“Are the hens laying at all? and please tell Andrews to watch the sheep carefully; it’s so bitterly cold.

“I’ve had a beautiful time, but, oh, mother dear, I shall be so glad to get home, where there are real things to do and where you all love me just for myself!  Every night I kiss your picture and wish it was you.  Best love for everybody.  I have Gabriel’s little trumpet.

  “Devotedly,”
    “Claudia.”

“P.  S.—­We are going again to-night to the opera.  If only you were going, too!  I never see anything beautiful, hear anything beautiful, that I don’t wish you could see it and hear it also.  I’m so glad I brought my riding-habit.  They have been the best things of all, the long, splendid rides in the country.  So much nicer than motoring.  Mr. Laine rides better than any city man I know.  Three days more and I leave for home.

  “C.”

Guilty gladness at being alone, at getting off by herself and going where she chose, so possessed her the next day that as Claudia passed Mrs. Warrick’s sitting-room she tip-toed lest she be called in and a moment of her precious freedom be lost.  Several hours of daylight were still left, but there was much to be done; and hurriedly she went down the steps, hurriedly walked to the avenue, and caught the ’bus she saw coming with a sigh of thankfulness.  In the center of the shopping district she got out and disappeared soon after in one of the stores.  It was her only chance for the simple purchases to be made for the slim purses of her country friends; and as she read first one list and then the other she smiled at the variety of human desires and the diversities of human needs, and quickly made decisions.  A letter received just before leaving the house had not been read, but its writing was recognized, and going to the door she tried to make out the scrawly contents and get, at the same time, the breath of fresh air brought in by its opening as hurrying customers came and went.  To read there was impossible, however.  Darkness had fallen; and, going outside for a moment, she looked up and down at the surging, pushing, shivering crowd and wondered as to the time.  She was not through, and she must finish before going back.

“Is Madame Santa Claus ready to go home?”

Startled, she looked up.  “Oh, Mr. Laine, I’m so glad!  Indeed I’m not through, and it’s dark already.  Do you think Hope will mind if I don’t get back for tea?”

“I think not.”  He smiled in the troubled face.  “What is left to be done?”

“This among other things.”  Together they moved slowly down the crowded street, and she held the letter in her hand toward him.  “It’s from Mrs. Prosser, who has eleven children and a husband who is their father and that’s all.  They live on faith and the neighbors, but she has sold a pig and sent me part of the money with which to buy everybody in the family a Christmas present.  That’s all I’ve made out.”