rising. "To-
morrow will you take me to your garden? I should like to see
your daisies growing."

After this Madge and Madelon became great friends; and when
the former was at her lessons, there was a nurseryfull of
younger children to pet and play with, if Madelon felt so
disposed. Sometimes in the morning, when she was sitting alone
in the drawing-room, little feet would go scampering along the
floor upstairs, shrill little voices would make themselves
heard from above, and then Madelon, throwing down book or
work, would run up to the big nursery, where, whilst the two
elder children were in the school-room with their mother,
three round, rosy children kept up a perpetual uproar. It was
quite a new sensation to our lonely Madelon to have these
small things to caress, and romp with, and fondle, and she
felt that it was a moment of triumph when they had learnt to
greet her entrance with a shout of joy. Down on the floor she
would go, and be surrounded in a moment with petitions for a
game, a story, a ride.

Graham came up one day in the midst of a most uproarious romp.
"Nurse," he said, putting his head in at the door, "I do wish
you would keep these children quiet--" and stopped as suddenly
as the noise had stopped at his appearance. Madelon, all
blushing and confused, was standing with the youngest boy
riding on her back, whilst the little girls, Lina and Kate,
were holding on to her skirts behind; they had pulled down all
her hair, and it was hanging in loose waves over her
shoulders.

"I beg your pardon, Madelon," said Graham, coming in, and
smiling at her confusion. "I had no idea that you were here,
and the instigator of all this uproar; where is nurse? I shall
have to ask her to keep you all in order together."

"Nurse has gone downstairs to do some ironing," says Lina.
"Oh, Uncle Horace, we were having such fun with Cousin
Madelon."

"Uncle Horace, will you give me a ride? You give better rides
than Cousin Madelon," cries Jack, slipping down on to the
ground.

"Uncle Horace, Cousin Madelon has been telling us about South
America, and we have been hunting buffaloes."

"I am sorry," says Madelon; "I quite forgot how busy you are,
Monsieur Horace, and that you could hear all our noise. We
will be quieter for the future, and not hunt buffaloes just
over your head."

He looked at her without answering; there was a flush on her
pale cheeks under the shadow of the heavy waves of hair, a
smile in her e