"Elsa, dear!"
Gently pushing open the door of a room that was half bedroom and half boudoir, she found the object of her search sitting beside a couch on which reclined a delicate looking lady, who, from the resemblance her daughter bore her, was unmistakably their mother.
"Did you want me, mamma?" she said, as she bent over the invalid.
"Yes, darling, I heard a noise like something falling upstairs a little while ago, and I was afraid one of you was hurt."
Elsa had to stoop quite low to hear the whispered words, for it had been one of the fragile mother's bad days, and she was very weak.
In a few words Elsa explained the catastrophe, taking care not to make the worst of Olive's temper; but both the mother and Kathleen read between the lines.
The latter rose hastily, a look of annoyance on her girlish face.
"Really, Olive is too careless," she said indignantly. "She is always spoiling something; only last week she tore a long zig-zag slit in her blue serge dress, and now this grey one will be ruined, and she will have nothing fit to go back to school in. I must go and see what can be done, I suppose, but I shall give her a good scolding."
"Don't be too harsh with her, Kathie," pleaded her mother. "It was very thoughtless of her, I know, but she will soon grow older now and be more careful. Girls will be girls." And she looked at her tall, handsome daughter, who had never given her a quarter of the trouble that Olive had, with admiring and yet wistful eyes. How she wished for the sake of her eight robust sons and daughters that she had not been compelled, since Paddy's babyhood, to spend the greater part of her life in her own room. But yet she could not regret the imprisonment, for it was only since she had been forced to give up her busy active life in the large household, where the doctor's income never seemed sufficient to meet the huge demands made upon it, that she had learnt that bringing up her boys and girls to be healthy and happy was not all that was necessary. God had taken the busy mother aside, and had shown her that her children were only lent to her, to be trained for Him. And she had heard His loving voice, and was seeking now to do what she could to make amends for the years of lost opportunities. Her eldest daughter Lois (who, as far as she could, had taken her mother's place in the household) and Elsa had already chosen "that good part which shall never be taken away." But the mother-heart yearned over her two big sons, Roger and Dick, winsome Kathleen and careless Olive.
She held Elsa's warm young hand in her nerveless grasp, as Kathleen closed the door behind her, and drew the girlish face, aglow with health, down to hers, until their lips met in a long, lingering caress; this quiet, thoughtful little daughter was a great comfort to her mother.