And Letitia burst into a sudden storm of tears. For a moment her sister sat still, looking at her in blank amazement. Then she felt a pang of feminine sympathy. So Letitia did care for him. Poor Tishy! "There, don't cry!" she said, patting her shoulder. "You never can tell about these things. John may not care a button for this girl, or have the least intention of marrying her. You're always seeing the dark side of things." But her form of consolation was not well chosen. Letitia threw off the hand and raised her disfigured face. "John may be selfish and mean and all that, and I've no doubt he is; but he's not mean enough, he's not contemptible enough, to do what you think he's doing. I'll not believe that of him. I'd despise him if I thought so; I'd hate him!" Her tears burst forth afresh, and she hid her face in her hands. Mrs. Gault was nonplussed. She looked at her sister's shaken shoulders and bowed head with an uncomprehending but pitying eye. Then, as Letitia's sobs diminished, she said gloomily: "How much jam did you buy?" "Three dozen glasses," came the muffled answer. "Good gracious!"--raising her eyes toward the ceiling in an access of horror. "What did you get so much for? Two or three would have done. We'll not get through that by Christmas." There was no answer made to this, and after a moment or two of silence Mrs. Gault recommenced, in a brisk and unemotional tone: "I don't understand you at all, Tishy; but I do know that if you don't stop crying you'll look a perfect fright at dinner, and everybody will be wondering what's the matter with you." This appeal to her pride had a good effect upon Letitia. She struggled with her tears and finally subdued them. But her flushed and swollen countenance needed much attention, and when Mrs. Gault left the room she carried with her a picture of her sister sitting before the mirror solicitously dabbing at her eyelids with a powder-puff. When she appeared all traces of her previous distress seemed successfully obliterated. It remained for the eye of love to penetrate the restorative processes with which she had doctored her telltale countenance. Near the end of dinner Tod McCormick, who sat beside her, leaned toward her and said, in the low tone of long-established friendship: "What's the matter, Tishy? You look sort of bunged up." Letitia said nothing was the matter--why? The small, red-rimmed eyes of Tod passed over her face, lingering with the solicitude of affection upon the delicately pink eyelids and nostrils. "You look as if you'd been crying," he said. "Oh, what a silly idea!" answered Letitia, with a laugh that would have been quite successful on the stage, but could not deceive the enamoured Tod; "I have a cold." "It's not that you don't look as pretty as usual. No matter what you did, you'd always be out o' sight. But it just gives me the willies to think of your being down on your luck. Honest--I can't stand it."