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“And what do you say?” said that lady to Alanna, as the radiant little girl went back to her chair.

Whereupon Alanna breathed a bashful “Thank you, Dad,” into the ruffled yoke of her frock, and the matter was settled.

The next day she trotted beside her father to Paul’s big furniture store, and after long hesitation selected a little desk of shining brass and dull oak.

“Now,” said her father, when they were back in his office, and Teresa and Mrs. Costello were eager for the matinee, “here’s your book of numbers, Alanna. And here, I’ll tie a pencil and a string to it. Don’t lose it. I’ve given you two hundred numbers at a quarter each, and mind the minute any one pays for one, you put their name down on the same line!”

“Oo,–oo!” said Alanna in pride. “Two hundred! That’s lots of money, isn’t it, Dad? That’s eleven or fourteen dollars, isn’t it, Dad?”

“That’s fifty dollars, goose!” said her father making a dot with the pencil on the tip of her upturned little nose.

“Oo!” said Teresa, awed. Hatted, furred, and muffed, she leaned on her father’s shoulder.

“Oo–Dad!” whispered Alanna, with scarlet cheeks.

“So NOW!” said her mother, with a little nod of encouragement and warning. “Put it right in your muff, lovey. Don’t lose it. Dan or Jim will help you count your money, and keep things straight.”

“And to begin with, we’ll all take a chance!” said the mayor, bringing his fat palm, full of silver, up from his pocket. “How old are you, Mommie?”

“I’m thirty-seven,–all but, as well you know, Frank!” said his wife, promptly.

“Thirty-six AND thirty-seven for you, then!” He wrote her name opposite both numbers. “And here’s the mayor on the same page,–forty-four! And twelve for Tessie, and eight for this highbinder on my knee, here! And now we’ll have one for little Gertie!”

Gertrude Costello was not yet three months old, her mother said.

“Well, she can have number one, anyway!” said the mayor. “You make a rejooced rate for one family, I understand, Miss Costello?”

“I DON’T!” chuckled Alanna, locking her thin little arms about his neck, and digging her chin into his eye. So he gave her full price, and she went off with her mother in a state of great content, between rows and rows of coffins, and cases of plumes, and handles and rosettes, and designs for monuments.

“Mrs. Church will want some chances, won’t she, mother?” she said suddenly.

“Let Mrs. Church alone, darlin’,” advised Mrs. Costello. “She’s not a Catholic, and there’s plenty to take chances without her!”

Alanna reluctantly assented; but she need not have worried. Mrs. Church voluntarily took many chances, and became very enthusiastic about the desk.

She was a pretty, clever young woman, of whom all the Costellos were very fond. She lived with a very young husband, and a very new baby, in a tiny cottage near the big Irish family, and pleased Mrs. Costello by asking her advice on all domestic matters and taking it. She made the Costello children welcome at all hours in her tiny, shining kitchen, or sunny little dining-room. She made them candy and told them stories. She was a minister’s daughter, and wise in many delightful, girlish, friendly ways.

And in return Mrs. Costello did her many a kindly act, and sent her almost daily presents in the most natural manner imaginable.

But Mrs. Church made Alanna very unhappy about the raffled desk. It so chanced that it matched exactly the other furniture in Mrs. Church’s rather bare little drawing-room, and this made her eager to win it. Alanna, at eight, long familiar with raffles and their ways, realized what a very small chance Mrs. Church stood of getting the desk. It distressed her very much to notice that lady’s growing certainty of success.

She took chance after chance. And with every chance she warned Alanna of the dreadful results of her not winning, and Alanna, with a worried line between her eyes, protested her helplessness afresh.