of the entertainment in the hands
of Mary Watson and Maudie Steadman, and no two members of a
House-Committee ever worked harder, or took more pleasure in making
arrangements.

"Let's not ask the Pipers--they're dirt poor," said Maudie, when they
sat down at noon to make out the list of providers.

"Indeed, we will," said Mary, whose knowledge of the human heart was
most profound. "If people are poor, that's all the more reason why
they would be easily hurt, and it's not nice for us to even know that
they are poor. We'll ask them, you bet--and Mrs. Piper will bring
something. Besides--if we didn't ask them to bake, they wouldn't
come--and that's the way rows start in a neighborhood. We'll manage it
all right--and if there are any sandwiches left over--we'll send them
to the smaller children, and the Pipers will come in on that. It ain't
so bad to be poor," concluded Mary, out of her large experience, "but
it hurts to have people know it!"

When Pearl, with her father and mother arrived at the school on the
afternoon of the meeting, it came to her with a shock, how small the
school was, and how dreary. Surely it had not been so mouse-gray and
shabby as this when she had been there. The paint was worn from the
floor, the ceiling was smoked and dirty, the desks were rickety and
uneven--the blackboards gray. The same old map of North America hung
tipsily between the blackboards. It had been crooked so long, that it
seemed to be the correct position, and so had escaped the eye of the
House-Committee, who had made many improvements for this occasion.

In the tiny porch, there were many mysterious baskets and boxes and
tin pails of varying sizes, and within doors a long table at the back
of the room had on it many cups and saucers, with a pile of tissue
paper napkins. A delightful smell of coffee hung on the air.

Pearl wore her best brown silk dress, with a lace collar and cuff set
contributed the Christmas before by her Aunt Kate from Ontario, and at
her waist, one of the doctor's roses. The others had been brought
over by Mary, and were in a glass jar on the tidy desk, where they
attracted much attention and speculation as to where they had
come from. They seemed to redeem the bare school-room from utter
dreariness, and Pearl found herself repeating the phrase in the
doctor's letter, "Like a rose in a dark room."

The children were hilariously glad to see Pearl, and her lightness of
heart came back to her, when a gr