Marcia went into the garden. She gathered some flowers, then went into the fruit garden and picked some very fine gooseberries. She laid them in a little basket with some leaves over them, and with the fruit and flowers in her hand, and a pretty basket containing all kinds of fancy work, she went up to the sick-room. Mrs Aldworth could not but smile when she saw the calm face, the pretty white dress, the elegant young figure. Of course, she must scold this recalcitrant step-daughter, but it was nice to see her, and the flowers smelt so sweet, and she had just been pining for some gooseberries. Why hadn't one of her own girls thought of it? Marcia spent nearly an hour putting the room in order. The Venetian blind did not work; the servant had mended it badly. She soon put that straight. She then sat down opposite to Mrs Aldworth. "Our afternoons will be our pleasantest times," she said. "There is so much to be done in the mornings, but in the afternoons we can have long talks, and I can amuse you with some of the school-life stories. I have something quite interesting to tell you to-day, and I have brought up a book which I should like to read to you, that is, if you are inclined to listen. And, oh, mother, I think you would like this new sort of fancy work. I have got all the materials for it. It would make some charming ornamental work for the drawing room. We ought to make the drawing room pretty by the time you come back to it." "Oh, but I shall never come back to it," said Mrs Aldworth. "Indeed you will, and very soon too. I'm not going to allow you to be long in this bedroom. You will be downstairs again in a few days." "Never," said Mrs Aldworth. "Indeed you will. And anyhow we ought to have the drawing room pretty now that Molly and Ethel are out--or consider themselves so. And, mother, dear,"--Marcia's voice assumed a new and serious tone--"I have so much to talk to you about the dear girls." Mrs Aldworth trembled. Now, indeed, was the moment when she ought to begin, but somehow, try as she would, she found it impossible to be cross with Marcia. Still, the memory of Molly and her wrongs, of Nesta, and the burden she was unexpectedly forced to carry, of Ethel, and her tendency to sunstroke, came over her. "Before you say anything, I must be frank," she said. "Oh, yes, mother; that's what I should like, and expect," said Marcia, not losing any of her cheerfulness, but laying down her work and preparing herself to listen. She did not stare as her young sisters would have done, for she knew that Mrs Aldworth hated being stared at. She only glanced now and then, and her look was full of sympathy, and there was not a trace of anger on her face. "You really are very nice, Marcia; there's no denying it. I do wish that in some ways--not perhaps in looks, but in some ways, that my girls were more like you. But, dear, this is it--are you not a little hard on them? They're so young."