separated from the other upstairs sleeping-rooms by
a long, cold, unfinished lumber room, her mind worked better. She
thought things out more clearly. Pleasant plans and ideas occurred to
her which had never come before. She had certain thoughts which were
like companions, ideas which were like older and wiser friends. She left
them there in the morning, when she finished dressing in the cold, and
at night, when she came up with her lantern and shut the door after a
busy day, she found them awaiting her. There was no possible way of
heating the room, but that was fortunate, for otherwise it would have
been occupied by one of her older brothers.

From the time when she moved up into the wing, Thea began to live a
double life. During the day, when the hours were full of tasks, she was
one of the Kronborg children, but at night she was a different person.
On Friday and Saturday nights she always read for a long while after she
was in bed. She had no clock, and there was no one to nag her.

Ray Kennedy, on his way from the depot to his boardinghouse, often
looked up and saw Thea's light burning when the rest of the house was
dark, and felt cheered as by a friendly greeting. He was a faithful
soul, and many disappointments had not changed his nature. He was still,
at heart, the same boy who, when he was sixteen, had settled down to
freeze with his sheep in a Wyoming blizzard, and had been rescued only
to play the losing game of fidelity to other charges.

Ray had no very clear idea of what might be going on in Thea's head, but
he knew that something was. He used to remark to Spanish Johnny, "That
girl is developing something fine." Thea was patient with Ray, even in
regard to the liberties he took with her name. Outside the family, every
one in Moonstone, except Wunsch and Dr. Archie, called her "Thee-a," but
this seemed cold and distant to Ray, so he called her "Thee." Once, in a
moment of exasperation, Thea asked him why he did this, and he explained
that he once had a chum, Theodore, whose name was always abbreviated
thus, and that since he was killed down on the Santa Fe, it seemed
natural to call somebody "Thee." Thea sighed and submitted. She was
always helpless before homely sentiment and usually changed the subject.

It was the custom for each of the different Sunday Schools in Moonstone
to give a concert on Christmas Eve. But this year all the churches were
to unite and give, as was announced from the pulpits, "a