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CHAPTER III A NEW FRIEND Although some of the applications which Mary sent out did not have as far to travel as the first one, she did not count on hearing from any of them within two weeks. However, it was to no fortnight of patient waiting that she settled' down. She threw herself into such an orgy of preparations for leaving home, that the days flew around like the vheels of a squirrel cage. She could not afford any new clothes, but everything in her wardrobe was rejuvenated as far as possible, and a number of things entirely remodelled. One by one they were folded away in her trunk until everything was so shipshape that she could have finished packing at an hour's notice. Then she insisted on giving some freshening touches to her mother's winter outfit, and on beginning a set of shirts for Norman, saying that she wanted to finish all the work she possibly could before leaving borne. Mrs. Ware used to wonder sometimes at her boundless energy. She would whirl through the housework, help prepare the meals, do a morning's ironing, run the sewing machine all afternoon, and then often, after supper, challenge Norman to some such thing as a bonfire race, to see which could rake up the greatest pile of autumn leaves in the yard, by moonlight. These days of waiting were filled with a queer sense of expectancy, as the air is sometimes charged with electric currents before a storm. No matter what she did or what she thought about, it was always with the sense of something exciting about to happen. The feeling exhilarated her, deepened the glow in her face, the happy eagerness in her eyes, until every one around her felt the contagion of her high hopefulness. " I don't know what it isyou're always looking- so pleased over," the old postmaster said to her one day, " but ...