Her guest smilingly raised herself from her pillows. "I am awake as
can be, and as well as can be! To tell you the truth, Mrs. Curtis, I
have never been in the least ill from my adventure. I was tired the
day after it happened, but since that time I am afraid I have allowed
you and Tom to believe that I was sick because I liked to be petted and
made much of." Madge laughed frankly at her own confession. "You have
been so good to me, and I do appreciate it, but now I must go home to
my comrades. Eleanor was awfully disappointed to-day when I told her I
was not going back with them this afternoon."

"I wish you would stay with me longer," pleaded Mrs. Curtis, taking the
girl's firm brown hand in hers and looking down at it gravely, as it
lay in her soft white one. She gazed earnestly at Madge's clear-cut,
expressive face. "Tom and I will be lonely without you," she said. "I
want a daughter dreadfully, and Tom needs a sister. If only you were
my own daughter."

Madge sighed happily. "It has been beautiful to pretend that I was
your real daughter. It has been like the games I used to play when I
was a little girl. I have been lying here in the afternoons, when you
thought I was asleep, making up the nicest 'supposes.' I supposed that
I was your real daughter, that I had been lost and you had found me
after many years. Just at first you did not know me, because time had
made such a change in me. But---- Why, Mrs. Curtis, what is the
matter?" There was wonder and concern in Madge's question. "You don't
mind what I have said, do you? I have been making up things to amuse
myself ever since I was a little girl." She looked anxiously into the
face of the older woman. It was very white, and seemed suddenly to
have become drawn and old.