came to be accepted by all
Weston, which was much excited for a day or two over this honor done a
favorite daughter, and by all the Pagets,--except Margaret. Margaret
went through the hours in her old, quiet manner, a little more tender
and gentle perhaps than she had been; but her heart never beat
normally, and she lay awake late at night, and early in the morning,
thinking, thinking, thinking. She tried to realize that it was in her
honor that a farewell tea was planned at the club, it was for her that
her fellow-teachers were planning a good-bye luncheon; it was really
she--Margaret Paget--whose voice said at the telephone a dozen times a
day, "On the fourteenth.--Oh, do I? I don't feel calm! Can't you try
to come in--I do want to see you before I go!" She dutifully repeated
Bruce's careful directions; she was to give her check to an
expressman, and her suitcase to a red-cap; the expressman would
probably charge fifty cents, the red-cap was to have no more than
fifteen. And she was to tell the latter to put her into a taxicab.

"I'll remember," Margaret assured him gratefully, but with a sense of
unreality pressing almost painfully upon her.--One of a million
ordinary school teachers, in a million little towns--and this marvel
had befallen her!

The night of the Pagets' Christmas play came, a night full of laughter
and triumph; and marked for Margaret by the little parting gifts that
were slipped into her hands, and by the warm good wishes that were
murmured, not always steadily, by this old friend and that. When the
time came to distribute plates and paper napkins, and great saucers of
ice cream and sliced cake, Margaret was toasted in cold sweet
lemonade; and drawing close together to "harmonize" more perfectly,
the circle about her touched their glasses while they sang, "For she's
a jolly good fellow." Later, when the little supper was almost over,
Ethel Elliot, leaning over to lay her hand on Margaret's, began in her
rich contralto:--

"When other lips and other hearts..."

and as they all went seriously through the two verses, they stood up,
one by one, and linked arms; the little circle, affectionate and
admiring, that had bounded Margaret's friendships until now.

Then Christmas came, with a dark, freezing walk to the pine-spiced and
candle-lighted early service in the little church, and a quicker walk
home, chilled and happy and hungry, to a riotous Christmas breakfast,
and a littered breakfast table.