Bessie Bradfords Prize | Page 9

your service, as your mother's is at present."
"Oh, how good in you!" cried Maggie and Bessie, both in one breath, while Lena's pale face flushed with gratitude and pleasure; and so the matter was arranged, Maggie undertaking to tell all the members of the club of the change in the place of meeting.
But, glancing at Bessie, Maggie saw that she looked somewhat perturbed, and she suddenly remembered what had passed with Gracie Howard that very afternoon, and that she had been urged to resume her accustomed place among the "Cheeryble Sisters," and had consented to do so. How would that do now? Would Lena feel like having Gracie come here? Gracie who had treated her so badly, who had shown such jealousy and unkindness towards her. This was rather a complication, and considering it, Maggie became uneasy and embarrassed, and Lena, who was very quick-sighted, saw it.
"What is the matter, Maggie?" she asked. "Do you think you would rather not come here?"
"Oh, no!" answered Maggie, "you know I always love to come here. But, Lena, this afternoon we met Gracie Howard, and I begged her to come to the meeting to-morrow. She has not been since--since--the day--of the fire."
The flush which pleasure at her aunt's offer had brought to Lena's face deepened to crimson, which mounted to the very roots of her hair as she heard Maggie.
Then after a moment's hesitation, she said, "Will you ask her to come, Maggie?"
"Yes," answered Maggie, doubtfully, "I'll ask her."
"But you think that she will not come?" said Lena.
"I am afraid she will not," answered Maggie; then added, "I am sure I should not if I were in her place; I should be too ashamed. I think she is ashamed, Lena, and sorry, too; I really do."
Lena seemed to be considering for a moment; then she said, evidently with a great effort,--
"Do you think she would come if I wrote and asked her? I--I would do it if you thought she would be friends again. And, perhaps," she added, with a little pathetic wistfulness which nearly made the tears come to the eyes of the sympathetic Maggie and Bessie, "perhaps she would, now, after such a thing happened to me. Do you know," sinking her voice to a whisper, and speaking with an unreserve which she never showed towards any one save these little friends, and seldom to them, "do you know that when they thought I was going to die--oh, I know that every one thought I was going to die--I used to feel so sorry for Gracie, because we had that quarrel that very afternoon; and I knew how I should have felt if I had been in her place, and I used to wish that I could make up with her; and now I would really like to if she will. Shall I write?"
Bessie, whose eyes were now brimming over, stooped and kissed her cheek; and Maggie followed her example, as she answered, with a break in her own voice,
"I don't see how she could help it, Lena; you dear Lena."
Maggie and Bessie were not a little astonished, not only at this burst of confidence from the shy, reserved Lena, but also at the feeling she expressed and her readiness to go more than half way in making advances for the healing of a breach in which she certainly had not been to blame.
But in the border-land through which Lena's little feet had lately trod, many and serious thoughts had come to her; thoughts of which those about her were all unconscious, as she lay seemingly inert and passive from exhaustion, except when pain forced complaint from her; and chief among these had been the recollection of the unpleasant relation which for some time had existed between herself and Gracie Howard, and which had culminated in the attack of jealousy and ill-temper which the latter had shown towards her on the very afternoon of the day in which Lena had been so badly, almost fatally, injured in the fire. And Lena herself, as has been said, had been altogether blameless in the affair, had no cause whatever for self-reproach; nevertheless, she had wished that she could have made friends with Gracie before she died. But she had spoken to no one of this until now, when she thus opened her heart, at least in a measure, to Maggie and Bessie.
Knowing all that they did--and still neither they nor Lena knew one-half of Gracie's misconduct--what wonder was it that they were touched, and filled with admiration for this little friend who, a stranger only a few months since, had come to fill so large a place in their affection and interest.
But Maggie, feeling confident, as she said, that Gracie was both ashamed and repentant, was also overjoyed at this opening towards a