Stuart and her
father and to be an ideal mother to little Patricia. In their eyes she
is not only a perfect house-keeper, but an adorable home-maker.

"Lloyd, too, is having what she wanted this winter, the social triumph
that godmother and Papa Jack coveted for her. Her ambition is to measure
up to all their fond expectations, and to leave a Road of the Loving
Heart in every one's memory. And she is certainly doing that. Her
popularity is the kind that cannot be bought with lavish dinners and
extravagant balls. She's just so winsome and dear and considerate of
everybody that she's earned the right to be called the Queen of Hearts."

"And now all four of you are happy," remarked Mary, "for your dreams
have come true. And seeing that makes me all the more determined to make
mine come true."

"Oh, the valedictory that you are to win for Jack's sake," said Betty,
coming out of the revery into which she had fallen for a moment.

"That's only one of the things," began Mary. "The others--" Then she
stopped, hesitating to put in words the future she foresaw for herself.
Sometimes in the daylight it seemed presumptuous for her to aspire to
such heights. It was only when she lay awake at night with the moonlight
stealing into the room, that such a future seemed reasonable and sure.

Unknowing that the hesitation held a half-escaped confidence, Betty did
not wait for her to go on, but held up the check, saying, "You know this
is a partnership story, and you are to get another trip to New York out
of it. Putting your shilling in the Christmas offering was a good
investment for both of us. If you hadn't I never would have thought of
the plot which your adventure suggested."

"But you've made your story so different from what actually happened,
that I don't see how I can have any claim on it at all," said Mary.
"It's just your sweet way of giving me Easter Vacation with Joyce."

"Indeed it is not," protested Betty. "Some day I'll follow out the whole
train of suggestions for you, how your shilling made me think of an old
rhyme, and that rhyme of something else, and so on, until the whole
plot lay out before me. There isn't time now. It is almost your Latin
period."

Mary rose to go. "Once I should have been doubtful about accepting such
a big favour from any one," she said slowly. "But I've found out now how
delightful it is to do things for people you love with money you've
earned yourself. Now Jack's watch-fob, for instanc