“Perhaps,” acquiesced Tavia.  “But I wish she would turn those black eyes in the other direction.  She makes me creep.”

Dorothy tucked her little purse away securely, and once more consulted her memorandum.

“I must get a little more ribbon for Aunt Winnie’s bag,” she began, “and I must not forget about Joe’s magnifying glass.  He is so fond of his nature work at school it will be useful as well as enjoyable.  Then Roger’s steam engine.  I wonder do boys ever outgrow steam engines?”

“I promised Johnnie one,” said Tavia before she could repress the exclamation.  But the next instant she realized her mistake in mentioning home things.

“Then we will get them both alike,” said Dorothy, all enthusiasm.  “The boys are both the same age, and what one would like the other would love.  Oh, isn’t it just splendid to have little brothers to get toys for?  After all, the toys are the best part of Christmas.”

Tavia wanted to speak then—­it was the time to tell Dorothy, the very opportunity for confessing the whole miserable affair.  But what would Dorothy think?  She never made such blunders, if it might be called by so charitable a name.  And Dorothy had always warned her against writing letters to strangers.  Oh, if she had only taken that advice!  If she had only been satisfied with that sacred five dollars, money so dearly saved by her good mother!  How many things that mother might have bought for herself, for Johnnie, or for Tavia’s father, Squire Travers, with that fresh, clean five-dollar bill!  But with what a world of love the indulgent mother had, instead, placed the note in Tavia’s hand, with the remark: 

“Now my little girl will have her own Christmas money.  Now my daughter will be as good as any one else.”

“Oh, mother!” thought Tavia now, as she tried to summon courage to confide in Dorothy.  “If I only could be ‘as good as other people,’ as good as Dorothy, and as—­honorable!”

“Excuse me, miss,” spoke the strange little woman in black, leaning over to Tavia’s seat, “but you dropped a paper.”

“Thank you,” replied Tavia as she hurried to secure an envelope that had flurried to the floor from the depths of her muff.

“What was it?” asked Dorothy innocently, as Tavia hid the envelope again.

“Oh, just a letter,” replied the other, avoiding Dorothy’s glance.  “I thought I had destroyed it.”

Attaching no significance to the remark, although Tavia turned about uneasily, Dorothy put away her shopping notes, and as the train slacked up under the great iron sheds of the city depot the girls made their way through the crowds, out into the wintry day, along the broad pavements, where the shop windows beamed in all their splendor of holiday goods and Christmas finery.

“Be careful of your purse,” cautioned Dorothy, making her own secure within her squirrel muff.

“Oh, yes,” replied Tavia with some impatience.  It did seem as if Dorothy thought of nothing but purses and money.