Fortune, that mother is just a little _wee_ bit
better?" asked Iris again. There was an imploring note in her question
this time.

"She will tell you herself, my dear. Now, be quick; don't keep her
waiting. It is bad for people, when they are ill, to be kept waiting."

"I won't keep her; I'll go to her this very instant," said Iris.

The old house was as beautiful as the garden to which it belonged. It
had been built, a great part of it, centuries ago, and had, like many
other houses of its date, been added to from time to time. Queerly
shaped rooms jutted out in many quarters; odd stairs climbed up in
several directions; towers and turrets were added to the roof;
passages, some narrow, some broad, connected the new buildings with
the old. The whole made an incongruous and yet beautiful effect, the
new rooms possessing the advantages and comforts which modern builders
put into their houses, and the older part of the house the quaint
devices and thick, wainscoted walls and deep, mullioned windows of the
times which are gone by.

Iris ran quickly through the wide entrance hall and up the broad,
white, stone stairs. These stairs were a special feature of Delaney
Manor. They had been brought all the way from Italy by a Delaney
nearly a hundred years ago, and were made of pure marble, and were
very lovely to look at. When Iris reached the first landing, she
turned aside from the spacious modern apartments and, opening a green
baize door, ran down a narrow passage. At the end of the passage she
turned to the left and went down another passage, and then wended her
way up some narrow stairs, which curled round and round as if they
were going up a tower. This, as a matter of fact, was the case.
Presently Iris pushed aside a curtain, and found herself in an octagon
room nearly at the top of a somewhat high, but squarely built, tower.
This room, which was large and airy, was wainscoted with oak; there
was a thick Turkey carpet on the floor, and the many windows were
flung wide open, so that the summer breeze, coming in fresh and sweet
from this great height, made the whole lovely room as fresh and cheery
and full of sweet perfume as if its solitary inmate were really in the
open air.

Iris, however, had often been in the room before, and had no time or
thought now to give to its appearance. Her eyes darted to the sofa on
which her young mother lay. Mrs. Delaney was half-sitting up, and
looked almost too young to be the moth