, and she clasped her hands with a quick indrawing
of breath. The high silvery flute notes and the mellow alto of the deep
horn were like the voices of the Seraphim, leading all the others in
their pean of "Glad tidings of great joy." Oh, it was good to be at a
school like this she thought with a throb of deep thankfulness. And it
was so good to know that all her plans had worked out happily, and her
Christmas gifts for the girls were just what she wanted them to be. Her
thoughts strayed away from the service a moment to recall the little
bundles she had hidden in Elise's and A.O.'s suit-cases, and the package
she had ready for Ethelinda, a prettily scalloped linen cover for her
dressing-table with her initials, worked in handsome block letters in
the centre.

No regrets clouded her face next morning, when she stood at the door,
watching the last 'bus load of merry girls start home for the holidays.
She was not going home herself. Arizona was too far away. But she had
something more thrilling than that in prospect--a visit to Joyce in New
York, she and Betty, and Christmas day with Eugenia, at the beautiful
Tremont home out on the Hudson. She had been hearing about it for the
last two years. And there was Eugenia's baby she was eager to see, the
mischievous little year-old Patricia, "as beautiful as her father and as
bad as her naughty Uncle Phil," Eugenia had written, in her letter of
invitation.

And Phil himself would be there,--_maybe_. He was trying to get his work
in shape so that he could be home at Christmas time. Mary did not
realize how much her anticipations of this visit were tinged by the glow
of that maybe. Her thoughts ran ahead to that day at Eugenia's oftener
than to any other part of the grand outing. There was to be a whole week
of sight-seeing in New York sandwiched in between the cozy hours at home
with Joyce in her studio, and then on the roundabout way back to school
a stop-over at Annapolis, for a few hours with Holland.

Filled with such an ineffable spirit of content that she would not have
exchanged places with any one in the whole world, she watched the last
'bus load drive away, waving their handkerchiefs all down the avenue,
and singing:

"O Warwick Hall, dear Warwick Hall,
The joys of Yule now homeward call.
Yet still we'll keep the tryst with you,
Though for a time we say adieu.
Adieu! Adieu!"

[Illustration: "THE GIRLISH FIGURE ENVELOPED IN A LO