"Ye don't mean it?" gasped Marty.
"But I do mean it. Why not? Do you suppose the old gentleman comes into the reading-room without being interested in it?"
"Say!" drawled her cousin. "I'll be the goat all right, all right!"
Janice was indeed cultivating the old Elder's acquaintance. She would not have done it to benefit herself in any way; but to help the library——
"You young folks need a balance wheel," Elder Concannon once said to Janice. "Youthful enthusiasm is all very well; but where's your balance?"
"Then why don't you come in with us and supply the balance?" she rejoined, briskly. "Goodness knows, Elder, we'd be glad to have you!"
Then came a red-letter day for Janice Day. She had almost lost hope of getting her "heart's desire"—the little motor car that Daddy had spoken of. Although his letters had been particularly cheerful of late, he had said nothing more about his promise.
Marty brought her home a thick letter from the post office and gave it to her at the dinner table. When she eagerly slit the flap of the envelope and pulled out the contents, there was flirted out upon the tablecloth a queer-looking certificate.
"Hullo! what's this?" demanded Marty, with all the impudence of a boy.
"Put that down, Marty," commanded his mother.