when a falling flake brushed her face. "After all these years of
orange-blossoms and summer sun at Christmas, how good it seems to have
real old Santa Claus weather! I can almost see the reindeer and smell
the striped peppermint and pop-corn. And oh, _oh_! look at that
shop-window. It is positively dazzling! And the racket--" she put her
hands over her ears an instant. "I feel that I've never really heard a
loud noise till now."

Joyce laughed indulgently, and stopped with her whenever she wanted to
gaze in at some particularly attractive show window. When they reached
the flat, Mary still kept near her, "tagging after her," as she would
have expressed it in her earlier days, so much like the little sister of
that time, that Joyce still failed to see how much she had changed
during their separation.

"You see it's just like a doll-house," Joyce said as she led them
through the tiny rooms on a tour of inspection. "All except the studio.
We had a partition taken out and two rooms thrown together for that. Now
the company will have to go in there and entertain themselves while I
put the finishing touches to the dinner. The kitchenette will only hold
one at a time."

Betty and Phil obediently went into the studio to renew their
acquaintance of two years before, begun at Eugenia's wedding, and
wandered around the room looking at the various specimen's of Joyce's
handicraft pinned about on the walls. One of the first pauses was before
a sketch of Lloyd, done from memory, a little wash drawing of her. Mary,
standing in the doorway, heard Phil say, "Tell me about her, Miss Betty.
She writes so seldom that I can only imagine her conquests."