us to speak to him,"
and the daughter of the house rose with a laugh to greet him.

When the lamps were lighted Fergus Broderick had scanned all the
girlish faces with furtive eagerness. He had felt a shock of
disappointment when the owner of the exquisite voice had revealed her
identity. Madge's long nose and sallow skin were no beauties
certainly; nevertheless, before the evening was over, Fergus Broderick
knew he had found his mate; and for eight blissful years Madge dwelt in
her woman's kingdom, and gathered more roses than thorns.

Her first trouble had been the loss of her boy; he had succumbed to
some childish ailment; her husband's death--the result of an
accident--had followed a few months later.

The strain of the long nursing and excessive grief had broken down
Madge Broderick's strength. The seeds of an unsuspected disease latent
in her system now showed itself, and for some two or three years her
sufferings, both mental and physical, would have killed most women.

Then came alleviation and the lull that resembles peace; the pain was
no longer so acute; the disease had reached a stage when there would be
days and even weeks of tolerable comfort; then Madge courageously set
herself to make the most of her life.

With a courage that was almost heroic, she divided and subdivided the
hours of each day--so many duties, so many hours of recreation. She
had her charity work, her fancy work, her heavy and light reading;
books and flowers were her luxuries; the newest books, the sweetest
flowers, were always to be found on the table beside her couch.

Madge often said laughingly that she lived in a world of her own. "But
I have very good society," she would add; "the best and wisest of all
ages give me their company. This morning I was listening to Plato's
Dialogues, and this afternoon Sir Edwin Arnold was entertaining me at
the Maple Club in Tokio. This evening--well, please do not think me
frivolous, but affairs at Rome and a certain Prince Saracinesca claim
my attention.

"A good novel puts me in a better humour and disposes me to sleep, you
know," she would finish, brightly, "that I always read aloud to Fergus
in the evening; we were going through a course of Thackeray--we were in
the middle of 'Philip on his way through the world' when the accident
happened. After that he could only bear a few verses or a psalm."

CHAPTER III.

AUNT MADGE.

"It is more delightful and more honourable to