d only a
few days and of whom she had been in ignorance, a scrap of her
mother's wedding gown, old tintypes--she realized that her family was
no more and that everyone needed a family, a group of related persons
whose interests, arguments, events, and achievements are of particular
benefit and importance each to the other and who unconsciously
challenge the world, no matter what secret disagreements there may be,
to disrupt them if they dare! Now only Luke and Mary comprised the
family.

After midnight Mary battled herself into the commonsense attitude of
going to bed. Wakening after the dreamless sleep of the exhausted she
found low spirits and self-blame had somewhat diminished and though
her state of mind was as serious as her gray eyes yet life was not
utterly bereft of compensations.

Luke had thoughtfully risen early, clumsily tiptoeing about to get
breakfast. Neighbours had furnished the customary donations of cake,
pie, and doughnuts, which gave Luke the opportunity of spreading the
breakfast table with these kingly viands and doing justice to them in
no half-hearted fashion.

The sun streamed through the starched window curtains, and even the
empty rocking-chair seemed serene in the relief from its morbid
burden. Christmas was only a few days away. Mary decided that they
should have a truly Christmas dinner, and that the words she had
bravely spoken as a three-year-old runaway, found a mile from home and
offered assistance by kindly strangers, should become quite true: "Not
anybody need take care of myself," Mary had declared in dauntless
fashion.

Later in the day Luke went to the office because Mary thought it best.
So when Steve called he found her alone, the same cheery fire burning
in the grate, the same posies blooming in their window pots, and the
smell of homemade bread pervading the house, Mary in a soft gray frock
presiding over the walnut secretary.

"I'm sorry not to be at the office," she began, thinking he had come
to persuade her to return. "Sit down. Well--you see," indicating the
stacks of addressed envelopes--"I really can't come back until after
the New Year. Do you mind? There is a great deal to be seen to here,
and I feel I've earned the right to loaf for a week. I want
particularly to make the holidays happy for Luke."

"Of course you do. Besides, you never had your vacation."

"We'll call this a vacation and I'll work extra hard to prove to you
that it was worth the granting." S