I had an awful time deciding on the present. First I wanted to buy a wind-shield for his automobile but the price of wind-shields is something terrific. Fur robes, automobile clocks, a Gabriel horn all were delightful possibilities, but beyond the limits of my purse. My oldest brother Tom likes books, I always give Alec socks or handkerchiefs. The twins adore sofa-pillows for their rooms. Sofa pillows! Would Dr. Maynard like a sofa-pillow for his room? For a week I hesitated between a sofa-pillow and a hand-embroidered picture frame, but finally decided on the pillow. I knew exactly how I was going to make it. I had seen one of my friends, who attends a big boarding-school near Philadelphia, embroidering a perfectly stunning one at Thanksgiving for a college man she knew. I copied hers. Of course I realised that Dr. Maynard had been out of college for years, but he is very loyal to his Alma Mater. He told me all about the fifteenth reunion he attended last June as soon as he got home, and seemed awfully enthusiastic. So I bought and had charged to myself, two yards of the most expensive and shiniest satin in the Hilton stores, had it stamped on one side with the seal of Dr. Maynard's college, and on the other with his initials and the numerals of his class beneath. It wasn't very complimentary to Dr. Maynard I suppose, but as I worked, I wondered if I would ever embroider a sofa-pillow for a real college man. I wished this one was destined for some one who was in college now. I should have enjoyed the thought that a pillow made by my hands would be piled high on a couch in the corner of a college boy's room, beneath posters and signs and flags, and that college men would lean up against it and play banjos and guitars. I wished I had half an excuse for making a sofa-pillow for Mr. Blanchard. Dr. Maynard graduated perfect ages ago, in the class of '90--three years before the World's Fair in Chicago, which is one of my earliest recollections. The pillow that I copied mine from has on it a big '09, and Mr. Blanchard is a member of the class of '06. I had only to turn my pillow upside down and it would have been perfect for Mr. Blanchard. After I had finished the embroidery, I bought the best down-pillow for the thing that I could find--for I wasn't going to skimp on Dr. Maynard's Christmas present, after all his generosity--and also a heavy black silk cord to go around the edge. I must confess when it was all done--the black letters standing up so that they cast a shadow on the red satin, and the surface as round and full as a raised biscuit--I must confess it was perfectly lovely. I think Mr. Blanchard would have liked it very much. I wrapped it up very carefully in tissue paper, over that a layer of brown paper held together by pins, and put it well out of sight on my closet shelf. I was determined that Ruth shouldn't see it.