"Why, I think it makes it simply extraordinary!" exulted the generous
little sister. "Oh, Mark, isn't this just the sort of thing you would
have wished to happen! Secretary work,--just what you love to do! And
you, with your beautiful handwriting, you'll just be invaluable to
her! And your German--and I'll bet you'll just have them all adoring
you--!"

"Oh, Ju, if I only can do it!" burst from Margaret, with a little
childish gasp. She was sitting back from the table, twisted about so
that she sat sideways, her hands clasped about the top bar of her
chair-back. Her tawny soft hair was loosened about her face, her dark
eyes aflame. "Lenox, she said," Margaret went on dazedly; "and Europe,
and travelling everywhere! And a hundred dollars a month, and nothing
to spend it on, so I can still help out here! Why, it--I can't believe
it!"--she looked from one smiling, interested face to another, and
suddenly her radiance underwent a quick eclipse. Her lip trembled, and
she tried to laugh as she pushed her chair back, and ran to the arms
her mother opened. "Oh, Mother!" sobbed Margaret, clinging there, "do
you want me to go--shall I go? I've always been so happy here, and I
feel so ashamed of being discontented,--and I don't deserve a thing
like this to happen to me!"

"Why, God bless her heart!" said Mrs. Paget, tenderly, "of course
you'll go!"

"Oh, you silly! I'll never speak to you again if you don't!" laughed
Julie, through sympathetic tears.

Theodore and Duncan immediately burst into a radiant reminiscence of
their one brief visit to New York; Rebecca was heard to murmur that