to her own room, and did not pause till the little child was
lying safe, happy, and wondering, in the white bed, in the wonderful
White Room.

"Crowd me?" said Cousin Margaret. "Not a bit of it! There is plenty of
room, and in the morning we will have a most lovely cuddle, and tell
stories. But now go to sleep this very minute, Susan D., while I do my
hair. Good night, little sister!"

"Good night!" said Susan D. "I love you! Good night!"

CHAPTER XII.

THE VOICE OF FERNLEY.

From that night, Susan D. was Margaret's friend and true lover.

She followed her round in the hope of being able to do some little
service of love. She brought her flowers, and hunted the fields for the
largest and finest berries for her. At any hour of the day, Margaret
might feel a little hot hand slide into hers and deposit a handful of
warm, moist raspberries or blueberries. Sometimes this bred trouble, as
when Merton waylaid his sister, and wrested the hard-won treasures from
her for his own refreshment; with the result of shrieks and scuffling,
and a final thrashing from his elder brother; or, as when Cousin
Sophronia detected the child sidling along with closed palm, and
demanded to see what she had. Susan D. resisted stoutly, till at
length, yielding to superior strength, she threw the berries on the
floor, and trampled them into the carpet. There was a good deal of this
kind of thing; but still the change was a blessed one, and Margaret,
when she met the beaming look of love in the child's face, and
remembered the suspicious scowl that had greeted her only so few days
ago, was most thankful, and felt it to be worth any amount of trouble,
even to taking the spots out of the carpet, which was a hard thing to
do.

"I told you!" said Basil, smiling superior. "I told you, once you got
inside, you'd find the kid not at all so bad. I say, Cousin Margaret,
you're not a fraidcat, are you?"

"A what, Basil?"

"A fraidcat! Don't you know what a fraidcat is, Cousin Margaret? Seems
to me you didn't learn many modern expressions when you were a little
girl, did you?"

"Really, Basil, I think I learned all that were necessary," said
Margaret, laughing. "I did not learn slang, certainly, nor boy-jargon,
and I don't care to take lessons, thank you. Don't you think good,
plain English is good enough?"

"Oh, well, it sounds all right from you, 'cause you are you, and you
wouldn't match yourself if you didn't talk that way, I suppose.