She and Ruth stayed until just time to connect with the six-thirty train for Hilton. It was closeted in my room that Edith said to me in her erratic way, "My dear, I never saw such a change in any living _mortal_. Do you realise that having that baby has simply made that girl over? It's wonderful--put refinement into her. Why, really, one wouldn't guess the child's origin _now_. Listen to me. I've decided to invite the whole family bunch, as usual, for Christmas (one may as well be forgiving in this short life, I've concluded); so I came to have a look at Madge. She isn't half bad, you know. I had a nice little chat alone with her when you were showing Ruth the baby. She says she was simply crazy for a girl, and I think she means it. She isn't as impossible as I feared--not half. All she needs are some clothes and I've gotten it into my head to take her to my own dressmaker in town. One may as well be generous, Lucy. Besides, if the girl comes to the house at Christmas she must dress decently. I've a good mind to take the little thing in hand myself and polish her up a little. She's pretty enough. You see," Edith broke off, "Breck Sewall will probably be around Christmas-time--won't it be wonderful if he should marry Ruth?--and I simply had to have a look at Madge before inviting her. However, I really think she'll do." The instant the door had closed on Edith I rushed back to Madge. I threw my arms about her. "You've passed your preliminaries, dear child!" I said and kissed her hard. CHAPTER XXI Did you ever attempt to buy a lot of fifteen thousand feet at fifty cents a foot, and build a house on it of twelve rooms, three baths, a shower, a sleeping-porch and a small unpretentious garage for fourteen thousand dollars? This isn't an example in mental arithmetic, but it was a problem Will and I laboured over every March and April for three successive springs, before deciding each year to stay on for another twelve months in our old rented brown box, gas-lighted and tin-tubbed. I am not going to explain how such a problem can be solved, because frankly I don't know. Will is a regular miracle-performer in some lines. He'll work for hours over some knotty proposition in his laboratory, and come home from the hospital simply glowing with enthusiasm over the successful onslaught of a squad of his well-trained microbes upon an unruly lot of beasts who were making life miserable for a poor man almost dying with carbuncles. The medical journals describe Dr. William Ford Maynard's accomplishments as miraculous. However, I can vouch that he is utterly unable to perform any feats with wood and plaster and plumbers' supplies. Two hours working over our house-plans used to exhaust Will more than four days solid in his laboratory. He said there was more hope in discovering the haunts of the wary meningitis microbe than in finding a contractor who would build us a house at our price.