to study this dream of
beauty, learned that they had only to enter a loaf of bread of their
own making in the Mail contest, to stand a chance of carrying the
little lady home. Beside the doll stood a rifle, no toy, but a genuine
twenty-two Marlin, for the boy whose plans for a vegetable garden
seemed the best and most practical, Mrs. Burgoyne herself talked to the
children when they came shyly in to investigate. "She seems to want to
know every child in the county, the darling!" said Miss Watson to Fergy.

The Valentines, father and son, came into the Mail office one warm June
morning, to find the editor of the "Women's Page" busy at her desk,
with the sunlight lying in a bright bar across her uncovered hair, and
a vista of waving green boughs showing through the open window behind
her.

"What are you two doing here at this hour?" said Sidney, laying down
her pen and leaning back in her chair as if glad of a moment's rest.
"Why, Billy!" she added in admiring tones, "let me see you! How very,
VERY nice you look!"

For the little fellow was dressed in a new sailor suit that was a full
size too large for him, his wild mop had been cut far too close, and a
large new hat and new shoes were much in evidence.

"D'you think he looks all right?" said Barry with an anxious
wistfulness that went straight to her heart. "He looks better, doesn't
he? I've been fixing him up."

"And free sailor waists, and stockings, and nighties," supplemented
Billy, also anxious for her approval.

"He looks lovely!" said Sidney, enthusiastically, even while she was
mentally raising the collar of his waist, and taking an inch or two off
the trousers. She lifted the child up to sit on his father's desk, and
kissed the top of his little cropped head.

"We may not express ourselves very fluently," said Barry, who was
seated in his own revolving chair and busily opening and shutting the
drawers of his desk, "but we appreciate the interest beautiful ladies
take in our manners and morals, and the new tooth-brushes they buy us--"

"My dear!" protested Mrs. Burgoyne, between laughter and tears, "Ellen
used his old one up, cleaning out their paint-boxes!" And she put her
warm hand on his shoulder, and said, "Don't be a goose, Barry!" as
unselfconsciously as a sister might. "Where are you two boys going,
Billy?" she asked, going back to her own desk.

"'Cool," Billy said.

"He's going over to the kindergarten. I've got some work I ought to
finish