Wanted-A Match Maker Part 11

"Oh, will you, Swot?" she eagerly demanded. "It's the parcel in tissue-paper on my desk over there."

The waif rose to his feet and trotted to the place indicated. He gave a quick glance back at Miss Durant, and seeing that she was leaning over a bundle, he softly unfolded the tissue-paper, slipped something from his newly possessed breast pocket into the handkerchief-case, and refolded the paper. He crossed the room to where the doctor was standing, and handed him the parcel, with the remark, "Dat's for youse, from Miss Constance an'

me, doc." Then scurrying back to the side of the girl, he confided to her, "Ise guv de doc a present, too."

"What was it?" asked Constance, still not looking up.

"Go an' ask 'im," chuckled Swot.

Turned away as she might be, she was not unconscious of the doctor's movements, and she was somewhat puzzled when, instead of coming to her with thanks, he crossed the room to a bay-window, where he was hidden by the tree from both of them. From that point he still further astonished her by the request,--

"Can you--will you please come here for a moment, Miss Durant?"

Constance rose and walked to where he stood. "I hope you like my gift?"

she asked.

"You could have given me nothing I have so wanted--nothing I shall treasure more," said the man, speaking low and fervently. "But did you realise what this would mean to me?" As he spoke, he raised his hand, and Constance saw, not the handkerchief-case, but a photograph of herself.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Where--I didn't--that was a picture I gave to Swot. The case is my gift,"

The doctor's hand dropped, and all the hope and fire went from his eyes.

"I beg your pardon for being so foolish, Miss Durant. I--I lost my senses for a moment--or I would have known that you never--that the other was your gift." He stooped to pick it up from the floor where he had dropped it. "Thank you very deeply for your kindness, and--and try to forget my folly."

"I--I--couldn't understand why Swot suddenly--why he--I never dreamed of his doing it," faltered the girl.

"His and my knowledge of social conventions are about on a par," responded the man, with a set look to his mouth. "Shall I give it back to him or to you?"

Constance drew a deep breath. "It wasn't--my--gift--but--but--I don't mind your keeping it if you wish."

"You mean--?" cried Dr. Armstrong, incredulously.

"Oh," said the girl, hurriedly, "isn't that enough, now? Please, oh, please--wait--for a little."

The doctor caught her hand and kissed it. "Till death, if you ask it!" he said.

Five minutes later Swot abstracted himself sufficiently from his gifts to peep around the tree and ecstatically inquire,--

"Say, oin't dis de doisiest Christmas dat ever wuz?"

"Yes," echoed the two in the bay-window.

"Did youse like me present, doc?"

"Yes," reiterated the doctor, with something in his voice that gave the word tenfold meaning.

"Ise tought youse 'ud freeze to it, an' it wuzn't no sorter good to me."

Constance laughed happily. "Still, I'm very glad I gave it to you, Swot,"

she said, with a glance of the eyes, half shy and half arch, at the man beside her.

"Did youse like Miss Constance's present too, doc?"

"Yes," replied the doctor, "especially the one you haven't seen, Swot."

"Wot wuz dat?"

"A something called hope--which is the finest thing in the world."

"No. There is one thing better," said Miss Durant.

"What is it?"

"Love!" whispered Constance, softly.

***FINIS***