And then those lines began running through her head that she had not been able to get rid of, since the morning she read them in the magazine: 

     “For if he come not by the road, and come not by the hill,
      And come not by the far seaway—­”

She wished that she was certain that she could add that last part of the line, “Yet come he surely will!” Just then, to have one strong true face bending towards hers in the firelight, with a devotion all for her, seemed worth a lifetime of public plaudits, and having one’s name handed down to posterity on monoliths and statues.

     “For if he come not by the road, and come not by the hill,
      And come not by the far seaway—­”

“Yes, it certainly would be lonesome,” she decided.  She would miss the best that earth holds for a home-loving, hero-worshipping woman.

CHAPTER VIII

CHRISTMAS DAY AT EUGENIA’S

“Although this is only the twenty-fourth of December, my Christmas has already begun,” wrote Mary in her diary next day; “for this morning when I looked out of the window everything was white with snow.  It has been so long since I have seen such a sight, all the roofs and chimney tops a-glisten, that I could hardly keep away from the window long enough to dress.

“Phil stayed quite late last night.  Just as he was leaving, Mrs. Boyd and Miss Lucy came home, and of course we had to stay up a little while longer to meet them.  By the time Joyce had turned the davenport in the studio into a bed for me, it was past midnight, and I couldn’t go to sleep for hours.  There was so much to think about.

“The next thing I knew I smelled coffee, and heard Joyce whistling just as she used to at home when she was getting breakfast, and I didn’t waste many minutes in going out to her in that cunning kitchenette.  It is all white tiling and shining nickel-plate, as easy to keep clean as a china dish, and just a delight to work in.  I never thought so before, but now it seems to me that it is just as nice to know how to serve a delicious meal as easily as Joyce does as it is to put a picture on canvas.  I can see now what a good thing it was for both of us that we had to serve such a long apprenticeship in work and housekeeping, even if it did seem hard at the time.

“‘It gives a girl a sort of Midas touch,’ Phil said last night; ’makes her able to gild even a garret and to turn any old place into a home,’ He was so charmed with everything about the flat that he said he wanted to move into one right away, and make biscuits himself on a glass-topped table, and do stunts with the fireless cooker like Joyce.  He has had a surfeit of cafes and hotels and boarding-houses.

“While we were at breakfast the postman came, and there were letters and packages for everybody.  Lloyd sent a present to each of us.  Mine was a darling little lace fan all spangled, like a cobweb with dew-drops caught in its meshes.  We opened everything then and there, as we had already had part of our presents.  Jack’s to me was this holiday trip, and Mamma’s was the shirt-waist that I travelled in from Washington.