He began to unwind the ribbons of white cloth, the stringed remnants of the surplice. "Gracious Peter! It's the surplus! What will Amarilly say--and Lily Rose? It's only fit fer carpet rags now. Well, if this ain't the end of the surplus after all it has went through! I wonder what bossy wanted of it? Thought jest cause she was a cow, she must be a cow ketcher, I suppose." Great was the joy of the Jenkinses at the restoration of the cow, but there was grievous lament from Amarilly for the fate of the precious garment. "It was our friend--our friend in need!" she mourned. "I'm so glad we hev a picter of it," said Lily Rose, gazing fondly at the photograph of the Boarder in the saintly robes. "I'll go and tell Miss King," said Amarilly the next morning. "She said she felt that the surplice would come to some tragic end." "It was a fitting fate for so mysterious a garment," commented Colette. "You couldn't expect any ordinary, common-place ending for the surplice. After officiating at funerals, weddings, shop-windows, theatres, pawnshops, and bishops' dwellings, it could never have simply worn out, or died of old age." "I don't see," meditated Amarilly, "what possessed the cow. She's been so gentle always, and then to fly to pieces that way, and riddle the surplice to bits! It was lucky there was nothing else on the line." "It's very simple," said Colette. "I suppose she wanted to go to the train. Maybe she expected to meet a friend. And as nearly everyone else had worn the surplice on special occasions, she thought she could do the same; only, you see, never having been to church she didn't quite know how to put it on, and I suppose got mad at it because it didn't fit her and gave vent to her anger by trampling on it." Amarilly's doleful little face showed no appreciation of this conceit. "Don't look so glum, Amarilly. I have something to show you that will please you." She opened a desk and took a thick, white square envelope from it, and handed it to the little girl. Wonderingly Amarilly opened it and took out a folded, engraved sheet of thick paper. She read eagerly, and two little spots of pink came into her cheeks. "Oh, oh!" she cried, looking up with shining eyes, which in another moment glistened through tears. "Why, Amarilly, aren't you glad that I am going to be--" "Mrs. St. John?" smiled Amarilly. "I think it's beautiful. And," anxiously, "you will surely be good to--him?" "Yes," replied Colette softly "I will be good--very good--to St. John. Don't fear, Amarilly." A card had fallen from the envelope. Amarilly picked it up and read: "To be presented at the church." "What's that?" she asked curiously.