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Show I His Last I I Request EVEN the little old basement dining din-ing room had put on quite a festive appearance Christmas morning. It was rather cold, and the furnace was In its usual state of coy reserve, but Farley had stuck holly and evergreen around the oil paintings of garnished fish and "Highland "High-land Cattle," and each table had a brave sprig of mistletoe tied with crimson crim-son and green ribbon laid beside each plate. That was Beth's special offer ing. 1 As each member of the household I came In the greetings were hearty and . quite satisfactory, even to Beth. She had not thought the experiment would i bring out even that much fellowship and good will from the silent, self-absorbed crowd at Mrs. Forbes'. She put the prettiest bunch of all and a card of Christmas cheer beside Mr. Benchley'3 plate. Toor, grouchy old Scotchman, nobody ever had a good word for him. In all the months that she had been an inmate of the Forbes domicile she couldn't remember that anyone had ever given him even a pleasant greeting. He came downstairs down-stairs to breakfast late and always grumbling, grumbled at his food, which Carrie, the colored maid, slid across the table at him, grumbled at the furnace fur-nace and weather and the mailman, at the boarders and Mrs. Forbes and life in general. But Beth liked him best of all. That morning -she had found outside her door a box of fresh violets and a book she had been wishing for inscribed from her sincere friend, Alan Farley. It was the book more than the inscription inscrip-tion that showed the thoughts of the giver, for it was named "The Well Beloved." Be-loved." As Beth glanced through it she had smiled, remembering a verse 'that Alan liked to repeat from Mrs. Browning : What shall I give to ray beloved? A little faith all undisproved. That was what he gave to her, only not In small measure, in full rich measure, meas-ure, all his heart's faith and love, asking ask-ing her to believe in him and be patient pa-tient for his success. And she could not tell him that she didn't give a rap ' for his success; that she would rather a hundred times over have been married mar-ried to him, even if she had kept on with her own work, and they had been running mates together. So between1 them was the promise of marriage and to the boarding house at large he was "there sincere friend." "The old man's sick in bed," said Carrie briskly, as she swept the crumbs from Beth's place. "He ain't coming down. He's groaning fearful." |