of the Christmas mornings,
and the stuffed stockings at the fireplace that proved every childish
wish remembered, every little hidden hope guessed! Darling Mother--she
hadn't had much money for those Christmas stockings, they must have
been carefully planned, down to the last candy cane. And how her face
would beam, as she sat at the breakfast-table, enjoying her belated
coffee, after the cold walk to church, and responding warmly to the
onslaught of kisses and bugs that added fresh color to her cold, rosy
cheeks! What a mother she was,--Margaret remembered her making them
all help her clear up the Christmas disorder of tissue paper and
ribbons; then came the inevitable bed making, then tippets and
overshoes, for a long walk with Dad. They would come back to find the
dining-room warm, the long table set, the house deliciously fragrant
from the immense turkey that their mother, a fresh apron over her
holiday gown, was basting at the oven. Then came the feast, and then
games until twilight, and more table-setting; and the baby, whoever he
was, was tucked away upstairs before tea, and the evening ended with
singing, gathered about Mother at the piano.

"How happy we all were!" Margaret said; "and how she worked for us!"

And suddenly theories and speculation ended, and she knew. She knew
that faithful, self-forgetting service, and the love that spends
itself over and over, only to be renewed again and again, are the
secret of happiness. For another world, perhaps, leisure and beauty
and luxury--but in this one, "Who loses his life shall gain it."
Margaret knew now that her mother was not only the truest, the finest,
the most generous woman she had ever known, but the happiest as well.

She thought of other women like her mother; she suddenly saw what made
their lives beautiful. She could understand now why Emily Porter, her
old brave little associate of school-teaching days, was always bright,
why Mary Page, plodding home from the long day at the library desk to
her little cottage and crippled sister, at night, always made one feel
the better and happier for meeting her.

Mrs. Carr-Boldt's days were crowded to the last instant, it was true;
but what a farce it was, after all, Margaret said to herself in all
honesty, to humor her in her little favorite belief that she was a
busy woman! Milliner, manicure, butler, chef, club, card-table, tea
table,--these and a thousand things like them filled her day, and they
might all