in late Autumn.  They also gathered branches of feathery wild clematis, which, after the petals had fallen, resembled nothing so much as a cluster of apple seeds, each seed tipped with what appeared like a tiny osprey feather.  From the woods near the farm they gathered quantities of trailing ground pine and rainbow-tinted leaves from the numerous brilliant scarlet and yellow maples, which appeared brighter in contrast to the sober-hued trees of shellbark, oak and chestnut.

[Illustration:  POLLY SCHMIDT.]

The wedding gifts sent to Mary were odd, useful and numerous.  The Campfire Girls, to whom she became endeared, gave her a “Kitchen Shower,” consisting of a clothes basket (woven by an old basketmaker from the willows growing not far distant), filled to overflowing with everything imaginable that could possibly be useful to a young housekeeper, from the half dozen neatly-hemmed linen, blue ribbon tied, dish clothes, to really handsome embroidered articles from the girls to whom she had given instructions in embroidery during the past summer.

Sibylla’s wedding present to Mary was the work of her own strong, willing hands, and was as odd and original as useful.  ’Twas a “door mat” made from corn husks, braided into a rope, then sewed round and round and formed into an oval mat.  Mary laughingly told Sibylla she thought when ’twas placed on her kitchen doorstep she’d ask every one to please step over it, as it was too pretty to be trod on, which greatly pleased the young girl, who had spent many hours of loving thought and labor on the simple, inexpensive gift.

Mary received from Professor Schmidt a small but excellent copy of one of the world’s most famous pictures, “The Night Watch,” painted by Rembrandt, in 1642.

“My dear,” said the old Professor, “I saw what was said to be the original of this painting, the property of Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.  It was in a small, separate building.  The size of the picture was fifteen feet by twenty feet.  It is the largest and best known of Rembrandt’s works.  It acquired the wrong title of ‘Night Watch’ in a period when, owing to the numerous coats of varnish and the effect of smoke and dust, it had gotten so dark in appearance that only the most lucid parts could be discerned.  Nowadays, nobody doubts that the light falling from the left on the boisterous company is that of the sun.  The musketeers are remarching out of the high archway of their hall, crossing the street in front of it, and going up a bridge.  The architecture of the building is a product of Rembrandt’s imagination.  The steps, also, which we see the men descending, were put there simply to make those at the back show out above those in the front ranks.  The march out was to be above all a portrait group.  Sixteen persons had each paid their contributions, a hundred guilders on the average, to have their likenesses transmitted to posterity, and every one of them was therefore to be fully visible.”