painful. Betty once
more faced her three candles.

"Be strong as the fagots are sturdy;
Be pure in your deepest desire;
Be true to the truth that is in you;"

"And--follow the law of the fire," she repeated with a catch in her
breath. Then with greater strength and resolution in her face she blew
out two of the candles, and picking up the third, started on her way
upstairs.

The next moment there came a quick, muffled ring at the front door bell.

The girl hesitated; yet there was no one else in the house to answer
the bell, and only a friend, she thought, could come at this hour.
Shading her light from the wind with one hand she pulled open the door
with the other, already smiling with pleasure at the idea of thus
ending her loneliness.

Close against the door she discovered the young man whom she had seen
only a few moments before in the street.

He did not speak nor move immediately.

"What do you wish?" Betty demanded a trifle impatiently. The fellow
had both fists rammed deep into his pockets and had not the courtesy to
remove his hat. With a slight sense of uneasiness, Betty thought of
closing the door. The unexpected visitor kept edging closer toward her
and was apparently fumbling for something in his coat.

"Please tell me what it is you want at once," the girl repeated almost
angrily. "This is Mrs. Ashton's house if you are looking for it. My
mother and I are entirely alone." Having made this speech Betty
instantly recognized its stupidity and regretted it.

However the young man had at last succeeded in removing a small oblong
package from his pocket, which he silently thrust toward her. On the
wrapper in big letters, such as a child might have written, the girl
was able to decipher her own name. But while she was puzzling over it,
and before she could thank the messenger, he had hurried off.

Betty set her candle down on the lowest of the front steps and kneeling
before it rapidly undid her parcel. Inside the paper she discovered a
crudely hand-carved wooden box, and opening the lid, a blank sheet of
folded white paper.

She shook the paper. Had some one sent her a Thanksgiving present or
was she being made the victim of a joke? But from between the blank
sheets something slowly fluttered to her feet. And picking it up with
a little cry of surprise Betty saw a crisp new ten dollar bill.

Immediately her cheeks turned scarlet and her eyes filled with
indignant tears. On