As the days went by, Marjorie became more accustomed to her new surroundings, and felt quite at home in the Spencer household.

The baby's illness ran its course and though the child was very sick, the doctor felt hopeful that they could keep the other children free from infection. Mrs. Spencer felt keenly the trying situation, but Miss Hart was so bright and cheerful that she made everybody feel happy.

So, as far as the two little girls were concerned, it was just as if
Marjorie were merely making a visit to Delight.

The children were becoming very much attached to each other. Delight greatly admired Marjorie's enthusiastic, go-ahead ways, and Midget was impressed by Delight's quiet way of accomplishing things.

Both were clever, capable children, and could usually do whatever they set out to, but Marjorie went at it with a rush and a whirl, while Delight was more slow and sure.

But Delight was of a selfish disposition, and this was very foreign to Marjorie's wide generosity of spirit. However, she concluded it must be because Delight was an only child, and had no brothers or sisters to consider.

Marjorie's own brother and sister were very attentive to their exiled one. A dozen times a day King or Kitty would telephone the latest news from school or home, and very frequently James would cross the street with a note or a book or a funny picture for Midget, from some of the Maynards. So the days didn't drag; and as for the morning hours, they were the best of all.

"It's like a party every day," said Marjorie to her mother, over the telephone. "Miss Hart is so lovely, and not a bit like a school-teacher. We never have regular times for any lesson. She just picks out whatever lesson she wants to, and we have that. Last night we bundled up and went out on the upper balcony and studied astronomy. She showed us Orion, and lots of other constitutions, or whatever you call them. Of course we don't have school evenings, but that was sort of extra. Oh, Mother, she is just lovely!"

"I'm so glad, my Midget, that you're enjoying your lessons. Do you practice every day?"

"Yes, Mother; an hour every afternoon. Miss Hart helps me a little with that, too, and Delight and I are learning a duet."

"That's fine! And you don't get into mischief?"

"No,—at least not much. I shut one of the kittens up in a bureau drawer and forgot her; but Miss Hart found her before she got very dead, and she livened her up again. So, that's all right."

"Not quite all right; but I'm sure you won't do it again. I can't seem to scold you when you're away from me, so do try to be a good girl, won't you, my Midget."

"Yes, Mother, I truly will."

And she did. Partly because of the restraint of visiting, and partly by her own endeavors, Marjorie was, on the whole, as well-behaved a child as any one could wish. And if she taught Delight more energetic and noisy games than she had ever heard before, they really were beneficial to the too quiet little girl.

One day they discovered what Miss Hart meant by using their steamer game for geography lessons. During school hours she proposed that they all play the steamer game.

Very willingly the girls arrayed themselves in wraps and caps, Miss Hart also wearing tourist garb, and with shawl straps and bundles, and with the kittens, also well wrapped up, they boarded the steamer.

Miss Hart, who pretended to be a stranger with whom they became acquainted on board, told them they were taking the Mediterranean trip to Naples.

The school-room was, of course, the principal saloon of the boat, and as the passengers sat round a table, Miss Hart, by means of a real steamer chart, showed them the course they were taking across the Atlantic.

Time of course was not real, and soon they had to pretend they had been at sea for a week or more.

Then Miss Hart said they were nearing the Azores and would stop there for a short time.

So they left the steamer, in imagination, and Miss Hart described to them the beauties and attractions of these islands. She had photographs and post cards, and pressed blossoms of the marvellous flowers that grow there. So graphic were her descriptions that the girls almost felt they had really been there.

"To-morrow," she said, as they returned to the ship, "we shall reach Gibraltar. There we will get off and stay several hours, and I'm sure you will enjoy it."

And enjoy it they certainly did. Next day it occurred, and when they left the ship to visit Gibraltar, they were taken to Miss Hart's own room, which she had previously arranged for them.

Here they found pictures of all the interesting points in or near Gibraltar. There were views of the great rock, and Miss Hart told them the history of the old town, afterward questioning them about it, to be sure they remembered. That was always part of her queer teaching, to question afterward, but it was easy to remember things so pleasantly taught.

She showed them pieces of beautiful Maltese lace, explaining how it was made, and why it was sold at Gibraltar, and she showed them pictures of the Moors in their strange garb, and told of their history. The luncheon bell sent them scurrying to the ship's dining-room, and they begged of Miss Hart that they might go on to Naples next day.

But she said that geography mustn't monopolize all the days, and next day, although she wasn't sure, probably there would be a session with Mr. Arithmetic.

"I don't care," said Midget, happily, "I know we'll have a lovely time, even if it is arithmetic."

Valentine's Day came before the quarantine was raised.

Marjorie was very sorry for this, for the doctor had said that after a few days more she could go home, and it seemed as if she might have gone for the fourteenth.

But he would not allow it, so there was nothing to do but make the best of it.

The night before Valentine's Day, however, she did feel a bit blue, as she thought of King and Kitty and even Rosy Posy addressing their valentines, and making a frolic of it as they always did.

And she thought of her father, who was always ready to help on such occasions, making verses, and printing them in his fine, neat handwriting. Of course, they would send some to her,—she knew that,—but she was losing all the jolly family fun, and it seemed a pity.

And then the telephone rang, and it was her father calling for her.

"Hello, Midget," came his cheery voice over the wire; "now I wonder if a little girl about you? size isn't feeling sorry for herself this evening."

"I'm afraid I am, Father, but I'm trying not to."

"Good for you, Sister! Now don't bother to do it, for I can tell you I'm feeling so sorry for you that it's unnecessary for anybody else to do that same. Now I'll tell you something to chirk you up. I suppose you have lessons to-morrow morning?"

"Yes; Miss Hart said we could have a holiday if we chose, but we didn't choose. So we're going to have special valentiney lessons,—I don't know what they'll be."

"All right; and in the afternoon, I shall send you over a valentine party. No people, you know, they're not allowed; but all the rest of a nice valentine party."

"Why, Father, how can we have a party without people?"

"Easily enough. I'll attend to that. Goodnight, now, Midget. Hop to bed, and dream hearts and darts and loves and doves and roses and posies and all such things."

"All right, I will. Good-night, Father dear. Is Mother there?"

"Yes,—hold the wire."

So Mrs. Maynard came and said a loving goodnight to her near yet faraway daughter, and Marjorie went to bed all cheered up, instead of lonely and despondent.

St. Valentine's Day was a fine, crisp winter day, with sunshine dancing on the snow, and blue sky beaming down on the bare branches of the trees.

The fun began at breakfast-time, when everybody found valentines at their plates,—for as Midge and Delight agreed, they had made so many, and they must use them up somehow. So Miss Hart and Mrs. Spencer received several in the course of the day; two were surreptitiously stuffed into Doctor Mendel's coat pockets, and the kittens each received some.

Lessons that morning were not really lessons at all. Miss Hart called it a Literature Class.

First she told the girls about the origin of Valentines, and how they happened to be named for St. Valentine, and why he was chosen as the patron saint of love. Then she read them some celebrated valentines written by great poets, and the girls had to read them after her, with great care as to their elocution.

She showed them some curious valentines, whose initials spelled names or words, and were called acrostics, and told of some quaint old-fashioned valentines that had been sent to her grandmother.

"And now," she said finally, "we've had enough of the sentimental side, I will read you a funny valentine story."

So, in her whimsical, dramatic fashion, she read the tragic tale of Mr.
Todgers and Miss Tee.

"In the town of Slocum Pocum, eighteen-seventy A.D.,
Lived Mr. Thomas Todgers and Miss Thomasina Tee;
The lady blithely owned to forty-something in the shade,
While Todgers, chuckling, called himself a rusty-eating blade,
And on the village green they lived in two adjacent cots.
Adorned with green Venetians and vermilion flower pots.

"No doubt you've heard it stated—'tis an aphorism trite—
That people who live neighborly in daily sound and sight
Of each other's personality, habitually grow
To look alike, and think alike, and act alike, and so
Did Mr. Thomas Todgers and Miss Thomasina Tee,
In the town of Slocum Pocum, eighteen-seventy A.D.

"Now Todgers always breakfasted at twenty-five to eight,
At seven-thirty-five Miss Tee poured out her chocolate;
And Todgers at nine-thirty yawned 'Lights out! I'll go to bed.'
At half-past nine Miss Tee 'retired'—a word she used instead.
Their hours were identical at meals and church and chores,
At weeding in the garden, or at solitaire indoors."

"'Twas the twelfth of February, so the chronicler avers;
Mr. Todgers in his garden, and Miss Tee, of course, in hers;
Both assiduously working, both no doubt upon their knees,
Chanced to raise their eyes together; glances met—and, if you please,
Ere one could say Jack Robinson! tut-tut! or fol-de-re!
Thomasina loved Mr. Todgers; Mr. Todgers loved Miss Tee!

"Two heads with but a single thought went bobbing to the dust,
And Todgers smiled sub rosa, and Miss Thomasina blushed;
Then they seized their garden tackle and incontinently fled
Down the box-edged pathways past the flower pots of red;
Past the vivid green Venetians, past the window curtains white,
Into their respective dwellings, and were seen no more that night.

"All that night poor love-sick Todgers tried his new-born hopes to quell,
And Miss Tee made resolutions, but she did not make them well,
For they went to smash at daybreak, and she softly murmured ''Tis
Kismet! Fate! Predestination! If he'll have me I am his.'
While Todgers sang 'There's Only One Girl in This World for Me,'
Or its music hall equivalent in eighteen-seventy.

"It was February thirteenth (On, my Pegasus! Nor balk
At that fear-inspiring figure!) Thomasina took a walk.
And Fate drew her—drew her—drew her by a thousand spidery lines
To a Slocum Pocum window filled chockful of valentines,
All gaudy—save two, just alike in color, shape and size,
Which pressed against the window pane and caught the lady's eyes.

"'How chaste! How charming! How complete!' she cried. 'It must be mine!
I'll tell my love to Thomas in this lovely valentine,
Whereon is suitably inscribed, in letters fine and free,
'SEND BACK THIS TENDER TOKEN IF YOU CANNOT MARRY ME.'
So with her cheeks all rosy, and her pulses all astir,
She went in and brought the valentine and took it home with her.

"Ten minutes later Thomas paused outside the self-same store.
You guess the rest. Fate grappled him and pushed him through the door,
And made him buy the fellow to the very valentine
Which Thomasina had purchased there at twenty-five to nine.
He chuckled (and Fate chuckled) the appropriate words to see—
'SEND BACK THIS TENDER TOKEN IF YOU CANNOT MARRY ME.'

"It was February fourteenth, and the postman's rat-a-tat
Made two hearts in Slocum Pocum beat a feverish pit-pat
Thomas and Thomasina each in turn rushed doorwards and
Snatched their respective missives from the post's extended hand;
And the postman, wicked rascal, slowly winked the other eye,
And said: 'Seems to me the old folks is a gettin' pretty spry.'

"They tore the letters open. 'What is this? Rejected! Spurned!'
Both thought the cards before them were their valentines returned.
And Thomas went to Africa, and Thomasina to Rome;
And other tenants came to fill each small deserted home.
So no more in Slocum Pocum may we hope again to see
Poor Mr. Thomas Todgers and poor Thomasina Tee."

"That's awfully funny," said Delight, as Miss Hart finished reading, "but
I should think they would have known they got each other's valentine."

"I shouldn't," said Midge, who entered more into the spirit of the story; "they didn't know each other sent any, so each thought their own was returned. Besides, if they hadn't thought so, there wouldn't have been any story."

"That's so," said Delight, who usually agreed with Marjorie, finally.

The postman brought lots of valentines for the two little girls. Delight's were almost all from her friends in New York, although some of the Rockwell young people had remembered her too.

Marjorie's were nearly all from Rockwell, and though there were none from any of her family, that did not bother her, for she knew they would come in the afternoon for the "party."