So Grandma went away and left her alone.  The first thing Marjorie did was to write a letter to her mother, telling her all about the accident.  She had thought she would write a letter to each of the children at home, but she discovered to her surprise that it wasn’t very easy to write sitting up in bed.  Her arms became cramped, and as she could not move her injured ankle her whole body grew stiff and uncomfortable.  So she decided to read.  After she had read what seemed a long time, she found that that, too, was difficult under the circumstances.  With a little sigh she turned herself as well as she could and looked at the clock.  To her amazement, only an hour had elapsed since Grandma left her, and for the first time the little girl realized what it meant to be deprived of the free use of her limbs.

“Only ten o’clock,” she thought to herself; “and dinner isn’t until one!”

Not that Marjorie was hungry, but like all the invalids she looked forward to meal-times as a pleasant diversion.

But about this time Grandma reappeared to say that Molly had come over to see her.

Marjorie was delighted, and welcomed Molly gladly.

“I’m awful sorry,” the little visitor began, “that I made you slide down the roof.”

“You didn’t make me do it,” said Marjorie, “it was my fault quite as much as yours; and, anyway, it isn’t a very bad sprain.  I’ll be out again in a few days, and then we can play some more.  But we’ll keep down on the ground,—­we can’t fall off of that.”

“I thought you might like to play some games this morning,” Molly suggested, “so I brought over my jackstraws and my Parcheesi board.”

“Splendid!” cried Marjorie, delighted to have new entertainment.

In a few moments Molly had whisked things about, and arranged the jackstraws on a small table near the bed.  But Marjorie could not reach them very well, so Molly changed her plan.

“I’ll fix it,” she said, and laying the Parcheesi board on the bed, she climbed up herself, and sitting cross-legged like a little Turk, she tossed the jackstraws out on the flat board, and the game began in earnest.

They had a jolly time and followed the jackstraws with a game of Parcheesi.

Then Jane came up with some freshly baked cookies and two glasses of milk.

“Why, how the time has flown!” cried Marjorie, “it’s half-past eleven, and it doesn’t seem as if you’d been here more than five minutes, Molly.”

“I didn’t think it was so late, either,” and then the two girls did full justice to the little luncheon, while the all-useful Parcheesi board served as a table.

“Now,” said Marjorie, when the last crumbs had disappeared, “let’s mix up the two games.  The jackstraws will be people, and your family can live in that corner of the Parcheesi board, and mine will live in this.  The other two corners will be strangers’ houses, and the red counters can live in one and the blue counters in the other.  This place in the middle will be a park, and these dice can be deer in the park.”