“Then Kate Comstock’s got to help,” said Wesley.  “Can the two of you make one, and get that lunch to-morrow?”

“Easy, but she’ll never do it!”

“You see if she doesn’t!” said Wesley.  “You get up and cut it out, and soon as Elnora is gone I’ll go after Kate myself.  She’ll take what I’ll say better alone.  But she’ll come, and she’ll help make the dress.  These other things are our Christmas gifts to Elnora.  She’ll no doubt need them more now than she will then, and we can give them just as well.  That’s yours, and this is mine, or whichever way you choose.”

Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out the folds of a long, brown raincoat.  Margaret dropped the hat, arose and took the coat.  She tried it on, felt it, cooed over it and matched it with the umbrella.

“Did it look anything like rain to-night?” she inquired so anxiously that Wesley laughed.

“And this last bundle?” she said, dropping back in her chair, the coat still over her shoulders.

“I couldn’t buy this much stuff for any other woman and nothing for my own,” said Wesley.  “It’s Christmas for you, too, Margaret!” He shook out fold after fold of soft gray satiny goods that would look lovely against Margaret’s pink cheeks and whitening hair.

“Oh, you old darling!” she exclaimed, and fled sobbing into his arms.

But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals in the cooking stove and boiled one of the dress patterns in salt water for half an hour.  Wesley held the lamp while she hung the goods on the line to dry.  Then she set the irons on the stove so they would be hot the first thing in the morning.

CHAPTER III

WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN, AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT

Four o’clock the following morning Elnora was shelling beans.  At six she fed the chickens and pigs, swept two of the rooms of the cabin, built a fire, and put on the kettle for breakfast.  Then she climbed the narrow stairs to the attic she had occupied since a very small child, and dressed in the hated shoes and brown calico, plastered down her crisp curls, ate what breakfast she could, and pinning on her hat started for town.

“There is no sense in your going for an hour yet,” said her mother.

“I must try to discover some way to earn those books,” replied Elnora.  “I am perfectly positive I shall not find them lying beside the road wrapped in tissue paper, and tagged with my name.”

She went toward the city as on yesterday.  Her perplexity as to where tuition and books were to come from was worse but she did not feel quite so badly.  She never again would have to face all of it for the first time.  There had been times yesterday when she had prayed to be hidden, or to drop dead, and neither had happened.  “I believe the best way to get an answer to prayer is to work for it,” muttered Elnora grimly.