what it is! You know, I see it in your
face. Oh, Beverly, my darling, it isn't--it can't be news of Barbara?"

"Yes, Mother, it is!" cried the boy, gathering her in his strong arms.
"Can you bear a great shock, Mother--a great joyful shock?--because if
you can, Uncle George and I have something to tell you."

Marjorie waited for no more; such scenes were not for other eyes to see
or other ears to hear. With a bound, she was out of the room, and flying
across the corridor. In her flight she darted by two other figures
without even seeing them; a trembling, white-faced girl clinging
nervously to an older woman, whose face was scarcely less white than her
own. She had but one thought: to reach her room before the burst of
hysterical excitement completely overpowered her. A frantic ring at the
Carletons' bell, and then the door was thrown open, and she was clinging
to some one--presumably Hortense--crying and laughing both together.

"Oh, Hortense, Hortense," she wailed, "I've told her, and they've come!
You don't think the shock will kill her, do you?"

But it was not Hortense who answered, or who held the hysterical child
in loving, motherly arms.

"Marjorie, my dear little Marjorie, don't tremble so! Everything will be
all right, my darling, I know it will, and here are Aunt Jessie and I
come all the way from Arizona to give you a big surprise."

CHAPTER XXIV

MARJORIE HAS HER WISH

MARJORIE declared afterwards that she was sure that was the happiest
moment of her life, but at the time the joyful surprise, coming so soon
after the nervous strain of the past hour, proved almost too much for
her, and she could do nothing for some time but hold her mother tight,
and cry as if her heart would break.

"It's the one thing I've been wishing for every day, and praying for
every night since I came to New York," Marjorie said to her aunt, late
that evening, when Miss Graham was in bed, and her niece was sitting
beside her, holding her hand. "But I never dared hope it would really
happen, even when I knew Dr. Randolph had gone to Arizona. We were all
so excited about Barbara; it didn't seem as if he or Beverly would be
able to think of anything else."

"It was all Undine's doing," said Miss Jessie, smiling. She was looking
pale and tired, but very happy and Marjorie gazed at her aunt, with
shining eyes.

"You know it was Undine who told her uncle about my accident," the
invalid went on. "Dr. Randolph made an ex