
violin, blended with disheartened moans from the A and growls of protest
from the G string.

"How did you like that?" inquired Charlie, calmly.

"It was very noisy," criticised Constance.

"It was a very hard passage to play," explained the embryo musician,
soberly.

"It seems to have been," laughed Marjorie.

"That is what Johnny says when he doesn't pay attention and makes a
mistake on the fiddle," confided Charlie.

Constance's sad look vanished at this naive assertion. "He imitates
father and Uncle John in everything," she explained. "He will have
played his way through all the music in the house before to-morrow
night--most of it upside down, too."

"I'd love to stay longer, but I promised to stop at Macy's and we have
our dinner at one o'clock. I wish you could come, too, but I know you'd
rather be at home. Thank you again for the hemstitched handkerchiefs. I
don't see how you found the time to make them."

"Thank you for the lovely hand-embroidered blouse and all Charlie's
things," reminded Constance. "I hope we'll spend many, many more
Christmases together."

"So do I," echoed Marjorie, as she kissed Charlie and held out her hand
to her friend.

Her call on the Macys lasted the better part of an hour, for Jerry was
the recipient of a host of gifts, and insisted upon displaying them,
while Hal refused to pose gracefully in the background and absorbed as
much of Marjorie's attention as she would give him, secretly wondering
if she would be pleased with the box of American Beauty roses he had
ordered the florist to deliver at the Deans' residence at noon that day.

What a blissful Christmas it was! From the moment of Marjorie's
awakening that morning until the day was done it was one long succession
of joyous surprises. And, oh, glorious thought! there were ten blessed
days of vacation stretching before her.

"I'll see if Constance will go to the matinee Saturday," she planned
drowsily that night as she prepared for sleep. "We will take Charlie. I
promised him long ago that I would. I'll run over there to-morrow. Too
bad I didn't think of it to-day."

But "to-morrow" brought its own deeds to be done, and so did the
following two days, and it was Friday afternoon before Marjorie found
time for her visit to the little gray house.

Ever since Christmas it had snowed at intervals and