How easy it would be to be a Christian, living with Aunt Cornelia, she thought, while she was dressing the next morning. God must have seen how utterly impossible it was for her to serve him truly here in her home, and so planned this for her. But her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at her door, and Johnnie called out: “Say, Mag, _she’s_ sick, an’ father’s gone for the doctor, an’ he said you must come an’ get some breakfast, an’ West’s cross, an’ it rains like sixty, an’ the wood’s all wet, an’ I can’t make the fire burn. Can’t you come quick?” Had Margaret known all the trials that were to come to her that day, she would have stopped, in that little minute that stood between her bright hopes of the night before, and the unknown future, to ask her Heavenly Father for strength for what was to come. But she did not. Perhaps it was some shadow of coming trouble that made her reach out her hand and push the letter she had written into her upper bureau drawer. Then she hastened down-stairs. Desolation reigned there. Johnnie’s books and slate were scattered over the dining-room table, just as he had left them the night before. Weston had added to the confusion by spending his evening in cutting bits out of several newspapers for his scrap-book, and little white snips were scattered thick over the floor. Margaret remembered that the dining-room always before looked nice when she came down in the morning. It _did_ make a difference to have a mother around, even if she _was_ only a step-mother. Out in the kitchen Johnnie was rattling the stove and the smoke was pouring out of every crevice. It was late that morning before the new minister got his breakfast, and the steak was smoky and the coffee muddy-looking, but he smiled pleasantly at Margaret’s red face and told her that she had done well for the first time. While they were at breakfast, Mr. Moore came in with the doctor. They went directly up-stairs, but soon came down again, the doctor taking out his medicine-case and calling for glasses and water. Mr. Moore looked anxious and worried. Margaret tried to hear the doctor’s replies to her father’s troubled questions, but she only caught words now and then: “Inflammatory rheumatism.” “System completely run down.” “Rest for several months.” These were the bits of phrases that came to Margaret through the open kitchen door, as she stood by the faucet drawing water for the doctor. The rest of the sentences were drowned by the rush of the water, but Margaret could easily imagine it, and her heart stood still. She knew that this meant many things that the doctor did not say. It meant that she could not go to Aunt Cornelia’s; that she must spend the winter at home; that she must be the one who must constantly wait on the sick woman. She could even now hear the irritable words which she imagined her step-mother would use to her when she didn’t do everything just right. Then a great rebellion arose in her heart.