Quite the contrary, Christmas had not reduced Marian to any such beatific state. She accepted it as a mere matter of course, and spent it in Buffalo, as the guest of Maizie Gilbert. Privately, she wished it over and done with. For once, she was impatient to return to Wellington, there to further a certain enterprise of her own from which she expected to gain decided results. CHAPTER XXIV THE LISTENER Returned to Wellington, Jane and Judith both agreed that in spite of their holiday fun, each had missed the other dreadfully. They had plenty to talk about and much to show each other in the way of beautiful gifts which had fallen to their lot. Judith was jubilant over the acquisition of a knitted white silk sweater, which she assured Jane was an exact counterpart of the one Mrs. Weatherbee had knitted for her niece. "My Aunt Jennie made it for me," she explained, as she proudly exhibited it to Jane. "I bought the silk and she did the work. I told her about the one Mrs. Weatherbee made for her niece and dandy Aunt Jennie offered to knit one for me like it. Wasn't that nice in her? I'm going to show it to the girls and then put it away until Spring. It will be sweet with a white wash satin skirt. I'm going to have some made just to wear with it. Let's give a spread, Jane, to the crowd. Then we can show them our Christmas presents. It will give you a chance, too, to get that great secret idea of yours off your mind. You see I haven't forgotten about it." Jane smilingly agreed that it would be a good opportunity and the spread was accordingly planned for the next evening. Christine, Barbara, Dorothy, Norma, Alicia, Adrienne, Ethel and Mary Ashton were the chosen few to be invited. It was not until the little feast provided by Judith and Jane had been eaten and the ten girls still sat about the makeshift banqueting board, that Jane, urged by Judith to "Speak up, Janie," began rather diffidently to speak of her cherished new idea. "I don't know whether you'll agree with me or not," she said. "If you don't, please say so frankly, because if we should decide to do what I'm going to propose we'll all have to be united in thinking it a good idea. "It's like this," she continued. "We all spend a good deal of money on luncheons and dinners and spreads. We feel, of course, that we have a perfect right to do as we please with our allowance checks. So we have. Still, when one stops to think about quite a number of girls at Wellington who are straining every nerve to put themselves through college, it seems a little bit selfish to spend so much on one's own pleasures.