"You don't understand," she murmured. "It's the bedtime prayer--Margaret's;" then, at the doctor's amazed frown, she added: "The dear child goes over her whole day, bit by bit, and asks forgiveness for countless misdemeanors, and it nearly breaks my heart, for it shows how many times I have said 'don't' to the poor little thing since morning. And as if that were not piteous enough, she must needs ask the dear Father to tell her how to handle her fork, and how to sit, walk, and talk so's to please mother. Harry, what _shall_ I do?" "But you are doing," returned the doctor. "You are loving her, and you are surrounding her with everything good and beautiful." "But I want to do right myself--just right." "And you are doing just right, dear." "But the results--they are so irregular and uneven," sighed the mother, despairingly. "One minute she is the gentle, loving little girl I held in my arms five years ago; and the next she is--well, she isn't Margaret at all." "No," smiled the doctor. "She isn't Margaret at all. She is Mag of the Alley, dependent on her wits and her fists for life itself. Don't worry, sweetheart. It will all come right in time; it can't help it!--but it will take the time." "She tries so hard--the little precious!--and she does love me." A curious smile curved the doctor's lips. "She does," he said dryly. "Why, Harry, what----" Mrs. Kendall's eyes were questioning. The doctor hesitated. Then very slowly he drew from his pocket a large, somewhat legal-looking document. "I hardly know whether to share this with you or not," he began; "still, it _is_ too good to keep to myself, and it concerns you intimately; moreover, you may be able to assist me with some advice in the matter, or at least with some possible explanation." And he held out the paper. Mrs. Kendall turned in her chair so that the light from the open hall-door would fall upon the round, cramped handwriting. "'To whom it may concern,'" she read aloud. "'Whereas, I, the Undersigned, being in my sane Mind do intend to commit Matremony.' Why, Harry, what in the world is this?" she demanded. "Go on,--read," returned the doctor, with a nonchalant wave of his hand; and Mrs. Kendall dropped her eyes again to the paper. "Harry, what in the world does this mean?" she gasped a minute later as she finished reading, half laughing, half crying, and wholly amazed. "But that is exactly what I was going to ask you," parried the doctor. "You don't mean that Margaret wrote--but she couldn't; besides, it isn't her writing." "No, Margaret didn't write it. For that part I think I detect the earmarks of young McGinnis. At all events, it came from him." "Bobby?" "Yes."