ed to find," cried Leslie, sealing her warm
impulse with immediate act. "Will you be Zorayda, Imogen,--with Jeannie
and Elinor, you know? I've got so much to do without. Sin Saxon
understands; it's a bit of a secret as yet. I shall be _so_ obliged!"

Imogen's blue eyes sparkled and widened. It was just what she had been
secretly longing for. But why in the world should Leslie Goldthwaite
want to give it up?

It had got crowded out, that was all.

Another thing kept coming into Leslie's head that day,--the yards of
delicate grass-linen that she had hemstitched, and knotted into bands
that summer,--just for idle work, when plain bindings and simple
ruffling would have done as well,--and all for her accumulating treasure
of reserved robings, while here were these two girls darning stockings,
and sewing over heavy woollen stuffs, that actual, inevitable work might
be dispatched in these bright, warm hours that had been meant for
holiday. It troubled her to think of it, seeing that the time was gone,
and nothing now but these threads and holes remained of it to her share.

Martha Josselyn had asked her yesterday about the stitch,--some little
baby-daintiness she had thought of for the mother who couldn't afford
embroideries and thread-laces for her youngest and least of so many.
Leslie would go and show her, and, as Miss Craydocke said, get intimate.
It was true there were certain little things one could not do, except as
a friend.

Meanwhile, Martha Josselyn must be the Sister of Charity in that lovely
tableau of Consolation.

It does not take long for two young girls to grow intimate over tableau
plans and fancy stitches. Two days after this, Leslie Goldthwaite was as
cosily established in the Josselyns' room as if she had been there every
day all summer. Some people _are_ like drops of quicksilver, as Martha
Josselyn had declared, only one can't tell how that is till one gets out
of the bottle.

"Thank you," she said to Leslie, as she mastered the little intricacy of
the work upon the experimental scrap of cambric she had drawn. "I
understand it now, I think, and I shall find time, somehow, after I get
home, for what I want to do." With that, she laid it in a corner of her
basket, and took up cotton-flannel again.

Leslie put something, twisted lightly in soft paper, beside it. "I want
you to keep that, please, for a pattern, and to remember me," she said.
"I've made yards more than I really want. It's nothing,"