Jewel Weed

A little scrawl of a note, delivered just after breakfast at Mr. Elton's

door, brought Madeline to visit Mrs. Percival, who, like her mother,

seemed to be in continual need of her.

She found that lady lying in her favorite chair in the library--the

chair that had been her refuge in the days of her early widowhood, that

had comfortably housed her when books carried her away from her own

world of sorrows and problems into the world of illusions, the chair in

which she had dreamed of the great things that were to come into a

younger life, not her own, and yet deeply her own,--her son's.

Now she lay back in it with clasped hands, thinner than usual and with

eyes sadder. Madeline came in like a young Hebe, glowing with health and

vigor, and infinitely tender toward fragility.

"You are ill, dear mother Percival," cried the girl, dropping to her

knees and slipping an arm behind her friend's back in an unconscious

attitude of protection.

Mrs. Percival's fingers followed the soft curve that the girl's hair

made around her forehead.

"No, dear," she said slowly, "but I had something to tell you. I wanted

to speak to you myself, before any one else had the chance."

"Please tell me quickly."

"So many of my dearest hopes have come to nothing!" Mrs. Percival went

on, with a little bitterness that Madeline thought unlike her. "Each

blow, as it falls, seems the hardest to bear. I've tried to accept

whatever happens, graciously. It isn't always easy, Madeline, dear."

"Yes?" said Madeline.

"Dick--"

"Is anything the matter with Dick?" Madeline rose with a little cry.

"Dick does not think so," his mother answered. "My child, you have seen

something of this little Miss Quincy?"

Madeline's eyes dropped for the tenth of a second and a heaviness took

possession of her body; then she lifted her head bravely.

"Yes," she answered, "I know Miss Quincy--quite the most beautiful girl

I have ever seen."

"Very beautiful," echoed Mrs. Percival. "So I too thought, the only time

I ever saw her. Well, Madeline, what I have to tell you is that Dick is

to marry her."

The girl saw that the older woman's hands were trembling, and she laid

her own warm young palms over the cold old ones.

"I hope Dick will be very happy," she said softly. "I--I'm not a bit

surprised. We ought to have seen that it was coming. And Dick loves

her!"

And she laid her cheek against Mrs. Percival's, but the other pushed her

away and stared into the eyes so near her own.

"And you can take it so quietly?" she asked. "Forgive me, dear, if for

once I break down the barriers of reserve. I love you so much, let me be

frank. Surely you know what I hoped, what I thought."