e
ever heard of her sister; had said that Mary Hawkes was like her Aunt
Martie, "the cunningest baby of them all."

Wild with hope, Sally had written the beloved sister. It was as if all
these years of absence had been years of banishment to Sally. Martie
recognized the unchanging Monroe standard.

She got Sally's letter now, and re-read it. If Pa could send her a few
hundreds, if she could get the children into Lydia's hands, in the old
house in the sunken garden, if Teddy and Margar could grow up in the
beloved fogs and sunshine, the soft climate of home, then how bravely
she could work, how hopefully she could struggle to get a foothold in
the world for them! She wrote simply, lovingly, penitently, to her
father--She was convalescent after serious illness; there were two
small children; her husband was out of work; could he forgive her and
help her? In the cold, darkening days, she went about fed with a secret
hope, an abounding confidence.

But she held the letter a fortnight before sending it. If her father
refused her, she was desperate indeed. Planning, planning, planning,
she endured the days. Wallace was not well; wretched with grippe, he
spent almost the entire day in bed when he was at home, dressing at
four o'clock and going out of the house without a farewell. Sometimes,
for two or three nights a week, Martie did not know where he was; his
friends kept him in money, and made him feel himself a deeply wronged
and unappreciated man. She could picture him in bars, in cafes, in hot
hotel rooms seriously talking over a card-table, boasting, threatening.

She dismissed Isabeau Eato with a promise that the girl accepted
ungraciously.

"If I had the money Isabeau, you should have it; you know that!"

"Yas'm. Hit's what dey all says'm."

"You SHALL have it," Martie promised, with hot cheeks. She breathed
easier when the girl was gone. She told the grocer that she had written
her father, and that his bills should be paid; she reminded the big
rosy man that she had been ill. He listened without comment, cleaning a
split thumb-nail. The story was not a new one.

No answer came to her letter, and a sick suspicion that no answer would
come began to trouble her. December was passing. Teddy was careful to
tell her just what he wanted from Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve she
asked Wallace, as he was silently going out, for some money.

"I want to get Ted SOMETHING for Christmas, Wallie."

"What does he want?"

"