When she had considered sizes and prices for awhile she took out her
bank book and Christmas list and began comparing them anxiously. Betty,
coming into the room presently, found her so absorbed in her task that
she did not notice the open letter Betty carried, and the gay samples of
chiffon and silk fluttering from the envelope. She looked up with a
little puckered smile as Betty drew a chair to the opposite side of the
table, asking as she seated herself, "What's the matter? You seem to be
in some difficulty."

"It's just the same old wolf at the door," said Mary, soberly. "I have
enough for this term's expenses, all the necessary things, but there's
nothing for the extras. There isn't a single person I can cut off my
Christmas list. I've put down what I've decided to make for each one,
and what the bare materials will cost, and although I've added it up and
added it down, it always comes out the same; nothing left to get the
ring with."

She sat jabbing her pencil into the paper for a moment. "I wish there
were ways to earn money here as there are at some schools. There are so
many things I need it for. They'll expect me to contribute something to
the mock Christmas tree fund, and I want to get Jack something nice. I
couldn't take his own money to buy him a present even if there were
enough, which there isn't. I've already made him everything I know how
to make, that he can use, and men don't care for things they can't use,
but that are just pretty, as girls do. Just look what a beauty bright of
a watch-fob I've found in this catalogue."

She turned the pages eagerly. "It is a bloodstone. The very thing for
Jack, for his birthday is in March, too, and it is such a dark,
unpretentious stone that he would like it. _But_--it costs eight