For a little space the wolf at the door drew in its claws, and Mary forgot her financial straits.

Early in the term Betty had divined how much the sharing of this correspondence meant to Mary.

She could not fail to see how eagerly she followed the winsome princess through her gay social season in town, rejoicing over her popularity, interested in everything she did and wore and treasuring every mention of her in the home papers.

The old Colonel sent Betty the _Courier-Journal_, and the society page was regularly turned over to Mary.

There was a corner in her scrap-book marked, "My Chum," rapidly filling with accounts of balls, dinners and house-parties at which she had been a guest.