ght in deeds of
mercy. She still studied with the school-master, who daily admired
the bravery with which she hid her heartache. Martha was making a
fight, a brave fight, with an unjust world. She would study--she
would fit herself yet for some position in life when her parents no
longer needed her. Surely, there was some place where a woman would
not be disqualified because she was not beautiful.

Arthur had written regularly to her. Looking ahead, she dreaded the
time when he would cease to write, though she tried to prepare for it
by telling herself over and over again that it must surely come.

Arthur's last letter came in November, and now with Christmas coming
nearer, Martha was lonelier than ever for a word from him. The week
before Christmas she looked for his letter every day. Christmas eve
came, a beautiful moonlight, sparkling night, with the merry jingle
of sleighbells, in the air, but no letter had yet come.

Mr. and Mrs. Perkins and Bud had driven in to Millford to attend the
concert given by the Sunday-school, but Martha stayed at home. When
they were gone, and she sat alone in the quiet house, a great
restlessness seized her. She tried to read and then to sew, but her
mind, in spite of her, would go back to happier days. It was not
often that Martha allowed herself to indulge in self-pity; but
to-night, as she looked squarely into the future and saw it
stretching away before her, barren and gray, it seemed hard to keep
back the tears. It was not like Martha to give way to her emotions;
perhaps it was the Christmas feel in the air that gripped her heart
with new tenderness.

She finished making the pudding for the Christmas dinner, and put the
last coat of icing on the Christmas cake, and then forced herself to
dress another doll for one of the neighbour's children. Sometimes the
tears dimmed her eyes, but she wiped them away bravely.

Suddenly a loud knock sounded on the door. Martha sprang up in some
confusion, and hastily tried to hide the traces of her tears, but
before she was ready to open the door it opened from without and
Arthur stood smiling before her.

"Oh, Arthur!" she cried, her face glowing with the love she could not
hide. "I was just thinking that you had stopped writing to me."

"Well, I have, too," he laughed; "letters are not much good anyway. I
knew you were here, for I met the others on the road," he continued,
as he hung his overcoat on its old nail behind the door, "and so