swoman who had sold
them to her. She had been so nice and friendly and seemed to take such
an interest in pleasing them that Joyce had spoken of it afterward.

Then the woman recognized her--looked from the furs to the eager little
face above them and smiled. It seemed incredible to Mary that she should
have been remembered out of all the hundreds of customers who must pass
through the shop every day, but she did not know that the sight of her
delight over her gift had been the one bright spot in the saleswoman's
tiresome day.

Instantly her mind was made up, and darting into the shop in her
impetuous way, she told her predicament to the amused woman, and asked
permission to telephone to her sister.

Joyce, painting away with rapid strokes, in a hurry to finish the stent
she had set for herself, looked up a trifle impatiently at the ringing
of the telephone bell. Her first impulse was to call Mary to answer it,
but reflecting that probably the call would require her personal
attention sooner or later, laid down her brush and went to answer it
herself. She could hardly credit the evidence of her own ears when a
meek little voice called imploringly, "Oh, Joyce, could you come and get
me? I'm at the furrier's where you bought my Christmas present, and I
haven't a cent in my pocket and don't know the way home."

"What under the canopy!" gasped Joyce, startled out of her
self-possession. All morning she had been so sure that Mary was in the
next room that it was positively uncanny to hear her voice coming from
so far away.

"I've never known anything so spooky," she called. "I can't be sure its
you."

"Well, I wish it wasn't," came the almost tearful reply. "I'm awfully
sorry to interfere with your work, and you needn't stop till you get
through. They'll let me wait here until noon. I've got a comfortable
seat where I can peep out at the people on the street, and I don't feel
lost now that you know where I am." Then with a little giggle, "I'm like
the Irishman's tea-kettle that he dropped overboard. It wasn't lost
because he knew where it was--in the bottom of the sea."

"Well, you're Mary, all right," laughed Joyce. "That speech certainly
proves it. Don't worry, I'll get you home as soon as possible."

"Telephones are wonderful things," confided Mary to the saleswoman.
"They are as good as genii in a bottle for getting you out of trouble. I
should think the man who invented them would feel so much like a wizard,
t