“Your husband?  Does he care for her?”

“He feels much as I do.  You see, she is not of as fine a nature as our own children.  Of course he can’t help seeing that.  But we both do our best for the girl.”

“Good for you, Mrs. Maynard; that’s fine!”

“Do you really think so, Mrs. Corey?  I’m afraid that——­”

But Marjorie heard no more.  She had stopped her practising at the first words of these awful disclosures.

Not her mother’s own child!  She, Marjorie Maynard!  It couldn’t be possible!  But as the conversation went on, perfectly audible, though not in loud tones, she could no longer doubt the truth of what her mother was saying.

Dreadful it might be,—­unbelievable it might be,—­but true it must be.

“One—­two—­three—­four,” mechanically she tried to strike the keys, but her fingers refused to move.

She left the piano, and went slowly up to her own room.

Her pretty room that her mother,—­no, that Mrs. Maynard,—­had fixed up for her with flowering chintz hangings and frilly white curtains.

Not her mother!  Who, then, was or had been her mother?

And then Marjorie’s calm gave way.  She threw herself on her little white bed, and burying her face in the pillow she sobbed convulsively.  Her thoughts flew to her father,—­but no, he wasn’t her father!  King wasn’t her brother,—­nor Kitty her sister!  Nor Rosy Posy——?

It was all too dreadful.  At every fresh thought about it, it grew worse.  Dear old King, she had never realized before how much she loved him.  And Kitty!  And Father and Mother!  She would call them that, even though they were no relation to her.

For a long time Marjorie cried,—­great, deep, heart-racking sobs that wore her out.

At last she settled down into a calm of despair.

“I am going away,” she said, to herself.  “I won’t stay here where they have to pretend they love me!  Oh, Mother, Mother!”

But no one heard the little girl’s grief.  Mrs. Maynard still sat on the veranda, talking to Mrs. Corey; King was down at Sand Court; and the nurse had taken Rosamond out for a walk.

“I must go away,” poor Marjorie went on; “I can’t stay here, I should suffocate!”

She sat up on the edge of her bed, and clasped her hands in utter desolation.  Where could she go?  Not to Cousin Ethel’s, she’d only bring her back home. Home! She hadn’t any home,—­no real home!  She thought of Grandma Sherwood’s, but she wasn’t her grandma at all!  Then she thought of Grandma Maynard.  That was a curious thought, for though Grandma Maynard wasn’t her own grandmother, either, yet, a few months ago, she had begged Marjorie to live with her and be her little girl.  Surely she must have known that Midget wasn’t really her granddaughter, and yet she had really loved her enough to want her to live there.