onse, relieved
her aching heart of half its load. But it vexed Enna.

"What folly, Elsie!" she said, "don't you see how you're making the child
cry? And I've been doing my best to get her to stop it; for of course it
does no good, and only injures her eyes."

"Forgive me, dear child, if I have hurt you," Elsie said low and tenderly,
as she laid Molly's head gently back against the pillows.

"You haven't! you've done me good!" cried the girl, flashing an indignant
glance at Enna. "Oh, mother, if you treated me so, it wouldn't be half so
hard to bear!"

"I've learned not to expect anything but ingratitude from my children,"
said Enna, coldly returning Elsie's kind greeting.

But Dick grasped his cousin's hand warmly, giving her a look of grateful
affection, and accepted with delight her offered kiss.

"Now, I will leave you to rest," she said to Molly, "and when you feel
like seeing your cousins, they will be glad to come in and speak to you.
They are anxious to do all they can for your entertainment while you are
here."

"Yes, but I want to see grandpa and Uncle Horace now, please; they just
kissed me in the car, and that was all."

They came in at once, full of tender sympathy for the crippled, suffering
child.

"They're so kind," sobbed Molly, as they left the room.

"Yes, you can appreciate everybody's kindness but your mother's," remarked
Enna in a piqued tone, "and everybody can be sorry for you, but my
feelings are lost sight of entirely."

"Oh, mother, don't!" sighed Molly. "I'm sure I've enough to bear without
your reproaches. I'd appreciate you fast enough, if you were such a mother
as Cousin Elsie."

"Or as Aunt Louise, why don't you say?" said Mrs. Conly, coming in, going
up to the couch, and kissing her. "How d'ye do, Enna?"

"Yes, even you are sorrier for me than mother is, I do believe!" returned
Molly, bursting into tears; "and if it was Isa or Virgy you'd be ever so
good to her, and not scold her as mother does me."

"Why, I'm just worn out and worried half to death about that girl," said
Enna, in answer to her sister's query. "She'll never walk a step
again--all the doctors say that." At these words Molly was almost
convulsed with sobs, but Enna went on relentlessly. "And when they asked
her how it happened, she up and told them her high-heeled shoes threw her
down, and that she didn't want to wear them, but I made her do it."

"And so you did, and I only told it because one of the doct