her. So she rested her elbow on the arm of her chair, and, chin in hand, stared out of the window19 across the street at a squat little dormer-windowed house directly opposite.

19

Would she really, she wondered, like the girl who was coming that day? The occasion was certainly an unusual one in her uneventful life, for she saw, as a rule, almost no one outside of her own family, except the doctor. From the time she was a small baby she had suffered with an affection of the spine, and the physicians could hold out no hope that she would ever be anything but an invalid. Ever since she had grown too large to be carried about, she had spent her waking hours in this invalid-chair.

Of the outside world she saw little save the view from the parlor windows, and what passed before her each sunny day during the short hour that Sarah pushed her in her chair up and down the block. But Margaret was singularly loving and sweet-tempered, and most of the time successfully hid the pain and weariness she suffered, both in body and mind. Few realized, except the faithful Sarah, what bodily misery she often endured; and none could appreciate the unconquerable shyness that kept20 her from all companionship with girls of her own age, excepting that of her sisters.

20

Margaret envied nothing more heartily than the ability to join in the athletic sports of the robust twins. She yearned above all things to play basket-ball and wield a tennis-racket. And because such things were to be forever impossible to her, she felt that she could be of no earthly interest to her sisters' equally athletic comrades, so she shyly refused to meet any of them. But this new girl was obviously "different." Margaret felt that perhaps she would understand, that they would find much of common interest to talk about. For Margaret, too, loved books,—loved them with the passionate delight that only confirmed invalids can feel for the printed magic that takes them out of themselves and makes them forget their bodily ills. She read voraciously everything that came her way. Beside that, she had long ago insisted on studying with the twins. She kept pace with them through all their school work and often outstripped them in the quickness of her comprehension. And the twins21 were immensely proud of her attainments.

21

The home life of the Bronsons was a pleasant one, but rather different in many ways from that of ordinary families. Their father had died when Margaret 

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