ne must make allowances for a
girl with a small allowance and a large family connection, and must also
enter it to the credit of this particular damsel that she grudged no
work which could beautify the simple background. Poor Betty! For two
whole gloomy afternoons did she work at a spray of roses on a linen
work-bag, and on the third day a feeble gleam of sunlight showed itself,
and lo, the roses were a harlequin study in pinks and orange!

"Is it at all trying? Is it enough to make you pitch the whole thing
into the fire?" she demanded dramatically of the chairs and tables, as
the horrible discovery burst upon her, and she proceeded to snap at the
silk with her sharp little scissors, and viciously tear away the
stitches. "Shan't bother to fill them in any more! They'll just have
to do in outline, and if she doesn't like it she can do the other
thing!" she grunted under her breath; but that was only the impulse of
the moment, and when it came to action each stitch was put in as
carefully as before.

"What are you sewing away at those old things for?" Jill demanded,
coming into the room and seating herself easily on the edge of the
table. "It's much easier to buy match-boxes and needle-books. You can
get beauties for sixpence three-farthings at the Christmas bazaars, and
it saves no end of fag. You can give me safety-pins if you like, for my
clothes are all coming to pieces, and my pins disappear like smoke.
Mary eats them, I believe! What are you going to give mother?"

"Can't think! She wants a palm for the drawing-room, but a nice one
costs half a guinea, and I couldn't possibly scrape together more than
three and six."

Jill pondered, swinging her feet to and fro. "Five more Saturdays at
fourpence each,--one and eight-pence, and I've got about two shillings
in hand. No! I couldn't possibly offer to join. I wish we could have
managed it, for the drawing-room doesn't look half furnished, and a big
palm would have made a fine effect, but we can't, so there's an end of
that!"

A gasp of suppressed nervousness sounded from the end of the room, and
Pam's voice said with the usual funny little squeak, "I've got sixpence
with a hole in it. I'll join, Betty! Do get mother a palm! She wants
it so badly. We saw one in a shop window yesterday, and she said it was
just the thing for our room!"

"Sorry, Pam, but it can't be done. They are a frightful price in the
shops, and even old `All a-growing all a-