but with a comfortable well-fed look. She alternately washed herself
and washed her offspring. There were four of them, a rollicking lot
not easy to keep in order.

"Aren't they--ripping?" Madge said to Mary.

"They always come up on the step about this time in the afternoon; they
are waiting for the men to bring the milk to the dairy."

A little later Madge saw the men coming--two of them, with the foaming
pails. The mother cat rose and went to meet them. Her tail was
straight up and the kittens danced after her.

"They will get a big dish of it, and then they will go around to the
kitchen door to wait for supper and the table scraps. And after that
Bessie will coax the kittens out to the barn and go hunting for the
night."

"Is that her name--Bessie?"

"Yes; there has always been a Bessie-cat here. And we cling to old
customs."

"I like old customs," said Madge, "and old houses."

After a little she asked, "Who makes the butter?"

"I do. It's great fun."

"Oh, when I am well, may I help?"

"You----?" Mary came over and stood looking down at her; "of course
you may help. But perhaps you wouldn't like it."

"I am sure I should. And I don't think I am going to get well very
soon----"

Mary was solicitous. "Why not?"

"I don't want to get well. I want to stay here. I think this place
is--heavenly."

Mary laughed. "It is just a plain farmhouse. If you want the show
places you should go to Huntersfield and King's Crest----"

"I want just this. Do you know I am almost afraid to go to sleep for
fear I shall wake up and find it a--dream----"

A little later, she asked, "Are those apples in the orchard ripe?"

"Yes."

"May I have one?"

"The doctor may not want you to have it," said her anxious nurse.

"Just to hold in my hand," begged Madge.

So Mary picked a golden apple, and when the doctor came after dark, he
found the room in all the dimness of shaded lamplight, and the golden
girl asleep with that golden globe in her hand.

Up-stairs the mulatto girl, Daisy, was putting Fiddle-dee-dee to sleep.

"You be good, and Daisy gwine tell you a story."

Fiddle liked songs better. "Sing 'Jack-Sam-bye.'"

Daisy, without her corsets and in disreputable slippers, settled
herself to an hour of ease. She had the negro's love of the white
child, and a sensuous appreciation of the pleasant twilight, the
bed-time song, the rhythm of the rocking-chair.

"Well, you lissen," she said, and