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A little scrawl of a note, delivered just after breakfast at Mr Elton's

door, brought Madeline to visit Mrs Percival, who, like her mother,

seemed to be in continual need of her

She found that lady lying in her favorite chair in the library--the

chair that had been her refuge in the days of her early hood, that

had comfortably housed her when books carried her away from her oorld of sorrows and problems into the world of illusions, the chair in

which she had dreas that were to come into a

younger life, not her own, and yet deeply her own,--her son's

Now she lay back in it with clasped hands, thinner than usual and with

eyes sadder Madeline caor, and infinitely tender toward fragility

"You are ill, dearto her

knees and slipping an arm behind her friend's back in an unconscious

attitude of protection

Mrs Percival's fingers followed the soft curve that the girl's hair

made around her forehead

"No, dear," she said slowly, "but I had so to tell you I wanted

to speak to you myself, before any one else had the chance"

"Please tell me quickly"

"So !" Mrs Percival went