ed how to spend his first surplus five dollars
if it came in time. It should go as a happy surprise to Flip on her
sixteenth birthday. It had come in time. Her birthday was on the
twenty-first of the month. At first he thought he could not wait
three long weeks before sending it. He wanted her to have the
pleasure and surprise of receiving it at once; and he wanted the
thrill of feeling that he was man enough not only to be
self-supporting, but to help care for his sister.

[Illustration: "HE MADE SEVERAL RAPID CALCULATIONS ON THE BACK OF THE
ENVELOPE."]

He wrapped the coin in a bit of tissue-paper, torn from the
shaving-case Flip had sent him in the delayed Christmas box. Then he
carefully put it in the inner pocket of the old wallet he carried.
But scarcely a night passed between that time and the twentieth that
he did not take a peep at the coin, and then count the days on his
calendar.

Ever since the night of the praise service, when he first heard Avery
Windom sing, he had been a regular attendant at the Christian
Endeavour meetings. It was like a bit of home to sit there in the
midst of the young people, singing the familiar old hymns, and he
sang them so heartily and entered into the exercises of the meeting
with such zest that he soon lost the feeling that he was only a
stranger within the gates.

There were some, it is true, who were only coolly polite to him,
thinking of his position, an unknown boy working in the shoe factory
as a common labourer. He felt the chill of their manner keenly, and
he knew why he was so pointedly ignored. It was not a deeply
spiritual society. Only a few of the members were really consecrated
Christians. There were more socials and concerts and literary
evenings than devotional meetings. Most of the members belonged to
old, wealthy families, and had always been accustomed to leisure and
pocket-money. Alec soon realized the bounds that were set to his
social privileges. He might take a prominent part in the meetings,
even be asked to lead on occasions, be put on committees, be assigned
many tasks in connection with suppers and festivals, but outside of
his church relationship he was never noticed. No hospitable home
swung open its doors for him.

Only one who has lived in a country place, which knows no class
distinctions, where character is all that counts, and where the
butcher and baker may be bidden any day, in simple village fashion,
to banquet with the judge, only su