to Joyce as if something unusual were afloat. Everybody in the house was
acting strangely.

Madame and Cousin Kate did not come home to lunch. She had been told
that she must not go to see Jules until afternoon, and the doors of the
room where the Christmas tree was kept had all been carefully locked.
She thought that the morning never would pass. It was nearly three
o'clock when she started over to see Jules. To her great surprise, as
she ran lightly up the stairs to his room, she saw her Cousin Kate
hurrying across the upper hall, with a pile of rose-colored silk
curtains in her arms.

Jules tried to raise himself up in bed as Joyce entered, forgetting all
about his broken leg in his eagerness to tell the news. "Oh, what do you
think!" he cried. "They said that I might be the one to tell you. She
_is_ Uncle Martin's sister, the old woman you told about yesterday, and
he is going to bring her home to-morrow."

Joyce sank into a chair with a little gasp at the suddenness of his
news. She had not expected this beautiful ending of her day-dreams to be
brought about so soon, although she had hoped that it would be sometime.

"How did it all happen?" she cried, with a beaming face. "Tell me about
it! Quick!"

"Yesterday afternoon madame came over soon after you left. She gave me
my wine jelly, and then went into Uncle Martin's room, and talked and
talked for the longest time. After she had gone he did not eat any
dinner, and I think that he must have sat up all night, for I heard him
walking around every time that I waked up. Very early this morning,
madame came back again, and M. Greville was with her. They drove with
Uncle Martin to the Little Sisters of the Poor. I don't know what
happened out there, only that Aunt Desire is to be brought home
to-morrow.

"Your Cousin Kate was with them when they came back, and they had
brought all sorts of things with them from Tours. She is in there now,
making Aunt Desire's room look like it did when she was a girl."

"Oh, isn't it lovely!" exclaimed Joyce. "It is better than all the
fairy tales that I have ever read or heard,--almost too good to be
true!" Just then Cousin Kate called her, and she ran across the hall.
Standing in the doorway, she looked all around the freshly furnished
room, that glowed with the same soft, warm pink that colors the heart
of a shell.

"How beautiful!" cried Joyce, glancing from the rose on the
dressing-table to the soft curtains of the windo