sitting-room door, "and I was listening for you."

"I went right up-stairs to change my things," said Mary Alice, hoping
that would end the matter.

"That's what I knew you must have done when it got to be six o'clock
and I didn't hear you. I could hardly wait for you to come. I've such
a surprise for you."

Mary Alice could hardly believe her ears. "A surprise?" she echoed,
incredulously.

"Yes. I got a letter this afternoon from your dear godmother."

"Oh!" Mary Alice's tone said plainly: Is that all? She had her own
opinion of her godmother, whom she had not seen since she was a small
child, and it was not an enthusiastic one. Her name--which she
hated--was her godmother's name. And aside from that, all she had ever
got from her godmother was an occasional letter and, on Christmas and
birthdays, a handkerchief or turnover collar or some other such trifle
as could come in an envelope from Europe where her godmother lived.

Even in the matter of a godmother, it seemed, it was Mary Alice's luck
to have one without any of the fairy powers. For although Mary Alice's
mother had dearly loved, in her girlhood, that friend for whom she had
called her first baby, she had always to admit, to Mary Alice's eager
questioning, that the friend was neither beautiful nor rich nor gifted.
She was a "spinster person" and years ago some well-to-do friend had
taken her abroad for company. And there she had stayed; while the
friend of her girlhood, whose baby was called for her, heard from her