he cover of the large box and gave a cry
which was not unlike a sob. There, in silk and lace, with eyes closed
and smiling lips, lay Little Sister.

"Oh, his watch--his presentation watch!" she gurgled. And sitting on
the bed, with the great doll in her arms, she let fall on the
unresponsive head a few tears of grief and gratitude. She understood
everything now, even the "big bluff."

What had been or had not been in Miss Leavitt's pay envelope Win did
not know until the morning after Christmas, that strangest Christmas
of her life, which she spent resting quietly in bed. Returning next
day to Toyland, where everything looked half asleep in the early
gloom, she saw the glitter of red hair.

"Hello!" said Miss Leavitt. "Here we are again! Did you have a
merry---"

She stopped short, her eyes fastened on a tiny spray of pearly bells
half hidden in the folds of the other's black silk blouse. For an
instant she forgot what she had meant to say, gasped slightly, closed
her lips, opened them as if to speak, shut her teeth together with a
snap, swallowed heavily, and went on where she had broken
off--"Christmas?"

Win thanked her, said "Yes," and asked politely how Miss Leavitt had
spent her holiday. This gave the girl with red hair time to control
the temper which accompanied it. But if, in that brief interval of
uncertainty, she had burst out with the fierce insult which burned her
tongue, never again could she have ventured to claim friendship with
Winifred Child. And if she had lost her right to claim it, all the
future might have been different for one of them.

CHAPTER XIX

"YES" TO ANYTHING

At last it was July, and New York felt like a vast hermetically sealed
Turkish bath into which all were free to enter, but once in, must
remain, as there were no exits and no closing hours. Most of the
people you read about in the Sunday supplements (except those who
commit murders and such things) had escaped to the sea or mountains
before the Turkish bath opened for the summer. But there is never
anything in Sunday supplements about the assistants in department
stores, for they are fashionable only in restricted districts, and
they do not commit murders and such things, though they might
occasionally enjoy doing so.

It had been, said the newspapers, an exceptionally gay winter and
spring. Seldom had there been so many beautiful and important
debutantes. Lovely girls and admiring men had decorated each page of