part of her family.

"Come, Graydon," she said, "we have jested long enough, and there is
no occasion for misunderstanding. I have not forgotten the past any
more than you have, nor all your unstinted kindness for years. As Mary
says, this is a family party. I'm not your sister, and embarrassment
always accompanies an unnatural relation. The common-sense thing to do
is to recognize the relation that does exist. As I intimated at first,
I see no reason why we should not be the best of friends, and then,
imitating the stiff-necked Hebrews, do what seemeth good in our eyes."

"And these are your terms, Madge?"

"As far as I have any, yes. I don't insist on anything, but warn you
that I shall follow my eyes, and consult a very wilful little will of
my own."

"Will your wilful will permit you to accept of a horse that I am
going after in the morning? Dr. Sommers told me about him, and I had
proposed to make him a peace-offering."

Madge clapped her hands with the delight of a child.

"Oh, Graydon, that's splendid of you! I've been sighing, 'My kingdom
for a horse,' ever since I came here. But he's no peace-offering. I
forgave you when I saw your headlong plunge into the lake. You went
into it like a man, while I flopped in so awkwardly that all said I
had fallen overboard."

"Shake hands, then."

She sprang up and joined hands with him in frank and cordial grasp,
saying, "It's all right now, and Mary and Henry will understand us as
well as we do ourselves."

"One condition: you will let me ride with you?"

"When you are disengaged, yes," was her arch reply, "and I'll prove
that on horseback I can be as good a comrade as a man."

"Well, if something I've dreamt of is true I never saw such acting,"
thought Henry Muir. Then he said, quietly, "Madge, how did you find
the child so surely and quickly?"

"That accounts for my awkwardness somewhat," she replied, laughing.
("How happy she looks!" he thought.) "I never took my eyes from the
spot where I had last seen the child sink, and I had to do everything
as if my head was in a vise. Don't let us talk about it any more."

"No, nor about anything else," said Mary, rising. "I'm proving a fine
nurse, and am likely to be lectured by the doctor to-morrow. You men
must walk. Here is Madge flushed, feverish, and excited about a horse.
Brain-fever will be the next symptom."

An hour later Madge was sleeping quietly, but the happy flush and
smile had not left her face. Sh