he thought with
satisfaction that the little Vicar was growing up to be a very pretty
girl after all. Her eyes were positively starry under her long, curling
lashes.

That Eugenia regarded their coming as a great event, they felt from the
moment the sleigh drew up to the house. From every window streamed a
welcoming light, and the front door, flung open at their approach,
showed that the wide reception hall had been transformed into a bower of
Christmas greens. Eugenia, radiant in her most becoming dinner gown of
holly red, came running down the steps to meet them.

Ever since she had been established as mistress of this beautiful
country place, she had longed for them to visit her. Guests she had in
plenty, for young Doctor Tremont and his wife were noted for their
lavish hospitality, but the welcome accorded her new friends and
neighbours was nothing to the one reserved for these old friends of her
girlhood. She wanted them to see for themselves that she had made no
mistake in her weaving, and that marriage had indeed brought her the
"diamond leaf" that Abdallah found only in Paradise.

"Patricia had just dropped asleep," she told them as she led the way up
stairs. Not that it was the proper time, but she was always doing
unexpected things. That very day she had surprised them with four new
words which they had not dreamed she could say. Eliot had orders to
bring her in the moment that she awakened, so they could soon see the
most remarkable child in the world. Yes, Eliot was still with her, good
old Eliot. She intended to keep her always. Not as a maid, however. She
had earned the position of guardian angel to Patricia by all her years
of devoted service, and she played her part to perfection.

While the girls opened their suit-cases and changed their dresses to
costumes more suitable for evening, Eugenia stood in the door between
the two rooms, turning first one way and then the other to answer the
questions rapidly propounded. Mary, thankful that her white pongee had
not wrinkled, divided her attention between the donning of that, and the
information that Eugenia was imparting.

She had named the baby for Stuart's great-aunt Patricia, who for so many
years had been like a mother to the boys and Elsie. She felt that she
owed the dear, prim old lady that much as a sort of reparation for all
she had suffered at the hands of the boys whom she had loved so dearly
in spite of her inability to understand them. Fathe