the folds of which her delicate
head rose like a flower in a bouquet of autumn leaves. One elbow
rested on the table; her chin in the cup of her hand. Her head was
turned away a little so that one could see only the knot of bronze
hair, the curve of a cheek, and the sweep of an eyelash.

"What a picture!" thought Reba. "The very thing for my Christmas card!
It would do almost without a change, if only she is willing to let me
use her."

"Wake up, Letty!" she called. "Come and let me in!--Why, your front
door isn't closed!"

"The fire smoked a little when I first lighted it," said Letty, rising
when her friend entered, and then softly shutting the bedroom door
that the children might not waken. "The night is so mild and the room
so warm, I couldn't help opening the window to look at the moon on the
snow. Sit down, Reba! How good of you to come when you've been
rehearsing for the Christmas Tree exercises all the afternoon."

[Illustration]

II

"It's never 'good' of me to come to talk with you, Letty!" And the
minister's wife sank into a comfortable seat and took off her
rigolette. "Enough virtue has gone out of me to-day to Christianize an
entire heathen nation! Oh! how I wish Luther would go and preach to a
tribe of cannibals somewhere, and make me superintendent of the
Sabbath-School! How I should like to deal, just for a change, with
some simple problem like the undesirability and indigestibility
involved in devouring your next-door neighbor! Now I pass my life in
saying, 'Love your neighbor as yourself'; which is far more difficult
than to say, 'Don't _eat_ your neighbor, it's such a disgusting
habit,--and wrong besides,'--though I dare say they do it half the
time because the market is bad. The first thing I'd do would be to get
my cannibals to raise sheep. If they ate more mutton, they wouldn't
eat so many missionaries."

Letty laughed. "You're so funny, Reba dear, and I was so sad before
you came in. Don't let the minister take you to the cannibals until
after I die!"

"No danger!--Letty, do you remember I told you I'd been trying my hand
on some verses for a Christmas card?"

"Yes; have you sent them anywhere?"

"Not yet. I couldn't think of the right decoration and color scheme
and was afraid to trust it all to the publishers. Now I've found just
what I need for one of them, and you gave it to me, Letty!"

"I?"

"Yes, you; to-night, as I came down the road. The house looked so
quaint,