"Do so, then, at once," said Mrs. Beach. "Take her with you, nurse, and introduce her to Miss Clara before you go out."
So Margie followed the nurse down the long passage, and into a light, spacious room furnished with every comfort and luxury.
In a bed with its head turned towards the window, so that the light would be behind the invalid, lay the poor cripple, the half-sister of the beautiful Mabel Raye.
Clara was said to be as much like her fair Swedish mother as Mabel resembled the dark Creole, and no contrast could well be greater than that between the two half-sisters.
So thought Margie as she approached the bed, and stood there by the nurse's side.
"Mrs. Beach has sent Margery Grayling, her own special attendant, Miss Clara, to stay with you while I am away, and I'm sure she will take good care of you," said the nurse.
Clara Raye opened her great blue eyes and fixed them upon Margie's face so intently that the girl flushed, and dropped her own; but she lifted them again as a low, sweet-toned voice said, "Yes, nurse, now I see her, I am quite sure she will. Please thank my aunt for sending her to me;" and she put out a hand of welcome and greeting to the newcomer.
Margie took the slender white hand, and, touched by the expression of the lovely, fair, smiling face on the pillow, and the look of suffering in the heavy eyelids and on the sensitive mouth, the tears came into her eyes, and stooping she raised the hand to her lips.
Then the blue eyes met the grey ones frankly, and a flash of sympathy and understanding passed between them.
"Why, Margery Grayling, you are a lady," said Clara Faye.