"what in the world do you
mean, Elsie?"

Elsie shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, I guess you know," she said, sarcastically, and walked out of the
room, leaving Marjorie very much puzzled, and more than a little
uncomfortable.

Mrs. Randolph did not recover from her cold as quickly as she had hoped,
and she was confined to the house for nearly a week. Her eyes, too,
continued troublesome, and reading and sewing were strictly forbidden.
So it came to be quite a natural thing that Marjorie should spend an
hour every afternoon in the Randolphs' apartment, and the girl grew to
look forward to those hours as the pleasantest of the whole day.

"You remind me more of my little Barbara every day," Mrs. Randolph said
to her once, and Marjorie felt that she had received a great compliment.
She was growing to feel a deep interest in this Barbara, whose tragic
death had cast such a shadow of sorrow over her mother's life, but she
had too much tact, and was too kind-hearted, to show undue curiosity on
a painful subject, and so, though there were many questions she would
have liked to ask about this unknown Barbara, she refrained from asking
one, and was fain to content herself with the stray bits of information
that Mrs. Randolph or Beverly occasionally let fall.

When Mrs. Randolph was well again Marjorie greatly missed the daily
chat, and pleasant hour of reading aloud. The drives with Aunt Julia,
shut up in the brougham, with only one window open, proved a most
unsatisfactory substitute, but her aunt was very kind, and showed so
much real interest in the Christmas box she was preparing for her dear
ones at home that Marjorie reproached herself bitterly for not finding
Aunt Julia's society as agreeable as Mrs. Randolph's. But Christmas was
drawing near, and there were times when Marjorie fought desperately
against the homesickness, which seemed almost greater than she could
bear.

To add to everything else, she caught a feverish cold, and Mrs.
Carleton, who was always nervous about illness, insisted on her
remaining in the house; a state of affairs hitherto unknown to healthy
Marjorie, who had never in her life spent a day in bed.

It was on the second afternoon of headache and sore throat that Mrs.
Randolph came to the rescue. Marjorie had come to the end of her
resources. She had read till her eyes ached, and sewed on Christmas
presents until she felt that she couldn't take another stitch. The
longing for fresh air and exe