“Give me the hardest punishment you can, short of expulsion,” said she.

“You have done a great wrong,” replied Mrs. Hosmer.  “You deserve severe punishment, but I shall not decide about that now.  For the next few days you may show your penitence by doing all you can to make up to this dear child for your past great unkindness.  She must stay in bed for a day or two, and I shall have the doctor in shortly.”

Esther was ill for a week, during which time Marie nursed her devotedly.  She saw now her past conduct in its true light—­her petty vanity, her thoughtlessness and heartlessness.

She fairly hated her old self, when, as the girls came in from time to time, Esther uttered no word of complaint against her, nor alluded to the cause of her illness in any way.

But in some way or other a part of the story leaked out, and Marie was the recipient of many an indignant glance, but she felt it was only what she deserved.

Mrs. Hosmer never said anything further about a punishment; probably she saw that the girl was already sufficiently punished.  Nevertheless a most humiliating punishment did come, in a way most unexpected.

The third evening after her fright, Esther was sitting up for the first time since her illness.  It was the night before Thanksgiving, and she was feeling a little homesick in spite of Marie’s efforts to entertain her.

“What will you give me for a piece of good news, my little girl?” said Mrs. Hosmer, entering the room, and looking at Esther’s pale cheeks disapprovingly.

“Oh, Mrs. Hosmer, is it anybody from home?” asked Esther, longingly.

“Here, Marie, read her the name on this card, and see if she says she is at home to visitors,” replied Mrs. Hosmer, playfully.

Marie took the card, and a moment after dropped it as though it had been red-hot.

This was what met her eyes: 

  “Mrs. James Archington,
  “44 North Avenue.”

“Grandma—­it’s grandma,” cried Esther, delightedly.

At the December meeting of the Browning Circle the girls discussed Marie Smythe once more.

“It was the queerest thing,” reported Anna Fergus, who knew the whole story.  “You see this Mrs. Archington is Esther’s grandmother, and Marie never knew it.  She said so little to the poor girl that Esther had never chanced to tell her.  Talk about retributive justice, this is the most direct piece of retribution I ever heard of.  And the queerest part of it is that Esther’s grandmother is the real North Avenue Archingtons, while Marie’s Cape May friends are a newly-rich family, who happen to live on the same street with the others, but are not related to them at all.”

“But, girls,” said Zoe Binnix, “it’s been a splendid thing for Marie, even if it has been humiliating.  I never saw a more completely changed girl.  She’s quite dropped her fine-lady airs and subsided into a sensible being.  She’s so good now that Esther doesn’t want to change her room, though Mrs. Hosmer told her she might.”