wn for the season?" Janetta
asked.

Margaret shook her head. "It was so hot and noisy," she murmured. "Papa
said the close rooms spoiled my complexion, and I am sure they spoiled
my temper!" She smiled bewitchingly as she spoke.

She was charmingly dressed in cream-colored muslin, with a soft
silk sash of some nondescript pink hue tied round her waist, and a
bunch of roses at her throat to match the Paris flowers in her
broad-brimmed, slightly tilted, picturesque straw hat. A wrap for the
carriage-fawn-colored, with silk-lining of rose-pink toned by an
under-tint of grey--carried out the scheme of color suggested by her
dress, and suited her fair complexion admirably. She had thrown this
wrap over the back of a chair and removed her hat, so that Janetta might
see whether she was altered or not.

"You are just a trifle paler," Janetta confessed.

As a matter of fact there were some tired lines under Margaret's eyes,
and a distinct waning of the fresh faint bloom upon her cheek--changes
which made of her less the school girl than the woman of the world. And
yet, to Janetta's thinking, she was more beautiful than ever, for she
was acquiring a little of the dignity given by experience without losing
the simple tranquillity of the exquisite child.

"I am a little tired," Margaret said. "One sees so much--one goes to so
many places. I sighed for Helmsley Court, and dear mamma brought me
home."

At this moment a crash, as of some falling body, resounded through the
house, followed by a clatter of breaking crockery, and the cries of
children. Janetta started up, with changing color, and apologized to her
guest.

"Dear Margaret, will you excuse me for a moment? I am afraid that one of
the children must have fallen. I will be back in a minute or two."

"Go, dear, by all means," said Margaret, placidly. "I know how necessary
you are."

Janetta ran off, being desperately afraid that Mrs. Colwyn had been the
cause of this commotion. But here she was mistaken. Mrs. Colwyn was safe
in her room, but Ph[oe]be, the charity orphan, had been met, while
ascending the kitchen stair with the tea-tray in her hands, by a raid of
nursery people--Tiny and Curly and Julian Brand, to wit--had been
accidentally knocked down, had broken the best tea-set and dislocated
her own collar-bone; while Julian's hand was severely cut and Curly's
right eye was black and blue. Tiny had fortunately escaped without
injury, and it was she, therefore, w