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. 

 Prev. P 14/155 next