After Eloise had gone away, Marjorie walked slowly back to the house.  She had never felt the loss of a grandmother before, but now it weighed heavily upon her.

“If grandmas are so nice, it does seem as if I ought to have one,” she said to herself, “’specially as some little girls have two!” Marjorie sat down on the steps and with heavy heart thought over the situation.

At last a plan suggested itself and she sprang to her feet.

“When Aunt Mary didn’t have any little girl and wanted one; she went to an orphan asylum and adopted one.  Why can’t I adopt a grandma?” Marjorie asked herself excitedly.  “I never heard of an asylum of grandmas, but that doesn’t matter!  I want only one, and surely somewhere there must be one for me.”

The child looked across the street.  The family in the third house were strangers who had moved in a few days before.  Marjorie was playing in the yard when they came, and she remembered seeing an old lady go into the house.  There weren’t any children over there, she knew, for she had watched eagerly for some to appear, but none had.  Maybe she could get this old lady to be her grandma.

The little girl rushed across the street and rang the door bell.  Then her heart began a loud beating.  S’pose the old lady shouldn’t want to be adopted and should act cross?  The child had half a minute to run away before anyone came to the door.  But that would be cowardly and Marjorie detested a coward, so she decided to stand her ground.

At last the door opened, and Marjorie looked up eagerly, into the face of a kind grandmotherly looking old lady standing there.

“Good-morning!” The old lady smiled invitingly at the child, who stood there with flushed cheeks and happy brown eyes.  “Did you want something of me, dear?”

“Yes’m,” replied Marjorie, catching her breath, “I want to adopt you!”

“To adopt me!  Why, dear child, what do you mean?”

“I want to adopt you for my grandma.  You see, I haven’t even one grandma and some little girls have two.  I don’t think that’s fair, do you?”

“No, really that doesn’t seem fair,” answered the old lady, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

“I’m lonesome without a grandma, and I thought maybe you hadn’t any grand-children, or even if you had some, p’raps you wouldn’t mind having one more.  So I came over to adopt you—­that is—­if you please!”

Quickly the twinkle left the old lady’s eyes and she put her arm close around Marjorie.  “You dear child!” she exclaimed, “of course you can adopt me.  I haven’t a grandchild in the whole world but even if there were a dozen of them, I’d still have room in my heart for you!”

“We cannot be free from unkind words unless we are free from unkind feelings.”

THE FIVE CASTAWAYS.

By Coe Hayne.

When Lena Stuart sprained her ankle the doctor told her that she could not walk on it for at least ten days.