eemed to come, first the meter
and then, gradually, the lines. I can't explain it. I had some bad news
and was afraid I would have to leave college and then the poem came.
That was all. Two hundred dollars," she added, looking at the check.
"It seems too good to be true. What must I do with it?"

"Put it in the Wellington Bank to-morrow morning," answered Margaret
promptly.

Between them, Mrs. Markham and Mrs. O'Reilly prepared a very good dinner
for the girls that night, and instead of being a funeral feast it was
changed into a jolly banquet. The old Queen's dinner table was restored
and there was as much gay, humorous conversation as there ever had been
in the brown shingled house now reduced to a heap of ashes.

Paperhangers and painters did go into the new college house on the
following Monday morning and in less than ten days the dingy rooms were
transformed by white woodwork and light paper. If the Queen's girls felt
a little out of it at first, not being on the campus, they were too
proud to admit it, and nobody ever heard a complaint from them. They had
a great many visitors at O'Reilly's. Crowds of their friends came down
to drink tea or spend the evening. The President herself called one
morning and had a look at the place.

In the meantime Molly had called at Miss Walker's office and informed
her that she had come into a little money unexpectedly and, with the
money she was earning, she would be able to pay her own board at
O'Reilly's for the rest of the winter. It was only by chance that Miss
Walker learned how Molly had earned this sum of money.

"Think of the child's modesty in keeping the secret from me," she said
to Miss Pomeroy. "Have you seen the poem that won the prize, by the
way?"

"Why, yes," answered that critical individual. "It's a sweet little
thing and I suppose struck the exact note they wanted, but I assure you
it's nothing wonderful."

CHAPTER XXI.

IN THE GARDEN.

"Who would have thought this place could ever blossom like the rose,"
exclaimed Margaret Wakefield, settling comfortably in a long steamer
chair and looking about her with an expression of extreme contentment.

"It's the early summer that did it," remarked Judy Kean. "It came to
console us after that brutal winter."

"It's Mrs. O'Reilly's labors chiefly," put in Katherine Williams. "She
told me that this garden had been the comfort of her life."

"It's the comfort of mine," said Margaret lazily. "Watching