don't care--much. The candy is a success and Jack is going to have his
bloodstone fob."

With her arms piled full of boxes, she started down to her room. As she
opened the door a burst of music came floating out from the gymnasium
where the carol-singers were practising for the yearly service. This one
was a new carol to her. She did not know the words, but to the swinging
measures other words fitted themselves; some lines which she had read
that morning in a magazine. She sang them softly in time with the
carol-singers as she went on down the stairs:

"For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill
And come not by the far sea way, _yet come he surely will_.
Close all the roads of all the world, _love's road is open still_."




CHAPTER VI

JACK'S WATCH-FOB


Elise spent Saturday and Sunday in Washington with the Claiborne family,
and A.O. almost prayed that Jimmy would make his visit in her absence.
On her return she had so much to tell that she did not mention his name,
and A.O. hoped that he was forgotten. All Monday afternoon she went
around in a flutter of nervousness, "feeling in her bones" that Jimmy
would be there that night, and afraid that Elise would find some way in
which to carry out her threat of seeing him at all hazards. One of the