"I've given my word,", she answered. "I promise to take her."
"That's all I want," said John.
"How could you, John? How could you?" sobbed Edith. "How could you tell us—?"
"I told you nothing but the absolute truth. I meant her to be your Christmas present, but you have resigned her 'with all her works and all her pomps' to Mary."
"Ah! but if I refuse to take her from Edith?" Mary suggested.
"Then I get her," answered Dick blithely, "and she'd be safer with me. I know what you two girls are thinking of. You are going to borrow her clothes and make a Cinderella of her. They are what you care about. But I love her for herself, her useless hands, her golden hair, her lovely smile—well, no, I guess we'll cut out the smile," he corrected when Maudie, agitated by the appraising hands of the two girls, swung her head completely round and beamed impartially upon the whole assembly. "It don't look just sincere to me."
But there was no insincerity about Maudie. She was just as sweet-tempered as she looked. Uncomplainingly, she allowed herself to be despoiled of her finery and wrapped in a sheet while Mary wriggled ecstatically in the heavenly blue dress, pinned the plumed hat on her own bright head and threw the muff into a corner of the darkened drawing-room when she found that it interfered with the free expression of her gratitude to John.
And some months later when the trousseau was in progress, the once despised Christmas guest, now a member in good-standing of Mary's household, did tireless service, smilingly, in the sewing-room.