“Long live the Queen of us all!” cried a happy little treble from the arm-chair, and there sat Margaret Howland, too, without a sign of a Kappa Delta pin on her pink gown!
“Long live——” the rest began—but Jacquette’s voice checked them.
“Please—please listen—all of you!” she begged, with one white arm outstretched before her uncle as if barring his possible objection. “Let me tell you how it was. I haven’t done it. If I’ve ever helped anyone at all, it isn’t any credit to me—truly it isn’t. It’s—it’s Tia—and it’s Mademoiselle—it’s Louise and Bobs, and—little Mary! It’s—oh, it’s all of you!” Her voice broke suddenly, and without an instant’s warning she flew across to her little Aunt Sula, caught her in her arms, and whirling her to the doorway where the mistletoe hung thickest, kissed her again and again. The next minute they had both disappeared behind the portieres, and Jacquette was whispering,
“Tia, you’re crying! That’s why I brought you away. I saw you crying!”
“Yes, I know—but let me!” was the answer. “I love to cry—this way.”
“Now, this won’t do!” put in a third voice, and Bobs’s laughing face appeared between the curtains. “Oh!” he added, quickly, drawing back.
“It’s all right, Bobs,” whispered the tall young Queen, smiling through her tears, as she reached over Aunt Sula’s shoulder to clasp his hand. “Just go back and keep them laughing for a minute, can’t you? We—we’re having the loveliest cry you ever heard of!”
Finis.
Transcriber’s Note: