"Other girls would. Well, it seems that their suit was downright enough to satisfy you. Good gracious! How many were there?"
Madge laughed, yawned, and her sister saw that her dark eyes were full of the languor of sleep, which added to their beauty.
"Oh, not many," she drawled. "I'll gossip about them some time when not so tired. I'll indicate them by numerals. Why should I babble their names in connection with what they called so sacred? I wonder how many like sacred affairs had occurred before. If I tell you the story of the wooing of Number One, Two, Three, and so on, that will answer just as well, won't it?"
"No, indeed. I wish to know their names, family connection, and whether they were well off or not."
Madge again laughed, and began to disrobe, in order to indicate that their confidence must at least be adjourned for the present. Her sister came and felt her perfect arms and rounded, gleaming shoulders. "Why, Madge," she exclaimed, "your flesh is as white and smooth as ivory, and almost as firm to the touch! It's a wonderful transformation. I can scarcely believe, much less understand it. You have grown so beautiful that you almost turn even my head."
"There is nothing so wonderful about it, Mary. Almost any girl may win health, and therefore more or less beauty, if she has the sense and will to make the effort. You know what I was when I left home. I suggested doctors' bills more than anything else, and it was chiefly my fault;" and she sighed deeply. "When I went to work in a rational way to get strong, I succeeded. I believe this would be true with the great majority. Good-night, dear. When I am rested I'm going to help you in many ways, in return for all you did for that lazy, lackadaisical, limp little nonentity that you used to dose and coddle when you should have given her a good shaking."
"It's all a miracle," said Mrs. Muir to her husband, at the conclusion of lengthy remarks about Madge.
"As much a miracle as my fortune," was the quiet reply. "Madge has had sense enough to know what she wanted and how to get it."