"You've done pretty well this year," smiled Jane. "You haven't committed a single crime, so far, along that line."
"Shh!" Judith warned. "Praise is fatal. I'll surely do something now to offset it. I'm on the verge. Only yesterday noon I laid my little leather purse on my wash stand. After classes I met Mary Ashton on the campus and invited her to go to the drugstore with me to have hot chocolate. When I went to pay for it, I took my little silver soap dish out of my coat pocket. I'd grabbed it up and stuffed it in there instead of my purse. You can imagine how silly I felt! Mary had to pay for our chocolate. So I know that I'm on the verge. This Christmas rush has gone to my head. I'm going to make you censor every last package I send. I'm not to be trusted," Judith ended with a deep sigh.
"I'll keep my eye on you," promised Jane, much amused at the affair of the soap dish.
"Thank you; thank you!" Judith responded with exaggerated gratitude. "Now I must leave you. I promised Mrs. Weatherbee to go to her room before dinner. She just finished a perfectly darling white silk sweater she's been knitting for her niece. It has a pale blue collar and it's a dream. She wants to try it on me. I am about the same build as her niece."
With this Judith departed, leaving Jane in rapt contemplation of her Christmas list. She was well satisfied with the selection of gifts she purposed to lay on the altar of friendship. She hoped she had forgotten no one. She decided to write at once to her Aunt Mary, who was already in New York, and enclose a list of the articles she wished her aunt to purchase for her.
Judith presently returned to dwell animatedly on the beauties of the silk sweater.
"It's the sweetest thing ever," she glowed. "It's awfully becoming to me. It's all finished and after dinner I'm going to take it out to mail for Mrs. Weatherbee. I told her I didn't know whether I could be trusted with it or not. I might run away with it."
"Are you going to take it to the postoffice?" asked Jane. "If you are I have a letter I wish you'd mail there for me. I'd go with you but I have a frightfully long translation in French prose for to-morrow. I can't spare the time."
"Oh, I'm only going as far as the package box at the east end of the campus. Mrs. Weatherbee's going to weigh and stamp the package here and send it special delivery instead of registering it."
"Then you can drop my letter in the post box. That is, if I finish it before the dinner gong rings."