“Billy Norton, you know I wouldn’t borrow money from a man!” exclaimed Lydia.

“Well, then, I’ll give it to Mother and you borrow it from her.”

“Of course, I won’t,” replied Lydia.  “Besides, I’ve got enough money I earned myself!”

“You have!  Then what’s all the worry about?  How’d you earn it, Lyd?  I thought your father—­”

Lydia dug the little pocketbook from under the sofa pillow and spread the money proudly on her shawl.  “There it is and it’s the root of all my troubles.”

Billy looked at her suspiciously.  “Young woman, how’d you earn that money?” he demanded.

“Socks!  Bushels of socks, mostly,” answered Lydia with a chuckle that ended in a groan.  She looked at Billy whimsically and then as the sureness of his understanding came to her again, she told him the story of her little midnight sweatshop.

“Oh, dearest!” Billy burst forth with a groan when she had finished, “how could you be such a little idiot!  Oh, Lydia, Lydia, I can’t tell you how you wring my heart.”

It seemed for a moment as if he must gather the slight little figure to his heart, but he set his teeth.

“If that darned Prom. means as much as that to you—­” he began, but Lydia interrupted him.

“It doesn’t any more, Billy.  I’ve learned a lot of things since I’ve been sick.  I was a little idiot to work so hard for clothes!  But I don’t think it was all clothes.  I wanted to be like other girls.  I wanted to have the man that took me proud of my appearance.”

She paused and Billy would have spoken, but Lydia began again.

“You see, I was never sick before, so I never realized that a sickness is a serious thing in more ways than one.  I mean you can’t go down to death’s door and ever be quite the same afterward.  I’ve been thinking about myself a great deal.  Billy, and I’m feeling pretty small.  Isn’t it queer how hard it is to learn just the simplest things about living!  Seems as though I learn everything with my elbows.”

The two young people sat in silence, Lydia watching the snowflakes settle on the already overladen boughs of the pine.  Billy watching the sensitive lines in Lydia’s face change with each passing thought.

“I’ve made up my mind,” Lydia began again, “that I’ve been poor too long, ever really to outgrow the effects of poverty.  I suppose I’d always worry about money, even if I were taken suddenly rich!  Anyhow, lots of nice people have liked me poor and I’m just not going to worry about having lovely clothes, with soft colors and—­and graceful lines, any more.  I’m going to take care of our lovely old mahogany furniture and try to make the cottage an attractive place for people with brains.  After all, the real thinkers of the country were poor—­Emerson and his circle, how simply they lived!  You see, Billy, if I clutter up my mind with furniture and clothes, I won’t have time to think.”