Although Reed Marshall kept his promise of coming to see Ellen, not once was she at home when he called, which he did several times. All through that holiday week there was something going on, for it seemed that the old friends outdid themselves in their efforts to give Ellen pleasure. There were teas, luncheons and theatre parties, musicales, concerts, and, if nothing else offered, there were trips to the picture galleries, so that the girl’s time was entirely taken up, and when the hour of her departure struck she knew no more what Reed looked like than if she had never seen him. Indeed it is not surprising that he passed out of her memory almost entirely when two surprising incidents took place almost at the same time.

It was at one of the studios on the day before New Year’s that Ellen noticed a pretty girl looking at her with evident interest. Music was going on; some one was singing. Ellen waited till the song was over before she whispered to Mrs. Austin: “Do you know who that girl is, the one in purple, sitting by Mrs. Everleigh? She has been staring at me as if I were a curiosity.”

“Never saw her before that I know of. We’ll find out directly, when the music is over and we have tea.”

That moment arrived before long. Mrs. Austin arose. “You stay here and I’ll go find out about the purple girl.”

She had no sooner gone than the purple girl herself came and took the chair Mrs. Austin had vacated. “Would you mind telling me your name?” she said. “I came in late, and in such a crowd of course one doesn’t wait for introductions. I am Mabel Wickham, Mrs. Everleigh’s niece.”

“I am Ellen North,” was the prompt reply.

“Not Ellen North from Marshville?” Miss Wickham leaned closer while an amused look crept into her eyes as they travelled from Ellen’s hat to her dress and then to the coat which hung over the back of a chair in front of the two. “Is that your coat?” came the abrupt question. “Oh, I beg your pardon for being so rude. I have no right to ask such questions. Did you say you lived in Marshville?”

Ellen hadn’t said so, but she answered: “Yes, I live there. Is that where you have seen me? Do you know the place?”

“Never was there in my life, but——” She was no longer able to keep back her laughter, though presently she bit her lip and tried to look politely serious. “You really must excuse me. I must seem a perfect idiot, but I keep thinking of something so funny that it makes me laugh.”

At this moment she spied a handkerchief lying on the floor, which she picked up and began to examine. Ellen meantime searched for the one she now missed. “I think that must be mine,” she said; “it fell out of my lap, I suppose.”

“I am afraid you are mistaken,” rejoined Miss Wickham. “See, it bears my initials, and, besides, has my private mark, a black dot in the corner, a very tiny one, to be sure, but there it is.”

It was Ellen’s turn to stare; then suddenly came illumination. “You are Mary West!” she cried. “I know you are, and that is why you have been looking at me so hard; it is because of the hat and dress. You recognize them, but why is your name Mabel Wickham, and how did you know about me?”

Miss Wickham was silent for a moment. “You won’t be mad if I tell you? I’ll ’fess up, though I know you will be absolutely convinced that I am the idiot I seem to be.”

“Mad? I’m only delighted that I have a chance to thank the good fairy who sent me that box and made it possible for me not to mortify my friends here when I came to visit them. Do please tell me all about it.”

“Well, it was done in the manner of a joke, I was going out of mourning, and had already given away a lot of things to perfectly ungrateful, unappreciative persons, so I thought I’d do something unusual. I packed a few things in a box to go off just anywhere, I didn’t care where. Then I thought up a nice ordinary name. Ellen seemed to please me, but Ellen—what? I stood up, shut my eyes, and turned around two or three times. When I opened them I was facing north. Ellen North, said I, a good sensible name, so I wrote that on the box. Then it occurred to me that the name of the sender would be required. I took my own initials; Mary would do for Mabel, and, as points of the compass were in order, West would do for Wickham. The next question was where to send it. I opened a map, shut my eyes again, and plumped my finger down anywhere. It happened to fall on Marshville, so there you are. I know you must think me the silliest, most fanciful person in the world, but I enjoyed the game and sent out my box into the unknown, wondering what would happen to it, and if any one would get it.”

“It is like a real Christmas fairy tale,” declared Ellen, “and a lovely one for me. I don’t see how you thought of doing that way; yes, I do, though, for I just love to use my imagination, and I am pleased to pieces to think the things came my way just as if a fairy godmother had brought them in a pumpkin-shell chariot.”

“Oh, you dear thing! I just love your saying that. I believe we are going to be friends. I don’t have many friends because so many people are stupid; at least, they think my flights of fancy are just crazy foolishness. Perhaps I am as stupid as they because it isn’t yet through my noddle how you happened to guess I was Mary West.”

“Because of the handkerchief, you see. It was such a nice fine one. I found it in the pocket of the coat and so I used it. Don’t you see?”

Miss Wickham opened her bag and produced a handkerchief exactly like the one she had picked up from the floor. “Twins!” she exclaimed. “But, oh, dear, you are minus a handkerchief if I keep this one; that will not do.”

“Please don’t bother. I had several for Christmas, beauties, from Mr. Barstow’s Christmas tree.”

“But you will need this before you can get at the others. You can borrow it.”

“I’ll be glad to, and I’ll send it to you properly laundered. Shall you be here long, or are you going back to Baltimore?”

“How do you know that Baltimore is my home?”

“It was on the box; ‘Mary West, Baltimore.’”

“Of course; I had forgotten. I shall be at Mrs. Everleigh’s for another week, and I do hope we shall meet again before you leave. May I come to Mrs. Austin’s to see you?”

“Indeed you may, though I am to be here but a couple of days longer; then, ‘back to the mines.’”

“O dear! I do want to know you better and to hear all about you——”

But here Mrs. Everleigh came up. “Time to go, Mabel,” she said. “Didn’t you girls want any tea? I saw you two talking away for dear life, as if you were old and tried friends.”

“Well, we are in a measure,” replied Mabel. “Ellen knows some intimate acquaintances of mine.” The two girls exchanged glances and laughed.

“What’s the joke?” inquired Mrs. Everleigh curiously.

“Just a little private one. You’ll take me to the Austins’ studio, won’t you, Auntie?”

“Yes, if you’ll come along now. We must be getting home.”

They made their farewells to Ellen and moved away, Mabel losing no time in making inquiries about this new acquaintance, but saying no word about the box.

Ellen, too, was prompt in hunting up Mrs. Austin and learning what she might about Mabel.

“I found out about your purple girl,” said Mrs. Austin, “though, from the way you two jabbered away like magpies, I don’t suppose there is much you haven’t learned.”

“I didn’t learn so very much,” declared Ellen, “but we found out that we have many things in common. Tell me about her, please.”

“She is a very wealthy girl, lives in Baltimore with her grandmother. Her mother died when she was but a small child, and her father a few years ago. Mrs. Everleigh is her aunt. I believe the girl is considered rather peculiar, doesn’t care for society, a grave fault in the grandmother’s eyes, who, like many Baltimoreans, prefers the social whirl and the good things of life rather than the intellectual ones. Mrs. Everleigh says her niece lives in a world of her own to which but few are admitted. You liked her, Ellen?”

“Very much, and she wants to come to see me.”

However, the girls were not destined to meet again at this time, for upon Ellen’s arrival at the studio there was a telegram for her which meant an early start for home the next morning. The telegram read: “Have had an accident. Come at once. Orinda Crump.”

It was an unhappy beginning of the new year. The lonely, wearisome railway journey full of apprehension, the regrets for the good times that the day was to have afforded, the fears for what might be looked for in the future, all these brought a nervous, overwrought girl to Marshville.

As she stepped from the train she looked around for some one to give her news of Miss Rindy, and, to her relief, saw Dr. Rowe, who came up at once. “Well, Ellen,” was his greeting, “I was watching for you. Come right with me; my car is waiting.”

“Cousin Rindy, tell me, Doctor, what has happened to her?”

“Nothing that she won’t recover from, although it makes it pretty bad for the present She fell and broke her hip yesterday morning.”

“She is at home of course. Who is with her?”

“It seemed best that she should go to the hospital, in fact she insisted upon it,—said she couldn’t afford trained nurses and all that. I took her myself.”

“But hospitals cost a lot.”

“Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.” The docto............