collar of her coat, Carmencita put her hands in her pockets and made
effort to walk rapidly through the thick snow into which her feet sank
with each step. For some minutes conversation was impossible. Heads
ducked to keep out of their faces the fast-falling flakes, they
trudged along in silence until within a few doors of Mother McNeil's
house, and then Carmencita looked up.

"Do--do you ever pray, Mr. Leimberg--pray hard, I mean?"

"Pray!" The Damanarkist drew in his breath and laughed with smothered
scorn. "Pray! Why should I pray? I cut out prayer when I was a kid.
No, I don't pray."

"It's a great comfort, praying is." Carmencita's hand was taken out of
her pocket and slipped through the arm of her disillusioned friend.
"Sometimes you're just bound to pray. It's like breathing--you can't
help it. It--it just rises up. I prayed yesterday for--for something,
and it pretty near happened, but--"

"And you think your praying helped to make it happen!" Mr. Leimberg
drew Carmencita's hand farther through his arm, and his lips twisted
in contemptuous pity. "You think there is a magician up--oh,
somewhere, who makes things happen, do you? Think--"

"Yes." Carmencita's feet skipped in spite of the clogging snow. "I
think that somewhere there is Somebody who knows about everything, but
I don't think He means us to ask for anything we want just because we
want it and don't do a lick to get it. I've been praying for months
and months about my temper and stamping my foot when I get mad, and
if I remember in time and hold down the up-comings my prayers are