When bedtime came a little later, Mrs. Ware went in to Norman's room to take some extra cover. Mary lingered to pin some newspapers around her potted plants and move them away from the windows. Jack, standing in front of the fireplace, winding the clock on the mantel, saw her slip a folded paper from under her belt, and toss it into the fire with such a tragic gesture, that he knew without telling that it was the letter on which she had worked so industriously. She saw that he understood and she was grateful that he said nothing. While they were undressing, Mrs. Ware talked so happily of Joyce's return, that Mary's own glow of anticipation came back. She was not jealous of her sister's good fortune. She had never been that. She was wholly, generously glad for every good thing that had ever come into Joyce's life, and she was so thrilled with the thought of her coming home that she was sure she should lie awake all night thinking about it. But when she snuggled down under the warm covers, it was Norman's question which kept her awake. "Where do _you_ expect to come in, Mary? What are _you_ going to do?" CHAPTER V P STANDS FOR PINK What happened in the Christmas holidays which followed is best told in the letter which Mary wrote to Phil Tremont on the last day of the old year. "DEAR BEST MAN:" it began. "Mamma has asked me to write to you this time in her place, as she has succumbed to an attack of 'reunionitis.' She doesn't call it that, but we know well enough that it is nothing but the excitement and unexpectedness of having a whole family reunion which has frazzled her out so completely. She wrote you that Joyce was coming home, but none of us knew that Holland would be with her. _He_ was the surprise--Cousin Kate's Christmas gift to the family. His furlough is not due till next summer, but she said by that time Joyce would be in Paris, and the chances are that if we didn't get together now we might never again be able to; at least for years and years. "Cousin Kate is such a solitary soul herself, no relatives nearer than cousins, that she has an immense amount of sentiment for family gatherings, and that is why she gave us such a happy one. She had to go to Washington to arrange it. She has a friend at court in the shape of a senator who was once an intimate school chum of the President's. (We think he was one of her many bygone suitors. Isn't that romantic?) Among them they managed to untie enough red tape to let Holland out.