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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marcia Schuyler by Grace Livingston Hill
+Lutz
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Marcia Schuyler
+
+Author: Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
+
+Release Date: August 2007 [Ebook #23132]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCIA SCHUYLER***
+
+
+
+
+
+Marcia Schuyler
+
+
+by Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
+
+
+
+
+Edition 1, (August 2007)
+
+
+
+
+
+                             MARCIA SCHUYLER
+
+
+                              SIXTH EDITION
+
+
+
+
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+     "OH, YOU NAUGHTY MAN!" SHE EXCLAIMED PRETTILY, "HOW DARE YOU!"]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+      "OH, YOU NAUGHTY MAN!" SHE EXCLAIMED PRETTILY, "HOW DARE YOU!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                             Marcia Schuyler
+
+
+                                   by
+
+                       Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
+           Author of "The Story of a Whim," "According to the
+                  Pattern," "An Unwilling Guest," etc.
+
+
+                           _Illustrations by_
+                            E. L. HENRY, N.A.
+
+
+                            GROSSET & DUNLAP
+                          PUBLISHERS · NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+                             Copyright, 1908
+                       By J. B. Lippincott Company
+
+
+                        Published February, 1908
+
+
+         _Electrotyped and printed by J. B. Lippincott Company_
+          _The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U. S. A._
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+                           THE DEAR MEMORY OF
+                                MY FATHER
+                 The Rev. CHARLES MONTGOMERY LIVINGSTON
+                  WHOSE COMPANIONSHIP AND ENCOURAGEMENT
+                        HAVE BEEN MY HELP THROUGH
+                                THE YEARS
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+CHAPTER II
+CHAPTER III
+CHAPTER IV
+CHAPTER V
+CHAPTER VI
+CHAPTER VII
+CHAPTER VIII
+CHAPTER IX
+CHAPTER X
+CHAPTER XI
+CHAPTER XII
+CHAPTER XIII
+CHAPTER XIV
+CHAPTER XV
+CHAPTER XVI
+CHAPTER XVII
+CHAPTER XVIII
+CHAPTER XIX
+CHAPTER XX
+CHAPTER XXI
+CHAPTER XXII
+CHAPTER XXIII
+CHAPTER XXIV
+CHAPTER XXV
+CHAPTER XXVI
+CHAPTER XXVII
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+CHAPTER XXIX
+AD PAGES
+ERRATA
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             Marcia Schuyler
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+The sun was already up and the grass blades were twinkling with sparkles
+of dew, as Marcia stepped from the kitchen door.
+
+She wore a chocolate calico with little sprigs of red and white scattered
+over it, her hair was in smooth brown braids down her back, and there was
+a flush on her round cheeks that might have been but the reflection of the
+rosy light in the East. Her face was as untroubled as the summer morning,
+in its freshness, and her eyes as dreamy as the soft clouds that hovered
+upon the horizon uncertain where they were to be sent for the day.
+
+Marcia walked lightly through the grass, and the way behind her sparkled
+again like that of the girl in the fairy-tale who left jewels wherever she
+passed.
+
+A rail fence stopped her, which she mounted as though it had been a steed
+to carry her onward, and sat a moment looking at the beauty of the
+morning, her eyes taking on that far-away look that annoyed her stepmother
+when she wanted her to hurry with the dishes, or finish a long seam before
+it was time to get supper.
+
+She loitered but a moment, for her mind was full of business, and she
+wished to accomplish much before the day was done. Swinging easily down to
+the other side of the fence she moved on through the meadow, over another
+fence, and another meadow, skirting the edge of a cool little strip of
+woods which lured her with its green mysterious shadows, its whispering
+leaves, and twittering birds. One wistful glance she gave into the sweet
+silence, seeing a clump of maiden-hair ferns rippling their feathery locks
+in the breeze. Then resolutely turning away she sped on to the slope of
+Blackberry Hill.
+
+It was not a long climb to where the blackberries grew, and she was soon
+at work, the great luscious berries dropping into her pail almost with a
+touch. But while she worked the vision of the hills, the sheep meadow
+below, the river winding between the neighboring farms, melted away, and
+she did not even see the ripe fruit before her, because she was planning
+the new frock she was to buy with these berries she had come to pick.
+
+Pink and white it was to be; she had seen it in the store the last time
+she went for sugar and spice. There were dainty sprigs of pink over the
+white ground, and every berry that dropped into her bright pail was no
+longer a berry but a sprig of pink chintz. While she worked she went over
+her plans for the day.
+
+There had been busy times at the old house during the past weeks. Kate,
+her elder sister, was to be married. It was only a few days now to the
+wedding.
+
+There had been a whole year of preparation: spinning and weaving and fine
+sewing. The smooth white linen lay ready, packed between rose leaves and
+lavender. There had been yards and yards of tatting and embroidery made by
+the two girls for the trousseau, and the village dressmaker had spent days
+at the house, cutting, fitting, shirring, till now there was a goodly
+array of gorgeous apparel piled high upon bed, and chairs, and hanging in
+the closets of the great spare bedroom. The outfit was as fine as that
+made for Patience Hartrandt six months before, and Mr. Hartrandt had given
+his one daughter all she had asked for in the way of a "setting out." Kate
+had seen to it that her things were as fine as Patience's,--but, they were
+all for Kate!
+
+Of course, that was right! Kate was to be married, not Marcia, and
+everything must make way for that. Marcia was scarcely more than a child
+as yet, barely seventeen. No one thought of anything new for her just
+then, and she did not expect it. But into her heart there had stolen a
+longing for a new frock herself amid all this finery for Kate. She had her
+best one of course. That was good, and pretty, and quite nice enough to
+wear to the wedding, and her stepmother had taken much relief in the
+thought that Marcia would need nothing during the rush of getting Kate
+ready.
+
+But there were people coming to the house every day, especially in the
+afternoons, friends of Kate, and of her stepmother, to be shown Kate's
+wardrobe, and to talk things over curiously. Marcia could not wear her
+best dress all the time. And _he_ was coming! That was the way Marcia
+always denominated the prospective bridegroom in her mind.
+
+His name was David Spafford, and Kate often called him Dave, but Marcia,
+even to herself, could never bring herself to breathe the name so
+familiarly. She held him in great awe. He was so fine and strong and good,
+with a face like a young saint in some old picture, she thought. She often
+wondered how her wild, sparkling sister Kate dared to be so familiar with
+him. She had ventured the thought once when she watched Kate dressing to
+go out with some young people and preening herself like a bird of Paradise
+before the glass. It all came over her, the vanity and frivolousness of
+the life that Kate loved, and she spoke out with conviction:
+
+"Kate, you'll have to be very different when you're married." Kate had
+faced about amusedly and asked why.
+
+"Because _he_ is so good," Marcia had replied, unable to explain further.
+
+"Oh, is that all?" said the daring sister, wheeling back to the glass.
+"Don't you worry; I'll soon take that out of him."
+
+But Kate's indifference had never lessened her young sister's awe of her
+prospective brother-in-law. She had listened to his conversations with her
+father during the brief visits he had made, and she had watched his face
+at church while he and Kate sang together as the minister lined it out:
+"Rock of Ages cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee," a new song which
+had just been written. And she had mused upon the charmed life Kate would
+lead. It was wonderful to be a woman and be loved as Kate was loved,
+thought Marcia.
+
+So in all the hurry no one seemed to think much about Marcia, and she was
+not satisfied with her brown delaine afternoon dress. Truth to tell, it
+needed letting down, and there was no more left to let down. It made her
+feel like last year to go about in it with her slender ankles so plainly
+revealed. So she set her heart upon the new chintz.
+
+Now, with Marcia, to decide was to do. She did not speak to her stepmother
+about it, for she knew it would be useless; neither did she think it worth
+while to go to her father, for she knew that both his wife and Kate would
+find it out and charge her with useless expense just now when there were
+so many other uses for money, and they were anxious to have it all flow
+their way. She had an independent spirit, so she took the time that
+belonged to herself, and went to the blackberry patch which belonged to
+everybody.
+
+Marcia's fingers were nimble and accustomed, and the sun was not very high
+in the heavens when she had finished her task and turned happily toward
+the village. The pails would not hold another berry.
+
+Her cheeks were glowing with the sun and exercise, and little wisps of
+wavy curls had escaped about her brow, damp with perspiration. Her eyes
+were shining with her purpose, half fulfilled, as she hastened down the
+hill.
+
+Crossing a field she met Hanford Weston with a rake over his shoulder and
+a wide-brimmed straw hat like a small shed over him. He was on his way to
+the South meadow. He blushed and greeted her as she passed shyly by. When
+she had passed he paused and looked admiringly after her. They had been in
+the same classes at school all winter, the girl at the head, the boy at
+the foot. But Hanford Weston's father owned the largest farm in all the
+country round about, and he felt that did not so much matter. He would
+rather see Marcia at the head anyway, though there never had been the
+slightest danger that he would take her place. He felt a sudden desire now
+to follow her. It would be a pleasure to carry those pails that she bore
+as if they were mere featherweights.
+
+He watched her long, elastic step for a moment, considered the sun in the
+sky, and his father's command about the South meadow, and then strode
+after her.
+
+It did not take long to reach her side, swiftly as she had gone.
+
+As well as he could, with the sudden hotness in his face and the tremor in
+his throat, he made out to ask if he might carry her burden for her.
+Marcia stopped annoyed. She had forgotten all about him, though he was an
+attractive fellow, sometimes called by the girls "handsome Hanford."
+
+She had been planning exactly how that pink sprigged chintz was to be
+made, and which parts she would cut first in order to save time and
+material. She did not wish to be interrupted. The importance of the matter
+was too great to be marred by the appearance of just a schoolmate whom she
+might meet every day, and whom she could so easily "spell down." She
+summoned her thoughts from the details of mutton-leg sleeves and looked
+the boy over, to his great confusion. She did not want him along, and she
+was considering how best to get rid of him.
+
+"Weren't you going somewhere else?" she asked sweetly. "Wasn't there a
+rake over your shoulder? What have you done with it?"
+
+The culprit blushed deeper.
+
+"Where were you going?" she demanded.
+
+"To the South meadow," he stammered out.
+
+"Oh, well, then you must go back. I shall do quite well, thank you. Your
+father will not be pleased to have you neglect your work for me, though
+I'm much obliged I'm sure."
+
+Was there some foreshadowing of her womanhood in the decided way she
+spoke, and the quaint, prim set of her head as she bowed him good morning
+and went on her way once more? The boy did not understand. He only felt
+abashed, and half angry that she had ordered him back to work; and, too,
+in a tone that forbade him to take her memory with him as he went.
+Nevertheless her image lingered by the way, and haunted the South meadow
+all day long as he worked.
+
+Marcia, unconscious of the admiration she had stirred in the boyish heart,
+went her way on fleet feet, her spirit one with the sunny morning, her
+body light with anticipation, for a new frock of her own choice was yet an
+event in her life.
+
+She had thought many times, as she spent long hours putting delicate
+stitches into her sister's wedding garments, how it would seem if they
+were being made for her. She had whiled away many a dreary seam by
+thinking out, in a sort of dream-story, how she would put on this or that
+at will if it were her own, and go here or there, and have people love and
+admire her as they did Kate. It would never come true, of course. She
+never expected to be admired and loved like Kate. Kate was beautiful,
+bright and gay. Everybody loved her, no matter how she treated them. It
+was a matter of course for Kate to have everything she wanted. Marcia felt
+that she never could attain to such heights. In the first place she
+considered her own sweet serious face with its pure brown eyes as
+exceedingly plain. She could not catch the lights that played at hide and
+seek in her eyes when she talked with animation. Indeed few saw her at her
+best, because she seldom talked freely. It was only with certain people
+that she could forget herself.
+
+She did not envy Kate. She was proud of her sister, and loved her, though
+there was an element of anxiety in the love. But she never thought of her
+many faults. She felt that they were excusable because Kate was Kate. It
+was as if you should find fault with a wild rose because it carried a
+thorn. Kate was set about with many a thorn, but amid them all she
+bloomed, her fragrant pink self, as apparently unconscious of the many
+pricks she gave, and as unconcerned, as the flower itself.
+
+So Marcia never thought to be jealous that Kate had so many lovely things,
+and was going out into the world to do just as she pleased, and lead a
+charmed life with a man who was greater in the eyes of this girl than any
+prince that ever walked in fairy-tale. But she saw no harm in playing a
+delightful little dream-game of "pretend" now and then, and letting her
+imagination make herself the beautiful, admired, elder sister instead of
+the plain younger one.
+
+But this morning on her way to the village store with her berries she
+thought no more of her sister's things, for her mind was upon her own
+little frock which she would purchase with the price of the berries, and
+then go home and make.
+
+A whole long day she had to herself, for Kate and her stepmother were gone
+up to the neighboring town on the packet to make a few last purchases.
+
+She had told no one of her plans, and was awake betimes in the morning to
+see the travellers off, eager to have them gone that she might begin to
+carry out her plan.
+
+Just at the edge of the village Marcia put down the pails of berries by a
+large flat stone and sat down for a moment to tidy herself. The lacing of
+one shoe had come untied, and her hair was rumpled by exercise. But she
+could not sit long to rest, and taking up her burdens was soon upon the
+way again.
+
+Mary Ann Fothergill stepped from her own gate lingering till Marcia should
+come up, and the two girls walked along side by side. Mary Ann had stiff,
+straight, light hair, and high cheek bones. Her eyes were light and her
+eyelashes almost white. They did not show up well beneath her checked
+sunbonnet. Her complexion was dull and tanned. She was a contrast to
+Marcia with her clear red and white skin. She was tall and awkward and
+wore a linsey-woolsey frock as though it were a meal sack temporarily
+appropriated. She had the air of always trying to hide her feet and hands.
+Mary Ann had some fine qualities, but beauty was not one of them. Beside
+her Marcia's delicate features showed clear-cut like a cameo, and her
+every movement spoke of patrician blood.
+
+Mary Ann regarded Marcia's smooth brown braids enviously. Her own sparse
+hair barely reached to her shoulders, and straggled about her neck
+helplessly and hopelessly, in spite of her constant efforts.
+
+"It must be lots of fun at your house these days," said Mary Ann
+wistfully. "Are you most ready for the wedding?"
+
+Marcia nodded. Her eyes were bright. She could see the sign of the village
+store just ahead and knew the bolts of new chintz were displaying their
+charms in the window.
+
+"My, but your cheeks do look pretty," admired Mary Ann impulsively. "Say,
+how many of each has your sister got?"
+
+"Two dozens," said Marcia conscious of a little swelling of pride in her
+breast. It was not every girl that had such a setting out as her sister.
+
+"My!" sighed Mary Ann. "And outside things, too. I 'spose she's got one of
+every color. What are her frocks? Tell me about them. I've been up to
+Dutchess county and just got back last night, but Ma wrote Aunt Tilly that
+Mis' Hotchkiss said her frocks was the prettiest Miss Hancock's ever sewed
+on."
+
+"We think they are pretty," admitted Marcia modestly. "There's a sprigged
+chin--" here she caught herself, remembering, and laughed. "I mean
+muslin-de-laine, and a blue delaine, and a blue silk----"
+
+"My! silk!" breathed Mary Ann in an ecstasy of wonder. "And what's she
+going to be married in?"
+
+"White," answered Marcia, "white satin. And the veil was mother's--our own
+mother's, you know."
+
+Marcia spoke it reverently, her eyes shining with something far away that
+made Mary Ann think she looked like an angel.
+
+"Oh, my! Don't you just envy her?"
+
+"No," said Marcia slowly; "I think not. At least--I hope not. It wouldn't
+be right, you know. And then she's my sister and I love her dearly, and
+it's nearly as nice to have one's sister have nice things and a good time
+as to have them one's self."
+
+"You're good," said Mary Ann decidedly as if that were a foregone
+conclusion. "But I should envy her, I just should. Mis' Hotchkiss told Ma
+there wa'nt many lots in life so all honey-and-dew-prepared like your
+sister's. All the money she wanted to spend on clo'es, and a nice set out,
+and a man as handsome as you'll find anywhere, and he's well off too,
+ain't he? Ma said she heard he kept a horse and lived right in the village
+too, not as how he needed to keep one to get anywhere, either. That's what
+I call luxury--a horse to ride around with. And then Mr. What's-his-name? I
+can't remember. Oh, yes, Spafford. He's good, and everybody says he won't
+make a bit of fuss if Kate does go around and have a good time. He'll just
+let her do as she pleases. Only old Grandma Doolittle says she doesn't
+believe it. She thinks every man, no matter how good he is, wants to
+manage his wife, just for the name of it. She says your sister'll have to
+change her ways or else there'll be trouble. But that's Grandma! Everybody
+knows her. She croaks! Ma says Kate's got her nest feathered well if ever
+a girl had. My! I only wish I had the same chance!"
+
+Marcia held her head a trifle high when Mary Ann touched upon her sister's
+personal character, but they were nearing the store, and everybody knew
+Mary Ann was blunt. Poor Mary Ann! She meant no harm. She was but
+repeating the village gossip. Besides, Marcia must give her mind to
+sprigged chintz. There was no time for discussions if she would accomplish
+her purpose before the folks came home that night.
+
+"Mary Ann," she said in her sweet, prim way that always made the other
+girl stand a little in awe of her, "you mustn't listen to gossip. It isn't
+worth while. I'm sure my sister Kate will be very happy. I'm going in the
+store now, are you?" And the conversation was suddenly concluded.
+
+Mary Ann followed meekly watching with wonder and envy as Marcia made her
+bargain with the kindly merchant, and selected her chintz. What a
+delicious swish the scissors made as they went through the width of cloth,
+and how delightfully the paper crackled as the bundle was being wrapped!
+Mary Ann did not know whether Kate or Marcia was more to be envied.
+
+"Did you say you were going to make it up yourself?" asked Mary Ann.
+
+Marcia nodded.
+
+"Oh, my! Ain't you afraid? I would be. It's the prettiest I ever saw.
+Don't you go and cut both sleeves for one arm. That's what I did the only
+time Ma ever let me try." And Mary Ann touched the package under Marcia's
+arm with wistful fingers.
+
+They had reached the turn of the road and Mary Ann hoped that Marcia would
+ask her out to "help," but Marcia had no such purpose.
+
+"Well, good-bye! Will you wear it next Sunday?" she asked.
+
+"Perhaps," answered Marcia breathlessly, and sped on her homeward way, her
+cheeks bright with excitement.
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+   KATE AND HER STEPMOTHER WERE GONE UP TO THE NEIGHBORING TOWN ON THE
+                                 PACKET.]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+   KATE AND HER STEPMOTHER WERE GONE UP TO THE NEIGHBORING TOWN ON THE
+                                 PACKET.
+
+
+In her own room she spread the chintz out upon the bed and with trembling
+fingers set about her task. The bright shears clipped the edge and tore
+off the lengths exultantly as if in league with the girl. The bees hummed
+outside in the clover, and now and again buzzed between the muslin
+curtains of the open window, looked in and grumbled out again. The birds
+sang across the meadows and the sun mounted to the zenith and began its
+downward march, but still the busy fingers worked on. Well for Marcia's
+scheme that the fashion of the day was simple, wherein were few puckers
+and plaits and tucks, and little trimming required, else her task would
+have been impossible.
+
+Her heart beat high as she tried it on at last, the new chintz that she
+had made. She went into the spare room and stood before the long mirror in
+its wide gilt frame that rested on two gilt knobs standing out from the
+wall like giant rosettes. She had dared to make the skirt a little longer
+than that of her best frock. It was almost as long as Kate's, and for a
+moment she lingered, sweeping backward and forward before the glass and
+admiring herself in the long graceful folds. She caught up her braids in
+the fashion that Kate wore her hair and smiled at the reflection of
+herself in the mirror. How funny it seemed to think she would soon be a
+woman like Kate. When Kate was gone they would begin to call her "Miss"
+sometimes. Somehow she did not care to look ahead. The present seemed
+enough. She had so wrapped her thoughts in her sister's new life that her
+own seemed flat and stale in comparison.
+
+The sound of a distant hay wagon on the road reminded her that the sun was
+near to setting. The family carryall would soon be coming up the lane from
+the evening packet. She must hurry and take off her frock and be dressed
+before they arrived.
+
+Marcia was so tired that night after supper that she was glad to slip away
+to bed, without waiting to hear Kate's voluble account of her day in town,
+the beauties she had seen and the friends she had met.
+
+She lay down and dreamed of the morrow, and of the next day, and the next.
+In strange bewilderment she awoke in the night and found the moonlight
+streaming full into her face. Then she laughed and rubbed her eyes and
+tried to go to sleep again; but she could not, for she had dreamed that
+she was the bride herself, and the words of Mary Ann kept going over and
+over in her mind. "Oh, don't you envy her?" _Did_ she envy her sister? But
+that was wicked. It troubled her to think of it, and she tried to banish
+the dream, but it would come again and again with a strange sweet
+pleasure.
+
+She lay wondering if such a time of joy would ever come to her as had come
+to Kate, and whether the spare bed would ever be piled high with clothes
+and fittings for her new life. What a wonderful thing it was anyway to be
+a woman and be loved!
+
+Then her dreams blended again with the soft perfume of the honeysuckle at
+the window, and the hooting of a young owl.
+
+The moon dropped lower, the bright stars paled, dawn stole up through the
+edges of the woods far away and awakened a day that was to bring a strange
+transformation over Marcia's life.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+As a natural consequence of her hard work and her midnight awakening,
+Marcia overslept the next morning. Her stepmother called her sharply and
+she dressed in haste, not even taking time to glance toward the new folds
+of chintz that drew her thoughts closetward. She dared not say anything
+about it yet. There was much to be done, and not even Kate had time for an
+idle word with her. Marcia was called upon to run errands, to do odds and
+ends of things, to fill in vacant places, to sew on lost buttons, to do
+everything for which nobody else had time. The household had suddenly
+become aware that there was now but one more intervening day between them
+and the wedding.
+
+It was not until late in the afternoon that Marcia ventured to put on her
+frock. Even then she felt shy about appearing in it.
+
+Madam Schuyler was busy in the parlor with callers, and Kate was locked in
+her own room whither she had gone to rest. There was no one to notice if
+Marcia should "dress up," and it was not unlikely that she might escape
+much notice even at the supper table, as everybody was so absorbed in
+other things.
+
+She lingered before her own little glass looking wistfully at herself. She
+was pleased with the frock she had made and liked her appearance in it,
+but yet there was something disappointing about it. It had none of the
+style of her sister's garments, newly come from the hand of the village
+mantua-maker. It was girlish, and showed her slip of a form prettily in
+the fashion of the day, but she felt too young. She wanted to look older.
+She searched her drawer and found a bit of black velvet which she pinned
+about her throat with a pin containing the miniature of her mother, then
+with a second thought she drew the long braids up in loops and fastened
+them about her head in older fashion. It suited her well, and the change
+it made astonished her. She decided to wear them so and see if others
+would notice. Surely, some day she would be a young woman, and perhaps
+then she would be allowed to have a will of her own occasionally.
+
+She drew a quick breath as she descended the stairs and found her
+stepmother and the visitor just coming into the hall from the parlor.
+
+They both involuntarily ceased their talk and looked at her in surprise.
+Over Madam Schuyler's face there came a look as if she had received a
+revelation. Marcia was no longer a child, but had suddenly blossomed into
+young womanhood. It was not the time she would have chosen for such an
+event. There was enough going on, and Marcia was still in school. She had
+no desire to steer another young soul through the various dangers and
+follies that beset a pretty girl from the time she puts up her hair until
+she is safely married to the right man--or the wrong one. She had just
+begun to look forward with relief to having Kate well settled in life.
+Kate had been a hard one to manage. She had too much will of her own and a
+pretty way of always having it. She had no deep sense of reverence for
+old, staid manners and customs. Many a long lecture had Madam Schuyler
+delivered to Kate upon her unseemly ways. It did not please her to think
+of having to go through it all so soon again, therefore upon her usually
+complacent brow there came a look of dismay.
+
+"Why!" exclaimed the visitor, "is this the bride? How tall she looks! No!
+Bless me! it isn't, is it? Yes,--Well! I'll declare. It's just Marsh! What
+have you got on, child? How old you look!"
+
+Marcia flushed. It was not pleasant to have her young womanhood
+questioned, and in a tone so familiar and patronizing. She disliked the
+name of "Marsh" exceedingly, especially upon the lips of this woman, a
+sort of second cousin of her stepmother's. She would rather have chosen
+the new frock to pass under inspection of her stepmother without
+witnesses, but it was too late to turn back now. She must face it.
+
+Though Madam Schuyler's equilibrium was a trifle disturbed, she was not
+one to show it before a visitor. Instantly she recovered her balance, and
+perhaps Marcia's ordeal was less trying than if there had been no third
+person present.
+
+"That looks very well, child!" she said critically with a shade of
+complacence in her voice. It is true that Marcia had gone beyond orders in
+purchasing and making garments unknown to her, yet the neatness and fit
+could but reflect well upon her training. It did no harm for cousin Maria
+to see what a child of her training could do. It was, on the whole, a very
+creditable piece of work, and Madam Schuyler grew more reconciled to it as
+Marcia came down toward them.
+
+"Make it herself?" asked cousin Maria. "Why, Marsh, you did real well. My
+Matilda does all her own clothes now. It's time you were learning. It's a
+trifle longish to what you've been wearing them, isn't it? But you'll grow
+into it, I dare say. Got your hair a new way too. I thought you were Kate
+when you first started down stairs. You'll make a good-looking young lady
+when you grow up; only don't be in too much hurry. Take your girlhood
+while you've got it, is what I always tell Matilda."
+
+Matilda was well on to thirty and showed no signs of taking anything else.
+
+Madam Schuyler smoothed an imaginary pucker across the shoulders and again
+pronounced the work good.
+
+"I picked berries and got the cloth," confessed Marcia.
+
+Madam Schuyler smiled benevolently and patted Marcia's cheek.
+
+"You needn't have done that, child. Why didn't you come to me for money?
+You needed something new, and that is a very good purchase, a little
+light, perhaps, but very pretty. We've been so busy with Kate's things you
+have been neglected."
+
+Marcia smiled with pleasure and passed into the dining room wondering what
+power the visitor had over her stepmother to make her pass over this
+digression from her rules so sweetly,--nay, even with praise.
+
+At supper they all rallied Marcia upon her changed appearance. Her father
+jokingly said that when the bridegroom arrived he would hardly know which
+sister to choose, and he looked from one comely daughter to the other with
+fatherly pride. He praised Marcia for doing the work so neatly, and
+inwardly admired the courage and independence that prompted her to get the
+money by her own unaided efforts rather than to ask for it, and later, as
+he passed through the room where she was helping to remove the dishes from
+the table, he paused and handed her a crisp five-dollar note. It had
+occurred to him that one daughter was getting all the good things and the
+other was having nothing. There was a pleasant tenderness in his eyes, a
+recognition of her rights as a young woman, that made Marcia's heart
+exceedingly light. There was something strange about the influence this
+little new frock seemed to have upon people.
+
+Even Kate had taken a new tone with her. Much of the time at supper she
+had sat staring at her sister. Marcia wondered about it as she walked down
+toward the gate after her work was done. Kate had never seemed so quiet.
+Was she just beginning to realize that she was leaving home forever, and
+was she thinking how the home would be after she had left it? How she,
+Marcia, would take the place of elder sister, with only little Harriet and
+the boys, their stepsister and brothers, left? Was Kate sad over the
+thought of going so far away from them, or was she feeling suddenly the
+responsibility of the new position she was to occupy and the duties that
+would be hers? No, that could not be it, for surely that would bring a
+softening of expression, a sweetness of anticipation, and Kate's
+expression had been wondering, perplexed, almost troubled. If she had not
+been her own sister Marcia would have added, "hard," but she stopped short
+at that.
+
+It was a lovely evening. The twilight was not yet over as she stepped from
+the low piazza that ran the length of the house bearing another above it
+on great white pillars. A drapery of wistaria in full bloom festooned
+across one end and half over the front. Marcia stepped back across the
+stone flagging and driveway to look up the purple clusters of graceful
+fairy-like shape that embowered the house, and thought how beautiful it
+would look when the wedding guests should arrive the day after the morrow.
+Then she turned into the little gravel path, box-bordered, that led to the
+gate. Here and there on either side luxuriant blooms of dahlias, peonies
+and roses leaned over into the night and peered at her. The yard had never
+looked so pretty. The flowers truly had done their best for the occasion,
+and they seemed to be asking some word of commendation from her.
+
+They nodded their dewy heads sleepily as she went on.
+
+To-morrow the children would be coming back from Aunt Eliza's, where they
+had been sent safely out of the way for a few days, and the last things
+would arrive,--and _he_ would come. Not later than three in the afternoon
+he ought to arrive, Kate had said, though there was a possibility that he
+might come in the morning, but Kate was not counting upon it. He was to
+drive from his home to Schenectady and, leaving his own horse there to
+rest, come on by coach. Then he and Kate would go back in fine style to
+Schenectady in a coach and pair, with a colored coachman, and at
+Schenectady take their own horse and drive on to their home, a long
+beautiful ride, so thought Marcia half enviously. How beautiful it would
+be! What endless delightful talks they might have about the trees and
+birds and things they saw in passing only Kate did not love to talk about
+such things. But then she would be with David, and he talked beautifully
+about nature or anything else. Kate would learn to love it if she loved
+him. Did Kate love David? Of course she must or why should she marry him?
+Marcia resented the thought that Kate might have other objects in view,
+such as Mary Ann Fothergill had suggested for instance. Of course Kate
+would never marry any man unless she loved him. That would be a dreadful
+thing to do. Love was the greatest thing in the world. Marcia looked up to
+the stars, her young soul thrilling with awe and reverence for the great
+mysteries of life. She wondered again if life would open sometime for her
+in some such great way, and if she would ever know better than now what it
+meant. Would some one come and love her? Some one whom she could love in
+return with all the fervor of her nature?
+
+She had dreamed such dreams before many times, as girls will, while lovers
+and future are all in one dreamy, sweet blending of rosy tints and joyous
+mystery, but never had they come to her with such vividness as that night.
+Perhaps it was because the household had recognized the woman in her for
+the first time that evening. Perhaps because the vision she had seen
+reflected in her mirror before she left her room that afternoon had opened
+the door of the future a little wider than it had ever opened before.
+
+She stood by the gate where the syringa and lilac bushes leaned over and
+arched the way, and the honeysuckle climbed about the fence in a wild
+pretty way of its own and flung sweetness on the air in vivid, erratic
+whiffs.
+
+The sidewalk outside was brick, and whenever she heard footsteps coming
+she stepped back into the shadow of the syringa and was hidden from view.
+She was in no mood to talk with any one.
+
+She could look out into the dusty road and see dimly the horses and
+carryalls as they passed, and recognize an occasional laughing voice of
+some village maiden out with her best young man for a ride. Others
+strolled along the sidewalk, and fragments of talk floated back. Almost
+every one had a word to say about the wedding as they neared the gate, and
+if Marcia had been in another mood it would have been interesting and
+gratifying to her pride. Every one had a good word for Kate, though many
+disapproved of her in a general way for principle's sake.
+
+Hanford Weston passed, with long, slouching gait, hands in his trousers
+pockets, and a frightened, hasty, sideways glance toward the lights of the
+house beyond. He would have gone in boldly to call if he had dared, and
+told Marcia that he had done her bidding and now wanted a reward, but John
+Middleton had joined him at the corner and he dared not make the attempt.
+John would have done it in a minute if he had wished. He was brazen by
+nature, but Hanford knew that he would as readily laugh at another for
+doing it. Hanford shrank from a laugh more than from the cannon's mouth,
+so he slouched on, not knowing that his goddess held her breath behind a
+lilac bush not three feet away, her heart beating in annoyed taps to be
+again interrupted by him in her pleasant thoughts.
+
+Merry, laughing voices mingling with many footsteps came sounding down the
+street and paused beside the gate. Marcia knew the voices and again slid
+behind the shrubbery that bordered all the way to the house, and not even
+a gleam of her light frock was visible. They trooped in, three or four
+girl friends of Kate's and a couple of young men.
+
+Marcia watched them pass up the box-bordered path from her shadowy
+retreat, and thought how they would miss Kate, and wondered if the young
+men who had been coming there so constantly to see her had no pangs of
+heart that their friend and leader was about to leave them. Then she
+smiled at herself in the dark. She seemed to be doing the retrospect for
+Kate, taking leave of all the old friends, home, and life, in Kate's
+place. It was not her life anyway, and why should she bother herself and
+sigh and feel this sadness creeping over her for some one else? Was it
+that she was going to lose her sister? No, for Kate had never been much of
+a companion to her. She had always put her down as a little girl and made
+distinct and clear the difference in their ages. Marcia had been the
+little maid to fetch and carry, the errand girl, and unselfish, devoted
+slave in Kate's life. There had been nothing protective and elder-sisterly
+in her manner toward Marcia. At times Marcia had felt this keenly, but no
+expression of this lack had ever crossed her lips, and afterwards her
+devotion to her sister had been the greater, to in a measure compensate
+for this reproachful thought.
+
+But Marcia could not shake the sadness off. She stole in further among the
+trees to think about it till the callers should go away. She felt no
+desire to meet any of them.
+
+She began again to wonder how she would feel if day after to-morrow were
+her wedding day, and she were going away from home and friends and all the
+scenes with which she had been familiar since babyhood. Would she mind
+very much leaving them all? Father? Yes, father had been good to her, and
+loved her and was proud of her in a way. But one does not lose one's
+father no matter how far one goes. A father is a father always; and Mr.
+Schuyler was not a demonstrative man. Marcia felt that her father would
+not miss her deeply, and she was not sure she would miss him so very much.
+She had read to him a great deal and talked politics with him whenever he
+had no one better by, but aside from that her life had been lived much
+apart from him. Her stepmother? Yes, she would miss her as one misses a
+perfect mentor and guide. She had been used to looking to her for
+direction. She was thoroughly conscious that she had a will of her own and
+would like a chance to exercise it, still, she knew that in many cases
+without her stepmother she would be like a rudderless ship, a guideless
+traveller. And she loved her stepmother too, as a young girl can love a
+good woman who has been her guide and helper, even though there never has
+been great tenderness between them. Yes, she would miss her stepmother,
+but she would not feel so very sad over it. Harriet and the little
+brothers? Oh, yes, she would miss them, they were dear little things and
+devoted to her.
+
+Then there were the neighbors, and the schoolmates, and the people of the
+village. She would miss the minister,--the dear old minister and his wife.
+Many a time she had gone with her arms full of flowers to the parsonage
+down the street, and spent the afternoon with the minister's wife. Her
+smooth white hair under its muslin cap, and her soft wrinkled cheek were
+very dear to the young girl. She had talked to this friend more freely
+about her innermost thoughts than she had ever spoken to any living being.
+Oh, she would miss the minister's wife very much if she were to go away.
+
+The names of her schoolmates came to her. Harriet Woodgate, Eliza
+Buchanan, Margaret Fletcher, three girls who were her intimates. She would
+miss them, of course, but how much? She could scarcely tell. Margaret
+Fletcher more than the other two. Mary Ann Fothergill? She almost laughed
+at the thought of anybody missing Mary Ann. John Middleton? Hanford
+Weston? There was not a boy in the school she would miss for an instant,
+she told herself with conviction. Not one of them realized her ideal.
+There was much pairing off of boy and girl in school, but Marcia, like the
+heroine of "Comin' thro' the Rye," was good friends with all the boys and
+intimate with none. They all counted it an honor to wait upon her, and she
+cared not a farthing for any. She felt herself too young, of course, to
+think of such things, but when she dreamed her day dreams the lover and
+prince who figured in them bore no familiar form or feature. He was a
+prince and these were only schoolboys.
+
+The merry chatter of the young people in the house floated through the
+open windows, and Marcia could hear her sister's voice above them all.
+Chameleon-like she was all gaiety and laughter now, since her gravity at
+supper.
+
+They were coming out the front door and down the walk. Kate was with them.
+Marcia could catch glimpses of the girls' white frocks as they came
+nearer. She saw that her sister was walking with Captain Leavenworth. He
+was a handsome young man who made a fine appearance in his uniform. He and
+Kate had been intimate for two years, and it might have been more than
+friendship had not Kate's father interfered between them. He did not think
+so well of the handsome young captain as did either his daughter Kate or
+the United States Navy who had given him his position. Squire Schuyler
+required deep integrity and strength of moral character in the man who
+aspired to be his son-in-law. The captain did not number much of either
+among his virtues.
+
+There had been a short, sharp contest which had ended in the departure of
+young Leavenworth from the town some three years before, and the temporary
+plunging of Kate Schuyler into a season of tears and pouting. But it had
+not been long before her gay laughter was ringing again, and her father
+thought she had forgotten. About that time David Spafford had appeared and
+promptly fallen in love with the beautiful girl, and the Schuyler mind was
+relieved. So it came about that, upon the reappearance of the handsome
+young captain wearing the insignia of his first honors, the Squire
+received him graciously. He even felt that he might be more lenient about
+his moral character, and told himself that perhaps he was not so bad after
+all, he must have something in him or the United States government would
+not have seen fit to honor him. It was easier to think so, now Kate was
+safe.
+
+Marcia watched her sister and the captain go laughing down to the gate,
+and out into the street. She wondered that Kate could care to go out
+to-night when it was to be almost her last evening at home; wondered, too,
+that Kate would walk with Captain Leavenworth when she belonged to David
+now. She might have managed it to go with one of the girls. But that was
+Kate's way. Kate's ways were not Marcia's ways.
+
+Marcia wondered if she would miss Kate, and was obliged to acknowledge to
+herself that in many ways her sister's absence would be a relief to her.
+While she recognized the power of her sister's beauty and will over her,
+she felt oppressed sometimes by the strain she was under to please, and
+wearied of the constant, half-fretful, half playful fault-finding.
+
+The gay footsteps and voices died away down the village street, and Marcia
+ventured forth from her retreat. The moon was just rising and came up a
+glorious burnished disk, silhouetting her face as she stood a moment
+listening to the stirring of a bird among the branches. It was her will
+to-night to be alone and let her fancies wander where they would. The
+beauty and the mystery of a wedding was upon her, touching all her deeper
+feelings, and she wished to dream it out and wonder over it. Again it came
+to her what if the day after the morrow were her wedding day and she stood
+alone thinking about it. She would not have gone off down the street with
+a lot of giggling girls nor walked with another young man. She would have
+stood here, or down by the gate--and she moved on toward her favorite arch
+of lilac and syringa--yes, down by the gate in the darkness looking out and
+thinking how it would be when he should come. She felt sure if it had been
+herself who expected David she would have begun to watch for him a week
+before the time he had set for coming, heralding it again and again to her
+heart in joyous thrills of happiness, for who knew but he might come
+sooner and surprise her? She would have rejoiced that to-night she was
+alone, and would have excused herself from everything else to come down
+there in the stillness and watch for him, and think how it would be when
+he would really get there. She would hear his step echoing down the street
+and would recognize it as his. She would lean far over the gate to listen
+and watch, and it would come nearer and nearer, and her heart would beat
+faster and faster, and her breath come quicker, until he was at last by
+her side, his beautiful surprise for her in his eyes. But now, if David
+should really try to surprise Kate by coming that way to-night he would
+not find her waiting nor thinking of him at all, but off with Captain
+Leavenworth.
+
+With a passing pity for David she went back to her own dream. With one
+elbow on the gate and her cheek in her hand she thought it all over. The
+delayed evening coach rumbled up to the tavern not far away and halted.
+Real footsteps came up the street, but Marcia did not notice them only as
+they made more vivid her thoughts.
+
+Her dream went on and the steps drew nearer until suddenly they halted and
+some one appeared out of the shadow. Her heart stood still, for form and
+face in the darkness seemed unreal, and the dreams had been most vivid.
+Then with tender masterfulness two strong arms were flung about her and
+her face was drawn close to his across the vine-twined gate until her lips
+touched his. One long clinging kiss of tenderness he gave her and held her
+head close against his breast for just a moment while he murmured: "My
+darling! My precious, precious Kate, I have you at last!"
+
+The spell was broken! Marcia's dream was shattered. Her mind awoke. With a
+scream she sprang from him, horror and a wild but holy joy mingling with
+her perplexity. She put her hand upon her heart, marvelling over the
+sweetness that lingered upon her lips, trying to recover her senses as she
+faced the eager lover who opened the little gate and came quickly toward
+her, as yet unaware that it was not Kate to whom he had been talking.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+Marcia stood quivering, trembling. She comprehended all in an instant.
+David Spafford had come a day earlier than he had been expected, to
+surprise Kate, and Kate was off having a good time with some one else. He
+had mistaken her for Kate. Her long dress and her put-up hair had deceived
+him in the moonlight. She tried to summon some womanly courage, and in her
+earnestness to make things right she forgot her natural timidity.
+
+"It is not Kate," she said gently; "it is only Marcia. Kate did not know
+you were coming to-night. She did not expect you till to-morrow. She had
+to go out,--that is--she has gone with--" the truthful, youthful, troubled
+sister paused. To her mind it was a calamity that Kate was not present to
+meet her lover. She should at least have been in the house ready for a
+surprise like this. Would David not feel the omission keenly? She must
+keep it from him if she could about Captain Leavenworth. There was no
+reason why he should feel badly about it, of course, and yet it might
+annoy him. But he stepped back laughing at his mistake.
+
+"Why! Marcia, is it you, child? How you have grown! I never should have
+known you!" said the young man pleasantly. He had always a grave
+tenderness for this little sister of his love. "Of course your sister did
+not know I was coming," he went on, "and doubtless she has many things to
+attend to. I did not expect her to be out here watching for me, though for
+a moment I did think she was at the gate. You say she is gone out? Then we
+will go up to the house and I will be there to surprise her when she
+comes."
+
+Marcia turned with relief. He had not asked where Kate was gone, nor with
+whom.
+
+The Squire and Madam Schuyler greeted the arrival with elaborate welcome.
+The Squire like Marcia seemed much annoyed that Kate had gone out. He kept
+fuming back and forth from the window to the door and asking: "What did
+she go out for to-night? She ought to have stayed at home!"
+
+But Madam Schuyler wore ample satisfaction upon her smooth brow. The
+bridegroom had arrived. There could be no further hitch in the ceremonies.
+He had arrived a day before the time, it is true; but he had not found
+_her_ unprepared. So far as she was concerned, with a few extra touches
+the wedding might proceed at once. She was always ready for everything in
+time. No one could find a screw loose in the machinery of her household.
+
+She bustled about, giving orders and laying a bountiful supper before the
+young man, while the Squire sat and talked with him, and Marcia hovered
+watchfully, waiting upon the table, noticing with admiring eyes the
+beautiful wave of his abundant hair, tossed back from his forehead. She
+took a kind of pride of possession in his handsome face,--the far-removed
+possession of a sister-in-law. There was his sunny smile, that seemed as
+though it could bring joy out of the gloom of a bleak December day, and
+there were the two dimples--not real dimples, of course, men never had
+dimples--but hints, suggestions of dimples, that caught themselves when he
+smiled, here and there like hidden mischief well kept under control, but
+still merrily ready to come to the surface. His hands were white and firm,
+the fingers long and shapely, the hands of a brain worker. The vision of
+Hanford Weston's hands, red and bony, came up to her in contrast. She had
+not known that she looked at them that day when he had stood awkwardly
+asking if he might walk with her. Poor Hanford! He would ill compare with
+this cultured scholarly man who was his senior by ten years, though it is
+possible that with the ten years added he would have been quite worthy of
+the admiration of any of the village girls.
+
+The fruit cake and raspberry preserves and doughnuts and all the various
+viands that Madam Schuyler had ordered set out for the delectation of her
+guest had been partaken of, and David and the Squire sat talking of the
+news of the day, touching on politics, with a bit of laughter from the
+Squire at the man who thought he had invented a machine to draw carriages
+by steam in place of horses.
+
+"There's a good deal in it, I believe," said the younger man. "His theory
+is all right if he can get some one to help him carry it out."
+
+"Well, maybe, maybe," said the Squire shaking his head dubiously, "but it
+seems to me a very fanciful scheme. Horses are good enough for me. I
+shouldn't like to trust myself to an unknown quantity like steam, but time
+will tell."
+
+"Yes, and the world is progressing. Something of the sort is sure to come.
+It has come in England. It would make a vast change in our country,
+binding city to city and practically eradicating space."
+
+"Visionary schemes, David, visionary schemes, that's what I call them. You
+and I'll never see them in our day, I'm sure of that. Remember this is a
+new country and must go slow." The Squire was half laughing, half in
+earnest.
+
+Amid the talk Marcia had quietly slipped out. It had occurred to her that
+perhaps the captain might return with her sister.
+
+She must watch for Kate and warn her. Like a shadow in the moonlight she
+stepped softly down the gravel path once more and waited at the gate. Did
+not that sacred kiss placed upon her lips all by mistake bind her to this
+solemn duty? Had it not been given to her to see as in a revelation, by
+that kiss, the love of one man for one woman, deep and tender and true?
+
+In the fragrant darkness her soul stood still and wondered over Love, the
+marvellous. With an insight such as few have who have not tasted years of
+wedded joy, Marcia comprehended the possibility and joy of sacrifice that
+made even sad things bright because of Love. She saw like a flash how Kate
+could give up her gay life, her home, her friends, everything that life
+had heretofore held dear for her, that she might be by the side of the man
+who loved her so. But with this knowledge of David's love for Kate came a
+troubled doubt. Did Kate love David that way? If Kate had been the one who
+received that kiss would she have returned it with the same tenderness and
+warmth with which it was given? Marcia dared not try to answer this. It
+was Kate's question, not hers, and she must never let it enter her mind
+again. Of course she must love him that way or she would never marry him.
+
+The night crept slowly for the anxious little watcher at the gate. Had she
+been sure where to look for her sister, and not afraid of the tongues of a
+few interested neighbors who had watched everything at the house for days
+that no item about the wedding should escape them, she would have started
+on a search at once. She knew if she just ran into old Miss Pemberton's,
+whose house stood out upon the street with two straight-backed little,
+high, white seats each side of the stoop, a most delightful post of
+observation, she could discover at once in which direction Kate had gone,
+and perhaps a good deal more of hints and suggestions besides. But Marcia
+had no mind to make gossip. She must wait as patiently as she could for
+Kate. Moreover Kate might be walking even now in some secluded, rose-lined
+lane arm in arm with the captain, saying a pleasant farewell. It was
+Kate's way and no one might gainsay her.
+
+Marcia's dreams came back once more, the thoughts that had been hers as
+she stood there an hour before. She thought how the kiss had fitted into
+the dream. Then all at once conscience told her it was Kate's lover, not
+her own, whose arms had encircled her. And now there was a strange
+unwillingness to go back to the dreams at all, a lingering longing for the
+joys into whose glory she had been for a moment permitted to look. She
+drew back from all thoughts and tried to close the door upon them. They
+seemed too sacred to enter. Her maidenhood was but just begun and she had
+much yet to learn of life. She was glad, glad for Kate that such
+wonderfulness was coming to her. Kate would be sweeter, softer in her ways
+now. She could not help it with a love like that enfolding her life.
+
+At last there were footsteps! Hark! Two people--only two! Just what Marcia
+had expected. The other girls and boys had dropped into other streets or
+gone home. Kate and her former lover were coming home alone. And,
+furthermore, Kate would not be glad to see her sister at the gate. This
+last thought came with sudden conviction, but Marcia did not falter.
+
+"Kate, David has come!" Marcia said it in low, almost accusing tones, at
+least so it sounded to Kate, before the two had hardly reached the gate.
+They had been loitering along talking in low tones, and the young
+captain's head was bent over his companion in an earnest, pleading
+attitude. Marcia could not bear to look, and did not wish to see more, so
+she had spoken.
+
+Kate, startled, sprang away from her companion, a white angry look in her
+face.
+
+"How you scared me, Marsh!" she exclaimed pettishly. "What if he has come?
+That's nothing. I guess he can wait a few minutes. He had no business to
+come to-night anyway. He knew we wouldn't be ready for him till
+to-morrow."
+
+Kate was recovering her self-possession in proportion as she realized the
+situation. That she was vexed over her bridegroom's arrival neither of the
+two witnesses could doubt. It stung her sister with a deep pity for David.
+He was not getting as much in Kate as he was giving. But there was no time
+for such thoughts, besides Marcia was trembling from head to foot, partly
+with her own daring, partly with wrath at her sister's words.
+
+"For shame, Kate!" she cried. "How can you talk so, even in fun! David
+came to surprise you, and I think he had a right to expect to find you
+here so near to the time of your marriage."
+
+There was a flash in the young eyes as she said it, and a delicate lifting
+of her chin with the conviction of the truth she was speaking, that gave
+her a new dignity even in the moonlight. Captain Leavenworth looked at her
+in lazy admiration and said:
+
+"Why, Marsh, you're developing into quite a spitfire. What have you got on
+to-night that makes you look so tall and handsome? Why didn't you stay in
+and talk to your fine gentleman? I'm sure he would have been just as well
+satisfied with you as your sister."
+
+Marcia gave one withering glance at the young man and then turned her back
+full upon him. He was not worth noticing. Besides he was to be pitied, for
+he evidently cared still for Kate.
+
+But Kate was fairly white with anger. Perhaps her own accusing conscience
+helped it on. Her voice was imperious and cold. She drew herself up
+haughtily and pointed toward the house.
+
+"Marcia Schuyler," she said coldly, facing her sister, "go into the house
+and attend to your own affairs. You'll find that you'll get into serious
+trouble if you attempt to meddle with mine. You're nothing but a child yet
+and ought to be punished for your impudence. Go! I tell you!" she stamped
+her foot, "I will come in when I get ready."
+
+Marcia went. Not proudly as she might have gone the moment before, but
+covered with confusion and shame, her head drooping like some crushed lily
+on a bleeding stalk. Through her soul rushed indignation, mighty and
+forceful; indignation and shame, for her sister, for David, for herself.
+She did not stop to analyze her various feelings, nor did she stop to
+speak further with those in the house. She fled to her own room, and
+burying her face in the pillow she wept until she fell asleep.
+
+The moon-shadows grew longer about the arbored gateway where the two she
+had left stood talking in low tones, looking furtively now and then toward
+the house, and withdrawing into the covert of the bushes by the walk. But
+Kate dared not linger long. She could see her father's profile by the
+candle light in the dining room. She did not wish to receive further
+rebuke, and so in a very few minutes the two parted and Kate ran up the
+box-edged path, beginning to hum a sweet old love song in a gay light
+voice, as she tripped by the dining-room windows, and thus announced her
+arrival. She guessed that Marcia would have gone straight to her room and
+told nothing. Kate intended to be fully surprised. She paused in the hall
+to hang up the light shawl she had worn, calling good-night to her
+stepmother and saying she was very tired and was going straight to bed to
+be ready for to-morrow. Then she ran lightly across the hall to the
+stairs.
+
+She knew they would call her back, and that they would all come into the
+hall with David to see the effect of his surprise upon her. She had
+planned to a nicety just which stair she could reach before they got
+there, and where she would pause and turn and poise, and what pose she
+would take with her round white arm stretched to the handrail, the sleeve
+turned carelessly back. She had ready her countenances, a sleepy
+indifference, then a pleased surprise, and a climax of delight. She
+carried it all out, this little bit of impromptu acting, as well as though
+she had rehearsed it for a month.
+
+They called her, and she turned deliberately, one dainty, slippered foot,
+with its crossed black ribbons about the slender ankle, just leaving the
+stair below, and showing the arch of the aristocratic instep. Her gown was
+blue and she held it back just enough for the stiff white frill of her
+petticoat to peep below. Well she read the admiration in the eyes below
+her. Admiration was Kate's life: she thrived upon it. She could not do
+without it.
+
+David stood still, his love in his eyes, looking upon the vision of his
+bride, and his heart swelled within him that so great a treasure should be
+his. Then straightway they all forgot to question where she had been or to
+rebuke her that she had been at all. She had known they would. She ever
+possessed the power to make others forget her wrong doings when it was
+worth her while to try.
+
+The next morning things were astir even earlier than usual. There was the
+sound of the beating of eggs, the stirring of cakes, the clatter of pots
+and pans from the wide, stone-flagged kitchen.
+
+Marcia, fresh as a flower from its morning dew in spite of her cry the
+night before, had arisen to new opportunities for service. She was glad
+with the joyous forgetfulness of youth when she looked at David's happy
+face, and she thought no more of Kate's treatment of herself.
+
+David followed Kate with a true lover's eyes and was never for more than a
+few moments out of her sight, though it seemed to Marcia that Kate did not
+try very hard to stay with him. When afternoon came she dismissed him for
+what she called her "beauty nap." Marcia was passing through the hall at
+the time and she caught the tender look upon his face as he touched her
+brow with reverent fingers and told her she had no need for that. Her eyes
+met Kate's as they were going up the stairs, and in spite of what Kate had
+said the night before Marcia could not refrain from saying: "Oh, Kate! how
+could you when he loves you so? You know you never take a nap in the
+daytime!"
+
+"You silly girl!" said Kate pleasantly enough, "don't you know the less a
+man sees of one the more he thinks of her?" With this remark she closed
+and fastened her door after her.
+
+Marcia pondered these words of wisdom for some time, wondering whether
+Kate had really done it for that reason, or whether she did not care for
+the company of her lover. And why should it be so that a man loved you
+less because he saw you more? In her straightforward code the more you
+loved persons the more you desired to be in their company.
+
+Kate had issued from her "beauty nap" with a feverish restlessness in her
+eyes, an averted face, and ink upon one finger. At supper she scarcely
+spoke, and when she did she laughed excitedly over little things. Her
+lover watched her with eyes of pride and ever increasing wonder over her
+beauty, and Marcia, seeing the light in his face, watched for its answer
+in her sister's, and finding it not was troubled.
+
+She watched them from her bedroom window as they walked down the path
+where she had gone the evening before, decorously side by side, Kate
+holding her light muslin frock back from the dew on the hedges. She
+wondered if it was because Kate had more respect for David than for
+Captain Leavenworth that she never seemed to treat him with as much
+familiarity. She did not take possession of him in the same sweet
+imperious way.
+
+Marcia had not lighted her candle. The moon gave light enough and she was
+very weary, so she undressed in the dim chamber and pondered upon the ways
+of the great world. Out there in the moonlight were those two who
+to-morrow would be one, and here was she, alone. The world seemed all
+circling about that white chamber of hers, and echoing with her own
+consciousness of self, and a loneliness she had never felt before. She
+wondered what it might be. Was it all sadness at parting with Kate, or was
+it the sadness over inevitable partings of all human relationships, and
+the all-aloneness of every living spirit?
+
+She stood for a moment, white-robed, beside her window, looking up into
+the full round moon, and wondering if God knew the ache of loneliness in
+His little human creatures' souls that He had made, and whether He had
+ready something wherewith to satisfy. Then her meek soul bowed before the
+faith that was in her and she knelt for her shy but reverent evening
+prayer.
+
+She heard the two lovers come in early and go upstairs, and she heard her
+father fastening up the doors and windows for the night. Then stillness
+gradually settled down and she fell asleep. Later, in her dreams, there
+echoed the sound of hastening hoofs far down the deserted street and over
+the old covered bridge, but she took no note of any sound, and the weary
+household slept on.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The wedding was set for ten o'clock in the morning, after which there was
+to be a wedding breakfast and the married couple were to start immediately
+for their new home.
+
+David had driven the day before with his own horse and chaise to a town
+some twenty miles away, and there left his horse at a tavern to rest for
+the return trip, for Kate would have it that they must leave the house in
+high style. So the finest equipage the town afforded had been secured to
+bear them on the first stage of their journey, with a portly negro driver
+and everything according to the custom of the greatest of the land.
+Nothing that Kate desired about the arrangements had been left undone.
+
+The household was fully astir by half past four, for the family breakfast
+was to be at six promptly, that all might be cleared away and in readiness
+for the early arrival of the various aunts and uncles and cousins and
+friends who would "drive over" from the country round about. It would have
+been something Madam Schuyler would never have been able to get over if
+aught had been awry when a single uncle or aunt appeared upon the scene,
+or if there seemed to be the least evidence of fluster and nervousness.
+
+The rosy sunlight in the east was mixing the morning with fresher air, and
+new odors for the new day that was dawning, when Marcia awoke. The sharp
+click of spoons and dishes, the voices of the maids, the sizzle, sputter,
+odor of frying ham and eggs, mingled with the early chorus of the birds,
+and calling to life of all living creatures, like an intrusion upon
+nature. It seemed not right to steal the morning's "quiet hour" thus
+rudely. The thought flitted through the girl's mind, and in an instant
+more the whole panorama of the day's excitement was before her, and she
+sprang from her bed. As if it had been her own wedding day instead of her
+sister's, she performed her dainty toilet, for though there was need for
+haste, she knew she would have no further time beyond a moment to slip on
+her best gown and smooth her hair.
+
+Marcia hurried downstairs just as the bell rang for breakfast, and David,
+coming down smiling behind her, patted her cheek and greeted her with,
+"Well, little sister, you look as rested as if you had not done a thing
+all day yesterday."
+
+She smiled shyly back at him, and her heart filled with pleasure over his
+new name for her. It sounded pleasantly from his happy lips. She was
+conscious of a gladness that he was to be so nearly related to her. She
+fancied how it would seem to say to Mary Ann: "My brother-in-law says so
+and so." It would be grand to call such a man "brother."
+
+They were all seated at the table but Kate, and Squire Schuyler waited
+with pleasantly frowning brows to ask the blessing on the morning food.
+Kate was often late. She was the only member of the family who dared to be
+late to breakfast, and being the bride and the centre of the occasion more
+leniency was granted her this morning than ever before. Madam Schuyler
+waited until every one at the table was served to ham and eggs, coffee and
+bread-and-butter, and steaming griddle cakes, before she said, looking
+anxiously at the tall clock: "Marcia, perhaps you better go up and see if
+your sister needs any help. She ought to be down by now. Uncle Joab and
+Aunt Polly will be sure to be here by eight. She must have overslept, but
+we made so much noise she is surely awake by this time."
+
+Marcia left her half-eaten breakfast and went slowly upstairs. She knew
+her sister would not welcome her, for she had often been sent on like
+errands before, and the brunt of Kate's anger had fallen upon the hapless
+messenger, wearing itself out there so that she might descend all smiles
+to greet father and mother and smooth off the situation in a most
+harmonious manner.
+
+Marcia paused before the door to listen. Perhaps Kate was nearly ready and
+her distasteful errand need not be performed. But though she held her
+breath to listen, no sound came from the closed door. Very softly she
+tried to lift the latch and peep in. Kate must still be asleep. It was not
+the first time Marcia had found that to be the case when sent to bring her
+sister.
+
+But the latch would not lift. The catch was firmly down from the inside.
+Marcia applied her eye to the keyhole, but could get no vision save a dim
+outline of the window on the other side of the room. She tapped gently
+once or twice and waited again, then called softly: "Kate, Kate! Wake up.
+Breakfast is ready and everybody is eating. Aunt Polly and Uncle Joab will
+soon be here."
+
+She repeated her tapping and calling, growing louder as she received no
+answer. Kate would often keep still to tease her thus. Surely though she
+would not do so upon her wedding morning!
+
+She called and called and shook the door, not daring, however, to make
+much of an uproar lest David should hear. She could not bear he should
+know the shortcomings of his bride.
+
+But at last she grew alarmed. Perhaps Kate was ill. At any rate, whatever
+it was, it was time she was up. She worked for some minutes trying to
+loosen the catch that held the latch, but all to no purpose. She was
+forced to go down stairs and whisper to her stepmother the state of the
+case.
+
+Madam Schuyler, excusing herself from the table, went upstairs, purposeful
+decision in every line of her substantial body, determination in every
+sound of her footfall. Bride though she be, Kate would have meted out to
+her just dues this time. Company and a lover and the nearness of the
+wedding hour were things not to be trifled with even by a charming Kate.
+
+But Madam Schuyler returned in a short space of time, puffing and panting,
+somewhat short of breath, and color in her face. She looked troubled, and
+she interrupted the Squire without waiting for him to finish his sentence
+to David.
+
+"I cannot understand what is the matter with Kate," she said, looking at
+her husband. "She does not seem to be awake, and I cannot get her door
+open. She sleeps soundly, and I suppose the unusual excitement has made
+her very tired. But I should think she ought to hear my voice. Perhaps you
+better see if you can open the door."
+
+There was studied calm in her voice, but her face belied her words. She
+was anxious lest Kate was playing one of her pranks. She knew Kate's
+careless, fun-loving ways. It was more to her that all things should move
+decently and in order than that Kate should even be perfectly well. But
+Marcia's white face behind her stepmother's ample shoulder showed a dread
+of something worse than a mere indisposition. David Spafford took alarm at
+once. He put down the silver syrup jug from which he had been pouring
+golden maple syrup on his cakes, and pushed his chair back with a click.
+
+"Perhaps she has fainted!" he said, and Marcia saw how deeply he was
+concerned. Father and lover both started up stairs, the father angry, the
+lover alarmed. The Squire grumbled all the way up that Kate should sleep
+so late, but David said nothing. He waited anxiously behind while the
+Squire worked with the door. Madam Schuyler and Marcia had followed them,
+and halting curiously just behind came the two maids. They all loved Miss
+Kate and were deeply interested in the day's doings. They did not want
+anything to interfere with the well-planned pageant.
+
+The Squire fumbled nervously with the latch, all the time calling upon his
+daughter to open the door; then wrathfully placed his solid shoulder and
+knee in just the right place, and with a groan and wrench the latch gave
+way, and the solid oak door swung open, precipitating the anxious group
+somewhat suddenly into the room.
+
+Almost immediately they all became aware that there was no one there.
+David had stood with averted eyes at first, but that second sense which
+makes us aware without sight when others are near or absent, brought with
+it an unnamed anxiety. He looked wildly about.
+
+The bed had not been slept in; that they all saw at once. The room was in
+confusion, but perhaps not more than might have been expected when the
+occupant was about to leave on the morrow. There were pieces of paper and
+string upon the floor and one or two garments lying about as if carelessly
+cast off in a hurry. David recognized the purple muslin frock Kate had
+worn the night before, and put out his hand to touch it as it lay across
+the foot of the bed, vainly reaching after her who was not there.
+
+They stood in silence, father, mother, sister, and lover, and took in
+every detail of the deserted room, then looked blankly into one another's
+white faces, and in the eyes of each a terrible question began to dawn.
+Where was she?
+
+Madam Schuyler recovered her senses first. With her sharp practical system
+she endeavored to find out the exact situation.
+
+"Who saw her last?" she asked sharply looking from one to the other. "Who
+saw her last? Has she been down stairs this morning?" she looked straight
+at Marcia this time, but the girl shook her head.
+
+"I went to bed last night before they came in," she said, looking
+questioningly at David, but a sudden remembrance and fear seized her
+heart. She turned away to the window to face it where they could not look
+at her.
+
+"We came in early," said David, trying to keep the anxiety out of his
+voice, as he remembered his well-beloved's good-night. Surely, surely,
+nothing very dreadful could have happened just over night, and in her
+father's own house. He looked about again to see the natural, every-day,
+little things that would help him drive away the thoughts of possible
+tragedy.
+
+"Kate was tired. She said she was going to get up very early this morning
+and wash her face in the dew on the grass." He braved a smile and looked
+about on the troubled group. "She must be out somewhere upon the place,"
+he continued, gathering courage with the thought; "she told me it was an
+old superstition. She has maybe wandered further than she intended, and
+perhaps got into some trouble. I'd better go and search for her. Is there
+any place near here where she would be likely to be?" He turned to Marcia
+for help.
+
+"But Kate would never delay so long I'm sure," said the stepmother
+severely. "She's not such a fool as to go traipsing through the wet grass
+before daylight for any nonsense. If it were Marcia now, you might expect
+anything, but Kate would be satisfied with the dew on the grass by the
+kitchen pump. I know Kate."
+
+Marcia's face crimsoned at her stepmother's words, but she turned her
+troubled eyes to David and tried to answer him.
+
+"There are plenty of places, but Kate has never cared to go to them. I
+could go out and look everywhere." She started to go down, but as she
+passed the wide mahogany bureau she saw a bit of folded paper lying under
+the corner of the pincushion. With a smothered exclamation she went over
+and picked it up. It was addressed to David in Kate's handwriting, fine
+and even like copperplate. Without a word Marcia handed it to him, and
+then stood back where the wide draperies of the window would shadow her.
+
+Madam Schuyler, with sudden keen prescience, took alarm. Noticing the two
+maids standing wide-mouthed in the hallway, she summoned her most
+commandatory tone, stepped into the hall, half closing the door behind
+her, and cowed the two handmaidens under her glance.
+
+"It is all right!" she said calmly. "Miss Kate has left a note, and will
+soon return. Go down and keep her breakfast warm, and not a word to a
+soul! Dolly, Debby, do you understand? Not a word of this! Now hurry and
+do all that I told you before breakfast."
+
+They went with downcast eyes and disappointed droops to their mouths, but
+she knew that not a word would pass their lips. They knew that if they
+disobeyed that command they need never hope for favor more from madam.
+Madam's word was law. She would be obeyed. Therefore with remarkable
+discretion they masked their wondering looks and did as they were bidden.
+So while the family stood in solemn conclave in Kate's room the
+preparations for the wedding moved steadily forward below stairs, and only
+two solemn maids, of all the helpers that morning, knew that a tragedy was
+hovering in the air and might burst about them.
+
+David had grasped for the letter eagerly, and fumbled it open with
+trembling hand, but as he read, the smile of expectation froze upon his
+lips and his face grew ashen. He tottered and grasped for the mantel shelf
+to steady himself as he read further, but he did not seem to take in the
+meaning of what he read. The others waited breathless, a reasonable length
+of time, Madam Schuyler impatiently patient. She felt that long delay
+would be perilous to her arrangements. She ought to know the whole truth
+at once and be put in command of the situation. Marcia with sorrowful face
+and drooping eyelashes stood quiet behind the curtain, while over and over
+the echo of a horse's hoofs in a silent street and over a bridge sounded
+in her brain. She did not need to be told, she knew intuitively what had
+happened, and she dared not look at David.
+
+"Well, what has she done with herself?" said the Squire impatiently. He
+had not finished his plate of cakes, and now that there was word he wanted
+to know it at once and go back to his breakfast. The sight of his
+daughter's handwriting relieved and reassured him. Some crazy thing she
+had done of course, but then Kate had always done queer things, and
+probably would to the end of time. She was a hussy to frighten them so,
+and he meant to tell her so when she returned, if it was her wedding day.
+But then, Kate would be Kate, and his breakfast was getting cold. He had
+the horses to look after and orders to give to the hands before the early
+guests arrived.
+
+But David did not answer, and the sight of him was alarming. He stood as
+one stricken dumb all in a moment. He raised his eyes to the
+Squire's--pleading, pitiful. His face had grown strained and haggard.
+
+"Speak out, man, doesn't the letter tell?" said the Squire imperiously.
+"Where is the girl?"
+
+And this time David managed to say brokenly: "She's gone!" and then his
+head dropped forward on his cold hand that rested on the mantel. Great
+beads of perspiration stood out upon his white forehead, and the letter
+fluttered gayly, coquettishly to the floor, a reminder of the uncertain
+ways of its writer.
+
+The Squire reached for it impatiently, and wiping his spectacles
+laboriously put them on and drew near to the window to read, his heavy
+brows lowering in a frown. But his wife did not need to read the letter,
+for she, like Marcia, had divined its purport, and already her able
+faculties were marshalled to face the predicament.
+
+The Squire with deepening frown was studying his elder daughter's letter,
+scarce able to believe the evidence of his senses that a girl of his could
+be so heartless.
+
+
+    "DEAR DAVID," the letter ran,--written as though in a hurry, done
+    at the last moment,--which indeed it was:--
+
+    "I want you to forgive me for what I am doing. I know you will
+    feel bad about it, but really I never was the right one for you.
+    I'm sure you thought me all too good, and I never could have
+    stayed in a strait-jacket, it would have killed me. I shall always
+    consider you the best man in the world, and I like you better than
+    anyone else except Captain Leavenworth. I can't help it, you know,
+    that I care more for him than anyone else, though I've tried. So I
+    am going away to-night and when you read this we shall have been
+    married. You are so very good that I know you will forgive me, and
+    be glad I am happy. Don't think hardly of me for I always did care
+    a great deal for you.
+
+                                                     "Your loving
+
+                                                               "KATE."
+
+
+It was characteristic of Kate that she demanded the love and loyalty of
+her betrayed lover to the bitter end, false and heartless though she had
+been. The coquette in her played with him even now in the midst of the
+bitter pain she must have known she was inflicting. No word of contrition
+spoke she, but took her deed as one of her prerogatives, just as she had
+always taken everything she chose. She did not even spare him the loving
+salutation that had been her custom in her letters to him, but wrote
+herself down as she would have done the day before when all was fair and
+dear between them. She did not hint at any better day for David, or give
+him permission to forget her, but held him for all time as her own, as she
+had known she would by those words of hers, "I like you better than anyone
+else except!--" Ah! That fatal "except!" Could any knife cut deeper and
+more ways? They sank into the young man's heart as he stood there those
+first few minutes and faced his trouble, his head bowed upon the
+mantel-piece.
+
+Meantime Madam Schuyler's keen vision had spied another folded paper
+beside the pincushion. Smaller it was than the other, and evidently
+intended to be placed further out of sight. It was addressed to Kate's
+father, and her stepmother opened it and read with hard pressure of her
+thin lips, slanted down at the corners, and a steely look in her eyes. Was
+it possible that the girl, even in the midst of her treachery, had enjoyed
+with a sort of malicious glee the thought of her stepmother reading that
+note and facing the horror of a wedding party with no bride? Knowing her
+stepmother's vast resources did she not think that at last she had brought
+her to a situation to which she was unequal? There had always been this
+unseen, unspoken struggle for supremacy between them; though it had been a
+friendly one, a sort of testing on the girl's part of the powers and
+expedients of the woman, with a kind of vast admiration, mingled with
+amusement, but no fear for the stepmother who had been uniformly kind and
+loving toward her, and for whom she cared, perhaps as much as she could
+have cared for her own mother. The other note read:
+
+
+    "DEAR FATHER:--I am going away to-night to marry Captain
+    Leavenworth. You wouldn't let me have him in the right way, so I
+    had to take this. I tried very hard to forget him and get
+    interested in David, but it was no use. You couldn't stop it. So
+    now I hope you will see it the way we do and forgive us. We are
+    going to Washington and you can write us there and say you forgive
+    us, and then we will come home. I know you will forgive us, Daddy
+    dear. You know you always loved your little Kate and you couldn't
+    really want me to be unhappy. Please send my trunks to Washington.
+    I've tacked the card with the address on the ends.
+
+                                        "Your loving little girl,
+
+                                                               "KATE."
+
+
+There was a terrible stillness in the room, broken only by the crackling
+of paper as the notes were turned in the hands of their readers. Marcia
+felt as if centuries were passing. David's soul was pierced by one awful
+thought. He had no room for others. She was gone! Life was a blank for
+him! stretching out into interminable years. Of her treachery and
+false-heartedness in doing what she had done in the way she had done it,
+he had no time to take account. That would come later. Now he was trying
+to understand this one awful fact.
+
+Madam Schuyler handed the second note to her husband, and with set lips
+quickly skimmed through the other one. As she read, indignation rose
+within her, and a great desire to outwit everybody. If it had been
+possible to bring the erring girl back and make her face her disgraced
+wedding alone, Madam Schuyler would have been glad to do it. She knew that
+upon her would likely rest all the re-arrangements, and her ready brain
+was already taking account of her servants and the number of messages that
+would have to be sent out to stop the guests from arriving. She waited
+impatiently for her husband to finish reading that she might consult with
+him as to the best message to send, but she was scarcely prepared for the
+burst of anger that came with the finish of the letters. The old man
+crushed his daughter's note in his hand and flung it from him. He had
+great respect and love for David, and the sight of him broken in grief,
+the deed of his daughter, roused in him a mighty indignation. His voice
+shook, but there was a deep note of command in it that made Madam Schuyler
+step aside and wait. The Squire had arisen to the situation, and she
+recognized her lord and master.
+
+"She must be brought back at once at all costs!" he exclaimed. "That
+rascal shall not outwit us. Fool that I was to trust him in the house!
+Tell the men to saddle the horses. They cannot have gone far yet, and
+there are not so many roads to Washington. We may yet overtake them, and
+married or unmarried the hussy shall be here for her wedding!"
+
+But David raised his head from the mantel-shelf and steadied his voice:
+
+"No, no, you must not do that--father--" the appellative came from his lips
+almost tenderly, as if he had long considered the use of it with pleasure,
+and now he spoke it as a tender bond meant to comfort.
+
+The older man started and his face softened. A flash of understanding and
+love passed between the two men.
+
+"Remember, she has said she loves some one else. She could never be mine
+now."
+
+There was terrible sadness in the words as David spoke them, and his voice
+broke. Madam Schuyler turned away and took out her handkerchief, an
+article of apparel for which she seldom had use except as it belonged to
+every well ordered toilet.
+
+The father stood looking hopelessly at David and taking in the thought.
+Then he too bowed his head and groaned.
+
+"And my daughter, _my little Kate_ has done it!" Marcia covered her face
+with the curtains and her tears fell fast.
+
+David went and stood beside the Squire and touched his arm.
+
+"Don't!" he said pleadingly. "You could not help it. It was not your
+fault. Do not take it so to heart!"
+
+"But it is my disgrace. I have brought up a child who could do it. I
+cannot escape from that. It is the most dishonorable thing a woman can do.
+And look how she has done it, brought shame upon us all! Here we have a
+wedding on our hands, and little or no time to do anything! I have lived
+in honor all my life, and now to be disgraced by my own daughter!"
+
+Marcia shuddered at her father's agony. She could not bear it longer. With
+a soft cry she went to him, and nestled her head against his breast
+unnoticed.
+
+"Father, father, don't!" she cried.
+
+But her father went on without seeming to see her.
+
+"To be disgraced and deserted and dishonored by my own child! Something
+must be done. Send the servants! Let the wedding be stopped!"
+
+He looked at Madam and she started toward the door to carry out his
+bidding, but he recalled her immediately.
+
+"No, stay!" he cried. "It is too late to stop them all. Let them come. Let
+them be told! Let the disgrace rest upon the one to whom it belongs!"
+
+Madam stopped in consternation! A wedding without a bride! Yet she knew it
+was a serious thing to try to dispute with her husband in that mood. She
+paused to consider.
+
+"Oh, father!" exclaimed Marcia, "we couldn't! Think of David."
+
+Her words seemed to touch the right chord, for he turned toward the young
+man, intense, tender pity in his face.
+
+"Yes, David! We are forgetting David! We must do all we can to make it
+easier for you. You will be wanting to get away from us as quickly as
+possible. How can we manage it for you? And where will you go? You will
+not want to go home just yet?"
+
+He paused, a new agony of the knowledge of David's part coming to him.
+
+"No, I cannot go home," said David hopelessly, a look of keen pain darting
+across his face, "for the house will be all ready for her, and the table
+set. The friends will be coming in, and we are invited to dinner and tea
+everywhere. They will all be coming to the house, my friends, to welcome
+us. No, I cannot go home." Then he passed his hand over his forehead
+blindly, and added, in a stupefied tone, "and yet I must--sometime--I
+must--go--home!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+The room was very still as he spoke. Madam Schuyler forgot the coming
+guests and the preparations, in consternation over the thought of David
+and his sorrow. Marcia sobbed softly upon her father's breast, and her
+father involuntarily placed his arm about her as he stood in painful
+thought.
+
+"It is terrible!" he murmured, "terrible! How could she bear to inflict
+such sorrow! She might have saved us the scorn of all of our friends.
+David, you must not go back alone. It must not be. You must not bear that.
+There are lovely girls in plenty elsewhere. Find another one and marry
+her. Take your bride home with you, and no one in your home need be the
+wiser. Don't sorrow for that cruel girl of mine. Give her not the
+satisfaction of feeling that your life is broken. Take another. Any girl
+might be proud to go with you for the asking. Had I a dozen other
+daughters you should have your pick of them, and one should go with you,
+if you would condescend to choose another from the home where you have
+been so treacherously dealt with. But I have only this one little girl.
+She is but a child as yet and cannot compare with what you thought you
+had. I blame you not if you do not wish to wed another Schuyler, but if
+you will she is yours. And she is a good girl. David, though she is but a
+child. Speak up, child, and say if you will make amends for the wrong your
+sister has done!"
+
+The room was so still one could almost hear the heartbeats. David had
+raised his head once more and was looking at Marcia. Sad and searching was
+his gaze, as if he fain would find the features of Kate in her face, yet
+it seemed to Marcia, as she raised wide tear-filled eyes from her father's
+breast where her head still lay, that he saw her not. He was looking
+beyond her and facing the home-going alone, and the empty life that would
+follow.
+
+Her thoughts the last few days had matured her wonderfully. She understood
+and pitied, and her woman-nature longed to give comfort, yet she shrunk
+from going unasked. It was all terrible, this sudden situation thrust upon
+her, yet she felt a willing sacrifice if she but felt sure it was his
+wish.
+
+But David did not seem to know that he must speak. He waited, looking
+earnestly at her, through her, beyond her, to see if Heaven would grant
+this small relief to his sufferings. At last Marcia summoned her voice:
+
+"If David wishes I will go."
+
+She spoke the words solemnly, her eyes lifted slightly above him as if she
+were speaking to Another One higher than he. It was like an answer to a
+call from God. It had come to Marcia this way. It seemed to leave her no
+room for drawing back, if indeed she had wished to do so. Other
+considerations were not present. There was just the one great desire in
+her heart to make amends in some measure for the wrong that had been done.
+She felt almost responsible for it, a family responsibility. She seemed to
+feel the shame and pain as her father was feeling it. She would step into
+the empty place that Kate had left and fill it as far as she could. Her
+only fear was that she was not acceptable, not worthy to fill so high a
+place. She trembled over it, yet she could not hold back from the high
+calling. It was so she stood in a kind of sorrowful exaltation waiting for
+David. Her eyes lowered again, looking at him through the lashes and
+pleading for recognition. She did not feel that she was pleading for
+anything for herself, only for the chance to help him.
+
+Her voice had broken the spell. David looked down upon her kindly, a
+pleasant light of gratitude flashing through the sternness and sorrow in
+his face. Here was comradeship in trouble, and his voice recognized it as
+he said:
+
+"Child, you are good to me, and I thank you. I will try to make you happy
+if you will go with me, and I am sure your going will be a comfort in many
+ways, but I would not have you go unwillingly."
+
+There was a dull ache in Marcia's heart, its cause she could not
+understand, but she was conscious of a gladness that she was not counted
+unworthy to be accepted, young though she was, and child though he called
+her. His tone had been kindness itself, the gentle kindliness that had won
+her childish sisterly love when first he began to visit her sister. She
+had that answer of his to remember for many a long day, and to live upon,
+when questionings and loneliness came upon her. But she raised her face to
+her father now, and said: "I will go, father!"
+
+The Squire stooped and kissed his little girl for the last time. Perhaps
+he realized that from this time forth she would be a little girl no
+longer, and that he would never look into those child-eyes of hers again,
+unclouded with the sorrows of life, and filled only with the
+wonder-pictures of a rosy future. She seemed to him and to herself to be
+renouncing her own life forever, and to be taking up one of sacrificial
+penitence for her sister's wrong doing.
+
+The father then took Marcia's hand and placed it in David's, and the
+betrothal was complete.
+
+Madam Schuyler, whose reign for the time was set aside, stood silent, half
+disapproving, yet not interfering. Her conscience told her that this
+wholesale disposal of Marcia was against nature. The new arrangement was a
+relief to her in many ways, and would make the solution of the day less
+trying for every one. But she was a woman and knew a woman's heart. Marcia
+was not having her chance in life as her sister had had, as every woman
+had a right to have. Then her face hardened. How had Kate used her
+chances? Perhaps it was better for Marcia to be well placed in life before
+she grew headstrong enough to make a fool of herself as Kate had done.
+David would be good to her, that was certain. One could not look at the
+strong, pleasant lines of his well cut mouth and chin and not be sure of
+that. Perhaps it was all for the best. At least it was not her doing. And
+it was only the night before that she had been looking at Marcia and
+worrying because she was growing into a woman so fast. Now she would be
+relieved of that care, and could take her ease and enjoy life until her
+own children were grown up. But the voice of her husband aroused her to
+the present.
+
+"Let the wedding go on as planned, Sarah, and no one need know until the
+ceremony is over except the minister. I myself will go and tell the
+minister. There will need to be but a change of names."
+
+"But," said the Madam, with housewifely alarm, as the suddenness of the
+whole thing flashed over her, "Marcia is not ready. She has no suitable
+clothes for her wedding."
+
+"Not ready! No clothes!" said the Squire, now thoroughly irritated over
+this trivial objection, as a fly will sometimes ruffle the temper of a man
+who has kept calm under fire of an enemy. "And where are all the clothes
+that have been making these weeks and months past? What more preparation
+does she need? Did the hussy take her wedding things with her? What's in
+this trunk?"
+
+"But those are Kate's things, father," said Marcia in gentle explanation.
+"Kate would be very angry if I took her things. They were made for her,
+you know."
+
+"And what if they were made for her?" answered the father, very angry now
+at Kate. "You are near of a size. What will do for one is good enough for
+the other, and Kate may be angry and get over it, for not one rag of it
+all will she get, nor a penny of my money will ever go to her again. She
+is no daughter of mine from henceforth. That rascal has beaten me and
+stolen my daughter, but he gets a dowerless lass. Not a penny will ever go
+from the Schuyler estate into his pocket, and no trunk will ever travel
+from here to Washington for that heartless girl. I forbid it. Let her feel
+some of the sorrow she has inflicted upon others more innocent. I forbid
+it, do you hear?" He brought his fist down upon the solid mahogany bureau
+until the prisms on a candle-stand in front of the mirror jangled
+discordantly.
+
+"Oh, father!" gasped Marcia, and turned with terror to her stepmother. But
+David stood with his back toward the rest looking out of the window. He
+had forgotten them all.
+
+Madam Schuyler was now in command again. For once the Squire had
+anticipated his wife, and the next move had been planned without her help,
+but it was as she would have it. Her face had lost its consternation and
+beamed with satisfaction beneath its mask of grave perplexity. She could
+not help it that she was glad to have the terrible ordeal of a wedding
+without a bride changed into something less formidable.
+
+At least the country round about could not pity, for who was to say but
+that David was as well suited with one sister as with the other? And
+Marcia was a good girl; doubtless she would grow into a good wife. Far
+more suitable for so good and steady a man as David than pretty, imperious
+Kate.
+
+Madam Schuyler took her place of command once more and began to issue her
+orders.
+
+"Come, then, Marcia, we have no time to waste. It is all right, as your
+father has said. Kate's things will fit you nicely and you must go at once
+and put everything in readiness. You will want all your time to dress, and
+pack a few things, and get calm. Go to your room right away and pick up
+anything you will want to take with you, and I'll go down and see that
+Phoebe takes your place and then come back."
+
+David and the Squire went out like two men who had suddenly grown old, and
+had not the strength to walk rapidly. No one thought any more of
+breakfast. It was half-past seven by the old tall clock that stood upon
+the stair-landing. It would not be long before Aunt Polly and Uncle Joab
+would be driving up to the door.
+
+Straight ahead went the preparations, just as if nothing had happened, and
+if Mistress Kate Leavenworth could have looked into her old room an hour
+after the discovery of her flight she would have been astonished beyond
+measure.
+
+Up in her own room stood poor bewildered Marcia. She looked about upon her
+little white bed, and thought she would never likely sleep in it again.
+She looked out of the small-paned window with its view of distant hill and
+river, and thought she was bidding it good-bye forever. She went toward
+her closet and put out her hand to choose what she would take with her,
+and her heart sank. There hung the faded old ginghams short and scant, and
+scorned but yesterday, yet her heart wildly clung to them. Almost would
+she have put one on and gone back to her happy care-free school life. The
+thought of the new life frightened her. She must give up her girlhood all
+at once. She might not keep a vestige of it, for that would betray David.
+She must be Kate from morning to evening. Like a sword thrust came the
+remembrance that she had envied Kate, and God had given her the punishment
+of being Kate in very truth. Only there was this great difference. She was
+not the chosen one, and Kate had been. She must bear about forever in her
+heart the thought of Kate's sin.
+
+The voice of her stepmother drew nearer and warned her that her time alone
+was almost over, and out on the lawn she could hear the voices of Uncle
+Joab and Aunt Polly who had just arrived.
+
+She dropped upon her knees for one brief moment and let her young soul
+pour itself out in one great cry of distress to God, a cry without words
+borne only on the breath of a sob. Then she arose, hastily dashed cold
+water in her face, and dried away the traces of tears. There was no more
+time to think. With hurried hand she began to gather a few trifles
+together from closet and drawer.
+
+One last lingering look she took about her room as she left it, her arms
+filled with the things she had hastily culled from among her own. Then she
+shut the door quickly and went down the hall to her sister's room to enter
+upon her new life. She was literally putting off herself and putting on a
+new being as far as it was possible to do so outwardly.
+
+There on the bed lay the bridal outfit. Madam Schuyler had just brought it
+from the spare room that there might be no more going back and forth
+through the halls to excite suspicion. She was determined that there
+should be no excitement or demonstration or opportunity for gossip among
+the guests at least until the ceremony was over. She had satisfied herself
+that not a soul outside the family save the two maids suspected that aught
+was the matter, and she felt sure of their silence.
+
+Kate had taken very little with her, evidently fearing to excite
+suspicion, and having no doubt that her father would relent and send all
+her trousseau as she had requested in her letter. For once Mistress Kate
+had forgotten her fineries and made good her escape with but two frocks
+and a few other necessaries in a small hand-bag.
+
+Madam Schuyler was relieved to the point of genuine cheerfulness, over
+this, despite the cloud of tragedy that hung over the day. She began to
+talk to Marcia as if she had been Kate, as she smoothed down this and that
+article and laid them back in the trunk, telling how the blue gown would
+be the best for church and the green silk for going out to very fine
+places, to tea-drinkings and the like, and how she must always be sure to
+wear the cream undersleeves with the Irish point lace with her silk gown
+as they set it off to perfection. She recalled, too, how little experience
+Marcia had had in the ways of the world, and all the while the girl was
+being dressed in the dainty bridal garments she gave her careful
+instructions in the art of being a success in society, until Marcia felt
+that the green fields and the fences and trees to climb and the excursions
+after blackberries, and all the joyful merry-makings of the boys and girls
+were receding far from her. She could even welcome Hanford Weston as a
+playfellow in her new future, if thereby a little fresh air and freedom of
+her girlhood might be left. Nevertheless there gradually came over her an
+elation of excitement. The feel of the dainty garments, the delicate
+embroidery, the excitement lest the white slippers would not fit her, the
+difficulty of making her hair stay up in just Kate's style--for her
+stepmother insisted that she must dress it exactly like Kate's and make
+herself look as nearly as possible as Kate would have looked,--all drove
+sadness from her mind and she began to taste a little delight in the
+pretty clothes, the great occasion, and her own importance. The vision in
+the looking-glass, too, told her that her own face was winsome, and the
+new array not unbecoming. Something of this she had seen the night before
+when she put on her new chintz; now the change was complete, as she stood
+in the white satin and lace with the string of seed pearls that had been
+her mother's tied about her soft white throat. She thought about the
+tradition of the pearls that Kate's girl friends had laughingly reminded
+her of a few days before when they were looking at the bridal garments.
+They had said that each pearl a bride wore meant a tear she would shed.
+She wondered if Kate had escaped the tears with the pearls, and left them
+for her.
+
+She was ready at last, even to the veil that had been her mother's, and
+her mother's mother's before her. It fell in its rich folds, yellowed by
+age, from her head to her feet, with its creamy frost-work of rarest
+handiwork, transforming the girl into a woman and a bride.
+
+Madam Schuyler arranged and rearranged the folds, and finally stood back
+to look with half-closed eyes at the effect, deciding that very few would
+notice that the bride was other than they had expected until the ceremony
+was over and the veil thrown back. The sisters had never looked alike, yet
+there was a general family resemblance that was now accentuated by the
+dress; perhaps only those nearest would notice that it was Marcia instead
+of Kate. At least the guests would have the good grace to keep their
+wonderment to themselves until the ceremony was over.
+
+Then Marcia was left to herself with trembling hands and wildly throbbing
+heart. What would Mary Ann think! What would all the girls and boys think?
+Some of them would be there, and others would be standing along the shady
+streets to watch the progress of the carriage as it drove away. And they
+would see her going away instead of Kate. Perhaps they would think it all
+a great joke and that she had been going to be married all the time and
+not Kate. But no; the truth would soon come out. People would not be
+astonished at anything Kate did. They would only say it was just what they
+had all along expected of her, and pity her father, and pity her perhaps.
+But they would look at her and admire her and for once she would be the
+centre of attraction. The pink of pride swelled up into her cheeks, and
+then realizing what she was thinking she crushed the feeling down. How
+could she think of such things when Kate had done such a dreadful thing,
+and David was suffering so terribly? Here was she actually enjoying, and
+delighting in the thought of being in Kate's place. Oh, she was wicked,
+wicked! She must not be happy for a moment in what was Kate's shame and
+David's sorrow. Of her future with David she did not now think. It was of
+the pageant of the day that her thoughts were full. If the days and weeks
+and months that were to follow came into her mind at all between the other
+things it was always that she was to care for David and to help him, and
+that she would have to grow up quickly; and remember all the hard
+housewifely things her stepmother had taught her; and try to order his
+house well. But that troubled her not at all at present. She was more
+concerned with the ceremony, and the many eyes that would be turned upon
+her. It was a relief when a tap came on the door and the dear old minister
+entered.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+He stood a moment by the door looking at her, half startled. Then he came
+over beside her, put his hands upon her shoulders, looking down into her
+upturned, veiled face.
+
+"My child!" he said tenderly, "my little Marcia, is this you? I did not
+know you in all this beautiful dress. You look as your own mother looked
+when she was married. I remember perfectly as if it were but yesterday,
+her face as she stood by your father's side. I was but a young man then,
+you know, and it was my first wedding in my new church, so you see I could
+not forget it. Your mother was a beautiful woman, Marcia, and you are like
+her both in face and life."
+
+The tears came into Marcia's eyes and her lips trembled.
+
+"Are you sure, child," went on the gentle voice of the old man, "that you
+understand what a solemn thing you are doing? It is not a light thing to
+give yourself in marriage to any man. You are so young yet! Are you doing
+this thing quite willingly, little girl? Are you sure? Your father is a
+good man, and a dear old friend of mine, but I know what has happened has
+been a terrible blow to him, and a great humiliation. It has perhaps
+unnerved his judgment for the time. No one should have brought pressure to
+bear upon a child like you to make you marry against your will. Are you
+sure it is all right, dear?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!" Marcia raised her tear-filled eyes. "I am doing it quite
+of myself. No one has made me. I was glad I might. It was so dreadful for
+David!"
+
+"But child, do you love him?" the old minister said, searching her face
+closely.
+
+Marcia's eyes shone out radiant and child-like through her tears.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir! I love him of course. No one could help loving David."
+
+There was a tap at the door and the Squire entered. With a sigh the
+minister turned away, but there was trouble in his heart. The love of the
+girl had been all too frankly confessed. It was not as he would have had
+things for a daughter of his, but it could not be helped of course, and he
+had no right to interfere. He would like to speak to David, but David had
+not come out of his room yet. When he did there was but a moment for them
+alone and all he had opportunity to say was:
+
+"Mr. Spafford, you will be good to the little girl, and remember she is
+but a child. She has been dear to us all."
+
+David looked at him wonderingly, earnestly, in reply:
+
+"I will do all in my power to make her happy," he said.
+
+The hour had come, and all things, just as Madam Schuyler had planned,
+were ready. The minister took his place, and the impatient bridesmaids
+were in a flutter, wondering why Kate did not call them in to see her.
+Slowly, with measured step, as if she had practised many times, Marcia,
+the maiden, walked down the hall on her father's arm. He was bowed with
+his trouble and his face bore marks of the sudden calamity that had
+befallen his house, but the watching guests thought it was for sorrow at
+giving up his lovely Kate, and they said one to another, "How much he
+loved her!"
+
+The girl's face drooped with gentle gravity. She scarcely felt the
+presence of the guests she had so much dreaded, for to her the ceremony
+was holy. She was giving herself as a sacrifice for the sin of her sister.
+She was too young and inexperienced to know all that would be thought and
+said as soon as the company understood. She also felt secure behind that
+film of lace. It seemed impossible that they could know her, so softly and
+so mistily it shut her in from the world. It was like a kind of moving
+house about her, a protection from all eyes. So sheltered she might go
+through the ceremony with composure. As yet she had not begun to dread the
+afterward. The hall was wide through which she passed, and the day was
+bright, but the windows were so shadowed by the waiting bridesmaids that
+the light did not fall in full glare upon her, and it was not strange they
+did not know her at once. She heard their smothered exclamations of wonder
+and admiration, and one, Kate's dearest friend, whispered softly behind
+her: "Oh, Kate, why did you keep us waiting, you sly girl! How lovely you
+are! You look like an angel straight from heaven."
+
+There were other whispered words which Marcia heard sadly. They gave her
+no pleasure. The words were for Kate, not her. What would they say when
+they knew all?
+
+There was David in the distance waiting for her. How fine he looked in his
+wedding clothes! How proud Kate might have been of him! How pitiful was
+his white face! He had summoned his courage and put on a mask of happiness
+for the eyes of those who saw him, but it could not deceive the heart of
+Marcia. Surely not since the days when Jacob served seven years for Rachel
+and then lifted the bridal veil to look upon the face of her sister Leah,
+walked there sadder bridegroom on this earth than David Spafford walked
+that day.
+
+Down the stairs and through the wide hall they came, Marcia not daring to
+look up, yet seeing familiar glimpses as she passed. That green plaid silk
+lap at one side of the parlor door, in which lay two nervous little hands
+and a neatly folded pocket handkerchief, belonged to Sabrina Bates, she
+knew; and the round lace collar a little farther on, fastened by the
+brooch with a colored daguerreotype encircled by a braid of faded brown
+hair under glass, must be about the neck of Aunt Polly. There was not
+another brooch like that in New York state, Marcia felt sure. Beyond were
+Uncle Joab's small meek Sunday boots, toeing in, and next were little feet
+covered by white stockings and slippers fastened with crossed black
+ribbons, some child's, not Harriet--Marcia dared not raise her eyes to
+identify them now. She must fix her mind upon the great things before her.
+She wondered at herself for noticing such trivial things when she was
+walking up to the presence of the great God, and there before her stood
+the minister with his open book!
+
+Now, at last, with the most of the audience behind her, shut in by the
+film of lace, she could raise her eyes to the minister's familiar face,
+take David's arm without letting her hand tremble much, and listen to the
+solemn words read out to her. For her alone they seemed to be read.
+David's heart she knew was crushed, and it was only a form for him. She
+must take double vows upon her for the sake of the wrong done to him. So
+she listened:
+
+"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together"--how the words thrilled her!--"in
+the sight of God and in the presence of this company to join together this
+man and woman in the bonds of holy matrimony;"--a deathly stillness rested
+upon the room and the painful throbbing of her heart was all the little
+bride could hear. She was glad she might look straight into the dear face
+of the old minister. Had her mother felt this way when she was being
+married? Did her stepmother understand it? Yes, she must, in part at
+least, for she had bent and kissed her most tenderly upon the brow just
+before leaving her, a most unusually sentimental thing for her to do. It
+touched Marcia deeply, though she was fond of her stepmother at all times.
+
+She waited breathless with drooped eyes while the minister demanded, "If
+any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together,
+let him now declare it, or else hereafter forever hold his peace." What if
+some one should recognize her and, thinking she had usurped Kate's place,
+speak out and stop the marriage! How would David feel? And she? She would
+sink to the floor. Oh, did they any of them know? How she wished she dared
+raise her eyes to look about and see. But she must not. She must listen.
+She must shake off these worldly thoughts. She was not hearing for idle
+thinking. It was a solemn, holy vow she was taking upon herself for life.
+She brought herself sharply back to the ceremony. It was to David the
+minister was talking now:
+
+"Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in
+health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye
+both shall live?"
+
+It was hard to make David promise that when his heart belonged to Kate.
+She wondered that his voice could be so steady when it said, "I will," and
+the white glove of Kate's which was just a trifle large for her, trembled
+on David's arm as the minister next turned to her:
+
+"Wilt thou, Marcia"--Ah! It was out now! and the sharp rustle of silk and
+stiff linen showed that all the company were aware at last who was the
+bride; but the minister went steadily on. He cared not what the listening
+assembly thought. He was talking earnestly to his little friend,
+Marcia,--"have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after
+God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and
+serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health"--the words
+of the pledge went on. It was not hard. The girl felt she could do all
+that. She was relieved to find it no more terrible, and to know that she
+was no longer acting a lie. They all knew who she was now. She held up her
+flower-like head and answered in her clear voice, that made her few
+schoolmates present gasp with admiration:
+
+"I will!"
+
+And the dear old minister's wife, sitting sweet and dove-like in her soft
+grey poplin, fine white kerchief, and cap of book muslin, smiled to
+herself at the music in Marcia's voice and nodded approval. She felt that
+all was well with her little friend.
+
+They waited, those astonished people, till the ceremony was concluded and
+the prayer over, and then they broke forth. There had been lifted brows
+and looks passing from one to another, of question, of disclaiming any
+knowledge in the matter, and just as soon as the minister turned and took
+the bride's hand to congratulate her the heads bent together behind fans
+and the soft buzz of whispers began.
+
+What does it mean? Where is Kate? She isn't in the room! Did he change his
+mind at the last minute? How old is Marcia? Mercy me! Nothing but a child!
+Are you sure? Why, my Mary Ann is older than that by three months, and
+she's no more able to become mistress of a home than a nine-days-old
+kitten. Are you sure it's Marcia? Didn't the minister make a mistake in
+the name? It looked to me like Kate. Look again. She's put her veil back.
+No, it can't be! Yes, it is! No, it looks like Kate! Her hair's done the
+same, but, no, Kate never had such a sweet innocent look as that. Why,
+when she was a child her face always had a sharpness to it. Look at
+Marcia's eyes, poor lamb! I don't see how her father could bear it, and
+she so young. But Kate! Where can she be? What has happened? You don't
+say! Yes, I did see that captain about again last week or so. Do you
+believe it? Surely she never would. Who told you? Was he sure? But Maria
+and Janet are bridesmaids and they didn't see any signs of anything. They
+were over here yesterday. Yes, Kate showed them everything and planned how
+they would all walk in. No, she didn't do anything queer, for Janet would
+have mentioned it. Janet always sees everything. Well, they say he's a
+good man and Marcia'll be well provided for. Madam Schuyler'll be relieved
+about that. Marcia can't ever lead her the dance Kate has among the young
+men. How white he looks! Do you suppose he loves her? What on earth can it
+all mean? Do you s'pose Kate feels bad? Where is she anyway? Wouldn't she
+come down? Well, if 'twas his choosing it serves her right. She's too much
+of a flirt for a good man and maybe he found her out. She's probably got
+just what she deserves, and _I_ think Marcia'll make a good little wife.
+She always was a quiet, grown-up child and Madam Schuyler has trained her
+well! But what will Kate do now? Hush! They are coming this way. How do
+you suppose we can find out? Go ask Cousin Janet, perhaps they've told
+her, or Aunt Polly. Surely she knows.
+
+But Aunt Polly sat with pursed lips of disapproval. She had not been told,
+and it was her prerogative to know everything. She always made a point of
+being on hand early at all funerals and weddings, especially in the family
+circle, and learning the utmost details, which she dispensed at her
+discretion to late comers in fine sepulchral whispers.
+
+Now she sat silent, disgraced, unable to explain a thing. It was
+unhandsome of Sarah Schuyler, she felt, though no more than she might have
+expected of her, she told herself. She had never liked her. Well, wait
+until her opportunity came. If they did not wish her to say the truth she
+must say something. She could at least tell what she thought. And what
+more natural than to let it be known that Sarah Schuyler had always held a
+dislike for Marcia, and to suggest that it was likely she was glad to get
+her off her hands. Aunt Polly meant to find a trail somewhere, no matter
+how many times they threw her off the scent.
+
+Meantime for Marcia the sun seemed to have shined out once more with
+something of its old brightness. The terrible deed of self-renunciation
+was over, and familiar faces actually were smiling upon her and wishing
+her joy. She felt the flutter of her heart in her throat beneath the
+string of pearls, and wondered if after all she might hope for a little
+happiness of her own. She could climb no more fences nor wade in gurgling
+brooks, but might there not be other happy things as good? A little touch
+of the pride of life had settled upon her. The relatives were coming with
+pleasant words and kisses. The blushes upon her cheeks were growing
+deeper. She almost forgot David in the pretty excitement. A few of her
+girl friends ventured shyly near, as one might look at a mate suddenly and
+unexpectedly translated into eternal bliss. They put out cold fingers in
+salute with distant, stiff phrases belonging to a grown-up world. Not one
+of them save Mary Ann dared recognize their former bond of playmates. Mary
+Ann leaned down and whispered with a giggle: "Say, you didn't need to envy
+Kate, did you? My! Ain't you in clover! Say, Marsh," wistfully, "do invite
+me fer a visit sometime, won't you?"
+
+Now Mary Ann was not quite on a par with the Schuylers socially, and had
+it not been for a distant mutual relative she would not have been asked to
+the wedding. Marcia never liked her very much, but now, with the
+uncertain, dim future it seemed pleasant and home-like to think of a visit
+from Mary Ann and she nodded and said childishly: "Sometime, Mary Ann, if
+I can."
+
+Mary Ann squeezed her hand, kissed her, blushed and giggled herself out of
+the way of the next comer.
+
+They went out to the dining room and sat around the long table. It was
+Marcia's timid hand that cut the bridecake, and all the room full watched
+her. Seeing the pretty color come and go in her excited cheeks, they
+wondered that they had never noticed before how beautiful Marcia was
+growing. A handsome couple they would make! And they looked from Marcia to
+David and back again, wondering and trying to fathom the mystery.
+
+It was gradually stealing about the company, the truth about Kate and
+Captain Leavenworth. The minister had told it in his sad and gentle way.
+Just the facts. No gossip. Naturally every one was bristling with
+questions, but not much could be got from the minister.
+
+"I really do not know," he would say in his courteous, old-worldly way,
+and few dared ask further. Perhaps the minister, wise by reason of much
+experience, had taken care to ask as few questions as possible himself,
+and not to know too much before undertaking this task for his old friend
+the Squire.
+
+And so Kate's marriage went into the annals of the village, at least so
+far as that morning was concerned, quietly, and with little exclamation
+before the family. The Squire and his wife controlled their faces
+wonderfully. There was an austerity about the Squire as he talked with his
+friends that was new to his pleasant face, but Madam conversed with her
+usual placid self-poise, and never gave cause for conjecture as to her
+true feelings.
+
+There were some who dared to offer their surprised condolences. To such
+the stepmother replied that of course the outcome of events had been a
+sore trial to the Squire, and all of them, but they were delighted at the
+happy arrangement that had been made. She glanced contentedly toward the
+child-bride.
+
+It was a revelation to the whole village that Marcia had grown up and was
+so handsome.
+
+Dismay filled the breasts of the village gossips. They had been defrauded.
+Here was a fine scandal which they had failed to discover in time and
+spread abroad in its due course.
+
+Everybody was shy of speaking to the bride. She sat in her lovely finery
+like some wild rose caught as a sacrifice. Yet every one admitted that she
+might have done far worse. David was a good man, with prospects far beyond
+most young men of his time. Moreover he was known to have a brilliant
+mind, and the career he had chosen, that of journalism, in which he was
+already making his mark, was one that promised to be lucrative as well as
+influential.
+
+It was all very hurried at the last. Madam Schuyler and Dolly the maid
+helped her off with the satin and lace finery, and she was soon out of her
+bridal attire and struggling with the intricacies of Kate's travelling
+costume.
+
+Marcia was not Marcia any longer, but Mrs. David Spafford. She had been
+made to feel the new name almost at once, and it gave her a sense of
+masquerading pleasant enough for the time being, but with a dim foreboding
+of nameless dread and emptiness for the future, like all masquerading
+which must end sometime. And when the mask is taken off how sad if one is
+not to find one's real self again: or worse still if one may never remove
+the mask, but must grow to it and be it from the soul.
+
+All this Marcia felt but dimly of course, for she was young and light
+hearted naturally, and the excitement and pretty things about her could
+not but be pleasant.
+
+To have Kate's friends stand about her, half shyly trying to joke with her
+as they might have done with Kate, to feel their admiring glances, and
+half envious references to her handsome husband, almost intoxicated her
+for the moment. Her cheeks grew rosier as she tied on Kate's pretty poke
+bonnet whose nodding blue flowers had been brought over from Paris by a
+friend of Kate's. It seemed a shame that Kate should not have her things
+after all. The pleasure died out of Marcia's eyes as she carefully looped
+the soft blue ribbons under her round chin and drew on Kate's long gloves.
+There was no denying the fact that Kate's outfit was becoming to Marcia,
+for she had that complexion that looks well with any color under the sun,
+though in blue she was not at her best.
+
+When Marcia was ready she stood back from the little looking-glass, with a
+frightened, half-childish gaze about the room.
+
+Now that the last minute was come, there was no one to understand Marcia's
+feelings nor help her. Even the girls were merely standing there waiting
+to say the last formal farewell that they might be free to burst into an
+astonished chatter of exclamations over Kate's romantic disappearance.
+They were Kate's friends, not Marcia's, and they were bidding Kate's
+clothes good-bye for want of the original bride. Marcia's friends were too
+young and too shy to do more than stand back in awe and gaze at their mate
+so suddenly promoted to a life which but yesterday had seemed years away
+for any of them.
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+                 THE STEPMOTHER'S ARMS WERE AROUND HER.]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+                  THE STEPMOTHER'S ARMS WERE AROUND HER.
+
+
+So Marcia walked alone down the hall--yet, no, not all the way alone. A
+little wrinkled hand was laid upon her gloved one, and a little old lady,
+her true friend, the minister's wife, walked down the stairs with the
+bride arm in arm. Marcia's heart fluttered back to warmth again and was
+glad for her friend, yet all she had said was: "My dear!" but there was
+that in her touch and the tone of her gentle voice that comforted Marcia.
+
+She stood at the edge of the steps, with her white hair shining in the
+morning, her kind-faced husband just behind her during all the farewell,
+and Marcia felt happier because of her motherly presence.
+
+The guests were all out on the piazza in the gorgeousness of the summer
+morning. David stood on the flagging below the step beside the open coach
+door, a carriage lap-robe over his arm and his hat on, ready. He was
+talking with the Squire. Every one was looking at them, and they were
+entirely conscious of the fact. They laughed and talked with studied
+pleasantness, though there seemed to be an undertone of sadness that the
+most obtuse guest could not fail to detect.
+
+Harriet, as a small flower-girl, stood upon the broad low step ready to
+fling posies before the bride as she stepped into the coach.
+
+The little boys, to whom a wedding merely meant a delightful increase of
+opportunities, stood behind a pillar munching cake, more of which
+protruded from their bulging pockets.
+
+Marcia, with a lump in her throat that threatened tears, slipped behind
+the people, caught the two little step-brothers in her arms and smothered
+them with kisses, amid their loud protestations and the laughter of those
+who stood about. But the little skirmish had served to hide the tears, and
+the bride came back most decorously to where her stepmother stood awaiting
+her with a smile of complacent--almost completed--duty upon her face. She
+wore the sense of having carried off a trying situation in a most
+creditable manner, and she knew she had won the respect and awe of every
+matron present thereby. That was a great deal to Madam Schuyler.
+
+The stepmother's arms were around her and Marcia remembered how kindly
+they had felt when they first clasped her little body years ago, and she
+had been kissed, and told to be a good little girl. She had always liked
+her stepmother. And now, as she came to say good-bye to the only mother
+she had ever known, who had been a true mother to her in many ways, her
+young heart almost gave way, and she longed to hide in that ample bosom
+and stay under the wing of one who had so ably led her thus far along the
+path of life.
+
+Perhaps Madam Schuyler felt the clinging of the girl's arms about her, and
+perchance her heart rebuked her that she had let so young and
+inexperienced a girl go out to the cares of life all of a sudden in this
+way. At least she stooped and kissed Marcia again and whispered: "You have
+been a good girl, Marcia."
+
+Afterwards, Marcia cherished that sentence among memory's dearest
+treasures. It seemed as though it meant that she had fulfilled her
+stepmother's first command, given on the night when her father brought
+home their new mother.
+
+Then the flowers were thrown upon the pavement, to make it bright for the
+bride. She was handed into the coach behind the white-haired negro
+coachman, and by his side Kate's fine new hair trunk. Ah! That was a
+bitter touch! Kate's trunk! Kate's things! Kate's husband! If it had only
+been her own little moth-eaten trunk that had belonged to her mother, and
+filled with her own things--and if he had only been her own husband! Yet
+she wanted no other than David--only if he could have been _her_ David!
+
+Then Madam Schuyler, her heart still troubled about Marcia, stepped down
+and whispered:
+
+"David, you will remember she is young. You will deal gently with her?"
+
+Gravely David bent his head and answered:
+
+"I will remember. She shall not be troubled. I will care for her as I
+would care for my own sister." And Madam Schuyler turned away half
+satisfied. After all, was that what woman wanted? Would she have been
+satisfied to have been cared for as a sister?
+
+Then gravely, with his eyes half unseeing her, the father kissed his
+daughter good-bye, David got into the coach, the door was slammed shut,
+and the white horses arched their necks and stepped away, amid a shower of
+rice and slippers.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+For some distance the way was lined with people they knew, servants and
+negroes, standing about the driveway and outside the fence, people of the
+village grouped along the sidewalk, everybody out upon their doorsteps to
+watch the coach go by, and to all the face of the bride was a puzzle and a
+surprise. They half expected to see another coach coming with the other
+bride behind.
+
+Marcia nodded brightly to those she knew, and threw flowers from the great
+nosegay that had been put upon her lap by Harriet. She felt for a few
+minutes like a girl in a fairy-tale riding in this fine coach in grand
+attire. She stole a look at David. He certainly looked like a prince, but
+gravity was already settling about his mouth. Would he always look so now,
+she wondered, would he never laugh and joke again as he used to do? Could
+she manage to make him happy sometimes for a little while and help him to
+forget?
+
+Down through the village they passed, in front of the store and
+post-office where Marcia had bought her frock but three days before, and
+they turned up the road she had come with Mary Ann. How long ago that
+seemed! How light her heart was then, and how young! All life was before
+her with its delightful possibilities. Now it seemed to have closed for
+her and she was some one else. A great ache came upon her heart. For a
+moment she longed to jump down and run away from the coach and David and
+the new clothes that were not hers. Away from the new life that had been
+planned for some one else which she must live now. She must always be a
+woman, never a girl any more.
+
+Out past Granny McVane's they drove, the old lady sitting upon her front
+porch knitting endless stockings. She stared mildly, unrecognizingly at
+Marcia and paused in her rocking to crane her neck after the coach.
+
+The tall corn rustled and waved green arms to them as they passed, and the
+cows looked up munching from the pasture in mild surprise at the turnout.
+The little coach dog stepped aside from the road to give them a bark as he
+passed, and then pattered and pattered his tiny feet to catch up. The old
+school house came in sight with its worn playground and dejected summer
+air, and Marcia's eyes searched out the window where she used to sit to
+eat her lunch in winters, and the tree under which she used to sit in
+summers, and the path by which she and Mary Ann used to wander down to the
+brook, or go in search of butternuts, even the old door knob that her hand
+would probably never grasp again. She searched them all out and bade them
+good-bye with her eyes. Then once she turned a little to see if she could
+catch a glimpse of the old blackboard through the window where she and
+Susanna Brown and Miller Thompson used to do arithmetic examples. The dust
+of the coach, or the bees in the sunshine, or something in her eyes
+blurred her vision. She could only see a long slant ray of a sunbeam
+crossing the wall where she knew it must be. Then the road wound around
+through a maple grove and the school was lost to view.
+
+They passed the South meadow belonging to the Westons, and Hanford was
+plowing. Marcia could see him stop to wipe the perspiration from his brow,
+and her heart warmed even to this boy admirer now that she was going from
+him forever.
+
+Hanford had caught sight of the coach and he turned to watch it thinking
+to see Kate sitting in the bride's place. He wondered if the bride would
+notice him, and turned a deeper red under his heavy coat of tan.
+
+And the bride did notice him. She smiled the sweetest smile the boy had
+ever seen upon her face, the smile he had dreamed of as he thought of her,
+at night standing under the stars all alone by his father's gate post
+whittling the cross bar of the gate. For a moment he forgot that it was
+the bridal party passing, forgot the stern-faced bridegroom, and saw only
+Marcia--his girl love. His heart stood still, and a bright light of
+response filled his eyes. He took off his wide straw hat and bowed her
+reverence. He would have called to her, and tried three times, but his dry
+throat gave forth no utterance, and when he looked again the coach was
+passed and only the flutter of a white handkerchief came back to him and
+told him the beginning of the truth.
+
+Then the poor boy's face grew white, yes, white and stricken under the
+tan, and he tottered to the roadside and sat down with his face in his
+hands to try and comprehend what it might mean, while the old horse
+dragged the plow whither he would in search of a bite of tender grass.
+
+What could it mean? And why did Marcia occupy that place beside the
+stranger, obviously the bridegroom? Was she going on a visit? He had heard
+of no such plan. Where was her sister? Would there be another coach
+presently, and was this man then not the bridegroom but merely a friend of
+the family? Of course, that must be it. He got up and staggered to the
+fence to look down the road, but no one came by save the jogging old gray
+and carryall, with Aunt Polly grim and offended and Uncle Joab meek and
+depressed beside her. Could he have missed the bridal carriage when he was
+at the other end of the lot? Could they have gone another way? He had a
+half a mind to call to Uncle Joab to enquire only he was a timid boy and
+shrank back until it was too late.
+
+But why had Marcia as she rode away wafted that strange farewell that had
+in it the familiarity of the final? And why did he feel so strange and
+weak in his knees?
+
+Marcia was to help his mother next week at the quilting bee. She had not
+gone away to stay, of course. He got up and tried to whistle and turn the
+furrows evenly as before, but his heart was heavy, and, try as he would,
+he could not understand the feeling that kept telling him Marcia was gone
+out of his life forever.
+
+At last his day's work was done and he could hasten to the house. Without
+waiting for his supper, he "slicked up," as he called it, and went at once
+to the village, where he learned the bitter truth.
+
+It was Mary Ann who told him.
+
+Mary Ann, the plain, the awkward, who secretly admired Hanford Weston as
+she might have admired an angel, and who as little expected him to speak
+to her as if he had been one. Mary Ann stood by her front gate in the dusk
+of the summer evening, the halo of her unusual wedding finery upon her,
+for she had taken advantage of being dressed up to make two or three
+visits since the wedding, and so prolong the holiday. The light of the
+sunset softened her plain features, and gave her a gentler look than was
+her wont. Was it that, and an air of lonesomeness akin to his own, that
+made Hanford stop and speak to her?
+
+And then she told him. She could not keep it in long. It was the wonder of
+her life, and it filled her so that her thought had no room for anything
+else. To think of Marcia taken in a day, gone from their midst forever,
+gone to be a grown-up woman in a new world! It was as strange as sudden
+death, and almost as terrible and beautiful.
+
+There were tears in her eyes, and in the eyes of the boy as they spoke
+about the one who was gone, and the kind dusk hid the sight so that
+neither knew, but each felt a subtle sympathy with the other, and before
+Hanford started upon his desolate way home under the burden of his first
+sorrow he took Mary Ann's slim bony hand in his and said quite stiffly:
+"Well, good night, Miss Mary Ann. I'm glad you told me," and Mary Ann
+responded, with a deep blush under her freckles in the dark, "Good night,
+Mr. Weston, and--call again!"
+
+Something of the sympathy lingered with the boy as he went on his way and
+he was not without a certain sort of comfort, while Mary Ann climbed to
+her little chamber in the loft with a new wonder to dream over.
+
+Meanwhile the coach drove on, and Marcia passed from her childhood's home
+into the great world of men and women, changes, heartbreakings, sorrows
+and joys.
+
+David spoke to her kindly now and then; asked if she was comfortable; if
+she would prefer to change seats with him; if the cushions were right; and
+if she had forgotten anything. He seemed nervous, and anxious to have this
+part of the journey over and asked the coachman frequent questions about
+the horses and the speed they could make. Marcia thought she understood
+that he was longing to get away from the painful reminder of what he had
+expected to be a joyful trip, and her young heart pitied him, while yet it
+felt an undertone of hurt for herself. She found so much unadulterated joy
+in this charming ride with the beautiful horses, in this luxurious coach,
+that she could not bear to have it spoiled by the thought that only
+David's sadness and pain had made it possible for her.
+
+Constantly as the scene changed, and new sights came upon her view, she
+had to restrain herself from crying out with happiness over the beauty and
+calling David's attention. Once she did point out a bird just leaving a
+stalk of goldenrod, its light touch making the spray to bow and bend.
+David had looked with unseeing eyes, and smiled with uncomprehending
+assent. Marcia felt she might as well have been talking to herself. He was
+not even the old friend and brother he used to be. She drew a gentle
+little sigh and wished this might have been only a happy ride with the
+ending at home, and a longer girlhood uncrossed by this wall of trouble
+that Kate had put up in a night for them all.
+
+The coach came at last to the town where they were to stop for dinner and
+a change of horses.
+
+Marcia looked about with interest at the houses, streets, and people.
+There were two girls of about her own age with long hair braided down
+their backs. They were walking with arms about each other as she and Mary
+Ann had often done. She wondered if any such sudden changes might be
+coming to them as had come into her life. They turned and looked at her
+curiously, enviously it seemed, as the coach drew up to the tavern and she
+was helped out with ceremony. Doubtless they thought of her as she had
+thought of Kate but last week.
+
+She was shown into the dim parlor of the tavern and seated in a stiff
+hair-cloth chair. It was all new and strange and delightful.
+
+Before a high gilt mirror set on great glass knobs like rosettes, she
+smoothed her wind-blown hair, and looked back at the reflection of her
+strange self with startled eyes. Even her face seemed changed. She knew
+the bonnet and arrangement of hair were becoming, but she felt
+unacquainted with them, and wished for her own modest braids and plain
+bonnet. Even a sunbonnet would have been welcome and have made her feel
+more like herself.
+
+David did not see how pretty she looked when he came to take her to the
+dining room ten minutes later. His eyes were looking into the hard future,
+and he was steeling himself against the glances of others. He must be the
+model bridegroom in the sight of all who knew him. His pride bore him out
+in this. He had acquaintances all along the way home.
+
+They were expecting the bridal party, for David had arranged that a fine
+dinner should be ready for his bride. Fine it was, with the best cooking
+and table service the mistress of the tavern could command, and with many
+a little touch new and strange to Marcia, and therefore interesting. It
+was all a lovely play till she looked at David.
+
+David ate but little, and Marcia felt she must hurry through the meal for
+his sake. Then when the carryall was ready he put her in and they drove
+away.
+
+Marcia's keen intuition told her how many little things had been thought
+of and planned for, for the comfort of the one who was to have taken this
+journey with David. Gradually the thought of how terrible it was for him,
+and how dreadful of Kate to have brought this sorrow upon him, overcame
+all other thoughts.
+
+Sitting thus quietly, with her hands folded tight in the faded bunch of
+roses little Harriet had given her at parting, the last remaining of the
+flowers she had carried with her, Marcia let the tears come. Silently they
+flowed in gentle rain, and had not David been borne down with the thought
+of his own sorrow he must have noticed long before he did the sadness of
+the sweet young face beside him. But she turned away from him as much as
+possible that he might not see, and so they must have driven for half an
+hour through a dim sweet wood before he happened to catch a sight of the
+tear-wet face, and knew suddenly that there were other troubles in the
+world beside his own.
+
+"Why, child, what is the matter?" he said, turning to her with grave
+concern. "Are you so tired? I'm afraid I have been very dull company,"
+with a sigh. "You must forgive me--child, to-day."
+
+"Oh, David, don't," said Marcia putting her face down into her hands and
+crying now regardless of the roses. "I do not want you to think of me. It
+is dreadful, dreadful for you. I am so sorry for you. I wish I could do
+something."
+
+"Dear child!" he said, putting his hand upon hers. "Bless you for that.
+But do not let your heart be troubled about me. Try to forget me and be
+happy. It is not for you to bear, this trouble."
+
+"But I must bear it," said Marcia, sitting up and trying to stop crying.
+"She was my sister and she did an awful thing. I cannot forget it. How
+could she, how _could_ she do it? How could she leave a man like you
+that--" Marcia stopped, her brown eyes flashing fiercely as she thought of
+Captain Leavenworth's hateful look at her that night in the moonlight. She
+shuddered and hid her face in her hands once more and cried with all the
+fervor of her young and undisciplined soul.
+
+David did not know what to do with a young woman in tears. Had it been
+Kate his alarm would have vied with a delicious sense of his own power to
+comfort, but even the thought of comforting any one but Kate was now a
+bitter thing. Was it always going to be so? Would he always have to start
+and shrink with sudden remembrance of his pain at every turn of his way?
+He drew a deep sigh and looked helplessly at his companion. Then he did a
+hard thing. He tried to justify Kate, just as he had been trying all the
+morning to justify her to himself. The odd thing about it all was that the
+very deepest sting of his sorrow was that Kate could have done this thing!
+His peerless Kate!
+
+"She cared for him," he breathed the words as if they hurt him.
+
+"She should have told you so before then. She should not have let you
+think she cared for you--_ever!_" said Marcia fiercely. Strangely enough
+the plain truth was bitter to the man to hear, although he had been
+feeling it in his soul ever since they had discovered the flight of the
+bride.
+
+"Perhaps there was too much pressure brought to bear upon her," he said
+lamely. "Looking back I can see times when she did not second me with
+regard to hurrying the marriage, so warmly as I could have wished. I laid
+it to her shyness. Yet she seemed happy when we met. Did you--did she--have
+you any idea she had been planning this for long, or was it sudden?"
+
+The words were out now, the thing he longed to know. It had been writing
+its fiery way through his soul. Had she meant to torture him this way all
+along, or was it the yielding to a sudden impulse that perhaps she had
+already repented? He looked at Marcia with piteous, almost pleading eyes,
+and her tortured young soul would have given anything to have been able to
+tell him what he wanted to know. Yet she could not help him. She knew no
+more than he. She steadied her own nerves and tried to tell all she knew
+or surmised, tried her best to reveal Kate in her true character before
+him. Not that she wished to speak ill of her sister, only that she would
+be true and give this lover a chance to escape some of the pain if
+possible, by seeing the real Kate as she was at home without varnish or
+furbelows. Yet she reflected that those who knew Kate's shallowness well,
+still loved her in spite of it, and always bowed to her wishes.
+
+Gradually their talk subsided into deep silence once more, broken only by
+the jog-trot of the horse or the stray note of some bird.
+
+The road wound into the woods with its fragrant scents of hemlock, spruce
+and wintergreen, and out into a broad, hot, sunny way.
+
+The bees hummed in the flowers, and the grasshoppers sang hotly along the
+side of the dusty road. Over the whole earth there seemed to be the sound
+of a soft simmering, as if nature were boiling down her sweets, the better
+to keep them during the winter.
+
+The strain of the day's excitement and hurry and the weariness of sorrow
+were beginning to tell upon the two travellers. The road was heavy with
+dust and the horse plodded monotonously through it. With the drone of the
+insects and the glare of the afternoon sun, it was not strange that little
+by little a great drowsiness came over Marcia and her head began to droop
+like a poor wilted flower until she was fast asleep.
+
+David noticed that she slept, and drew her head against his shoulder that
+she might rest more comfortably. Then he settled back to his own pain, a
+deeper pang coming as he thought how different it would have been if the
+head resting against his shoulder had been golden instead of brown. Then
+soon he too fell asleep, and the old horse, going slow, and yet more
+slowly, finding no urging voice behind her and seeing no need to hurry
+herself, came at last on the way to the shade of an apple tree, and
+halted, finding it a pleasant place to remain and think until the heat of
+the afternoon was passed. Awhile she ate the tender grass that grew
+beneath the generous shade, and nipped daintily at an apple or two that
+hung within tempting reach. Then she too drooped her white lashes, and
+nodded and drooped, and took an afternoon nap.
+
+A farmer, trundling by in his empty hay wagon, found them so, looked
+curiously at them, then drew up his team and came and prodded David in the
+chest with his long hickory stick.
+
+"Wake up, there, stranger, and move on," he called, as he jumped back into
+his wagon and took up the reins. "We don't want no tipsy folks around
+these parts," and with a loud clatter he rode on.
+
+David, whose strong temperance principles had made him somewhat marked in
+his own neighborhood, roused and flushed over the insinuation, and started
+up the lazy horse, which flung out guiltily upon the way as if to make up
+for lost time. The driver, however, was soon lost in his own troubles,
+which returned upon him with redoubled sharpness as new sorrow always does
+after brief sleep.
+
+But Marcia slept on.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Owing to the horse's nap by the roadside, it was quite late in the evening
+when they reached the town and David saw the lights of his own
+neighborhood gleaming in the distance. He was glad it was late, for now
+there would be no one to meet them that night. His friends would think,
+perhaps, that they had changed their plans and stopped over night on the
+way, or met with some detention.
+
+Marcia still slept.
+
+David as he drew near the house began to feel that perhaps he had made a
+mistake in carrying out his marriage just as if nothing had happened and
+everything was all right. It would be too great a strain upon him to live
+there in that house without Kate, and come home every night just as he had
+planned it, and not to find her there to greet him as he had hoped. Oh, if
+he might turn even now and flee from it, out into the wilderness somewhere
+and hide himself from human kind, where no one would know, and no one ever
+ask him about his wife!
+
+He groaned in spirit as the horse drew up to the door, and the heavy head
+of the sweet girl who was his wife reminded him that he could not go away,
+but must stay and face the responsibilities of life which he had taken
+upon himself, and bear the pain that was his. It was not the fault of the
+girl he had married. She sorrowed for him truly, and he felt deeply
+grateful for the great thing she had done to save his pride.
+
+He leaned over and touched her shoulder gently to rouse her, but her sleep
+was deep and healthy, the sleep of exhausted youth. She did not rouse nor
+even open her eyes, but murmured half audibly; "David has come, Kate,
+hurry!"
+
+Half guessing what had passed the night he arrived, David stooped and
+tenderly gathered her up in his arms. He felt a bond of kindliness far
+deeper than brotherly love. It was a bond of common suffering, and by her
+own choice she had made herself his comrade in his trouble. He would at
+least save her what suffering he could.
+
+She did not waken as he carried her into the house, nor when he took her
+upstairs and laid her gently upon the white bed that had been prepared for
+the bridal chamber.
+
+The moonlight stole in at the small-paned windows and fell across the
+floor, showing every object in the room plainly. David lighted a candle
+and set it upon the high mahogany chest of drawers. The light flickered
+and played over the sweet face and Marcia slept on.
+
+David went downstairs and put up the horse, and then returned, but Marcia
+had not stirred. He stood a moment looking at her helplessly. It did not
+seem right to leave her this way, and yet it was a pity to disturb her
+sleep, she seemed so weary. It had been a long ride and the day had been
+filled with unwonted excitement. He felt it himself, and what must it be
+for her? She was a woman.
+
+David had the old-fashioned gallant idea of woman.
+
+Clumsily he untied the gay blue ribbons and pulled the jaunty poke bonnet
+out of her way. The luxuriant hair, unused to the confinement of combs,
+fell rich about her sleep-flushed face. Contentedly she nestled down, the
+bonnet out of her way, her red lips parted the least bit with a half
+smile, the black lashes lying long upon her rosy cheek, one childish hand
+upon which gleamed the new wedding ring--that was not hers,--lying relaxed
+and appealing upon her breast, rising and falling with her breath. A
+lovely bride!
+
+David, stern, true, pained and appreciative, suddenly awakened to what a
+dreadful thing he had done.
+
+Here was this lovely woman, her womanhood not yet unfolded from the bud,
+but lovely in promise even as her sister had been in truth, her charms,
+her dreams, her woman's ways, her love, her very life, taken by him as
+ruthlessly and as thoughtlessly as though she had been but a wax doll, and
+put into a home where she could not possibly be what she ought to be,
+because the place belonged to another. Thrown away upon a man without a
+heart! That was what she was! A sacrifice to his pride! There was no other
+way to put it.
+
+It fairly frightened him to think of the promises he had made. "Love,
+honor, cherish," yes, all those he had promised, and in a way he could
+perform, but not in the sense that the wedding ceremony had meant, not in
+the way in which he would have performed them had the bride been Kate, the
+choice of his love. Oh, why, why had this awful thing come upon him!
+
+And now his conscience told him he had done wrong to take this girl away
+from the possibilities of joy in the life that might have been hers, and
+sacrifice her for the sake of saving his own sufferings, and to keep his
+friends from knowing that the girl he was to marry had jilted him.
+
+As he stood before the lovely, defenceless girl her very beauty and
+innocence arraigned him. He felt that God would hold him accountable for
+the act he had so thoughtlessly committed that day, and a burden of
+responsibility settled upon his weight of sorrow that made him groan
+aloud. For a moment his soul cried out against it in rebellion. Why could
+he not have loved this sweet self-sacrificing girl instead of her fickle
+sister? Why? Why? She might perhaps have loved him in return, but now
+nothing could ever be! Earth was filled with a black sorrow, and life
+henceforth meant renunciation and one long struggle to hide his trouble
+from the world.
+
+But the girl whom he had selfishly drawn into the darkness of his sorrow
+with him, she must not be made to suffer more than he could help. He must
+try to make her happy, and keep her as much as possible from knowing what
+she had missed by coming with him! His lips set in stern resolve, and a
+purpose, half prayer, went up on record before God, that he would save her
+as much as he knew how.
+
+Lying helpless so, she appealed to him. Asking nothing she yet demanded
+all from him in the name of true chivalry. How readily had she given up
+all for him! How sweetly she had said she would fill the place left vacant
+by her sister, just to save him pain and humiliation!
+
+A desire to stoop and kiss the fair face came to him, not for affection's
+sake, but reverently, as if to render to her before God some fitting sign
+that he knew and understood her act of self sacrifice, and would not
+presume upon it.
+
+Slowly, as though he were performing a religious ceremony, a sacred duty
+laid upon him on high, David stooped over her, bringing his face to the
+gentle sleeping one. Her sweet breath fanned his cheek like the almost
+imperceptible fragrance of a bud not fully opened yet to give forth its
+sweetness to the world. His soul, awake and keen through the thoughts that
+had just come to him, gave homage to her sweetness, sadly, wistfully, half
+wishing his spirit free to gather this sweetness for his own.
+
+And so he brought his lips to hers, and kissed her, his bride, yet not his
+bride. Kissed her for the second time. That thought came to him with the
+touch of the warm lips and startled him. Had there been something
+significant in the fact that he had met Marcia first and kissed her
+instead of Kate by mistake?
+
+It seemed as though the sleeping lips clung to his lingeringly, and half
+responded to the kiss, as Marcia in her dreams lived over again the kiss
+she had received by her father's gate in the moonlight. Only the dream
+lover was her own and not another's. David, as he lifted up his head and
+looked at her gravely, saw a half smile illuminating her lips as if the
+sleeping soul within had felt the touch and answered to the call.
+
+With a deep sigh he turned away, blew out the candle, and left her with
+the moonbeams in her chamber. He walked sadly to a rear room of the house
+and lay down upon the bed, his whole soul crying out in agony at his
+miserable state.
+
+
+
+Kate, the careless one, who had made all this heart-break and misery, had
+quarreled with her husband already because he did not further some
+expensive whim of hers. She had told him she was sorry she had not stayed
+where she was and carried on her marriage with David as she had planned to
+do. Now she sat sulkily in her room alone, too angry to sleep; while her
+husband smoked sullenly in the barroom below, and drank frequent glasses
+of brandy to fortify himself against Kate's moods.
+
+Kate was considering whether or not she had been a fool in marrying the
+captain instead of David, though she called herself by a much milder word
+than that. The romance was already worn away. She wished for her trunk and
+her pretty furbelows. Her father's word of reconciliation would doubtless
+come in a few days, also the trunks.
+
+After all there was intense satisfaction to Kate in having broken all
+bounds and done as she pleased. Of course it would have been a bit more
+comfortable if David had not been so absurdly in earnest, and believed in
+her so thoroughly. But it was nice to have some one believe in you no
+matter what you did, and David would always do that. It began to look
+doubtful if the captain would. But David would never marry, she was sure,
+and perhaps, by and by, when everything had been forgotten and forgiven,
+she might establish a pleasant relationship with him again. It would be
+charming to coquet with him. He made love so earnestly, and his great eyes
+were so handsome when he looked at one with his whole soul in them. Yes,
+she certainly must keep in with him, for it would be good to have a friend
+like that when her husband was off at sea with his ship. Now that she was
+a married woman she would be free from all such childish trammels as being
+guarded at home and never going anywhere alone. She could go to New York,
+and she would let David know where she was and he would come up on
+business and perhaps take her to the theatre. To be sure, she had heard
+David express views against theatre-going, and she knew he was as much of
+a church man, almost, as her father, but she was sure she could coax him
+to do anything for her, and she had always wanted to go to the theatre.
+His scruples might be strong, but she knew his love for her, and thought
+it was stronger. She had read in his eyes that it would never fail her.
+Yes, she thought, she would begin at once to make a friend of David. She
+would write him a letter asking forgiveness, and then she would keep him
+under her influence. There was no telling what might happen with her
+husband off at sea so much. It was well to be foresighted, besides, it
+would be wholesome for the captain to know she had another friend. He
+might be less stubborn. What a nuisance that the marriage vows had to be
+taken for life! It would be much nicer if they could be put off as easily
+as they were put on. Rather hard on some women perhaps, but she could keep
+any man as long as she chose, and then--she snapped her pretty thumb and
+finger in the air to express her utter disdain for the man whom she chose
+to cast off.
+
+It seemed that Kate, in running away from her father's house and her
+betrothed bridegroom, and breaking the laws of respectable society, had
+with that act given over all attempt at any principle.
+
+So she set herself down to write her letter, with a pout here and a dimple
+there, and as much pretty gentleness as if she had been talking with her
+own bewitching face and eyes quite near to his. She knew she could bewitch
+him if she chose, and she was in the mood just now to choose very much,
+for she was deeply angry with her husband.
+
+She had ever been utterly heartless when she pleased, knowing that it
+needed but her returning smile, sweet as a May morning, to bring her much
+abused subjects fondly to her feet once more. It did not strike her that
+this time she had sinned not only against her friends, but against heaven,
+and God-given love, and that a time of reckoning must come to her,--had
+come, indeed.
+
+She had never believed they would be angry with her, her father least of
+all. She had no thought they would do anything desperate. She had expected
+the wedding would be put off indefinitely, that the servants would be sent
+out hither and yon in hot haste to unbid the guests, upon some pretext of
+accident or illness, and that it would be left to rest until the village
+had ceased to wonder and her real marriage with Captain Leavenworth could
+be announced.
+
+She had counted upon David to stand up for her. She had not understood how
+her father's righteous soul would be stirred to the depths of shame and
+utter disgrace over her wanton action. Not that she would have been in the
+least deterred from doing as she pleased had she understood, only that she
+counted upon too great power with all of them.
+
+When the letter was written it sounded quite pathetic and penitent,
+putting all the blame of her action upon her husband, and making herself
+out a poor, helpless, sweet thing, bewildered by so much love put upon
+her, and suggesting, just in a hint, that perhaps after all she had made a
+mistake not to have kept David's love instead of the wilder, fiercer one.
+She ended by begging David to be her friend forever, and leaving an
+impression with him, though it was but slight, that already shadows had
+crossed her path that made her feel his friendship might be needed some
+day.
+
+It was a letter calculated to drive such a lover as David had been, half
+mad with anguish, even without the fact of his hasty marriage added to the
+situation.
+
+And in due time, by coach, the letter came to David.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The morning sunbeams fell across the floor when Marcia awoke suddenly to a
+sense of her new surroundings. For a moment she could not think where she
+was nor how she came there. She looked about the unfamiliar walls, covered
+with paper decorated in landscapes--a hill in the distance with a tall
+castle among the trees, a blue lake in the foreground and two maidens
+sitting pensively upon a green bank with their arms about one another.
+Marcia liked it. She felt there was a story in it. She would like to
+imagine about the lives of those two girls when she had more time.
+
+There were no pictures in the room to mar those upon the paper, but the
+walls did not look bare. Everything was new and stiff and needed a woman's
+hand to bring the little homey touches, but the newness was a delight to
+the girl. It was as good as the time when she was a little girl and played
+house with Mary Ann down on the old flat stone in the pasture, with acorns
+for cups and saucers, and bits of broken china carefully treasured upon
+the mossy shelves in among the roots of the old elm tree that arched over
+the stone.
+
+She was stiff from the long ride, but her sleep had wonderfully refreshed
+her, and now she was ready to go to work. She wondered as she rose how she
+got upon that bed, how the blue bonnet got untied and laid upon the chair
+beside her. Surely she could not have done it herself and have no memory
+of it. Had she walked upstairs herself, or did some one carry her? Did
+David perhaps? Good kind David! A bird hopped upon the window seat and
+trilled a song, perked his head knowingly at her and flitted away. Marcia
+went to the window to look after him, and was held by the new sights that
+met her gaze. She could catch glimpses of houses through bowers of vines,
+and smoke rising from chimneys. She wondered who lived near, and if there
+were girls who would prove pleasant companions. Then she suddenly
+remembered that she was a girl no longer and must associate with married
+women hereafter.
+
+But suddenly the clock on the church steeple across the way warned her
+that it was late, and with a sense of deserving reprimand she hurried
+downstairs.
+
+The fire was already lighted and David had brought in fresh water. So much
+his intuition had told him was necessary. He had been brought up by three
+maiden aunts who thought that a man in the kitchen was out of his sphere,
+so the kitchen was an unknown quantity to him.
+
+Marcia entered the room as if she were not quite certain of her welcome.
+She was coming into a kingdom she only half understood.
+
+"Good morning," she said shyly, and a lovely color stole into her cheeks.
+Once more David's conscience smote him as her waking beauty intensified
+the impression made the night before.
+
+"Good morning," he said gravely, studying her face as he might have
+studied some poor waif whom he had unknowingly run over in the night and
+picked up to resuscitate. "Are you rested? You were very tired last
+night."
+
+"What a baby I was!" said Marcia deprecatingly, with a soft little gurgle
+of a laugh like a merry brook. David was amazed to find she had two
+dimples located about as Kate's were, only deeper, and more gentle in
+their expression.
+
+"Did I sleep all the afternoon after we left the canal? And did you have
+hard work to get me into the house and upstairs?"
+
+"You slept most soundly," said David, smiling in spite of his heavy heart.
+"It seemed a pity to waken you, so I did the next best thing and put you
+to bed as well as I knew how."
+
+"It was very good of you," said Marcia, coming over to him with her hands
+clasped earnestly, "and I don't know how to thank you."
+
+There was something quaint and old-fashioned in her way of speaking, and
+it struck David pitifully that she should be thanking her husband, the man
+who had pledged himself to care for her all his life. It seemed that
+everywhere he turned his conscience would be continually reproaching him.
+
+It was a dainty breakfast to which they presently sat down. There was
+plenty of bread and fresh butter just from the hands of the best
+butter-maker in the county; the eggs had been laid the day before, and the
+bacon was browned just right. Marcia well knew how to make coffee, there
+was cream rich and yellow as ever came from the cows at home and there
+were blackberries as large and fine every bit as those Marcia picked but a
+few days before for the purchase of her pink sprigged chintz.
+
+David watched her deft movements and all at once keen smiting conscience
+came to remind him that Marcia was defrauded of all the loving interchange
+of mirth that would have been if Kate had been here. Also, keener still
+the thought that Kate had not wanted it: that she had preferred the love
+of another man to his, and that these joys had not been held in dear
+anticipation with her as they had with him. He had been a fool. All these
+months of waiting for his marriage he had thought that he and Kate held
+feelings in common, joys and hopes and tender thoughts of one another;
+and, behold, he was having these feelings all to himself, fool and blind
+that he was! A bitter sigh came to his lips, and Marcia, eager in the
+excitement of getting her first breakfast upon her own responsibility,
+heard and forgot to smile over the completed work. She could hardly eat
+what she had prepared, her heart felt David's sadness so keenly.
+
+Shyly she poured the amber coffee and passed it to David. She was pleased
+that he drank it eagerly and passed his cup back for more. He ate but
+little, but seemed to approve of all she had done.
+
+After breakfast David went down to the office. He had told Marcia that he
+would step over and tell his aunts of their arrival, and they would
+probably come over in the course of the day to greet her. He would be back
+to dinner at twelve. He suggested that she spend her time in resting, as
+she must be weary yet. Then hesitating, he went out and closed the door
+behind him. He waited again on the door stone outside and opened the door
+to ask:
+
+"You won't be lonesome, will you, child?" He had the feeling of troubled
+responsibility upon him.
+
+"Oh, no!" said Marcia brightly, smiling back. She thought it so kind of
+him to take the trouble to think of her. She was quite anticipating a trip
+of investigation over her new domain, and the pleasure of feeling that she
+was mistress and might do as she pleased. Yet she stood by the window
+after he was gone and watched his easy strides down the street with a
+feeling of mingled pride and disappointment. It was a very nice play she
+was going through, and David was handsome, and her young heart swelled
+with pride to belong to him, but after all there was something left out. A
+great lack, a great unknown longing unsatisfied. What was it? What made
+it? Was it David's sorrow?
+
+She turned with a sigh as he disappeared around a curve in the sidewalk
+and was lost to view. Then casting aside the troubles which were trying to
+settle upon her, she gave herself up to a morning of pure delight.
+
+She flew about the kitchen putting things to rights, washing the delicate
+sprigged china with its lavendar sprays and buff bands, and putting it
+tenderly upon the shelves behind the glass doors; shoving the table back
+against the wall demurely with dropped leaves. It did not take long.
+
+There was no need to worry about the dinner. There was a leg of lamb
+beautifully cooked, half a dozen pies, their flaky crusts bearing witness
+to the culinary skill of the aunts, a fruit cake, a pound cake, a jar of
+delectable cookies and another of fat sugary doughnuts, three loaves of
+bread, and a sheet of puffy rusks with their shining tops dusted with
+sugar. Besides the preserve closet was rich in all kinds of preserves,
+jellies and pickles. No, it would not take long to get dinner.
+
+It was into the great parlor that Marcia peeped first. It had been toward
+that room that her hopes and fears had turned while she washed the dishes.
+
+The Schuylers were one of the few families in those days that possessed a
+musical instrument, and it had been the delight of Marcia's heart. She
+seemed to have a natural talent for music, and many an hour she spent at
+the old spinet drawing tender tones from the yellowed keys. The spinet had
+been in the family for a number of years and very proud had the Schuyler
+girls been of it. Kate could rattle off gay waltzes and merry, rollicking
+tunes that fairly made the feet of the sedate village maidens flutter in
+time to their melody, but Marcia's music had always been more tender and
+spiritual. Dear old hymns, she loved, and some of the old classics.
+"Stupid old things without any tune," Kate called them. But Marcia
+persevered in playing them until she could bring out the beautiful
+passages in a way that at least satisfied herself. Her one great desire
+had been to take lessons of a real musician and be able to play the
+wonderful things that the old masters had composed. It is true that very
+few of these had come in her way. One somewhat mutilated copy of Handel's
+"Creation," a copy of Haydn's "Messiah," and a few fragments of an old
+book of Bach's Fugues and Preludes. Many of these she could not play at
+all, but others she had managed to pick out. A visit from a cousin who
+lived in Boston and told of the concerts given there by the Handel and
+Haydn Society had served to strengthen her deeper interest in music. The
+one question that had been going over in her mind ever since she awoke had
+been whether there was a musical instrument in the house. She felt that if
+there was not she would miss the old spinet in her father's house more
+than any other thing about her childhood's home.
+
+So with fear and trepidation she entered the darkened room, where the
+careful aunts had drawn the thick green shades. The furniture stood about
+in shadowed corners, and every footfall seemed a fearsome thing.
+
+Marcia's bright eyes hurried furtively about, noting the great glass knobs
+that held the lace curtains with heavy silk cords, the round mahogany
+table, with its china vase of "everlastings," the high, stiff-backed
+chairs all decked in elaborate antimacassars of intricate pattern. Then,
+in the furthest corner, shrouded in dark coverings she found what she was
+searching for. With a cry she sprang to it, touched its polished wood with
+gentle fingers, and lovingly felt for the keyboard. It was closed. Marcia
+pushed up the shade to see better, and opened the instrument cautiously.
+
+It was a pianoforte of the latest pattern, and with exclamations of
+delight she sat down and began to strike chords, softly at first, as if
+half afraid, then more boldly. The tone was sweeter than the old spinet,
+or the harpsichord owned by Squire Hartrandt. Marcia marvelled at the
+volume of sound. It filled the room and seemed to echo through the empty
+halls.
+
+She played soft little airs from memory, and her soul was filled with joy.
+Now she knew she would never be lonely in the new life, for she would
+always have this wonderful instrument to flee to when she felt homesick.
+
+Across the hall were two square rooms, the front one furnished as a
+library. Here were rows of books behind glass doors. Marcia looked at them
+with awe. Might she read them all? She resolved to cultivate her mind that
+she might be a fit companion for David. She knew he was wise beyond his
+years for she had heard her father say so. She went nearer and scanned the
+titles, and at once there looked out to her from the rows of bindings a
+few familiar faces of books she had read and re-read. "Thaddeus of
+Warsaw," "The Scottish Chiefs," "Mysteries of Udolpho," "Romance of the
+Forest," "Baker's Livy," "Rollin's History," "Pilgrim's Progress," and a
+whole row of Sir Walter Scott's novels. She caught her breath with
+delight. What pleasure was opening before her! All of Scott! And she had
+read but one!
+
+It was with difficulty she tore herself away from the tempting shelves and
+went on to the rest of the house.
+
+Back of David's library was a sunny sitting room, or breakfast room,--or
+"dining room" as it would be called at the present time. In Marcia's time
+the family ate most of their meals in one end of the large bright kitchen,
+that end furnished with a comfortable lounge, a few bookshelves, a thick
+ingrain carpet, and a blooming geranium in the wide window seat. But there
+was always the other room for company, for "high days and holidays."
+
+Out of this morning room the pantry opened with its spicy odors of
+preserves and fruit cake.
+
+Marcia looked about her well pleased. The house itself was a part of
+David's inheritance, his mother's family homestead. Things were all on a
+grand scale for a bride. Most brides began in a very simple way and
+climbed up year by year. How Kate would have liked it all! David must have
+had in mind her fastidious tastes, and spent a great deal of money in
+trying to please her. That piano must have been very expensive. Once more
+Marcia felt how David had loved Kate and a pang went through her as she
+wondered however he was to live without her. Her young soul had not yet
+awakened to the question of how _she_ was to live _with_ him, while his
+heart went continually mourning for one who was lost to him forever.
+
+The rooms upstairs were all pleasant, spacious, and comfortably furnished.
+There was no suggestion of bareness or anything left unfinished. Much of
+the furniture was old, having belonged to David's mother, and was in a
+state of fine preservation, a possession of which to be justly proud.
+
+There were four rooms besides the one in which Marcia had slept: a front
+and back on the opposite side of the hall, a room just back of her own,
+and one at the end of the hall over the large kitchen.
+
+She entered them all and looked about. The three beside her own in the
+front part of the house were all large and airy, furnished with high
+four-posted bedsteads, and pretty chintz hangings. Each was immaculate in
+its appointments. Cautiously she lifted the latch of the back room. David
+had not slept in any of the others, for the bedcoverings and pillows were
+plump and undisturbed. Ah! It was here in the back room that he had
+carried his heavy heart, as far away from the rest of the house as
+possible!
+
+The bed was rumpled as if some one had thrown himself heavily down without
+stopping to undress. There was water in the washbowl and a towel lay
+carelessly across a chair as if it had been hastily used. There was a
+newspaper on the bureau and a handkerchief on the floor. Marcia looked
+sadly about at these signs of occupancy, her eyes dwelling upon each
+detail. It was here that David had suffered, and her loving heart longed
+to help him in his suffering.
+
+But there was nothing in the room to keep her, and remembering the fire
+she had left upon the hearth, which must be almost spent and need
+replenishing by this time, she turned to go downstairs.
+
+Just at the door something caught her eye under the edge of the chintz
+valence round the bed. It was but the very tip of the corner of an old
+daguerreotype, but for some reason Marcia was moved to stoop and draw it
+from its concealment. Then she saw it was her sister's saucy, pretty face
+that laughed back at her in defiance from the picture.
+
+As if she had touched something red hot Marcia dropped it, and pushed it
+with her foot far back under the bed. Then shutting the door quickly she
+went downstairs. Was it always to be thus? Would Kate ever blight all her
+joy from this time forth?
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+Marcia's cheeks were flushed when David came home to dinner, for at the
+last she had to hurry.
+
+As he stood in the doorway of the wide kitchen and caught the odor of the
+steaming platter of green corn she was putting upon the table, David
+suddenly realized that he had eaten scarcely anything for breakfast.
+
+Also, he felt a certain comfort from the sweet steady look of wistful
+sympathy in Marcia's eyes. Did he fancy it, or was there a new look upon
+her face, a more reserved bearing, less childish, more touched by sad
+knowledge of life and its bitterness? It was mere fancy of course,
+something he had just not noticed. He had seen so little of her before.
+
+In the heart of the maiden there stirred a something which she did not
+quite understand, something brought to life by the sight of her sister's
+daguerreotype lying at the edge of the valence, where it must have fallen
+from David's pocket without his knowledge as he lay asleep. It had seemed
+to put into tangible form the solid wall of fact that hung between her and
+any hope of future happiness as a wife, and for the first time she too
+began to realize what she had sacrificed in thus impetuously throwing her
+young life into the breach that it might be healed. But she was not
+sorry,--not yet, anyway,--only frightened, and filled with dreary
+forebodings.
+
+The meal was a pleasant one, though constrained. David roused himself to
+be cheerful for Marcia's sake, as he would have done with any other
+stranger, and the girl, suddenly grown sensitive, felt it, and appreciated
+it, yet did not understand why it made her unhappy.
+
+She was anxious to please him, and kept asking if the potatoes were
+seasoned right and if his corn were tender, and if he wouldn't have
+another cup of coffee. Her cheeks were quite red with the effort at
+matronly dignity when David was finally through his dinner and gone back
+to the office, and two big tears came and sat in her eyes for a moment,
+but were persuaded with a determined effort to sink back again into those
+unfathomable wells that lie in the depths of a woman's eyes. She longed to
+get out of doors and run wild and free in the old south pasture for
+relief. She did not know how different it all was from the first dinner of
+the ordinary young married couple; so stiff and formal, with no gentle
+touches, no words of love, no glances that told more than words. And yet,
+child as she was, she felt it, a lack somewhere, she knew not what.
+
+But training is a great thing. Marcia had been trained to be on the alert
+for the next duty and to do it before she gave herself time for any of her
+own thoughts. The dinner table was awaiting her attention, and there was
+company coming.
+
+She glanced at the tall clock in the hall and found she had scarcely an
+hour before she might expect David's aunts, for David had brought her word
+that they would come and spend the afternoon and stay to tea.
+
+She shrank from the ordeal and wished David had seen fit to stay and
+introduce her. It would have been a relief to have had him for a shelter.
+Somehow she knew that he would have stayed if it had been Kate, and that
+thought pained her, with a quick sharpness like the sting of an insect.
+She wondered if she were growing selfish, that it should hurt to find
+herself of so little account. And, yet, it was to be expected, and she
+must stop thinking about it. Of course, Kate was the one he had chosen and
+Kate would always be the only one to him.
+
+It did not take her long to reduce the dinner table to order and put all
+things in readiness for tea time; and in doing her work Marcia's thoughts
+flew to pleasanter themes. She wondered what Dolly and Debby, the servants
+at home, would say if they could see her pretty china and the nice
+kitchen. They had always been fond of her, and naturally her new honors
+made her wish to have her old friends see her. What would Mary Ann say?
+What fun it would be to have Mary Ann there sometime. It would be almost
+like the days when they had played house under the old elm on the big flat
+stone, only this would be a real house with real sprigged china instead of
+bits of broken things. Then she fell into a song, one they sang in school,
+
+            "Sister, thou wast mild and lovely,
+               Gentle as the summer breeze,
+             Pleasant as the air of evening
+               When it floats among the trees."
+
+But the first words set her to thinking of her own sister, and how little
+the song applied to her, and she thought with a sigh how much better it
+would have been, how much less bitter, if Kate had been that way and had
+lain down to die and they could have laid her away in the little hilly
+graveyard under the weeping willows, and felt about her as they did about
+the girl for whom that song was written.
+
+The work was done, and Marcia arrayed in one of the simplest of Kate's
+afternoon frocks, when the brass knocker sounded through the house,
+startling her with its unfamiliar sound.
+
+Breathlessly she hurried downstairs. The crucial moment had come when she
+must stand to meet her new relatives alone. With her hand trembling she
+opened the door, but there was only one person standing on the stoop, a
+girl of about her own age, perhaps a few months younger. Her hair was red,
+her face was freckled, and her blue eyes under the red lashes danced with
+repressed mischief. Her dress was plain and she wore a calico sunbonnet of
+chocolate color.
+
+"Let me in quick before Grandma sees me," she demanded unceremoniously,
+entering at once before there was opportunity for invitation. "Grandma
+thinks I've gone to the store, so she won't expect me for a little while.
+I was jest crazy to see how you looked. I've ben watchin' out o' the
+window all the morning, but I couldn't ketch a glimpse of you. When David
+came out this morning I thought you'd sure be at the kitchen door to kiss
+him good-bye, but you wasn't, and I watched every chance I could get, but
+I couldn't see you till you run out in the garden fer corn. Then I saw you
+good, fer I was out hangin' up dish towels. You didn't have a sunbonnet
+on, so I could see real well. And when I saw how young you was I made up
+my mind I'd get acquainted in spite of Grandma. You don't mind my comin'
+over this way without bein' dressed up, do you? There wouldn't be any way
+to get here without Grandma seeing me, you know, if I put on my Sunday
+clo'es."
+
+"I'm glad you came!" said Marcia impulsively, feeling a rush of something
+like tears in her throat at the relief of delay from the aunts. "Come in
+and sit down. Who are you, and why wouldn't your Grandmother like you to
+come?"
+
+The strange girl laughed a mirthless laugh.
+
+"Me? Oh, I'm Mirandy. Nobody ever calls me anything but Mirandy. My pa
+left ma when I was a baby an' never come back, an' ma died, and I live
+with Grandma Heath. An' Grandma's mad 'cause David didn't marry Hannah
+Heath. She wanted him to an' she did everything she could to make him pay
+'tention to Hannah, give her fine silk frocks, two of 'em, and a real pink
+parasol, but David he never seemed to know the parasol was pink at all,
+fer he'd never offer to hold it over Hannah even when Grandma made him
+walk with her home from church ahead of us. So when it come out that David
+was really going to marry, and wouldn't take Hannah, Grandma got as mad as
+could be and said we never any of us should step over his door sill. But
+I've stepped, I have, and Grandma can't help herself."
+
+"And who is Hannah Heath?" questioned the dazed young bride. It appeared
+there was more than a sister to be taken into account.
+
+"Hannah? Oh, Hannah is my cousin, Uncle Jim's oldest daughter, and she's
+getting on toward thirty somewhere. She has whitey-yellow hair and light
+blue eyes and is tall and real pretty. She held her head high fer a good
+many years waitin' fer David, and I guess she feels she made a mistake
+now. I noticed she bowed real sweet to Hermon Worcester last Sunday and
+let him hold her parasol all the way to Grandma's gate. Hannah was mad as
+hops when she heard that you had gold hair and blue eyes, for it did seem
+hard to be beaten by a girl of the same kind? but you haven't, have you?
+Your hair is almost black and your eyes are brownie-brown. You're years
+younger than Hannah, too. My! Won't she be astonished when she sees you!
+But I don't understand how it got around about your having gold hair. It
+was a man that stopped at your father's house once told it----"
+
+"It was my sister!" said Marcia, and then blushed crimson to think how
+near she had come to revealing the truth which must not be known.
+
+"Your sister? Have you got a sister with gold hair?"
+
+"Yes, he must have seen her," said Marcia confusedly. She was not used to
+evasion.
+
+"How funny!" said Miranda. "Well, I'm glad he did, for it made Hannah so
+jealous it was funny. But I guess she'll get a set-back when she sees how
+young you are. You're not as pretty as I thought you would be, but I
+believe I like you better."
+
+Miranda's frank speech reminded Marcia of Mary Ann and made her feel quite
+at home with her curious visitor. She did not mind being told she was not
+up to the mark of beauty. From her point of view she was not nearly so
+pretty as Kate, and her only fear was that her lack of beauty might reveal
+the secret and bring confusion to David. But she need not have feared: no
+one watching the two girls, as they sat in the large sunny room and faced
+each other, but would have smiled to think the homely crude girl could
+suggest that the other calm, cool bud of womanhood was not as near
+perfection of beauty as a bud could be expected to come. There was always
+something child-like about Marcia's face, especially her profile,
+something deep and other-world-like in her eyes, that gave her an
+appearance so distinguished from other girls that the word "pretty" did
+not apply, and surface observers might have passed her by when searching
+for prettiness, but not so those who saw soul beauties.
+
+But Miranda's time was limited, and she wanted to make as much of it as
+possible.
+
+"Say, I heard you making music this morning. Won't you do it for me? I'd
+just love to hear you."
+
+Marcia's face lit up with responsive enthusiasm, and she led the way to
+the darkened parlor and folded back the covers of the precious piano. She
+played some tender little airs she loved as she would have played them for
+Mary Ann, and the two young things stood there together, children in
+thought and feeling, half a generation apart in position, and neither
+recognized the difference.
+
+"My land!" said the visitor, "'f I could play like that I wouldn't care ef
+I had freckles and no father and red hair," and looking up Marcia saw
+tears in the light blue eyes, and knew she had a kindred feeling in her
+heart for Miranda.
+
+They had been talking a minute or two when the knocker suddenly sounded
+through the long hall again making both girls start. Miranda boldly
+tiptoed over to the front window and peeped between the green slats of the
+Venetian blind to see who was at the door, while Marcia started guiltily
+and quickly closed the instrument.
+
+"It's David's aunts," announced Miranda in a stage whisper hurriedly. "I
+might 'a' known they would come this afternoon. Well, I had first try at
+you anyway, and I like you real well. May I come again and hear you play?
+You go quick to the door, and I'll slip into the kitchen till they get in,
+and then I'll go out the kitchen door and round the house out the little
+gate so Grandma won't see me. I must hurry for I ought to have been back
+ten minutes ago."
+
+"But you haven't been to the store," said Marcia in a dismayed whisper.
+
+"Oh, well, that don't matter! I'll tell her they didn't have what she sent
+me for. Good-bye. You better hurry." So saying, she disappeared into the
+kitchen; and Marcia, startled by such easy morality, stood dazed until the
+knocker sounded forth again, this time a little more peremptorily, as the
+elder aunt took her turn at it.
+
+And so at last Marcia was face to face with the Misses Spafford.
+
+They came in, each with her knitting in a black silk bag on her slim arm,
+and greeted the flushed, perturbed Marcia with gentle, righteous, rigid
+inspection. She felt with the first glance that she was being tried in the
+fire, and that it was to be no easy ordeal through which she was to pass.
+They had come determined to sift her to the depths and know at once the
+worst of what their beloved nephew had brought upon himself. If they found
+aught wrong with her they meant to be kindly and loving with her, but they
+meant to take it out of her. This had been the unspoken understanding
+between them as they wended their dignified, determined way to David's
+house that afternoon, and this was what Marcia faced as she opened the
+door for them.
+
+She gasped a little, as any girl overwhelmed thus might have done. She did
+not tilt her chin in defiance as Kate would have done. The thought of
+David came to support her, and she grasped for her own little part and
+tried to play it creditably. She did not know whether the aunts knew of
+her true identity or not, but she was not left long in doubt.
+
+"My dear, we have long desired to know you, of whom we have heard so
+much," recited Miss Amelia, with slightly agitated mien, as she bestowed a
+cool kiss of duty upon Marcia's warm cheek. It chilled the girl, like the
+breath from a funeral flower.
+
+"Yes, it is indeed a pleasure to us to at last look upon our dear nephew's
+wife," said Miss Hortense quite precisely, and laid the sister kiss upon
+the other cheek. In spite of her there flitted through Marcia's brain the
+verse, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the
+other also." Then she was shocked at her own irreverence and tried to put
+away a hysterical desire to laugh.
+
+The aunts, too, were somewhat taken aback. They had not looked for so
+girlish a wife. She was not at all what they had pictured. David had tried
+to describe Kate to them once, and this young, sweet, disarming thing did
+not in the least fit their preconceived ideas of her. What should they do?
+How could they carry on a campaign planned against a certain kind of
+enemy, when lo, as they came upon the field of action the supposed enemy
+had taken another and more bewildering form than the one for whom they had
+prepared. They were for the moment silent, gathering their thoughts, and
+trying to fit their intended tactics to the present situation.
+
+During this operation Marcia helped them to remove their bonnets and silk
+capes and to lay them neatly on the parlor sofa. She gave them chairs,
+suggested palm-leaf fans, and looked about, for the moment forgetting that
+this was not her old home plentifully supplied with those gracious breeze
+wafters.
+
+They watched her graceful movements, those two angular old ladies, and
+marvelled over her roundness and suppleness. They saw with appalled hearts
+what a power youth and beauty might have over a man. Perhaps she might be
+even worse than they had feared, though if you could have heard them talk
+about their nephew's coming bride to their neighbors for months
+beforehand, you would have supposed they knew her to be a model in every
+required direction. But their stately pride required that of them, an
+outward loyalty at least. Now that loyalty was to be tried, and Marcia had
+two old, narrow and well-fortified hearts to conquer ere her way would be
+entirely smooth.
+
+Well might Madam Schuyler have been proud of her pupil as alone and
+unaided she faced the trying situation and mastered it in a sweet and
+unassuming way.
+
+They began their inquisition at once, so soon as they were seated, and the
+preliminary sentences uttered. The gleaming knitting needles seemed to
+Marcia like so many swarming, vindictive bees, menacing her peace of mind.
+
+"You look young, child, to have the care of so large a house as this,"
+said Aunt Amelia, looking at Marcia over her spectacles as if she were
+expected to take the first bite out of her. "It's a great responsibility!"
+she shut her thin lips tightly and shook her head, as if she had said:
+"It's a great _impossibility_."
+
+"Have you ever had the care of a house?" asked Miss Hortense, going in a
+little deeper. "David likes everything nice, you know, he has always been
+used to it."
+
+There was something in the tone, and in the set of the bow on Aunt
+Hortense's purple-trimmed cap that roused the spirit in Marcia.
+
+"I think I rather enjoy housework," she responded coolly. This unexpected
+statement somewhat mollified the aunts. They had heard to the contrary
+from some one who had lived in the same town with the Schuylers. Kate's
+reputation was widely known, as that of a spoiled beauty, who did not care
+to work, and would do whatever she pleased. The aunts had entertained many
+forebodings from the few stray hints an old neighbor of Kate's had dared
+to utter in their hearing.
+
+The talk drifted at once into household matters, as though that were the
+first division of the examination the young bride was expected to undergo.
+Marcia took early opportunity to still further mollify her visitors by her
+warmest praise of the good things with which the pantry and store-closet
+had been filled. The expression that came upon the two old faces was that
+of receiving but what is due. If the praise had not been forthcoming they
+would have marked it down against her, but it counted for very little with
+them, warm as it was.
+
+"Can you make good bread?"
+
+The question was flung out by Aunt Hortense like a challenge, and the very
+set of her nostrils gave Marcia warning. But it was in a relieved voice
+that ended almost in a ripple of laugh that she answered quite assuredly:
+"Oh, yes, indeed. I can make beautiful bread. I just love to make it,
+too!"
+
+"But how do you make it?" quickly questioned Aunt Amelia, like a repeating
+rifle. If the first shot had not struck home, the second was likely to.
+"Do you use hop yeast? Potatoes? I thought so. Don't know how to make
+salt-rising, do you? It's just what might have been expected."
+
+"David has always been used to salt-rising bread," said Aunt Hortense with
+a grim set of her lips as though she were delivering a judgment. "He was
+raised on it."
+
+"If David does not like my bread," said Marcia with a rising color and a
+nervous little laugh, "then I shall try to make some that he does like."
+
+There was an assurance about the "if" that did not please the oracle.
+
+"David was raised on salt-rising bread," said Aunt Hortense again as if
+that settled it. "We can send you down a loaf or two every time we bake
+until you learn how."
+
+"I'm sure it's very kind of you," said Marcia, not at all pleased, "but I
+do not think that will be necessary. David has always seemed to like our
+bread when he visited at home. Indeed he often praised it."
+
+"David would not be impolite," said Aunt Amelia, after a suitable pause in
+which Marcia felt disapprobation in the air. "It would be best for us to
+send it. David's health might suffer if he was not suitably nourished."
+
+Marcia's cheeks grew redder. Bread had been one of her stepmother's strong
+points, well infused into her young pupil. Madam Schuyler had never been
+able to say enough to sufficiently express her scorn of people who made
+salt-rising bread.
+
+"My stepmother made beautiful bread," she said quite childishly; "she did
+not think salt-rising was so healthy as that made from hop yeast. She
+disliked the odor in the house from salt-rising bread."
+
+Now indeed the aunts exchanged glances of "On to the combat." Four red
+spots flamed giddily out in their four sallow cheeks, and eight shining
+knitting needles suddenly became idle. The moment was too momentous to
+work. It was as they feared, even the worst. For, be it known, salt-rising
+bread was one of their most tender points, and for it they would fight to
+the bitter end. They looked at her with four cold, forbidding, steely,
+spectacled eyes, and Marcia felt that their looks said volumes: "And she
+so young too! To be so out of the way!" was what they might have expressed
+to one another. Marcia felt she had been unwise in uttering her honest,
+indignant sentiments concerning salt-rising bread.
+
+The pause was long and impressive, and the bride felt like a naughty
+little four-year-old.
+
+At last Aunt Hortense took up her knitting again with the air that all was
+over and an unrevokable verdict was passed upon the culprit.
+
+"People have never seemed to stay away from our house on that account,"
+she said dryly. "I'm sure I hope it will not be so disagreeable that it
+will affect your coming to see us sometimes with David."
+
+There was an iciness in her manner that seemed to suggest a long line of
+offended family portraits of ancestors frowning down upon her.
+
+Marcia's cheeks flamed crimson and her heart fairly stopped beating.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said quickly, "I did not mean to say anything
+disagreeable. I am sure I shall be glad to come as often as you will let
+me." As she said it Marcia wondered if that were quite true. Would she
+ever be glad to go to the home of those two severe-looking aunts? There
+were three of them. Perhaps the other one would be even more withered and
+severe than these two. A slight shudder passed over Marcia, and a sudden
+realization of a side of married life that had never come into her
+thoughts before. For a moment she longed with all the intensity of a child
+for her father's house and the shelter of his loving protection, amply
+supported by her stepmother's capable, self-sufficient, comforting
+countenance. Her heart sank with the fear that she would never be able to
+do justice to the position of David's wife, and David would be
+disappointed in her and sorry he had accepted her sacrifice. She roused
+herself to do better, and bit her tongue to remind it that it must make no
+more blunders. She praised the garden, the house and the furnishings, in
+voluble, eager, girlish language until the thin lines of lips relaxed and
+the drawn muscles of the aunts' cheeks took on a less severe aspect. They
+liked to be appreciated, and they certainly had taken a great deal of
+pains with the house--for David's sake--not for hers. They did not care to
+have her deluded by the idea that they had done it for her sake. David was
+to them a young god, and with this one supreme idea of his supremacy they
+wished to impress his young wife. It was a foregone conclusion in their
+minds that no mere pretty young girl was capable of appreciating David, as
+could they, who had watched him from babyhood, and pampered and petted and
+been severe with him by turns, until if he had not had the temper of an
+angel he would surely have been spoiled.
+
+"We did our best to make the house just as David would have wished to have
+it," said Aunt Amelia at last, a self-satisfied shadow of what answered
+for a smile with her, passing over her face for a moment.
+
+"We did not at all approve of this big house, nor indeed of David's
+setting up in a separate establishment for himself," said Aunt Hortense,
+taking up her knitting again. "We thought it utterly unnecessary and
+uneconomical, when he might have brought his wife home to us, but he
+seemed to think you would want a house to yourself, so we did the best we
+could."
+
+There was a martyr-like air in Aunt Hortense's words that made Marcia feel
+herself again a criminal, albeit she knew she was suffering vicariously.
+But in her heart she felt a sudden thankfulness that she was spared the
+trial of living daily under the scrutiny of these two, and she blest David
+for his thoughtfulness, even though it had not been meant for her. She
+went into pleased ecstasies once more over the house, and its furnishings,
+and ended by her pleasure over the piano.
+
+There was grim stillness when she touched upon that subject. The aunts did
+not approve of that musical instrument, that was plain. Marcia wondered if
+they always paused so long before speaking when they disapproved, in order
+to show their displeasure. In fact, did they always disapprove of
+everything?
+
+"You will want to be very careful of it," said Aunt Amelia, looking at the
+disputed article over her glasses, "it cost a good deal of money. It was
+the most foolish thing I ever knew David to do, buying that."
+
+"Yes," said Aunt Hortense, "you will not want to use it much, it might get
+scratched. It has a fine polish. I'd keep it closed up only when I had
+company. You ought to be very proud to have a husband who could buy a
+thing like that. There's not many has them. When I was a girl my
+grandfather had a spinet, the only one for miles around, and it was taken
+great care of. The case hadn't a scratch on it."
+
+Marcia had started toward the piano intending to open it and play for her
+new relatives, but she halted midway in the room and came back to her seat
+after that speech, feeling that she must just sit and hold her hands until
+it was time to get supper, while these dreadful aunts picked her to
+pieces, body, soul and spirit.
+
+It was with great relief at last that she heard David's step and knew she
+might leave the room and put the tea things upon the table.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+They got through the supper without any trouble, and the aunts went home
+in the early twilight, each with her bonnet strings tied precisely, her
+lace mitts drawn smoothly over her bony hands, and her little knitting bag
+over her right arm. They walked decorously up the shaded, elm-domed
+street, each mindful of her aristocratic instep, and trying to walk erect
+as in the days when they were gazed upon with admiration, knowing that
+still an air of former greatness hovered about them wherever they went.
+
+They had brightened considerably at the supper table, under the genial
+influence of David's presence. They came as near to worshiping David as
+one can possibly come to worshiping a human being. David, desirous above
+all things of blinding their keen, sure-to-say-"I-told-you-so" old eyes,
+roused to be his former gay self with them, and pleased them so that they
+did not notice how little lover-like reference he made to his bride, who
+was decidedly in the background for the time, the aunts, perhaps
+purposely, desiring to show her a wife's true place,--at least the true
+place of a wife of a David.
+
+They had allowed her to bring their things and help them on with capes and
+bonnets, and, when they were ready to leave, Aunt Amelia put out a
+lifeless hand, that felt in its silk mitt like a dead fish in a net, and
+said to Marcia:
+
+"Our sister Clarinda is desirous of seeing David's wife. She wished us
+most particularly to give you her love and say to you that she wishes you
+to come to her at the earliest possible moment. You know she is lame and
+cannot easily get about."
+
+"Young folks should always be ready to wait upon their elders," said Aunt
+Hortense, grimly. "Come as soon as you can,--that is, if you think you can
+stand the smell of salt-rising."
+
+Marcia's face flushed painfully, and she glanced quickly at David to see
+if he had noticed what his aunt had said, but David was already
+anticipating the moment when he would be free to lay aside his mask and
+bury his face in his hands and his thoughts in sadness.
+
+Marcia's heart sank as she went about clearing off the supper things. Was
+life always to be thus? Would she be forever under the espionage of those
+two grim spectres of women, who seemed, to her girlish imagination, to
+have nothing about them warm or loving or woman-like?
+
+She seemed to herself to be standing outside of a married life and looking
+on at it as one might gaze on a panorama. It was all new and painful, and
+she was one of the central figures expected to act on through all the
+pictures, taking another's place, yet doing it as if it were her own. She
+glanced over at David's pale, grave face, set in its sadness, and a sharp
+pain went through her heart. Would he ever get over it? Would life never
+be more cheerful than it now was?
+
+He spoke to her occasionally, in a pleasant abstracted way, as to one who
+understood him and was kind not to trouble his sadness, and he lighted a
+candle for her when the work was done and said he hoped she would rest
+well, that she must still be weary from the long journey. And so she went
+up to her room again.
+
+She did not go to bed at once, but sat down by the window looking out on
+the moonlit street. There had been some sort of a meeting at the church
+across the way, and the people were filing out and taking their various
+ways home, calling pleasant good nights, and speaking cheerily of the
+morrow. The moon, though beginning to wane, was bright and cast sharp
+shadows. Marcia longed to get out into the night. If she could have got
+downstairs without being heard she would have slipped out into the garden.
+But downstairs she could hear David pacing back and forth like some hurt,
+caged thing. Steadily, dully, he walked from the front hall back into the
+kitchen and back again. There was no possibility of escaping his notice.
+Marcia felt as if she might breathe freer in the open air, so she leaned
+far out of her window and looked up and down the street, and thought.
+Finally,--her heart swelled to bursting, as young hearts with their first
+little troubles will do,--she leaned down her dark head upon the window
+seat and wept and wept, alone.
+
+It was the next morning at breakfast that David told her of the
+festivities that were planned in honor of their home coming. He spoke as
+if they were a great trial through which they both must pass in order to
+have any peace, and expressed his gratitude once more that she had been
+willing to come here with him and pass through it. Marcia had the
+impression, after he was done speaking and had gone away to the office,
+that he felt that she had come here merely for these few days of ceremony
+and after they were passed she was dismissed, her duty done, and she might
+go home. A great lump arose in her throat and she suddenly wished very
+much indeed that it were so. For if it were, how much, how very much she
+would enjoy queening it for a few days--except for David's sadness. But
+already, there had begun to be an element to her in that sadness which in
+spite of herself she resented. It was a heavy burden which she began dimly
+to see would be harder and harder to bear as the days went by. She had not
+yet begun to think of the time before her in years.
+
+They were to go to the aunts' to tea that evening, and after tea a company
+of David's old friends--or rather the old friends of David's aunts--were
+coming in to meet them. This the aunts had planned: but it seemed they had
+not counted her worthy to be told of the plans, and had only divulged them
+to David. Marcia had not thought that a little thing could annoy her so
+much, but she found it vexed her more and more as she thought upon it
+going about her work.
+
+There was not so much to be done in the house that morning after the
+breakfast things were cleared away. Dinners and suppers would not be much
+of a problem for some days to come, for the house was well stocked with
+good things.
+
+The beds done and the rooms left in dainty order with the sweet summer
+breeze blowing the green tassels on the window shades, Marcia went softly
+down like some half guilty creature to the piano. She opened it and was
+forthwith lost in delight of the sounds her own fingers brought forth.
+
+She had been playing perhaps half an hour when she became conscious of
+another presence in the room. She looked up with a start, feeling that
+some one had been there for some time, she could not tell just how long.
+Peering into the shadowy room lighted only from the window behind her, she
+made out a head looking in at the door, the face almost hidden by a
+capacious sunbonnet. She was not long in recognizing her visitor of the
+day before. It was like a sudden dropping from a lofty mountain height
+down into a valley of annoyance to hear Miranda's sharp metallic voice:
+
+"Morning!" she courtesied, coming in as soon as she perceived that she was
+seen. "At it again? I ben listening sometime. It's as pretty as Silas
+Drew's harmonicker when he comes home evenings behind the cows."
+
+Marcia drew her hands sharply from the keys as if she had been struck.
+Somehow Miranda and music were inharmonious. She scarcely knew what to
+say. She felt as if her morning were spoiled. But Miranda was too full of
+her own errand to notice the clouded face and cool welcome. "Say, you
+can't guess how I got over here. I'll tell you. You're going over to the
+Spafford house to-night, ain't you? and there's going to be a lot of folks
+there. Of course we all know all about it. It's been planned for months.
+And my cousin Hannah Heath has an invite. You can't think how fond Miss
+Amelia and Miss Hortense are of her. They tried their level best to make
+David pay attention to her, but it didn't work. Well, she was talking
+about what she'd wear. She's had three new frocks made last week, all
+frilled and fancy. You see she don't want to let folks think she is down
+in the mouth the least bit about David. She'll likely make up to you, to
+your face, a whole lot, and pretend she's the best friend you've got in
+the world. But I've just got this to say, don't you be too sure of her
+friendship. She's smooth as butter, but she can give you a slap in the
+face if you don't serve her purpose. I don't mind telling you for she's
+given me many a one," and the pale eyes snapped in unison with the color
+of her hair. "Well, you see I heard her talking to Grandma, and she said
+she'd give anything to know what you were going to wear to-night."
+
+"How curious!" said Marcia surprised. "I'm sure I do not see why she
+should care!" There was the coolness born of utter indifference in her
+reply which filled the younger girl with admiration. Perhaps too there was
+the least mite of haughtiness in her manner, born of the knowledge that
+she belonged to an old and honored family, and that she had in her
+possession a trunk full of clothes that could vie with any that Hannah
+Heath could display. Miranda wished silently that she could convey that
+cool manner and that wide-eyed indifference to the sight of her cousin
+Hannah.
+
+"H'm!" giggled Miranda. "Well, she does! If you were going to wear blue
+you'd see she'd put on her green. She's got one that'll kill any blue
+that's in the same room with it, no matter if it's on the other side. Its
+just sick'ning to see them together. And she looks real well in it too. So
+when she said she wanted to know so bad, Grandma said she'd send me over
+to know if you'd accept a jar of her fresh pickle-lily, and mebbe I could
+find out about your clothes. The pickle-lily's on the kitchen table. I
+left it when I came through. It's good, but there ain't any love in it."
+And Miranda laughed a hard mirthless laugh, and then settled down to her
+subject again.
+
+"Now, you needn't be a mite afraid to tell me about it. I won't tell it
+straight, you know. I'd just like to see what you are going to wear so I
+could keep her out of her tricks for once. Is your frock blue?"
+
+Now it is true that the trunk upstairs contained a goodly amount of the
+color blue, for Kate Schuyler had been her bonniest in blue, and the
+particular frock which had been made with reference to this very first
+significant gathering was blue. Marcia had accepted the fact as
+unalterable. The garment was made for a purpose, and its mission must be
+fulfilled however much she might wish to wear something else, but suddenly
+as Miranda spoke there came to her mind the thought of rebellion. Why
+should she be bound down to do exactly as Kate would do in her place? If
+she had accepted the sacrifice of living Kate's life for her, she might at
+least have the privilege of living it in the pleasantest possible way, and
+surely the matter of dress was one she might be allowed to settle for
+herself if she was old enough at all to be trusted away from home. Among
+the pretty things that Kate had made was a sweet rose-pink silk tissue.
+Madam Schuyler had frowned upon it as frivolous, and besides she did not
+think it becoming to Kate. She had a fixed theory that people with blue
+eyes and gold hair should never wear pink or red, but Kate as usual had
+her own way, and with her wild rose complexion had succeeded in looking
+like the wild rose itself in spite of blue eyes and golden hair. Marcia
+knew in her heart, in fact she had known from the minute the lovely pink
+thing had come into the house, that it was the very thing to set her off.
+Her dark eyes and hair made a charming contrast with the rose, and her
+complexion was even fresher than Kate's. Her heart grew suddenly eager to
+don this dainty, frilley thing and outshine Hannah Heath beyond any chance
+of further trying. There were other frocks, too, in the trunk. Why should
+she be confined to the stately blue one that had been marked out for this
+occasion? Marcia, with sudden inspiration, answered calmly, just as though
+all these tumultuous possibilities of clothes had not been whirling
+through her brain in that half second's hesitation:
+
+"I have not quite decided what I shall wear. It is not an important
+matter, I'm sure. Let us go and see the piccalilli. I'm very much obliged
+to your grandmother, I'm sure. It was kind of her."
+
+Somewhat awed, Miranda followed her hostess into the kitchen. She could
+not reconcile this girl's face with the stately little airs that she wore,
+but she liked her and forthwith she told her so.
+
+"I like you," she said fervently. "You remind me of one of Grandma's
+sturtions, bright and independent and lively, with a spice and a color to
+'em, and Hannah makes you think of one of them tall spikes of gladiolus
+all fixed up without any smell."
+
+Marcia tried to smile over the doubtful compliment. Somehow there was
+something about Miranda that reminded her of Mary Ann. Poor Mary Ann!
+_Dear_ Mary Ann! For suddenly she realized that everything that reminded
+her of the precious life of her childhood, left behind forever, was dear.
+If she could see Mary Ann at this moment she would throw her arms about
+her neck and call her "Dear Mary Ann," and say, "I love you," to her.
+Perhaps this feeling made her more gentle with the annoying Miranda than
+she might have been.
+
+When Miranda was gone the precious play hour was gone too. Marcia had only
+time to steal hurriedly into the parlor, close the instrument, and then
+fly about getting her dinner ready. But as she worked she had other
+thoughts to occupy her mind. She was becoming adjusted to her new
+environment and she found many unexpected things to make it hard. Here,
+for instance, was Hannah Heath. Why did there have to be a Hannah Heath?
+And what was Hannah Heath to her? Kate might feel jealous, indeed, but not
+she, not the unloved, unreal, wife of David. She should rather pity Hannah
+that David had not loved her instead of Kate, or pity David that he had
+not. But somehow she did not, somehow she could not. Somehow Hannah Heath
+had become a living, breathing enemy to be met and conquered. Marcia felt
+her fighting blood rising, felt the Schuyler in her coming to the front.
+However little there was in her wifehood, its name at least was hers. The
+tale that Miranda had told was enough, if it were true, to put any woman,
+however young she might be, into battle array. Marcia was puzzling her
+mind over the question that has been more or less of a weary burden to
+every woman since the fatal day that Eve made her great mistake.
+
+David was silent and abstracted at the dinner table, and Marcia absorbed
+in her own problems did not feel cut by it. She was trying to determine
+whether to blossom out in pink, or to be crushed and set aside into
+insignificance in blue, or to choose a happy medium and wear neither. She
+ventured a timid little question before David went away again: Did he,
+would he,--that is, was there any thing,--any word he would like to say to
+her? Would she have to do anything to-night?
+
+David looked at her in surprise. Why, no! He knew of nothing. Just go and
+speak pleasantly to every one. He was sure she knew what to do. He had
+always thought her very well behaved. She had manners like any woman. She
+need not feel shy. No one knew of her peculiar position, and he felt
+reasonably sure that the story would not soon get around. Her position
+would be thoroughly established before it did, at least. She need not feel
+uncomfortable. He looked down at her thinking he had said all that could
+be expected of him, but somehow he felt the trouble in the girl's eyes and
+asked her gently if there was anything more.
+
+"No," she said slowly, "unless, perhaps--I don't suppose you know what it
+would be proper for me to wear."
+
+"Oh, that does not matter in the least," he replied promptly. "Anything.
+You always look nice. Why, I'll tell you, wear the frock you had on the
+night I came." Then he suddenly remembered the reason why that was a
+pleasant memory to him, and that it was not for her sake at all, but for
+the sake of one who was lost to him forever. His face contracted with
+sudden pain, and Marcia, cut to the heart, read the meaning, and felt sick
+and sore too.
+
+"Oh, I could not wear that," she said sadly, "it is only chintz. It would
+not be nice enough, but thank you. I shall be all right. Don't trouble
+about me," and she forced a weak smile to light him from the house, and
+shut from his pained eyes the knowledge of how he had hurt her, for with
+those words of his had come the vision of herself that happy night as she
+stood at the gate in the stillness and moonlight looking from the portal
+of her maidenhood into the vista of her womanhood, which had seemed then
+so far away and bright, and was now upon her in sad reality. Oh, if she
+could but have caught that sentence of his about her little chintz frock
+to her heart with the joy of possession, and known that he said it because
+he too had a happy memory about her in it, as she had always felt the
+coming, misty, dream-expected lover would do!
+
+She spread the available frocks out upon the bed after the other things
+were put neatly away in closet and drawer, and sat down to decide the
+matter. David's suggestion while impossible had given her an idea, and she
+proceeded to carry it out. There was a soft sheer white muslin, whereon
+Kate had expended her daintiest embroidering, edged with the finest of
+little lace frills. It was quaint and simple and girlish, the sweetest,
+most simple affair in all of Kate's elaborate wardrobe, and yet, perhaps,
+from an artistic point of view, the most elegant. Marcia soon made up her
+mind.
+
+She dressed herself early, for David had said he would be home by four
+o'clock and they would start as soon after as he could get ready. His
+aunts wished to show her the old garden before dark.
+
+When she came to the arrangement of her hair she paused. Somehow her soul
+rebelled at the style of Kate. It did not suit her face. It did not accord
+with her feeling. It made her seem unlike herself, or unlike the self she
+would ever wish to be. It suited Kate well, but not her. With sudden
+determination she pulled it all down again from the top of her head and
+loosened its rich waves about her face, then loosely twisted it behind,
+low on her neck, falling over her delicate ears, until her head looked
+like that of an old Greek statue. It was not fashion, it was pure instinct
+the child was following out, and there was enough conformity to one of the
+fashionable modes of the day to keep her from looking odd. It was lovely.
+Marcia could not help seeing herself that it was much more becoming than
+the way she had arranged it for her marriage, though then she had had the
+wedding veil to soften the tightly drawn outlines of her head. She put on
+the sheer white embroidered frock then, and as a last touch pinned the bit
+of black velvet about her throat with a single pearl that had been her
+mother's. It was the bit of black velvet she had worn the night David
+came. It gave her pleasure to think that in so far she was conforming to
+his suggestion.
+
+She had just completed her toilet when she heard David's step coming up
+the walk.
+
+David, coming in out of the sunshine and beholding this beautiful girl in
+the coolness and shadow of the hall awaiting him shyly, almost started
+back as he rubbed his eyes and looked at her again. She was beautiful. He
+had to admit it to himself, even in the midst of his sadness, and he
+smiled at her, and felt another pang of condemnation that he had taken
+this beauty from some other man's lot perhaps, and appropriated it to
+shield himself from the world's exclamation about his own lonely life.
+
+"You have done it admirably. I do not see that there is anything left to
+be desired," he said in his pleasant voice that used to make her
+girl-heart flutter with pride that her new brother-to-be was pleased with
+her. It fluttered now, but there was a wider sweep to its wings, and a
+longer flight ahead of the thought.
+
+Quite demurely the young wife accepted her compliment, and then she meekly
+folded her little white muslin cape with its dainty frills about her
+pretty shoulders, drew on the new lace mitts, and tied beneath her chin
+the white strings of a shirred gauze bonnet with tiny rosebuds nestling in
+the ruching of tulle about the face.
+
+Once more the bride walked down the world the observed of all observers,
+the gazed at of the town, only this time it was brick pavement not oaken
+stairs she trod, and most of the eyes that looked upon her were sheltered
+behind green jalousies. None the less, however, was she conscious of them
+as she made her way to the house of solemn feasting with David by her
+side. Her eyes rested upon the ground, or glanced quietly at things in the
+distance, when they were not lifted for a moment in wifely humility to her
+husband's face at some word of his. Just as she imagined a hundred times
+in her girlish thoughts that her sister Kate would do, so did she, and
+after what seemed to her an interminable walk, though in reality it was
+but four village blocks, they arrived at the house of Spafford.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"This is your Aunt Clarinda!"
+
+There was challenge in the severely spoken pronoun Aunt Hortense used. It
+seemed to Marcia that she wished to remind her that all her old life and
+relations were passed away, and she had nothing now but David's,
+especially David's relatives. She shrank from lifting her eyes, expecting
+to find the third aunt, who was older, as much sourer and sharper in
+proportion to the other two, but she controlled herself and lifted her
+flower face to meet a gentle, meek, old face set in soft white frills of a
+cap, with white ribbons flying, and though the old lady leaned upon a
+crutch she managed to give the impression that she had fairly flown in her
+gladness to welcome her new niece. There was the lighting of a repressed
+nature let free in her kind old face as she looked with true pleasure upon
+the lovely young one, and Marcia felt herself folded in truly loving arms
+in an embrace which her own passionate, much repressed, loving nature
+returned with heartiness. At last she had found a friend!
+
+She felt it every time she spoke, more and more. They walked out into the
+garden almost immediately, and Aunt Clarinda insisted upon hobbling along
+by Marcia's side, though her sisters both protested that it would be too
+hard for her that warm afternoon. Every time that Marcia spoke she felt
+the kind old eyes upon her, and she knew that at least one of the aunts
+was satisfied with her as a wife for David, for her eyes would travel from
+David to Marcia and back again to David, and when they met Marcia's there
+was not a shade of disparagement in them.
+
+It was rather a tiresome walk through a tiresome old garden, laid out in
+the ways of the past generation, and bordered with much funereal box. The
+sisters, Amelia and Hortense, took the new member of the family,
+conscientiously, through every path, and faithfully told how each spot was
+associated with some happening in the family history. Occasionally there
+was a solemn pause for the purpose of properly impressing the new member
+of the house, and Amelia wiped her eyes with her carefully folded
+handkerchief. Marcia felt extremely like laughing. She was sure that if
+Kate had been obliged to pass through this ordeal she would have giggled
+out at once and said some shockingly funny thing that would have horrified
+the aunts beyond forgiveness. The thought of this nerved her to keep a
+sober face. She wondered what David thought of it all, but when she looked
+at him she wondered no longer, for David stood as one waiting for a
+certain ceremony to be over, a ceremony which he knew to be inevitable,
+but which was wholly and familiarly uninteresting. He did not even see how
+it must strike the girl who was going through it all for him, for David's
+thoughts were out on the flood-tide of sorrow, drifting against the rocks
+of the might-have-been.
+
+They went in to tea presently, just when the garden was growing loveliest
+with a tinge of the setting sun, and Marcia longed to run up and down the
+little paths like a child and call to them all to catch her if they could.
+The house was dark and stately and gloomy.
+
+"You are coming up to my room for a few minutes after supper," whispered
+Aunt Clarinda encouragingly as they passed into the dark hall. The supper
+table was alight with a fine old silver candelabra whose many wavering
+lights cast a solemn, grotesque shadow on the different faces.
+
+Beside her plate the young bride saw an ostentatious plate of puffy soda
+biscuits, and involuntarily her eyes searched the table for the bread
+plate.
+
+Aunt Clarinda almost immediately pounced upon the bread plate and passed
+it with a smile to Marcia, and as Marcia with an answering smile took a
+generous slice she heard the other two aunts exclaim in chorus, "Oh, don't
+pass her the bread, Clarinda; take it away sister, quick! She does not
+like salt-rising! It is unpleasant to her!"
+
+Then with blazing cheeks the girl protested that she wished to keep the
+bread, that they were mistaken, she had not said it was obnoxious to her,
+but had merely given them her stepmother's opinion when they asked. They
+must excuse her for her seeming rudeness, for she had not intended to hurt
+them. She presumed salt-rising bread was very nice; it looked beautiful.
+This was a long speech for shy Marcia to make before so many strangers,
+but David's wondering, troubled eyes were upon her, questioning what it
+all might mean, and she felt she could do anything to save David from more
+suffering or annoyance of any kind.
+
+David said little. He seemed to perceive that there had been an unpleasant
+prelude to this, and perhaps knew from former experience that the best way
+to do was to change the subject. He launched into a detailed account of
+their wedding journey. Marcia on her part was grateful to him, for when
+she took the first brave bite into the very puffy, very white slice of
+bread she had taken, she perceived that it was much worse than that which
+had been baked for their homecoming, and not only justified all her
+stepmother's execrations, but in addition it was sour. For an instant,
+perceiving down the horoscope of time whole calendars full of such suppers
+with the aunts, and this bread, her soul shuddered and shrank. Could she
+ever learn to like it? Impossible! Could she ever tolerate it? Could she?
+She doubted. Then she swallowed bravely and perceived that the impossible
+had been accomplished once. It could be again, but she must go slowly else
+she might have to eat two slices instead of one. David was kind. He had
+roused himself to help his helper. Perhaps something in her girlish beauty
+and helplessness, helpless here for his sake, appealed to him. At least
+his eyes sought hers often with a tender interest to see if she were
+comfortable, and once, when Aunt Amelia asked if they stopped nowhere for
+rest on their journey, his eyes sought Marcia's with a twinkling reminder
+of their roadside nap, and he answered, "Once, Aunt Amelia. No, it was not
+a regular inn. It was quieter than that. Not many people stopping there."
+
+Marcia's merry laugh almost bubbled forth, but she suppressed it just in
+time, horrified to think what Aunt Hortense would say, but somehow after
+David had said that her heart felt a trifle lighter and she took a big
+bite from the salt-rising and smiled as she swallowed it. There were worse
+things in the world, after all, than salt-rising, and, when one could
+smother it in Aunt Amelia's peach preserves, it was quite bearable.
+
+Aunt Clarinda slipped her off to her own room after supper, and left the
+other two sisters with their beloved idol, David. In their stately parlor
+lighted with many candles in honor of the occasion, they sat and talked in
+low tones with him, their voices suggesting condolence with his misfortune
+of having married out of the family, and disapproval with the married
+state in general. Poor souls! How their hard, loving hearts would have
+been wrung could they but have known the true state of the case! And,
+strange anomaly, how much deeper would have been their antagonism toward
+poor, self-sacrificing, loving Marcia! Just because she had dared to think
+herself fit for David, belonging as she did to her renegade sister Kate.
+But they did not know, and for this fact David was profoundly thankful.
+Those were not the days of rapid transit, of telegraph and telephone, nor
+even of much letter writing, else the story would probably have reached
+the aunts even before the bride and bridegroom arrived at home. As it was,
+David had some hope of keeping the tragedy of his life from the ears of
+his aunts forever. Patiently he answered their questions concerning the
+wedding, questions that were intended to bring out facts showing whether
+David had received his due amount of respect, and whether the family he
+had so greatly honored felt the burden of that honor sufficiently.
+
+Upstairs in a quaint old-fashioned room Aunt Clarinda was taking Marcia's
+face in her two wrinkled hands and looking lovingly into her eyes; then
+she kissed her on each rosy cheek and said:
+
+"Dear child! You look just as I did when I was young. You wouldn't think
+it from me now, would you? But it's true. I might not have grown to be
+such a dried-up old thing if I had had somebody like David. I'm so glad
+you've got David. He'll take good care of you. He's a dear boy. He's
+always been good to me. But you mustn't let the others crush those roses
+out of your cheeks. They crushed mine out. They wouldn't let me have my
+life the way I wanted it, and the pink in my cheeks all went back into my
+heart and burst it a good many years ago. But they can't spoil your life,
+for you've got David and that's worth everything."
+
+Then she kissed her on the lips and cheeks and eyes and let her go. But
+that one moment had given Marcia a glimpse into another life-story and put
+her in touch forever with Aunt Clarinda, setting athrob the chord of
+loving sympathy.
+
+When they came into the parlor the other two aunts looked up with a quick,
+suspicious glance from one to the other and then fastened disapproving
+eyes upon Marcia. They rather resented it that she was so pretty. Hannah
+had been their favorite, and Hannah was beautiful in their eyes. They
+wanted no other to outshine her. Albeit they would be proud enough before
+their neighbors to have it said that their nephew's wife was beautiful.
+
+After a chilling pause in which David was wondering anew at Marcia's
+beauty, Aunt Hortense asked, as though it were an omission from the former
+examination, "Did you ever make a shirt?"
+
+"Oh, plenty of them!" said Marcia, with a merry laugh, so relieved that
+she fairly bubbled. "I think I could make a shirt with my eyes shut."
+
+Aunt Clarinda beamed on her with delight. A shirt was something she had
+never succeeded in making right. It was one of the things which her
+sisters had against her that she could not make good shirts. Any one who
+could not make a shirt was deficient. Clarinda was deficient. She could
+not make a shirt. Meekly had she tried year after year. Humbly had she
+ripped out gusset and seam and band, having put them on upside down or
+inside out. Never could she learn the ins and outs of a shirt. But her old
+heart trembled with delight that the new girl, who was going to take the
+place in her heart of her old dead self and live out all the beautiful
+things which had been lost to her, had mastered this one great
+accomplishment in which she had failed so supremely.
+
+But Aunt Hortense was not pleased. True, it was one of the seven virtues
+in her mind which a young wife should possess, and she had carefully
+instructed Hannah Heath for a number of years back, while Hannah bungled
+out a couple for her father occasionally, but Aunt Hortense had been sure
+that if Hannah ever became David's wife she might still have the honor of
+making most of David's shirts. That had been her happy task ever since
+David had worn a shirt, and she hoped to hold the position of shirt-maker
+to David until she left this mortal clay. Therefore Aunt Hortense was not
+pleased, even though David's wife was not lacking, and, too, even though
+she foreheard herself telling her neighbors next day how many shirts
+David's wife had made.
+
+"Well, David will not need any for some time," she said grimly. "I made
+him a dozen just before he was married."
+
+Marcia reflected that it seemed to be impossible to make any headway into
+the good graces of either Aunt Hortense or Aunt Amelia. Aunt Amelia then
+took her turn at a question.
+
+"Hortense," said she, and there was an ominous inflection in the word as
+if the question were portentous, "have you asked our new niece by what
+name she desires us to call her?"
+
+"I have not," said Miss Hortense solemnly, "but I intend to do so
+immediately," and then both pairs of steely eyes were leveled at the girl.
+Marcia suddenly was face to face with a question she had not considered,
+and David started upright from his position on the hair-cloth sofa. But if
+a thunderbolt had fallen from heaven and rendered him utterly unconscious
+David would not have been more helpless than he was for the time being.
+Marcia saw the mingled pain and perplexity in David's face, and her own
+courage gathered itself to brave it out in some way. The color flew to her
+cheeks, and rose slowly in David's, through heavy veins that swelled in
+his neck till he could feel their pulsation against his stock, but his
+smooth shaven lips were white. He felt that a moment had come which he
+could not bear to face.
+
+Then with a hesitation that was but pardonable, and with a shy sweet look,
+Marcia answered; and though her voice trembled just the least bit, her
+true, dear eyes looked into the battalion of steel ones bravely.
+
+"I would like you to call me Marcia, if you please."
+
+"Marcia!" Miss Hortense snipped the word out as if with scissors of
+surprise.
+
+But there was a distinct relaxation about Miss Amelia's mouth. She heaved
+a relieved sigh. Marcia was so much better than Kate, so much more
+classical, so much more to be compared with Hannah, for instance.
+
+"Well, I'm glad!" she allowed herself to remark. "David has been calling
+you 'Kate' till it made me sick, such a frivolous name and no sense in it
+either. Marcia sounds quite sensible. I suppose Katharine is your middle
+name. Do you spell it with a K or a C?"
+
+But the knocker sounded on the street door and Marcia was spared the
+torture of a reply. She dared not look at David's face, for she knew there
+must be pain and mortification mingling there, and she hoped that the
+trying subject would not come up again for discussion.
+
+The guests began to arrive. Old Mrs. Heath and her daughter-in-law and
+grand-daughter came first.
+
+Hannah's features were handsome and she knew exactly how to manage her
+shapely hands with their long white fingers. The soft delicate
+undersleeves fell away from arms white and well moulded, and she carried
+her height gracefully. Her hair was elaborately stowed upon the top of her
+head in many puffs, ending in little ringlets carelessly and coquettishly
+straying over temple, or ears, or gracefully curved neck. She wore a frock
+of green, and its color sent a pang through the bride's heart to realize
+that perhaps it had been worn with an unkindly purpose. Nevertheless
+Hannah Heath was beautiful and fascinated Marcia. She resolved to try to
+think the best of her, and to make her a friend if possible. Why, after
+all, should she be to blame for wanting David? Was he not a man to be
+admired and desired? It was unwomanly, of course, that she had let it be
+known, but perhaps her relatives were more to blame than herself. At least
+Marcia made up her mind to try and like her.
+
+Hannah's frock was of silk, not a common material in those days, soft and
+shimmery and green enough to take away the heart from anything blue that
+was ever made, but Hannah was stately and her skin as white as the lily
+she resembled, in her bright leaf green.
+
+Hannah chose to be effusive and condescending to the bride, giving the
+impression that she and David had been like brother and sister all their
+lives and that she might have been his choice if she had chosen, but as
+she had not chosen, she was glad that David had found some one wherewith
+to console himself. She did not say all this in so many words, but Marcia
+found that impression left after the evening was over.
+
+With sweet dignity Marcia received her introductions, given in Miss
+Amelia's most commanding tone, "Our niece, Marcia!"
+
+"Marshy! Marshy!" the bride heard old Mrs. Heath murmur to Miss Spafford.
+"Why, I thought 'twas to be Kate!"
+
+"Her name is Marcia," said Miss Amelia in a most satisfied tone; "you must
+have misunderstood."
+
+Marcia caught a look in Miss Heath's eyes, alert, keen, questioning, which
+flashed all over her like something searching and bright but not friendly.
+
+She felt a painful shyness stealing over her and wished that David were by
+her side. She looked across the room at him. His face had recovered its
+usual calmness, though he looked pale. He was talking on his favorite
+theme with old Mr. Heath: the newly invented steam engine and its
+possibilities. He had forgotten everything else for the time, and his face
+lighted with animation as he tried to answer William Heath's arguments
+against it.
+
+"Have you read what the Boston _Courier_ said, David? 'Long in June it was
+I think," Marcia heard Mr. Heath ask. Indeed his voice was so large that
+it filled the room, and for the moment Marcia had been left to herself
+while some new people were being ushered in. "It says, David, that 'the
+project of a railroad from Bawston to Albany is impracticable as everybody
+knows who knows the simplest rule of arithmetic, and the expense would be
+little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts;
+and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows would be as
+useless as a railroad from Bawston to the moon.' There, David, what do ye
+think o' that?" and William Heath slapped David on the knee with his
+broad, fat fist and laughed heartily, as though he had him in a tight
+corner.
+
+Marcia would have given a good deal to slip in beside David on the sofa
+and listen to the discussion. She wanted with all her heart to know how he
+would answer this man who could be so insufferably wise, but there was
+other work for her, and her attention was brought back to her own
+uncomfortable part by Hannah Heath's voice:
+
+"Come right ovah heah, Mistah Skinnah, if you want to meet the bride. You
+must speak verra nice to me or I sha'n't introduce you at all."
+
+A tall lanky man with stiff sandy hair and a rubicund complexion was
+making his way around the room. He had a small mouth puckered a little as
+if he might be going to whistle, and his chin had the look of having been
+pushed back out of the way, a stiff fuzz of sandy whiskers made a hedge
+down either cheek, and but for that he was clean shaven. The skin over his
+high cheek bones was stretched smooth and tight as if it were a trifle too
+close a fit for the genial cushion beneath. He did not look brilliant, and
+he certainly was not handsome, but there was an inoffensive desire to
+please about him. He was introduced as Mr. Lemuel Skinner. He bowed low
+over Marcia's hand, said a few embarrassed, stiff sentences and turned to
+Hannah Heath with relief. It was evident that Hannah was in his eyes a
+great and shining light, to which he fluttered as naturally as does the
+moth to the candle. But Hannah did not scruple to singe his wings whenever
+she chose. Perhaps she knew, no matter how badly he was burned he would
+only flutter back again whenever she scintillated. She had turned her back
+upon him now, and left him to Marcia's tender mercies. Hannah was engaged
+in talking to a younger man. "Harry Temple, from New York," Lemuel
+explained to Marcia.
+
+The young man, Harry Temple, had large lazy eyes and heavy dark hair.
+There was a discontented look in his face, and a looseness about the set
+of his lips that Marcia did not like, although she had to admit that he
+was handsome. Something about him reminded her of Captain Leavenworth, and
+she instinctively shrank from him. But Harry Temple had no mind to talk to
+any one but Marcia that evening, and he presently so managed it that he
+and she were ensconced in a corner of the room away from others. Marcia
+felt perturbed. She did not feel flattered by the man's attentions, and
+she wanted to be at the other end of the room listening to the
+conversation.
+
+She listened as intently as she might between sentences, and her keen ears
+could catch a word or two of what David was saying. After all, it was not
+so much the new railroad project that she cared about, though that was
+strange and interesting enough, but she wanted to watch and listen to
+David.
+
+Harry Temple said a great many pretty things to Marcia. She did not half
+hear some of them at first, but after a time she began to realize that she
+must have made a good impression, and the pretty flush in her cheeks grew
+deeper. She did little talking. Mr. Temple did it all. He told her of New
+York. He asked if she were not dreadfully bored with this little town and
+its doings, and bewailed her lot when he learned that she had not had much
+experience there. Then he asked if she had ever been to New York and began
+to tell of some of its attractions. Among other things he mentioned some
+concerts, and immediately Marcia was all attention. Her dark eyes glowed
+and her speaking face gave eager response to his words. Seeing he had
+interested her at last, he kept on, for he was possessor of a glib tongue,
+and what he did not know he could fabricate without the slightest
+compunction. He had been about the world and gathered up superficial
+knowledge enough to help him do this admirably, therefore he was able to
+use a few musical terms, and to bring before Marcia's vivid imagination
+the scene of the performance of Handel's great "Creation" given in Boston,
+and of certain musical events that were to be attempted soon in New York.
+He admitted that he could play a little upon the harpsichord, and, when he
+learned that Marcia could play also and that she was the possessor of a
+piano, one of the latest improved makes, he managed to invite himself to
+play upon it. Marcia found to her dismay that she actually seemed to have
+invited him to come some afternoon when her husband was away. She had only
+said politely that she would like to hear him play sometime, and expressed
+her great delight in music, and he had done the rest, but in her
+inexperience somehow it had happened and she did not know what to do.
+
+It troubled her a good deal, and she turned again toward the other end of
+the room, where the attention of most of the company was riveted upon the
+group who were discussing the railroad, its pros and cons. David was the
+centre of that group.
+
+"Let us go over and hear what they are saying," she said, turning to her
+companion eagerly.
+
+"Oh, it is all stupid politics and arguments about that ridiculous
+fairy-tale of a railroad scheme. You would not enjoy it," answered the
+young man disappointedly. He saw in Marcia a beautiful young soul, the
+only one who had really attracted him since he had left New York, and he
+wished to become intimate enough with her to enjoy himself.
+
+It mattered not to him that she was married to another man. He felt secure
+in his own attractions. He had ever been able to while away the time with
+whom he chose, why should a simple village maiden resist him? And this was
+an unusual one, the contour of her head was like a Greek statue.
+
+Nevertheless he was obliged to stroll after her. Once she had spoken. She
+had suddenly become aware that they had been in their corner together a
+long time, and that Aunt Amelia's cold eyes were fastened upon her in
+disapproval.
+
+"The farmers would be ruined, man alive!" Mr. Heath was saying. "Why, all
+the horses would have to be killed, because they would be wholly useless
+if this new fandango came in, and then where would be a market for the
+wheat and oats?"
+
+"Yes, an' I've heard some say the hens wouldn't lay, on account of the
+noise," ventured Lemuel Skinner in his high voice. "And think of the fires
+from the sparks of the engine. I tell you it would be dangerous." He
+looked over at Hannah triumphantly, but Hannah was endeavoring to signal
+Harry Temple to her side and did not see nor hear.
+
+"I tell you," put in Mr. Heath's heavy voice again, "I tell you, Dave, it
+can't be done. It's impractical. Why, no car could advance against the
+wind."
+
+"They told Columbus he couldn't sail around the earth, but he did it!"
+
+There was sudden stillness in the room, for it was Marcia's clear, grave
+voice that had answered Mr. Heath's excited tones, and she had not known
+she was going to speak aloud. It came before she realized it. She had been
+used to speak her mind sometimes with her father, but seldom when there
+were others by, and now she was covered with confusion to think what she
+had done. The aunts, Amelia and Hortense, were shocked. It was so
+unladylike. A woman should not speak on such subjects. She should be
+silent and leave such topics to her husband.
+
+"Deah me, she's strong minded, isn't she?" giggled Hannah Heath to Lemuel,
+who had taken the signals to himself and come to her side.
+
+"Quite so, quite so!" murmured Lemuel, his lips looking puffier and more
+cherry-fied than ever and his chin flattened itself back till he looked
+like a frustrated old hen who did not understand the perplexities of life
+and was clucking to find out, after having been startled half out of its
+senses.
+
+But Marcia was not wholly without consolation, for David had flashed a
+look of approval at her and had made room for her to sit down by his side
+on the sofa. It was almost like belonging to him for a minute or two.
+Marcia felt her heart glow with something new and pleasant.
+
+Mr. William Heath drew his heavy grey brows together and looked at her
+grimly over his spectacles, poking his bristly under-lip out in
+astonishment, bewildered that he should have been answered by a gentle,
+pretty woman, all frills and sparkle like his own daughter. He had been
+wont to look upon a woman as something like a kitten,--that is, a young
+woman,--and suddenly the kitten had lifted a velvet paw and struck him
+squarely in the face. He had felt there were claws in the blow, too, for
+there had been a truth behind her words that set the room a mocking him.
+
+"Well, Dave, you've got your wife well trained already!" he laughed,
+concluding it was best to put a smiling front upon the defeat. "She knows
+just when to come in and help when your side's getting weak!"
+
+They served cake and raspberry vinegar then, and a little while after
+everybody went home. It was later than the hours usually kept in the
+village, and the lights in most of the houses were out, or burning dimly
+in upper stories. The voices of the guests sounded subdued in the misty
+waning moonlight air. Marcia could hear Hannah Heath's voice ahead
+giggling affectedly to Harry Temple and Lemuel Skinner, as they walked one
+on either side of her, while her father and mother and grandmother came
+more slowly.
+
+David drew Marcia's hand within his arm and walked with her quietly down
+the street, making their steps hushed instinctively that they might so
+seem more removed from the others. They were both tired with the unusual
+excitement and the strain they had been through, and each was glad of the
+silence of the other.
+
+But when they reached their own doorstep David said: "You spoke well,
+child. You must have thought about these things."
+
+Marcia felt a sob rising in a tide of joy into her throat. Then he was not
+angry with her, and he did not disapprove as the two aunts had done. Aunt
+Clarinda had kissed her good-night and murmured, "You are a bright little
+girl, Marcia, and you will make a good wife for David. You will come soon
+to see me, won't you?" and that had made her glad, but these words of
+David's were so good and so unexpected that Marcia could hardly hide her
+happy tears.
+
+"I was afraid I had been forward," murmured Marcia in the shadow of the
+front stoop.
+
+"Not at all, child, I like to hear a woman speak her mind,--that is,
+allowing she has any mind to speak. That can't be said of all women.
+There's Hannah Heath, for instance. I don't believe she would know a
+railroad project from an essay on ancient art."
+
+After that the house seemed a pleasant place aglow as they entered it, and
+Marcia went up to her rest with a lighter heart.
+
+But the child knew not that she had made a great impression that night
+upon all who saw her as being beautiful and wise.
+
+The aunts would not express it even to each other,--for they felt in duty
+bound to discountenance her boldness in speaking out before the men and
+making herself so prominent, joining in their discussions,--but each in
+spite of her convictions felt a deep satisfaction that their neighbors had
+seen what a beautiful and bright wife David had selected. They even felt
+triumphant over their favorite Hannah, and thought secretly that Marcia
+compared well with her in every way, but they would not have told this
+even to themselves, no, not for worlds.
+
+So the kindly gossipy town slept, and the young bride became a part of its
+daily life.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Life began to take on a more familiar and interesting aspect to Marcia
+after that. She had her daily round of pleasant household duties and she
+enjoyed them.
+
+There were many other gatherings in honor of the bride and groom,
+tea-drinkings and evening calls, and a few called in to a neighbor's house
+to meet them. It was very pleasant to Marcia as she became better
+acquainted with the people and grew to like some of them, only there was
+the constant drawback of feeling that it was all a pain and weariness to
+David.
+
+But Marcia was young, and it was only natural that she should enjoy her
+sudden promotion to the privileges of a matron, and the marked attention
+that was paid her. It was a mercy that her head was not turned, living as
+she did to herself, and with no one in whom she could confide. For David
+had shrunk within himself to such an extent that she did not like to
+trouble him with anything.
+
+It was only two days after the evening at the old Spafford house that
+David came home to tea with ashen face, haggard eyes and white lips. He
+scarcely tasted his supper and said he would go and lie down, that his
+head ached. Marcia heard him sigh deeply as he went upstairs. It was that
+afternoon that the post had brought him Kate's letter.
+
+Sadly Marcia put away the tea things, for she could not eat anything
+either, though it was an unusually inviting meal she had prepared. Slowly
+she went up to her room and sat looking out into the quiet, darkening
+summer night, wondering what additional sorrow had come to David.
+
+David's face looked like death the next morning when he came down. He
+drank a cup of coffee feverishly, then took his hat as if he would go to
+the office, but paused at the door and came back saying he would not go if
+Marcia would not mind taking a message for him. His head felt badly. She
+need only tell the man to go on with things as they had planned and say he
+was detained. Marcia was ready at once to do his bidding with quiet
+sympathy in her manner.
+
+She delivered her message with the frank straightforward look of a school
+girl, mingled with a touch of matronly dignity she was trying to assume,
+which added to her charm; and she smiled her open smile of comradeship,
+such as she would have dispensed about the old red school house at home,
+upon boys and girls alike, leaving the clerk and type-setters in a most
+subjected state, and ready to do anything in the service of their master's
+wife. It is to be feared that they almost envied David. They watched her
+as she moved gracefully down the street, and their eyes had a reverent
+look as they turned away from the window to their work, as though they had
+been looking upon something sacred.
+
+Harry Temple watched her come out of the office.
+
+She impressed him again as something fresh and different from the common
+run of maidens in the village. He lazily stepped from the store where he
+had been lounging and walked down the street to intercept her as she
+crossed and turned the corner.
+
+"Good morning, Mrs. Spafford," he said, with a courtly grace that was
+certainly captivating, "are you going to your home? Then our ways lie
+together. May I walk beside you?"
+
+Marcia smiled and tried to seem gracious, though she would rather have
+been alone just then, for she wanted to enjoy the day and not be bothered
+with talking.
+
+Harry Temple mentioned having a letter from a friend in Boston who had
+lately heard a great chorus rendered. He could not be quite sure of the
+name of the composer because he had read the letter hurriedly and his
+friend was a blind-writer, but that made no difference to Harry. He could
+fill in facts enough about the grandeur of the music from his own
+imagination to make up for the lack of a little matter like the name of a
+composer. He was keen enough to see that Marcia was more interested in
+music than in anything he said, therefore he racked his brains for all the
+music talk he had ever heard, and made up what he did not know, which was
+not hard to do, for Marcia was very ignorant on the subject.
+
+At the door they paused. Marcia was eager to get in. She began to wonder
+how David felt, and she longed to do something for him. Harry Temple
+looked at her admiringly, noted the dainty set of chin, the clear curve of
+cheek, the lovely sweep of eyelashes, and resolved to get better
+acquainted with this woman, so young and so lovely.
+
+"I have not forgotten my promise to play for you," he said lightly,
+watching to see if the flush of rose would steal into her cheek, and that
+deep light into her expressive eyes. "How about this afternoon? Shall you
+be at home and disengaged?"
+
+But welcome did not flash into Marcia's face as he had hoped. Instead a
+troubled look came into her eyes.
+
+"I am afraid it will not be possible this afternoon," said Marcia, the
+trouble in her eyes creeping into her voice. "That is--I expect to be at
+home, but--I am not sure of being disengaged."
+
+"Ah! I see!" he raised his eyebrows archly, looking her meanwhile straight
+in the eyes; "some one else more fortunate than I. Some one else coming?"
+
+Although Marcia did not in the least understand his insinuation, the color
+flowed into her cheeks in a hurry now, for she instinctively felt that
+there was something unpleasant in his tone, something below her standard
+of morals or culture, she did not quite know what. But she felt she must
+protect herself at any cost. She drew up a little mantle of dignity.
+
+"Oh, no," she said quickly, "I'm not expecting any one at all, but Mr.
+Spafford had a severe headache this morning, and I am not sure but the
+sound of the piano would make it worse. I think it would be better for you
+to come another time, although he may be better by that time."
+
+"Oh, I see! Your husband's at home!" said the young man with relief. His
+manner implied that he had a perfect understanding of something that
+Marcia did not mean nor comprehend.
+
+"I understand perfectly," he said, with another meaning smile as though he
+and she had a secret together; "I'll come some other time," and he took
+himself very quickly away, much to Marcia's relief. But the trouble did
+not go out of her eyes as she saw him turn the corner. Instead she went in
+and stood at the dining room window a long time looking out on the Heaths'
+hollyhocks beaming in the sun behind the picket fence, and wondered what
+he could have meant, and why he smiled in that hateful way. She decided
+she did not like him, and she hoped he would never come. She did not think
+she would care to hear him play. There was something about him that
+reminded her of Captain Leavenworth, and now that she saw it in him she
+would dislike to have him about.
+
+With a sigh she turned to the getting of a dinner which she feared would
+not be eaten. Nevertheless, she put more dainty thought in it than usual,
+and when it was done and steaming upon the table she went gently up and
+tapped on David's door. A voice hoarse with emotion and weariness
+answered. Marcia scarcely heard the first time.
+
+"Dinner is ready. Isn't your head any better,--David?" There was caressing
+in his name. It wrung David's heart. Oh, if it were but Kate, his Kate,
+his little bride that were calling him, how his heart would leap with joy!
+How his headache would disappear and he would be with her in an instant.
+
+For Kate's letter had had its desired effect. All her wrongdoings, her
+crowning outrage of his noble intentions, had been forgotten in the one
+little plaintive appeal she had managed to breathe in a minor wail
+throughout that treacherous letter, treacherous alike to her husband and
+to her lover. Just as Kate had always been able to do with every one about
+her, she had blinded him to her faults, and managed to put herself in the
+light of an abused, troubled maiden, who was in a predicament through no
+fault of her own, and sat in sorrow and a baby-innocence that was
+bewilderingly sweet.
+
+There had been times when David's anger had been hot enough to waft away
+this filmy mist of fancies that Kate had woven about herself and let him
+see the true Kate as she really was. At such times David would confess
+that she must be wholly heartless. That bright as she was it was
+impossible for her to have been so easily persuaded into running away with
+a man she did not love. He had never found it so easy to persuade her
+against her will. Did she love him? Had she truly loved him, and was she
+suffering now? His very soul writhed in agony to think of his bride the
+wife of another against her will. If he might but go and rescue her. If he
+might but kill that other man! Then his soul would be confronted with the
+thought of murder. Never before had he felt hate, such hate, for a human
+being. Then again his heart would soften toward him as he felt how the
+other must have loved her, Kate, his little wild rose! and there was a
+fellow feeling between them too, for had she not let him see that she did
+not half care aright for that other one? Then his mind would stop in a
+whirl of mingled feeling and he would pause, and pray for steadiness to
+think and know what was right.
+
+Around and around through this maze of arguing he had gone through the
+long hours of the morning, always coming sharp against the thought that
+there was nothing he could possibly do in the matter but bear it, and that
+Kate, after all, the Kate he loved with his whole soul, had done it and
+must therefore be to blame. Then he would read her letter over, burning
+every word of it upon his brain, until the piteous minor appeal would
+torture him once more and he would begin again to try to get hold of some
+thread of thought that would unravel this snarl and bring peace.
+
+Like a sound from another world came Marcia's sweet voice, its very
+sweetness reminding him of that other lost voice, whose tantalizing music
+floated about his imagination like a string of phantom silver bells that
+all but sounded and then vanished into silence.
+
+And while all this was going on, this spiritual torture, his living,
+suffering, physical self was able to summon its thoughts, to answer gently
+that he did not want any dinner; that his head was no better; that he
+thanked her for her thought of him; and that he would take the tea she
+offered if it was not too much trouble.
+
+Gladly, with hurried breath and fingers that almost trembled, Marcia
+hastened to the kitchen once more and prepared a dainty tray, not even
+glancing at the dinner table all so fine and ready for its guest, and back
+again she went to his door, an eager light in her eyes, as if she had
+obtained audience to a king.
+
+He opened the door this time and took the tray from her with a smile. It
+was a smile of ashen hue, and fell like a pall upon Marcia's soul. It was
+as if she had been permitted for a moment to gaze upon a martyred soul
+upon the rack. Marcia fled from it and went to her own room, where she
+flung herself on her knees beside her bed and buried her face in the
+pillows. There she knelt, unmindful of the dinner waiting downstairs,
+unmindful of the bright day that was droning on its hours. Whether she
+prayed she knew not, whether she was weeping she could not have told. Her
+heart was crying out in one great longing to have this cloud of sorrow
+that had settled upon David lifted.
+
+She might have knelt there until night had there not come the sound of a
+knock upon the front door. It startled her to her feet in an instant, and
+she hastily smoothed her rumpled hair, dashed some water on her eyes, and
+ran down.
+
+It was the clerk from the office with a letter for her. The post chaise
+had brought it that afternoon, and he had thought perhaps she would like
+to have it at once as it was postmarked from her home. Would she tell Mr.
+Spafford when he returned--he seemed to take it for granted that David was
+out of town for the day--that everything had been going on all right at the
+office during his absence and the paper was ready to send to press. He
+took his departure with a series of bows and smiles, and Marcia flew up to
+her room to read her letter. It was in the round unformed hand of Mary
+Ann. Marcia tore it open eagerly. Never had Mary Ann's handwriting looked
+so pleasant as at that moment. A letter in those days was a rarity at all
+times, and this one to Marcia in her distress of mind seemed little short
+of a miracle. It began in Mary Ann's abrupt way, and opened up to her the
+world of home since she had left it. But a few short days had passed,
+scarcely yet numbering into weeks, since she left, yet it seemed half a
+lifetime to the girl promoted so suddenly into womanhood without the
+accompanying joy of love and close companionship that usually makes
+desolation impossible.
+
+
+    "DEAR MARSH,"--the letter ran:--
+
+    "I expect you think queer of me to write you so soon. I ain't much
+    on writing you know, but something happened right after you
+    leaving and has kept right on happening that made me feel I kinder
+    like to tell you. Don't you mind the mistakes I make. I'm thankful
+    to goodness you ain't the school teacher or I'd never write 'slong
+    s' I'm living, but ennyhow I'm going to tell you all about it.
+
+    "The night you went away I was standing down by the gate under the
+    old elm. I had on my best things yet from the wedding, and I hated
+    to go in and have the day over and have to begin putting on my old
+    calico to-morrow morning again, and washing dishes just the same.
+    Seemed as if I couldn't bear to have the world just the same now
+    you was gone away. Well, I heard someone coming down the street,
+    and who do you think it was? Why, Hanford Weston. He came right up
+    to the gate and stopped. I don't know's he ever spoke two words to
+    me in my life except that time he stopped the big boys from
+    snow-balling me and told me to run along quick and git in the
+    school-house while he fit 'em. Well, he stopped and spoke, and he
+    looked so sad, seemed like I knew just what he was feeling sad
+    about, and I told him all about you getting married instead of
+    your sister. He looked at me like he couldn't move for a while and
+    his face was as white as that marble man in the cemetery over
+    Squire Hancock's grave. He grabbed the gate real hard and I
+    thought he was going to fall. He couldn't even move his lips for a
+    while. I felt just awful sorry for him. Something came in my
+    throat like a big stone and my eyes got all blurred with the
+    moonlight. He looked real handsome. I just couldn't help thinking
+    you ought to see him. Bimeby he got his voice back again, and we
+    talked a lot about you. He told me how he used to watch you when
+    you was a little girl wearing pantalettes. You used to sit in the
+    church pew across from his father's and he could just see your big
+    eyes over the top of the door. He says he always thought to
+    himself he would marry you when he grew up. Then when you began to
+    go to school and was so bright he tried hard to study and keep up
+    just to have you think him good enough for you. He owned up he was
+    a bad speller and he'd tried his level best to do better but it
+    didn't seem to come natural, and he thought maybe ef he was a good
+    farmer you wouldn't mind about the spelling. He hired out to his
+    father for the summer and he was trying with all his might to get
+    to be the kind of man t'would suit you, and then when he was
+    plowing and planning all what kind of a house with big columns to
+    the front he would build here comes the coach driving by and _you_
+    in it! He said he thought the sky and fields was all mixed up and
+    his heart was going out of him. He couldn't work any more and he
+    started out after supper to see what it all meant.
+
+    "That wasn't just the exact way he told it, Marsh, it was more
+    like poetry, that kind in our reader about "Lord Ullin's
+    daughter"--you know. We used to recite it on examination
+    exhibition. I didn't know Hanford could talk like that. His words
+    were real pretty, kind of sorrowful you know. And it all come over
+    me that you ought to know about it. You're married of course, and
+    can't help it now, but 'taint every girl that has a boy care for
+    her like that from the time she's a baby with a red hood on, and
+    you ought to know 'bout it, fer it wasn't Hanford's fault he
+    didn't have time to tell you. He's just been living fer you fer a
+    number of years, and its kind of hard on him. 'Course you may not
+    care, being you're married and have a fine house and lots of
+    clo'es of your own and a good time, but it does seem hard for him.
+    It seems as if somebody ought to comfort him. I'd like to try if
+    you don't mind. He does seem to like to talk about you to me, and
+    I feel so sorry for him I guess I could comfort him a little, for
+    it seems as if it would be the nicest thing in the world to have
+    some one like you that way for years, just as they do in books,
+    only every time I think about being a comfort to him I think he
+    belongs to you and it ain't right. So Marsh, you just speak out
+    and say if your willing I should try to comfort him a little and
+    make up to him fer what he lost in you, being as you're married
+    and fixed so nice yourself.
+
+    "Of course I know I aint pretty like you, nor can't hold my head
+    proud and step high as you always did, even when you was little,
+    but I can feel, and perhaps that's something. Anyhow Hanford's
+    been down three times to talk about you to me, and ef you don't
+    mind I'm going to let him come some more. But if you mind the
+    leastest little bit I want you should say so, for things are mixed
+    in this world and I don't want to get to trampling on any other
+    person's feelings, much less you who have always been my best
+    friend and always will be as long as I live I guess. 'Member how
+    we used to play house on the old flat stone in the orchard, and
+    you give me all the prettiest pieces of china with sprigs on 'em?
+    I aint forgot that, and never will. I shall always say you made
+    the prettiest bride I ever saw, no matter how many more I see, and
+    I hope you won't forget me. It's lonesome here without you. If it
+    wasn't for comforting Hanford I shouldn't care much for anything.
+    I can't think of you a grown up woman. Do you feel any different?
+    I spose you wouldn't climb a fence nor run through the pasture lot
+    for anything now. Have you got a lot of new friends? I wish I
+    could see you. And now Marsh, I want you to write right off and
+    tell me what to do about comforting Hanford, and if you've any
+    message to send to him I think it would be real nice. I hope
+    you've got a good husband and are happy.
+
+                       "From your devoted and loving school mate,
+
+                                                "MARY ANN FOTHERGILL."
+
+
+Marcia laid down the letter and buried her face in her hands. To her too
+had come a thrust which must search her life and change it. So while David
+wrestled with his sorrow Marcia entered upon the knowledge of her own
+heart.
+
+There was something in this revelation by Mary Ann of Hanford Weston's
+feelings toward her that touched her immeasurably. Had it all happened
+before she left home, had Hanford come to her and told her of his love,
+she would have turned from him in dismay, almost disgust, and have told
+him that they were both but children, how could they talk of love. She
+could never have loved him. She would have felt it instantly, and her
+mocking laugh might have done a good deal toward saving him from sorrow.
+But now, with miles between them, with the wall of the solemn marriage
+vows to separate them forever, with her own youth locked up as she
+supposed until the day of eternity should perhaps set it free, with no
+hope of any bright dream of life such as girls have, could she turn from
+even a school boy's love without a passing tenderness, such as she would
+never have felt if she had not come away from it all? Told in Mary Ann's
+blunt way, with her crude attempts at pathos, it reached her as it could
+not otherwise. With her own new view of life she could sympathize better
+with another's disappointments. Perhaps her own loneliness gave her pity
+for another. Whatever it was, Marcia's heart suddenly turned toward
+Hanford Weston with a great throb of gratitude. She felt that she had been
+loved, even though it had been impossible for that love to be returned,
+and that whatever happened she would not go unloved down to the end of her
+days. Suddenly, out of the midst of the perplexity of her thoughts, there
+formed a distinct knowledge of what was lacking in her life, a lack she
+had never felt before, and probably would not have felt now had she not
+thus suddenly stepped into a place much beyond her years. It seemed to the
+girl as she sat in the great chintz chair and read and re-read that
+letter, as if she lived years that afternoon, and all her life was to be
+changed henceforth. It was not that she was sorry that she could not go
+back, and live out her girlhood and have it crowned with Hanford Weston's
+love. Not at all. She knew, as well now as she ever had known, that he
+could never be anything to her, but she knew also, or thought she knew,
+that he could have given her something, in his clumsy way, that now she
+could never have from any man, seeing she was David's and David could not
+love her that way, of course.
+
+Having come to this conclusion, she arose and wrote a letter giving and
+bequeathing to Mary Ann Fothergill all right, title, and claim to the
+affections of Hanford Weston, past, present, and future--sending him a
+message calculated to smooth his ruffled feelings, with her pretty thanks
+for his youthful adoration; comfort his sorrow with the thought that it
+must have been a hallucination, that some day he would find his true ideal
+which he had only thought he had found in her; and send him on his way
+rejoicing with her blessings and good wishes for a happy life. As for Mary
+Ann, for once she received her meed of Marcia's love, for homesick Marcia
+felt more tenderness for her than she had ever been able to feel before;
+and Marcia's loving messages set Mary Ann in a flutter of delight, as she
+laid her plans for comforting Hanford Weston.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+David slowly recovered his poise. Faced by that terrible, impenetrable
+wall of impossibility he stood helpless, his misery eating in upon his
+soul, but there still remained the fact that there was nothing, absolutely
+nothing, which he could possibly do. At times the truth rose to the
+surface, the wretched truth, that Kate was at fault, that having done the
+deed she should abide by it, and not try to keep a hold upon him, but it
+was not often he was able to think in this way. Most of the time he
+mourned over and for the lovely girl he had lost.
+
+As for Marcia, she came and went unobtrusively, making quiet comfort for
+David which he scarcely noticed. At times he roused himself to be polite
+to her, and made a labored effort to do something to amuse her, just as if
+she had been visiting him as a favor and he felt in duty bound to make the
+time pass pleasantly, but she troubled him so little with herself, that
+nearly always he forgot her. Whenever there was any public function to
+which they were bidden he always told her apologetically, as though it
+must be as much of a bore to her as to him, and he regretted that it was
+necessary to go in order to carry out their mutual agreement. Marcia,
+hailing with delight every chance to go out in search of something which
+would keep her from thinking the new thoughts which had come to her,
+demurely covered her pleasure and dressed herself dutifully in the robes
+made for her sister, hating them secretly the while, and was always ready
+when he came for her. David had nothing to complain of in his wife, so far
+as outward duty was concerned, but he was too busy with his own heart's
+bitterness to even recognize it.
+
+One afternoon, of a day when David had gone out of town not expecting to
+return until late in the evening, there came a knock at the door.
+
+There was something womanish in the knock, Marcia thought, as she hastened
+to answer it, and she wondered, hurriedly smoothing her shining hair, if
+it could be the aunts come to make their fortnightly-afternoon penance
+visit. She gave a hasty glance into the parlor hoping all was right, and
+was relieved to make sure she had closed the piano. The aunts would
+consider it a great breach of housewifely decorum to allow a moment's dust
+to settle upon its sacred keys.
+
+But it was not the aunts who stood upon the stoop, smiling and bowing with
+a handsome assurance of his own welcome. It was Harry Temple.
+
+Marcia was not glad to see him. A sudden feeling of unreasoning alarm took
+possession of her.
+
+"You're all alone this time, sweet lady, aren't you?" he asked with easy
+nonchalance, as he lounged into the hall without waiting her bidding.
+
+"Sir!" said Marcia, half frightened, half wondering.
+
+But he smiled reassuringly down upon her and took the door knob in his own
+hands to close the door.
+
+"Your good man is out this time, isn't he?" he smiled again most
+delightfully. His face was very handsome when he smiled. He knew this fact
+well.
+
+Marcia did not smile. Why did he speak as if he knew where David was, and
+seemed to be pleased that he was away?
+
+"My husband is not in at present," she said guardedly, her innocent eyes
+searching his face, "did you wish to see him?"
+
+She was beautiful as she stood there in the wide hall, with only the light
+from the high transom over the door, shedding an afternoon glow through
+its pleated Swiss oval. She looked more sweet and little-girlish than
+ever, and he felt a strong desire to take her in his arms and tell her so,
+only he feared, from something he saw in those wide, sweet eyes, that she
+might take alarm and run away too soon, so he only smiled and said that
+his business with her husband could wait until another time, and meantime
+he had called to fulfil his promise to play for her.
+
+She took him into the darkened parlor, gave him the stiffest and
+stateliest hair-cloth chair; but he walked straight over to the
+instrument, and with not at all the reverence she liked to treat it, flung
+back the coverings, threw the lid open, and sat down.
+
+He had white fingers, and he ran them over the keys with an air of being
+at home among them, light little airs dripping from his touch like dew
+from a glistening grass blade. Marcia felt there were butterflies in the
+air, and buzzing bees, and fairy flowers dancing on the slightest of
+stems, with a sky so blue it seemed to be filled with the sound of lily
+bells. The music he played was of the nature of what would be styled
+to-day "popular," for this man was master of nothing but having a good
+time. Quick music with a jingle he played, that to the puritanic-bred girl
+suggested nothing but a heart bubbling over with gladness, but he meant it
+should make her heart flutter and her foot beat time to the tripping
+measure. In his world feet were attuned to gay music. But Marcia stood
+with quiet dignity a little away from the instrument, her lips parted, her
+eyes bright with the pleasure of the melody, her hands clasped, and her
+breath coming quickly. She was all absorbed with the music. All
+unknowingly Marcia had placed herself where the light from the window fell
+full across her face, and every flitting expression as she followed the
+undulant sounds was visible. The young man gazed, almost as much pleased
+with the lovely face as Marcia was with the music.
+
+At last he drew a chair quite near his own seat.
+
+"Come and sit down," he said, "and I will sing to you. You did not know I
+could sing, too, did you? Oh, I can. But you must sit down for I couldn't
+sing right when you are standing."
+
+He ended with his fascinating smile, and Marcia shyly sat down, though she
+drew the chair a bit back from where he had placed it and sat up quite
+straight and stiff with her shoulders erect and her head up. She had
+forgotten her distrust of the man in what seemed to her his wonderful
+music. It was all new and strange to her, and she could not know how
+little there really was to it. She had decided as he played that she liked
+the kind best that made her think of the birds and the sunny sky, rather
+than the wild whirlly kind that seemed all a mad scramble. She meant to
+ask him to play over again what he played at the beginning, but he struck
+into a Scotch love ballad. The melody intoxicated her fancy, and her face
+shone with pleasure. She had not noticed the words particularly, save that
+they were of love, and she thought with pain of David and Kate, and how
+the pleading tenderness might have been his heart calling to hers not to
+forget his love for her. But Harry Temple mistook her expression for one
+of interest in himself. With his eyes still upon hers, as a cat might
+mesmerize a bird, he changed into a minor wail of heart-broken love, whose
+sadness brought great tears to Marcia's eyes, and deep color to her
+already burning cheeks, while the music throbbed out her own half-realized
+loneliness and sorrow. It was as if the sounds painted for her a picture
+of what she had missed out of love, and set her sorrow flowing tangibly.
+
+The last note died away in an impressive diminuendo, and the young man
+turned toward her. His eyes were languishing, his voice gentle,
+persuasive, as though it had but been the song come a little nearer.
+
+"And that is the way I feel toward you, dear," he said, and reached out
+his white hands to where hers lay forgotten in her lap.
+
+But his hands had scarcely touched hers, before Marcia sprang back, in her
+haste knocking over the chair.
+
+Erect, her hands snatched behind her, frightened, alert, she stood a
+moment bewildered, all her fears to the front.
+
+Ah! but he was used to shy maidens. He was not to be baffled thus. A
+little coaxing, a little gentle persuasion, a little boldness--that was all
+he needed. He had conquered hearts before, why should he not this
+unsophisticated one?
+
+"Don't be afraid, dear; there is no one about. And surely there is no harm
+in telling you I love you, and letting you comfort my poor broken heart to
+think that I have found you too late--"
+
+He had arisen and with a passionate gesture put his arms about Marcia and
+before she could know what was coming had pressed a kiss upon her lips.
+
+But she was aroused now. Every angry force within her was fully awake.
+Every sense of right and justice inherited and taught came flocking
+forward. Horror unspeakable filled her, and wrath, that such a dreadful
+thing should come to her. There was no time to think. She brought her two
+strong supple hands up and beat him in the face, mouth, cheeks, and eyes,
+with all her might, until he turned blinded; and then she struggled away
+crying, "You are a wicked man!" and fled from the room.
+
+Out through the hall she sped to the kitchen, and flinging wide the door
+before her, the nearest one at hand, she fairly flew down the garden walk,
+past the nodding dahlias, past the basking pumpkins, past the whispering
+corn, down through the berry bushes, at the lower end of the lot, and
+behind the currant bushes. She crouched a moment looking back to see if
+she were pursued. Then imagining she heard a noise from the open door, she
+scrambled over the low back fence, the high comb with which her hair was
+fastened falling out unheeded behind her, and all her dark waves of hair
+coming about her shoulders in wild disarray.
+
+She was in a field of wheat now, and the tall shocks were like waves all
+about her, thick and close, kissing her as she passed with their bended
+stalks. Ahead of her it looked like an endless sea to cross before she
+could reach another fence, and a bare field, and then another fence and
+the woods. She knew not that in her wake she left a track as clear as if
+she had set up signals all along the way. She felt that the kind wheat
+would flow back like real waves and hide the way she had passed over. She
+only sped on, to the woods. In all the wide world there seemed no refuge
+but the woods. The woods were home to her. She loved the tall shadows, the
+whispering music in the upper branches, the quiet places underneath, the
+hushed silence like a city of refuge with cool wings whereunder to hide.
+And to it, as her only friend, she was hastening. She went to the woods as
+she would have flown to the minister's wife at home, if she only had been
+near, and buried her face in her lap and sobbed out her horror and shame.
+Breathless she sped, without looking once behind her, now over the next
+fence and still another. They were nothing to her. She forgot that she was
+wearing Kate's special sprigged muslin, and that it might tear on the
+rough fences. She forgot that she was a matron and must not run wild
+through strange fields. She forgot that some one might be watching her.
+She forgot everything save that she must get away and hide her poor shamed
+face.
+
+At last she reached the shelter of the woods, and, with one wild furtive
+look behind her to assure herself that she was not pursued, she flung
+herself into the lap of mother earth, and buried her face in the soft moss
+at the foot of a tree. There she sobbed out her horror and sorrow and
+loneliness, sobbed until it seemed to her that her heart had gone out with
+great shudders. Sobbed and sobbed and sobbed! For a time she could not
+even think clearly. Her brain was confused with the magnitude of what had
+come to her. She tried to go over the whole happening that afternoon and
+see if she might have prevented anything. She blamed herself most
+unmercifully for listening to the foolish music and, too, after her own
+suspicions had been aroused, though how could she dream any man in his
+senses would do a thing like that! Not even Captain Leavenworth would
+stoop to that, she thought. Poor child! She knew so little of the world,
+and her world had been kept so sweet and pure and free from contamination.
+She turned cold at the thought of her father's anger if he should hear
+about this strange young man. She felt sure he would blame her for
+allowing it. He had tried to teach his girls that they must exercise
+judgment and discretion, and surely, surely, she must have failed in both
+or this would not have happened. Oh, why had not the aunts come that
+afternoon! Why had they not arrived before this man came! And yet, oh,
+horror! if they had come after he was there! How disgusting he seemed to
+her with his smirky smile, and slim white fingers! How utterly unfit
+beside David did he seem to breathe the same air even. David, her
+David--no, Kate's David! Oh, pity! What a pain the world was!
+
+There was nowhere to turn that she might find a trace of comfort. For what
+would David say, and how could she ever tell him? Would he find it out if
+she did not? What would he think of her? Would he blame her? Oh, the agony
+of it all! What would the aunts think of her! Ah! that was worse than all,
+for even now she could see the tilt of Aunt Hortense's head, and the purse
+of Aunt Amelia's lips. How dreadful if they should have to know of it.
+They would not believe her, unless perhaps Aunt Clarinda might. She did
+not look wise, but she seemed kind and loving. If it had not been for the
+other two she might have fled to Aunt Clarinda. Oh, if she might but flee
+home to her father's house! How could she ever go back to David's house!
+How could she ever play on that dreadful piano again? She would always see
+that hateful, smiling face sitting there and think how he had looked at
+her. Then she shuddered and sobbed harder than ever. And mother earth,
+true to all her children, received the poor child with open arms. There
+she lay upon the resinous pine needles, at the foot of the tall trees, and
+the trees looked down tenderly upon her and consulted in whispers with
+their heads bent together. The winds blew sweetness from the buckwheat
+fields in the valley about her, murmuring delicious music in the air above
+her, and even the birds hushed their loud voices and peeped curiously at
+the tired, sorrowful creature of another kind that had come among them.
+
+Marcia's overwrought nerves were having their revenge. Tears had their way
+until she was worn out, and then the angel of sleep came down upon her.
+There upon the pine-needle bed, with tear-wet cheeks she lay, and slept
+like a tired child come home to its mother from the tumult of the world.
+
+Harry Temple, recovering from his rebuff, and left alone in the parlor,
+looked about him with surprise. Never before in all his short and
+brilliant career as a heart breaker had he met with the like, and this
+from a mere child! He could not believe his senses! She must have been in
+play. He would sit still and presently she would come back with eyes full
+of mischief and beg his pardon. But even as he sat down to wait her
+coming, something told him he was mistaken and that she would not come.
+There had been something beside mischief in the smart raps whose tingle
+even now his cheeks and lips felt. The house, too, had grown strangely
+hushed as though no one else besides himself were in it. She must have
+gone out. Perhaps she had been really frightened and would tell somebody!
+How awkward if she should presently return with one of those grim aunts,
+or that solemn puritan-like husband of hers. Perhaps he had better decamp
+while the coast was still clear. She did not seem to be returning and
+there was no telling what the little fool might do.
+
+With a deliberation which suddenly became feverish in his haste to be
+away, he compelled himself to walk slowly, nonchalantly out through the
+hall. Still as a thief he opened and closed the front door and got himself
+down the front steps, but not so still but that a quick ear caught the
+sound of the latch as it flew back into place, and the scrape of a boot on
+the path; and not so invisibly nor so quickly but that a pair of keen eyes
+saw him.
+
+When Harry Temple had made his way toward the Spafford house that
+afternoon, with his dauntless front and conceited smile, Miranda had been
+sent out to pick raspberries along the fence that separated the Heath
+garden from the Spafford garden.
+
+Harry Temple was too new in the town not to excite comment among the young
+girls wherever he might go, and Miranda was always having her eye out for
+anything new. Not for herself! Bless you! no! Miranda never expected
+anything from a young man for herself, but she was keenly interested in
+what befell other girls.
+
+So Miranda, crouched behind the berry bushes, watched Harry Temple saunter
+down the street and saw with surprise that he stopped at the house of her
+new admiration. Now, although Marcia was a married woman, Miranda felt
+pleased that she should have the attention of others, and a feeling of
+pride in her idol, and of triumph over her cousin Hannah that he had not
+stopped to see her, swelled in her brown calico breast.
+
+She managed to bring her picking as near to the region of the Spafford
+parlor windows as possible, and much did her ravished ear delight itself
+in the music that tinkled through the green shaded window, for Miranda had
+tastes that were greatly appealed to by the gay dance music. She fancied
+that her idol was the player. But then she heard a man's voice, and her
+picking stopped short insomuch that her grandmother's strident tones
+mingled with the liquid tenor of Mr. Temple, calling to Miranda to "be
+spry there or the sun'll catch you 'fore you get a quart." All at once the
+music ceased, and then in a minute or two Miranda heard the Spafford
+kitchen door thrown violently open and saw Marcia rush forth.
+
+She gazed in astonishment, too surprised to call out to her, or to
+remember to keep on picking for a moment. She watched her as she fairly
+flew down between the rows of currant bushes, saw the comb fly from her
+hair, saw the glow of excitement on her cheek, and the fire in her eye,
+saw her mount the first fence. Then suddenly a feeling of protection arose
+within her, and, with a hasty glance toward her grandmother's window to
+satisfy herself that no one else saw the flying figure, she fell to
+picking with all her might, but what went into her pail, whether
+raspberries or green leaves or briars, she did not know. Her eyes were on
+the flying figure through the wheat, and she progressed in her picking
+very fast toward the lower end of the lot where nothing but runty old sour
+berries ever grew, if any at all. Once hidden behind the tall corn that
+grew between her and her grandmother's vigilant gaze, she hastened to the
+end of the lot and watched Marcia; watched her as she climbed the fences,
+held her breath at the daring leaps from the top rails, expecting to see
+the delicate muslin catch on the rough fence and send the flying figure to
+the ground senseless perhaps. It was like a theatre to Miranda, this
+watching the beautiful girl in her flight, the long dark hair in the wind,
+the graceful untrammeled bounds. Miranda watched with unveiled admiration
+until the dark of the green-blue wood had swallowed her up, then slowly
+her eyes traveled back over the path which Marcia had taken, back through
+the meadow and the wheat, to the kitchen door left standing wide. Slowly,
+painfully, Miranda set herself to understand it. Something had happened!
+That was flight with fear behind it, fear that left everything else
+forgotten. What had happened?
+
+Miranda was wiser in her generation than Marcia. She began to put two and
+two together. Her brows darkened, and a look of cunning came into her
+honest blue eyes. Stealthily she crept with cat-like quickness along the
+fence near to the front, and there she stood like a red-haired Nemesis in
+a sunbonnet, with irate red face, confronting the unsuspecting man as he
+sauntered forth from the unwelcoming roof where he had whiled away a
+mistaken hour.
+
+"What you ben sayin' to her?"
+
+It was as if a serpent had stung him, so unexpected, so direct. He jumped
+aside and turned deadly pale. She knew her chance arrow had struck the
+truth. But he recovered himself almost immediately when he saw what a
+harmless looking creature had attacked him.
+
+"Why, my dear girl," he said patronizingly, "you quite startled me! I'm
+sure you must have made some mistake!"
+
+"I ain't your girl, thank goodness!" snapped Miranda, "and I guess by your
+looks there ain't anybody 'dear' to you but yourself. But I ain't made a
+mistake. It's you I was asking. _What you bin in there for?_" There was a
+blaze of defiance in Miranda's eyes, and her stubby forefinger pointed at
+him like a shotgun. Before her the bold black eyes quailed for an instant.
+The young man's hand sought his pocket, brought out a piece of money and
+extended it.
+
+"Look here, my friend," he said trying another line, "you take this and
+say nothing more about it. That's a good girl. No harm's been done."
+
+Miranda looked him in the face with noble scorn, and with a sudden motion
+of her brown hand sent the coin flying on the stone pavement.
+
+"I tell you I'm not your friend, and I don't want your money. I wouldn't
+trust its goodness any more than your face. As fer keepin' still I'll do
+as I see fit about it. I intend to know what this means, and if you've
+made _her_ any trouble you'd better leave this town, for I'll make it too
+unpleasant fer you to stay here!"
+
+With a stealthy glance about him, cautious, concerned, the young man
+suddenly hurried down the street. He wanted no more parley with this
+loud-voiced avenging maiden. His fear came back upon him in double force,
+and he was seen to glance at his watch and quicken his pace almost to a
+run as though a forgotten engagement had suddenly come to mind. Miranda,
+scowling, stood and watched him disappear around the corner, then she
+turned back and began to pick raspberries with a diligence that would have
+astonished her grandmother had she not been for the last hour engaged with
+a calling neighbor in the room at the other side of the house, where they
+were overhauling the character of a fellow church member.
+
+Miranda picked on, and thought on, and could not make up her mind what she
+ought to do. From time to time she glanced anxiously toward the woods, and
+then at the lowering sun in the West, and half meditated going after
+Marcia, but a wholesome fear of her grandmother held her hesitating.
+
+At length she heard a firm step coming down the street. Could it be? Yes,
+it was David Spafford. How was it he happened to come home so soon?
+Miranda had heard in a round-about-way, as neighbors hear and know these
+things, that David had taken the stage that morning, presumably on
+business to New York, and was hardly expected to return for several days.
+She had wondered if Marcia would stay all night alone in the house or if
+she would go to the aunts. But now here was David!
+
+Miranda looked again over the wheat, half expecting to see the flying
+figure returning in haste, but the parted wheat waved on and sang its song
+of the harvest, unmindful and alone, with only a fluttering butterfly to
+give life to the landscape. A little rusty-throated cricket piped a
+doleful sentence now and then between the silences.
+
+David Spafford let himself in at his own door, and went in search of
+Marcia.
+
+He wanted to find Marcia for a purpose. The business which had taken him
+away in the morning, and which he had hardly expected to accomplish before
+late that night, had been partly transacted at a little tavern where the
+coach horses had been changed that morning, and where he had met most
+unexpectedly the two men whom he had been going to see, who were coming
+straight to his town. So he turned him back with them and came home, and
+they were at this minute attending to some other business in the town,
+while he had come home to announce to Marcia that they would take supper
+with him and perhaps spend the night.
+
+Marcia was nowhere to be found. He went upstairs and timidly knocked at
+her door, but no answer came. Then he thought she might be asleep and
+knocked louder, but only the humming-bird in the honeysuckle outside her
+window sent back a little humming answer through the latch-hole. Finally
+he ventured to open the door and peep in, but he saw that quiet loneliness
+reigned there.
+
+He went downstairs again and searched in the pantry and kitchen and then
+stood still. The back door was stretched open as though it had been thrown
+back in haste. He followed its suggestion and went out, looking down the
+little brick path that led to the garden. Ah! what was that? Something
+gleamed in the sun with a spot of blue behind it. The bit of blue ribbon
+she had worn at her throat, with a tiny gold brooch unclasped sticking in.
+
+Miranda caught sight of him coming, and crouched behind the currants.
+
+David came on searching the path on every side. A bit of a branch had been
+torn from a succulent, tender plant that leaned over the path and was
+lying in the way. It seemed another blaze along the trail. Further down
+where the bushes almost met a single fragment of a thread waved on a thorn
+as though it had snatched for more in the passing and had caught only
+this. David hardly knew whether he was following these little things or
+not, but at any rate they were apparently not leading him anywhere for he
+stopped abruptly in front of the fence and looked both ways behind the
+bushes that grew along in front of it. Then he turned to go back again.
+Miranda held her breath. Something touched David's foot in turning, and,
+looking down, he saw Marcia's large shell comb lying there in the grass.
+Curiously he picked it up and examined it. It was like finding fragments
+of a wreck along the sand.
+
+All at once Miranda arose from her hiding place and confronted him
+timidly. She was not the same Miranda who came down upon Harry Temple,
+however.
+
+"She ain't in the house," she said hoarsely. "She's gone over there!"
+
+David Spafford turned surprised.
+
+"Is that you, Miranda? Oh, thank you! Where do you say she has gone?
+Where?"
+
+"Through there, don't you see?" and again the stubby forefinger pointed to
+the rift in the wheat.
+
+David gazed stupidly at the path in the wheat, but gradually it began to
+dawn upon him that there was a distinct line through it where some one
+must have gone.
+
+"Yes, I see," he said thinking aloud, "but why should she have gone there?
+There is nothing over there."
+
+"She went on further, she went to the woods," said Miranda, looking
+fearfully around lest even now her grandmother might be upon her, "and she
+was scared, I guess. She looked it. Her hair all come tumblin' down when
+she clum the fence, an' she just went flyin' over like some bird, didn't
+care a feather if she did fall, an' she never oncet looked behind her till
+she come to the woods."
+
+David's bewilderment was growing uncomfortable. There was a shade of alarm
+in his face and of the embarrassment one feels when a neighbor divulges
+news about a member of one's own household.
+
+"Why, surely, Miranda, you must be mistaken. Maybe it was some one else
+you saw. I do not think Mrs. Spafford would be likely to run over there
+that way, and what in the world would she have to be frightened at?"
+
+"No, I ain't mistaken," said Miranda half sullenly, nettled at his
+unbelief. "It was her all right. She came flyin' out the kitchen door when
+I was picking raspberries, and down that path to the fence, and never
+stopped fer fence ner wheat, ner medder lot, but went into them woods
+there, right up to the left of them tall pines, and she,--she looked plum
+scared to death 's if a whole circus menagerie was after her, lions and
+'nelefunts an' all. An' I guess she had plenty to be scared at ef I ain't
+mistaken. That dandy Temple feller went there to call on her, an' I heard
+him tinklin' that music box, and its my opinion he needs a wallupin'! You
+better go after her! It's gettin' late and you'll have hard times finding
+her in the dark. Just you foller her path in the wheat, and then make fer
+them pines. I'd a gone after her myself only grandma'd make sech a fuss,
+and hev to know it all. You needn't be afraid o' me. I'll keep still."
+
+By this time David was thoroughly alive to the situation and much alarmed.
+He mounted the fence with alacrity, gave one glance with "thank you" at
+Miranda, and disappeared through the wheat, Miranda watched him till she
+was sure he was making for the right spot, then with a sigh of relief she
+hastened into the house with her now brimming pail of berries.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XV
+
+
+As David made his way with rapid strides through the rippling wheat, he
+experienced a series of sensations. For the first time since his wedding
+day he was aroused to entirely forget himself and his pain. What did it
+mean? Marcia frightened! What at? Harry Temple at their house! What did he
+know of Harry Temple? Nothing beyond the mere fact that Hannah Heath had
+introduced him and that he was doing business in the town. But why had Mr.
+Temple visited the house? He could have no possible business with himself,
+David was sure; moreover he now remembered having seen the young man
+standing near the stable that morning when he took his seat in the coach,
+and knew that he must have heard his remark that he would not return till
+the late coach that night, or possibly not till the next day. He
+remembered as he said it that he had unconsciously studied Mr. Temple's
+face and noted its weak points. Did the young man then have a purpose in
+coming to the house during his absence? A great anger rose within him at
+the thought.
+
+There was one strange thing about David's thoughts. For the first time he
+looked at himself in the light of Marcia's natural protector--her husband.
+He suddenly saw a duty from himself to her, aside from the mere feeding
+and clothing her. He felt a personal responsibility, and an actual
+interest in her. Out of the whole world, now, he was the only one she
+could look to for help.
+
+It gave him a feeling of possession that was new, and almost seemed
+pleasant. He forgot entirely the errand that had made him come to search
+for Marcia in the first place, and the two men who were probably at that
+moment preparing to go to his house according to their invitation. He
+forgot everything but Marcia, and strode into the purply-blue shadows of
+the wood and stopped to listen.
+
+The hush there seemed intense. There were no echoes lingering of flying
+feet down that pine-padded pathway of the aisle of the woods. It was long
+since he had had time to wander in the woods, and he wondered at their
+silence. So much whispering above, the sky so far away, the breeze so
+quiet, the bird notes so subdued, it seemed almost uncanny. He had not
+remembered that it was thus in the woods. It struck him in passing that
+here would be a good place to bring his pain some day when he had time to
+face it again, and wished to be alone with it.
+
+He took his hat in his hand and stepped firmly into the vast solemnity as
+if he had entered a great church when the service was going on, on an
+errand of life and death that gave excuse for profaning the holy silence.
+He went a few paces and stopped again, listening. Was that a long-drawn
+sighing breath he heard, or only the wind soughing through the waving
+tassels overhead? He summoned his voice to call. It seemed a great effort,
+and sounded weak and feeble under the grandeur of the vaulted green dome.
+"Marcia!" he called,--and "Marcia!" realizing as he did so that it was the
+first time he had called her by her name, or sought after her in any way.
+He had always said "you" to her, or "child," or spoken of her in company
+as "Mrs. Spafford," a strange and far-off mythical person whose very
+intangibility had separated her from himself immeasurably.
+
+He went further into the forest, called again, and yet again, and stood to
+listen. All was still about him, but in the far distance he heard the
+faint report of a gun. With a new thought of danger coming to mind he
+hurried further into the shadows. The gun sounded again more clearly. He
+shuddered involuntarily and looked about in all directions, hoping to see
+the gleam of her gown. It was not likely there were any wild beasts about
+these parts, so near the town and yet, they had been seen occasionally,--a
+stray fox, or even a bear,--and the sun was certainly very low. He glanced
+back, and the low line of the horizon gleamed the gold of intensified
+shining that is the sun's farewell for the night. The gun again! Stray
+shots had been known to kill people wandering in the forest. He was
+growing nervous as a woman now, and went this way and that calling, but
+still no answer came. He began to think he was not near the clump of pines
+of which Miranda spoke, and went a little to the right and then turned to
+look back to where he had entered the wood, and there, almost at his feet,
+she lay!
+
+She slept as soundly as if she had been lying on a couch of velvet, one
+round white arm under her cheek. Her face was flushed with weeping, and
+her lashes still wet. Her tender, sensitive mouth still quivered slightly
+as she gave a long-drawn breath with a catch in it that seemed like a sob,
+and all her lovely dark hair floated about her as if it were spread upon a
+wave that upheld her. She was beautiful indeed as she lay there sleeping,
+and the man, thus suddenly come upon her, anxious and troubled and every
+nerve quivering, stopped, awed with the beauty of her as if she had been
+some heavenly being suddenly confronting him. He stepped softly to her
+side and bending down observed her, first anxiously, to make sure she was
+alive and safe, then searchingly, as though he would know every detail of
+the picture there before him because it was his, and he not only had a
+right but a duty to possess it, and to care for it.
+
+She might have been a statue or a painting as he looked upon her and noted
+the lovely curve of her flushed cheek, but when his eyes reached the firm
+little brown hand and the slender finger on which gleamed the wedding ring
+that was not really hers, something pathetic in the tear-wet lashes, and
+the whole sorrowful, beautiful figure, touched him with a great
+tenderness, and he stooped down gently and put his arm about her.
+
+"Marcia,--child!" he said in a low, almost crooning voice, as one might
+wake a baby from its sleep, "Marcia, open your eyes, child, and tell me if
+you are all right."
+
+At first she only stirred uneasily and slept on, the sleep of utter
+exhaustion; but he raised her, and, sitting down beside her, put her head
+upon his shoulder, speaking gently. Then Marcia opened her eyes
+bewildered, and with a start, sprang back and looked at David, as though
+she would be sure it was he and not that other dreadful man from whom she
+had fled.
+
+"Why, child! What's the matter?" said David, brushing her hair back from
+her face. Bewildered still, Marcia scarcely knew him, his voice was so
+strangely sweet and sympathetic. The tears were coming back, but she could
+not stop them. She made one effort to control herself and speak, but her
+lips quivered a moment, and then the flood-gates opened again, and she
+covered her face with her hands and shook with sobs. How could she tell
+David what a dreadful thing had happened, now, when he was kinder to her
+than he had ever thought of being before! He would grow grave and stern
+when she had told him, and she could not bear that. He would likely blame
+her too, and how could she endure more?
+
+But he drew her to him again and laid her head against his coat, trying to
+smooth her hair with unaccustomed passes of his hand. By and by the tears
+subsided and she could control herself again. She hushed her sobs and drew
+back a little from the comforting rough coat where she had lain.
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I could not help it, David,"--she faltered, trying to
+smile like a bit of rainbow through the rain.
+
+"I know you couldn't, child." His answer was wonderfully kind and his eyes
+smiled at her as they had never done before. Her heart gave a leap of
+astonishment and fluttered with gladness over it. It was so good to have
+David care. She had not known how much she wanted him to speak to her as
+if he saw her and thought a little about her.
+
+"And now what was it? Remember I do not know. Tell me quick, for it is
+growing late and damp, and you will take cold out here in the woods with
+that thin frock on. You are chilly already."
+
+"I better go at once," she said reservedly, willing to put off the telling
+as long as possible, peradventure to avoid it altogether.
+
+"No, child," he said firmly drawing her back again beside him, "you must
+rest a minute yet before taking that long walk. You are weary and excited,
+and besides it will do you good to tell me. What made you run off up here?
+Are you homesick?"
+
+He scanned her face anxiously. He began to fear with sudden compunction
+that the sacrifice he had accepted so easily had been too much for the
+victim, and it suddenly began to be a great comfort to him to have Marcia
+with him, to help him hide his sorrow from the world. He did not know
+before that he cared.
+
+"I was frightened," she said, with drooping lashes. She was trying to keep
+her lips and fingers from trembling, for she feared greatly to tell him
+all. But though the woods were growing dusky he saw the fluttering little
+fingers and gathered them firmly in his own.
+
+"Now, child," he said in that tone that even his aunts obeyed, "tell me
+all. What frightened you, and why did you come up here away from everybody
+instead of calling for help?"
+
+Brought to bay she lifted her beautiful eyes to his face and told him
+briefly the story, beginning with the night when she had first met Harry
+Temple. She said as little about music as possible, because she feared
+that the mention of the piano might be painful to David, but she made the
+whole matter quite plain in a few words, so that David could readily fill
+in between the lines.
+
+"Scoundrel!" he murmured clenching his fists, "he ought to be strung up!"
+Then quite gently again, "Poor child! How frightened you must have been!
+You did right to run away, but it was a dangerous thing to run out here!
+Why, he might have followed you!"
+
+"Oh!" said Marcia, turning pale, "I never thought of that. I only wanted
+to get away from everybody. It seemed so dreadful I did not want anybody
+to know. I did not want you to know. I wanted to run away and hide, and
+never come back!" She covered her face with her hands and shuddered. David
+thought the tears were coming back again.
+
+"Child, child!" he said gently, "you must not talk that way. What would I
+do if you did that?" and he laid his hand softly upon the bowed head.
+
+It was the first time that anything like a personal talk had passed
+between them, and Marcia felt a thrill of delight at his words. It was
+like heavenly comfort to her wounded spirit.
+
+She stole a shy look at him under her lashes, and wished she dared say
+something, but no words came. They sat for a moment in silence, each
+feeling a sort of comforting sense of the other's presence, and each
+clasping the hand of the other with clinging pressure, yet neither fully
+aware of the fact.
+
+The last rays of the sun which had been lying for a while at their feet
+upon the pine needles suddenly slipped away unperceived, and behold! the
+world was in gloom, and the place where the two sat was almost utterly
+dark. David became aware of it first, and with sudden remembrance of his
+expected guests he started in dismay.
+
+"Child!" said he,--but he did not let go of her hand, nor forget to put the
+tenderness in his voice, "the sun has gone down, and here have I been
+forgetting what I came to tell you in the astonishment over what you had
+to tell me. We must hurry and get back. We have guests to-night to supper,
+two gentlemen, very distinguished in their lines of work. We have business
+together, and I must make haste. I doubt not they are at the house
+already, and what they think of me I cannot tell; let us hurry as fast as
+possible."
+
+"Oh, David!" she said in dismay. "And you had to come out here after me,
+and have stayed so long! What a foolish girl I have been and what a mess I
+have made! They will perhaps be angry and go away, and I will be to blame.
+I am afraid you can never forgive me."
+
+"Don't worry, child," he said pleasantly. "It couldn't be helped, you
+know, and is in no wise your fault. I am only sorry that these two
+gentlemen will delay me in the pleasure of hunting up that scoundrel of a
+Temple and suggesting that he leave town by the early morning stage. I
+should like to give him what Miranda suggested, a good 'wallupin',' but
+perhaps that would be undignified."
+
+He laughed as he said it, a hearty laugh with a ring to it like his old
+self. Marcia felt happy at the sound. How wonderful it would be if he
+would be like that to her all the time! Her heart swelled with the great
+thought of it.
+
+He helped her to her feet and taking her hand led her out to the open
+field where they could walk faster. As he walked he told her about Miranda
+waiting for him behind the currant bushes. They laughed together and made
+the way seem short.
+
+It was quite dark now, with the faded moon trembling feebly in the West as
+though it meant to retire early, and wished they would hurry home while
+she held her light for them. David had drawn Marcia's arm within his, and
+then, noticing that her dress was thin, he pulled off his coat and put it
+firmly about her despite her protest that she did not need it, and so,
+warmed, comforted, and cheered Marcia's feet hurried back over the path
+she had taken in such sorrow and fright a few hours before.
+
+When they could see the lights of the village twinkling close below them
+David began to tell her about the two men who were to be their guests, if
+they were still waiting, and so interesting was his brief story of each
+that Marcia hardly knew they were at home before David was helping her
+over their own back fence.
+
+"Oh, David! There seems to be a light in the kitchen! Do you suppose they
+have gone in and are getting their own supper? What shall I do with my
+hair? I cannot go in with it this way. How did that light get there?"
+
+"Here!" said David, fumbling in his pocket, "will this help you?" and he
+brought out the shell comb he had picked up in the garden.
+
+By the light of the feeble old moon David watched her coil the long wavy
+hair and stood to pass his criticism upon the effect before they should go
+in. They were just back of the tall sunflowers, and talked in whispers. It
+was all so cheery, and comradey, and merry, that Marcia hated to go in and
+have it over, for she could not feel that this sweet evening hour could
+last. Then they took hold of hands and swiftly, cautiously, stole up to
+the kitchen window and looked in. The door still stood open as both had
+left it that afternoon, and there seemed to be no one in the kitchen. A
+candle was burning on the high little shelf over the table, and the tea
+kettle was singing on the crane by the hearth, but the room was without
+occupant. Cautiously, looking questioningly at one another, they stole
+into the kitchen, each dreading lest the aunts had come by chance and
+discovered their lapse. There was a light in the front part of the house
+and they could hear voices, two men were earnestly discussing politics.
+They listened longer, but no other presence was revealed.
+
+David in pantomime outlined the course of action, and Marcia,
+understanding perfectly flew up the back stairs as noiselessly as a mouse,
+to make her toilet after her nap in the woods, while David with much show
+and to-do of opening and shutting the wide-open kitchen door walked
+obviously into the kitchen and hurried through to greet his guests
+wondering,--not suspecting in the least,--what good angel had been there to
+let them in.
+
+Good fortune had favored Miranda. The neighbor had stayed longer than
+usual, perhaps in hopes of an invitation to stay to tea and share in the
+gingerbread she could smell being taken from the oven by Hannah, who
+occasionally varied her occupations by a turn at the culinary art. Hannah
+could make delicious gingerbread. Her grandmother had taught her when she
+was but a child.
+
+Miranda stole into the kitchen when Hannah's back was turned and picked
+over her berries so fast that when Hannah came into the pantry to set her
+gingerbread to cool Miranda had nearly all her berries in the big yellow
+bowl ready to wash, and Hannah might conjecture if she pleased that
+Miranda had been some time picking them over. It is not stated just how
+thoroughly those berries were picked over. But Miranda cared little for
+that. Her mind was upon other things. The pantry window overlooked the
+hills and the woods. She could see if David and Marcia were coming back
+soon. She wanted to watch her play till the close, and had no fancy for
+having the curtain fall in the middle of the most exciting act, the rescue
+of the princess. But the talk in the sitting room went on and on. By and
+by Hannah Heath washed her hands, untied her apron, and taking her
+sunbonnet slipped over to Ann Bertram's for a pattern of her new sleeve.
+Miranda took the opportunity to be off again.
+
+Swiftly down behind the currants she ran, and standing on the fence behind
+the corn she looked off across the wheat, but no sign of anybody yet
+coming out of the woods was granted her. She stood so a long time. It was
+growing dusk. She wondered if Harry Temple had shut the front door when he
+went out. But then David went in that way, and he would have closed it, of
+course. Still, he went away in a hurry, maybe it would be as well to go
+and look. She did not wish to be caught by her grandmother, so she stole
+along like a cat close to the dark berry bushes, and the gathering dusk
+hid her well. She thought she could see from the front of the fence
+whether the door looked as if it were closed. But there were people coming
+up the street. She would wait till they had passed before she looked over
+the fence.
+
+They were two men coming, slowly, and in earnest conversation upon some
+deeply interesting theme. Each carried a heavy carpet-bag, and they walked
+wearily, as if their business were nearly over for the day and they were
+coming to a place of rest.
+
+"This must be the house, I think," said one. "He said it was exactly
+opposite the Seceder church. That's the church, I believe. I was here once
+before."
+
+"There doesn't seem to be a light in the house," said the other, looking
+up to the windows over the street. "Are you sure? Brother Spafford said he
+was coming directly home to let his wife know of our arrival."
+
+"A little strange there's no light yet, for it is quite dark now, but I'm
+sure this must be the house. Maybe they are all in the kitchen and not
+expecting us quite so soon. Let's try anyhow," said the other, setting
+down his carpet-bag on the stoop and lifting the big brass knocker.
+
+Miranda stood still debating but a moment. The situation was made plain to
+her in an instant. Not for nothing had she stood at Grandma Heath's elbow
+for years watching the movements of her neighbors and interpreting exactly
+what they meant. Miranda's wits were sharpened for situations of all
+kinds. Miranda was ready and loyal to those she adored. Without further
+ado she hastened to a sheltered spot she knew and climbed the picket fence
+which separated the Heath garden from the Spafford side yard. Before the
+brass knocker had sounded through the empty house the second time Miranda
+had crossed the side porch, thrown her sunbonnet upon a chair in the dark
+kitchen, and was hastening with noisy, encouraging steps to the front
+door.
+
+She flung it wide open, saying in a breezy voice, "Just wait till I get a
+light, won't you, the wind blew the candle out."
+
+There wasn't a particle of wind about that soft September night, but that
+made little difference to Miranda. She was part of a play and she was
+acting her best. If her impromptu part was a little irregular, it was at
+least well meant, boldly and bravely presented.
+
+Miranda found a candle on the shelf and, stooping to the smouldering fire
+upon the hearth, blew and coaxed it into flame enough to light it.
+
+"This is Mr. Spafford's home, is it not?" questioned the old gentleman
+whom Miranda had heard speak first on the sidewalk.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed," said the girl glibly. "Jest come in and set down. Here,
+let me take your hats. Jest put your bags right there on the floor."
+
+"You are-- Are you--Mrs. Spafford?" hesitated the courtly old gentleman.
+
+"Oh, landy sakes, no, I ain't her," laughed Miranda well pleased. "Mis'
+Spafford had jest stepped out a bit when her husband come home, an' he's
+gone after her. You see she didn't expect her husband home till late
+to-night. But you set down. They'll be home real soon now. They'd oughter
+ben here before this. I 'spose she'd gone on further'n she thought she'd
+go when she stepped out."
+
+"It's all right," said the other gentleman, "no harm done, I'm sure. I
+hope we shan't inconvenience Mrs. Spafford any coming so unexpectedly."
+
+"No, indeedy!" said quick-witted Miranda. "You can't ketch Mis' Spafford
+unprepared if you come in the middle o' the night. She's allus ready fer
+comp'ny." Miranda's eyes shone. She felt she was getting on finely doing
+the honors.
+
+"Well, that's very nice. I'm sure it makes one feel at home. I wonder now
+if she would mind if we were to go right up to our room and wash our
+hands. I feel so travel-stained. I'd like to be more presentable before we
+meet her," said the first gentleman, who looked very weary.
+
+But Miranda was not dashed.
+
+"Why, that's all right. 'Course you ken go right up. Jest you set in the
+keepin' room a minnit while I run up'n be sure the water pitcher's filled.
+I ain't quite sure 'bout it. I won't be long."
+
+Miranda seated them in the parlor with great gusto and hastened up the
+back stairs to investigate. She was not at all sure which room would be
+called the guest room and whether the two strangers would have a room
+apiece or occupy the same together. At least it would be safe to show them
+one till the mistress of the house returned. She peeped into Marcia's
+room, and knew it instinctively before she caught sight of a cameo brooch
+on the pin cushion, and a rose colored ribbon neatly folded lying on the
+foot of the bed where it had been forgotten. That question settled, she
+thought any other room would do, and chose the large front room across the
+hall with its high four-poster and the little ball fringe on the valance
+and canopy. Having lighted the candle which stood in a tall glass
+candlestick on the high chest of drawers, she hurried down to bid her
+guests come up.
+
+Then she hastened back into the kitchen and went to work with swift
+skilful fingers. Her breath came quickly and her cheeks grew red with the
+excitement of it all. It was like playing fairy. She would get supper for
+them and have everything all ready when the mistress came, so that there
+would be no bad breaks. She raked the fire and filled the tea kettle,
+swinging it from the crane. Then she searched where she thought such
+things should be and found a table cloth and set the table. Her hands
+trembled as she put out the sprigged china that was kept in the corner
+cupboard. Perhaps this was wrong, and she would be blamed for it, but at
+least it was what she would have done, she thought, if she were mistress
+of this house and had two nice gentlemen come to stay to tea. It was not
+often that Grandmother Heath allowed her to handle her sprigged china, to
+be sure, so Miranda felt the joy and daring of it all the more. Once a
+delicate cup slipped and rolled over on the table and almost reached the
+edge. A little more and it would have rolled off to the floor and been
+shivered into a dozen fragments, but Miranda spread her apron in front and
+caught it fairly as it started and then hugged it in fear and delight for
+a moment as she might have done a baby that had been in danger. It was a
+great pleasure to her to set that table. In the first place she was not
+doing it to order but because she wanted to please and surprise some one
+whom she adored, and in the second place it was an adventure. Miranda had
+longed for an adventure all her life and now she thought it had come to
+her.
+
+When the table was set it looked very pretty. She slipped into the pantry
+and searched out the stores. It was not hard to find all that was needed;
+cold ham, cheese, pickles, seed cakes, gingerbread, fruit cake, preserves
+and jelly, bread and raised biscuit, then she went down cellar and found
+the milk and cream and butter. She had just finished the table and set out
+the tea pot and caddy of tea when she heard the two gentlemen coming down
+the stairs. They went into the parlor and sat down, remarking that their
+friend had a pleasant home, and then Miranda heard them plunge into a
+political discussion again and she felt that they were safe for a while.
+She stole out into the dewy dark to see if there were yet signs of the
+home-comers. A screech owl hooted across the night. She stood a while by
+the back fence looking out across the dark sea of whispering wheat. By and
+by she thought she heard subdued voices above the soft swish of the
+parting wheat, and by the light of the stars she saw them coming. Quick as
+a wink she slid over the fence into the Heath back-yard and crouched in
+her old place behind the currant bushes. So she saw them come up together,
+saw David help Marcia over the fence and watched them till they had passed
+up the walk to the light of the kitchen door. Then swiftly she turned and
+glided to her own home, well knowing the reckoning that would be in store
+for her for this daring bit of recreation. There was about her, however,
+an air of triumphant joy as she entered.
+
+"Where have you ben to, Miranda Griscom, and what on airth you ben up to
+now?" was the greeting she received as she lifted the latch of the old
+green kitchen door of her grandmother's house.
+
+Miranda knew that the worst was to come now, for her grandmother never
+mentioned the name of Griscom unless she meant business. It was a hated
+name to her because of the man who had broken the heart of her daughter.
+Grandma Heath always felt that Miranda was an out and out Griscom with not
+a streak of Heath about her. The Griscoms all had red hair. But Miranda
+lifted her chin high and felt like a princess in disguise.
+
+"Ben huntin' hen's eggs down in the grass," she said, taking the first
+excuse that came into her head. "Is it time to get supper?"
+
+"Hen's eggs! This time o' night an' dark as pitch. Miranda Griscom, you
+ken go up to your room an' not come down tell I call you!"
+
+It was a dire punishment, or would have been if Miranda had not had her
+head full of other things, for the neighbor had been asked to tea and
+there would have been much to hear at the table. Besides, it was apparent
+that her disgrace was to be made public. However, Miranda did not care.
+She hastened to her little attic window, which looked down, as good
+fortune would have it, upon the dining-room windows of the Spafford house.
+With joy Miranda observed that no one had thought to draw down the shades
+and she might sit and watch the supper served over the way,--the supper she
+had prepared,--and might think how delectable the doughnuts were, and let
+her mouth water over the currant jelly and the quince preserves and
+pretend she was a guest, and forget the supper downstairs she was missing.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+David made what apology he could for his absence on the arrival of his
+guests, and pondered in his heart who it could have been that they
+referred to as "the maid," until he suddenly remembered Miranda, and
+inwardly blessed her for her kindliness. It was more than he would have
+expected from any member of the Heath household. Miranda's honest face
+among the currant bushes when she had said, "You needn't be afraid of me,
+I'll keep still," came to mind. Miranda had evidently scented out the true
+state of the case and filled in the breach, taking care not to divulge a
+word. He blest her kindly heart and resolved to show his gratitude to her
+in some way. Could poor Miranda, sitting supperless in the dark, have but
+known his thought, her lonely heart would have fluttered happily. But she
+did not, and virtue had to bring its own reward in a sense of duty done.
+Then, too, there was a spice of adventure to Miranda's monotonous life in
+what she had done, and she was not altogether sad as she sat and let her
+imagination revel in what the Spaffords had said and thought, when they
+found the house lighted and supper ready. It was better than playing house
+down behind the barn when she was a little girl.
+
+Marcia was the most astonished when she slipped down from her hurried
+toilet and found the table decked out in all the house afforded, fairly
+groaning under its weight of pickles, preserves, doughnuts, and pie. In
+fact, everything that Miranda had found she had put upon that table, and
+it is safe to say that the result was not quite as it would have been had
+the preparation of the supper been left to Marcia.
+
+She stood before it and looked, and could not keep from laughing softly to
+herself at the array of little dishes of things. Marcia thought at first
+that one of the aunts must be here, in the parlor, probably entertaining
+the guests, and that the supper was a reproof to her for being away when
+she should have been at home attending to her duties, but still she was
+puzzled. It scarcely seemed like the aunts to set a table in such a
+peculiar manner. The best china was set out, it is true, but so many
+little bits of things were in separate dishes. There was half a mould of
+currant jelly in a large china plate, there was a fresh mould of quince
+jelly quivering on a common dish. All over the table in every available
+inch there was something. It would not do to call the guests out to a
+table like that. What would David say? And yet, if one of the aunts had
+set it and was going to stay to tea, would she be hurt? She tiptoed to the
+door and listened, but heard no sound save of men's voices. If an aunt had
+been here she was surely gone now and would be none the wiser if a few
+dishes were removed.
+
+With swift fingers Marcia weeded out the things, and set straight those
+that were to remain, and then made the tea. She was so quick about it
+David had scarcely time to begin to worry because supper was not announced
+before she stood in the parlor door, shy and sweet, with a brilliant color
+in her cheeks. His little comrade, David felt her to be, and again it
+struck him that she was beautiful as he arose to introduce her to the
+guests. He saw their open admiration as they greeted her, and he found
+himself wondering what they would have thought of Kate, wild-rose Kate
+with her graceful witching ways. A tinge of sadness came into his face,
+but something suggested to him the thought that Marcia was even more
+beautiful than Kate, more like a half-blown bud of a thing. He wondered
+that he had never noticed before how her eyes shone. He gave her a
+pleasant smile as they passed into the hall, which set the color flaming
+in her cheeks again. David seemed different somehow, and that lonely,
+set-apart feeling that she had had ever since she came here to live was
+gone. David was there and he understood, at least a little bit, and they
+had something,--just something, even though it was but a few minutes in a
+lonely woods and some gentle words of his,--to call their very own
+together. At least that experience did not belong to Kate, never had been
+hers, and could not have been borrowed from her. Marcia sighed a happy
+sigh as she took her seat at the table.
+
+The talk ran upon Andrew Jackson, and some utterances of his in his last
+message to Congress. The elder of the two gentlemen expressed grave fears
+that a mistake had been made in policy and that the country would suffer.
+
+Governor Clinton was mentioned and his policy discussed. But all this talk
+was familiar to Marcia. Her father had been interested in public affairs
+always, and she had been brought up to listen to discussions deep and
+long, and to think about such things for herself. When she was quite a
+little girl her father had made her read the paper aloud to him, from one
+end to the other, as he lay back in his big chair with his eyes closed and
+his shaggy brows drawn thoughtfully into a frown. Sometimes as she read he
+would burst forth with a tirade against this or that man or set of men who
+were in opposition to his own pronounced views, and he would pour out a
+lengthy reply to little Marcia as she sat patient, waiting for a chance to
+go on with her reading. As she grew older she became proud of the
+distinction of being her father's _confidante_ politically, and she was
+able to talk on such matters as intelligently and as well if not better
+than most of the men who came to the house. It was a position which no one
+disputed with her. Kate had been much too full of her own plans and Madam
+Schuyler too busy with household affairs to bother with politics and
+newspapers, so Marcia had always been the one called upon to read when her
+father's eyes were tired. As a consequence she was far beyond other girls
+of her age in knowledge on public affairs. Well she knew what Andrew
+Jackson thought about the tariff, and about the system of canals, and
+about improvements in general. She knew which men in Congress were opposed
+to and which in favor of certain bills. All through the struggle for
+improvements in New York state she had been an eager observer. The
+minutest detail of the Erie canal project had interested her, and she was
+never without her own little private opinion in the matter, which,
+however, seldom found voice except in her eager eyes, whose listening
+lights would have been an inspiration to the most eloquent speaker.
+
+Therefore, Marcia as she sat behind her sprigged china teacups and
+demurely poured tea, was taking in all that had been said, and she drew
+her breath quickly in a way she had when she was deeply excited, as at
+last the conversation neared the one great subject of interest which to
+her seemed of most importance in the country at the present day, the
+project of a railroad run by steam.
+
+Nothing was too great for Marcia to believe. Her father had been inclined
+to be conservative in great improvements. He had favored the Erie canal,
+though had feared it would be impossible to carry so great a project
+through, and Marcia in her girlish mind had rejoiced with a joy that to
+her was unspeakable when it had been completed and news had come that many
+packets were travelling day and night upon the wonderful new water way.
+There had been a kind of triumph in her heart to think that men who could
+study out these big schemes and plan it all, had been able against so
+great odds to carry out their project and prove to all unbelievers that it
+was not only possible but practicable.
+
+Marcia's brain was throbbing with the desire for progress. If she were a
+man with money and influence she felt she would so much like to go out
+into the world and make stupid people do the things for the country that
+ought to be done. Progress had been the keynote of her upbringing, and she
+was teeming with energy which she had no hope could ever be used to help
+along that for which she felt her ambitions rising. She wanted to see the
+world alive, and busy, the great cities connected with one another. She
+longed to have free access to cities, to great libraries, to pictures, to
+wonderful music. She longed to meet great men and women, the men and women
+who were making the history of the world, writing, speaking, and doing
+things that were moulding public opinion. Reforms of all sorts were what
+helped along and made possible her desires. Why did not the people want a
+steam railroad? Why were they so ready to say it could never succeed, that
+it would be an impossibility; that the roads could not be made strong
+enough to bear so great weights and so constant wear and tear? Why did
+they interpose objections to every suggestion made by inventors and
+thinking men? Why did even her dear father who was so far in advance of
+his times in many ways, why did even he too shake his head and say that he
+feared it would never be in this country, at least not in his day, that it
+was impracticable?
+
+The talk was very interesting to Marcia. She ate bits of her biscuit
+without knowing, and she left her tea untasted till it was cold. The
+younger of the two guests was talking. His name was Jervis. Marcia thought
+she had heard the name somewhere, but had not yet placed him in her mind:
+
+"Yes," said he, with an eager look on his face, "it is coming, it is
+coming sooner than they think. Oliver Evans said, you know, that good
+roads were all we could expect one generation to do. The next must make
+canals, the next might build a railroad which should run by horse power,
+and perhaps the next would run a railroad by steam. But we shall not have
+to wait so long. We shall have steam moving railway carriages before
+another year."
+
+"What!" said David, "you don't mean it! Have you really any foundation for
+such a statement?" He leaned forward, his eyes shining and his whole
+attitude one of deep interest. Marcia watched him, and a great pride began
+to glow within her that she belonged to him. She looked at the other men.
+Their eyes were fixed upon David with heightening pleasure and pride.
+
+The older man watched the little tableau a moment and then he explained:
+
+"The Mohawk and Hudson Company have just made an engagement with Mr.
+Jervis as chief engineer of their road. He expects to run that road by
+steam!"
+
+He finished his fruit cake and preserves under the spell of astonishment
+he had cast upon his host and hostess.
+
+David and Marcia turned simultaneously toward Mr. Jervis for a
+confirmation of this statement. Mr. Jervis smiled in affirmation.
+
+"But will it not be like all the rest, no funds?" asked David a trifle
+sadly. "It may be years even yet before it is really started."
+
+But Mr. Jervis' face was reassuring.
+
+"The contract is let for the grading. In fact work has already begun. I
+expect to begin laying the track by next Spring, perhaps sooner. As soon
+as the track is laid we shall show them."
+
+David's eyes shone and he reached out and grasped the hand of the man who
+had the will and apparently the means of accomplishing this great thing
+for the country.
+
+"It will make a wonderful change in the whole land," said David musingly.
+He had forgotten to eat. His face was aglow and a side of his nature which
+Marcia did not know was uppermost. Marcia saw the man, the thinker, the
+writer, the former of public opinion, the idealist. Heretofore David had
+been to her in the light of her sister's lover, a young man of promise,
+but that was all. Now she saw something more earnest, and at once it was
+revealed to her what a man he was, a man like her father. David's eyes
+were suddenly drawn to meet hers. He looked on Marcia and seemed to be
+sharing his thought with her, and smiled a smile of comradeship. He felt
+all at once that she could and would understand his feelings about this
+great new enterprise, and would be glad too. It pleased him to feel this.
+It took a little of his loneliness away. Kate would never have been
+interested in these things. He had never expected such sympathy from her.
+She had been something beautiful and apart from his world, and as such he
+had adored her. But it was pleasant to have some one who could understand
+and feel as he did. Just then he was not thinking of his lost Kate. So he
+smiled and Marcia felt the glow of warmth from his look and returned it,
+and the two visitors knew that they were among friends who understood and
+sympathized.
+
+"Yes, it will make a change," said the older man. "I hope I may live to
+see at least a part of it."
+
+"If you succeed there will be many others to follow. The land will soon be
+a network of railroads," went on David, still musing.
+
+"We shall succeed!" said Mr. Jervis, closing his lips firmly in a way that
+made one sure he knew whereof he spoke.
+
+"And now tell me about it," said David, with his most engaging smile, as a
+child will ask to have a story. David could be most fascinating when he
+felt he was in a sympathetic company. At other times he was wont to be
+grave, almost to severity. But those who knew him best and had seen him
+thus melted into child-like enthusiasm, felt his lovableness as the others
+never dreamed.
+
+The table talk launched into a description of the proposed road, the road
+bed, the manner of laying the rails, their thickness and width, and the
+way of bolting them down to the heavy timbers that lay underneath. It was
+all intensely fascinating to Marcia. Mr. Jervis took knives and forks to
+illustrate and then showed by plates and spoons how they were fastened
+down.
+
+David asked a question now and then, took out his note book and wrote down
+some things. The two guests were eager and plain in their answers. They
+wanted David to write it up. They wanted the information to be accurate
+and full.
+
+"The other day I saw a question in a Baltimore paper, sent in by a
+subscriber, 'What is a railroad?'" said the old gentleman, "and the
+editor's reply was, 'Can any of our readers answer this question and tell
+us what is a railroad?'"
+
+There was a hearty laugh over the unenlightened unbelievers who seemed to
+be only too willing to remain in ignorance of the march of improvement.
+
+David finally laid down his note book, feeling that he had gained all the
+information he needed at present. "I have much faith in you and your
+skill, but I do not quite see how you are going to overcome all the
+obstacles. How, for instance, are you going to overcome the inequalities
+in the road? Our country is not a flat even one like those abroad where
+the railroad has been tried. There are sharp grades, and many curves will
+be necessary," said he.
+
+Mr. Jervis had shoved his chair back from the table, but now he drew it up
+again sharply and began to move the dishes back from his place, a look of
+eagerness gleaming in his face.
+
+Once again the dishes and cups were brought into requisition as the
+engineer showed a crude model, in china and cutlery, of an engine he
+proposed to have constructed, illustrating his own idea about a truck for
+the forward wheels which should move separately from the back wheels and
+enable the engine to conform to curves more readily.
+
+Marcia sat with glowing cheeks watching the outline of history that was to
+be, not knowing that the little model before her, made from her own
+teacups and saucers, was to be the model for all the coming engines of the
+many railroads of the future.
+
+Finally the chairs were pushed back, and yet the talk went on. Marcia
+slipped silently about conveying the dishes away. And still the guests sat
+talking. She could hear all they said even when she was in the kitchen
+washing the china, for she did it very softly and never a clink hid a
+word. They talked of Governor Clinton again and of his attitude toward the
+railroad. They spoke of Thurlow Weed and a number of others whose names
+were familiar to Marcia in the papers she had read to her father. They
+told how lately on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad Peter Cooper had
+experimented with a little locomotive, and had beaten a gray horse
+attached to another car.
+
+Marcia smiled brightly as she listened, and laid the delicate china teapot
+down with care lest she should lose a word. But ever with her interest in
+the march of civilization, there were other thoughts mingling. Thoughts of
+David and of how he would be connected with it all. He would write it up
+and be identified with it. He was brave enough to face any new movement.
+
+David's paper was a temperance paper. There were not many temperance
+papers in those days. David was brave. He had already faced a number of
+unpleasant circumstances in consequence. He was not afraid of sneers or
+sarcasms, nor of being called a fanatic. He had taken such a stand that
+even those who were opposed had to respect him. Marcia felt the joy of a
+great pride in David to-night.
+
+She sang a happy little song at the bottom of her heart as she worked. The
+new railroad was an assured thing, and David was her comrade, that was the
+song, and the refrain was, "David, David, David!"
+
+Later, after the guests had talked themselves out and taken their candles
+to their rooms, David with another comrade's smile, and a look in his eyes
+that saw visions of the country's future, and for this one night at least
+promised not to dream of the past, bade her good night.
+
+She went up to her white chamber and lay down upon the pillow, whose case
+was fragrant of lavendar blossoms, dreaming with a smile of to-morrow. She
+thought she was riding in a strange new railroad train with David's arm
+about her and Harry Temple running along at his very best pace to try to
+catch them, but he could not.
+
+Miranda, at her supperless window, watched the evening hours and thought
+many thoughts. She wondered why they stayed in the dining room so late,
+and why they did not go into the parlor and make Marcia play the "music
+box" as she called it; and why there was a light so long in that back
+chamber over the kitchen. Could it be they had put one of the guests
+there? Surely not. Perhaps that was David's study. Perhaps he was writing.
+Ah! She had guessed aright. David was sitting up to write while the
+inspiration was upon him.
+
+But Miranda slept and ceased to wonder long before David's light was
+extinguished, and when he finally lay down it was with a body healthily
+weary, and a mind for the time free from any intruding thought of himself
+and his troubles.
+
+He had written a most captivating article that would appear in his paper
+in a few days, and which must convince many doubters that a railroad was
+at last an established fact among them.
+
+There were one or two points which he must ask the skilled engineer in the
+morning, but as he reviewed what he had written he felt a sense of deep
+satisfaction, and a true delight in his work. His soul thrilled with the
+power of his gift. He loved it, exulted in it. It was pleasant to feel
+that delight in his work once more. He had thought since his marriage that
+it was gone forever, but perhaps by and by it would return to console him,
+and he would be able to do greater things in the world because of his
+suffering.
+
+Just as he dropped to sleep there came a thought of Marcia, pleasantly, as
+one remembers a flower. He felt that there was a comfort about Marcia, a
+something helpful in her smile. There was more to her than he had
+supposed. She was not merely a child. How her face had glowed as the men
+talked of the projected railroad, and almost she seemed to understand as
+they described the proposed engine with its movable trucks. She would be a
+companion who would be interested in his pursuits. He had hoped to teach
+Kate to understand his life work and perhaps help him some, but Kate was
+by nature a butterfly, a bird of gay colors, always on the wing. He would
+not have wanted her to be troubled with deep thoughts. Marcia seemed to
+enjoy such things. What if he should take pains to teach her, read with
+her, help cultivate her mind? It would at least be an occupation for
+leisure hours, something to interest him and keep away the awful pall of
+sadness.
+
+How sweet she had looked as she lay asleep in the woods with the tears on
+her cheek like the dew-drops upon a rose petal! She was a dear little girl
+and he must take care of her and protect her. That scoundrel Temple! What
+were such men made for? He must settle him to-morrow.
+
+And so he fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Harry Temple sat in his office the next morning with his feet upon the
+table and his wooden armed chair tilted back against the wall.
+
+He had letters to write, a number of them, that should go out with the
+afternoon coach, to reach the night packet. There were at least three men
+he ought to go and see at once if he would do the best for his employers,
+and the office he sat in was by no means in the best of order. But his
+feet were elevated comfortably on the table and he was deep in the pages
+of a story of the French Court, its loves and hates and intrigues.
+
+It was therefore with annoyance that he looked up at the opening of the
+office door.
+
+But the frown changed to apprehension, as he saw who was his visitor. He
+brought the chair legs suddenly to the floor and his own legs followed
+them swiftly. David Spafford was not a man before whom another would sit
+with his feet on a table, even to transact business.
+
+There was a look of startled enquiry on Harry Temple's face. For an
+instant his self-complacency was shaken. He hesitated, wondering what tack
+to take. Perhaps after all his alarm was unnecessary. Marcia likely had
+been too frightened to tell of what had occurred. He noticed the broad
+shoulder, the lean, active body, the keen eye, and the grave poise of his
+visitor, and thought he would hardly care to fight a duel with that man.
+It was natural for him to think at once of a duel on account of the French
+court life from which his mind had just emerged. A flash of wonder passed
+through his mind whether it would be swords or pistols, and then he set
+himself to face the other man.
+
+David Spafford stood for a full minute and looked into the face of the man
+he had come to shame. He looked at him with a calm eye and brow, but with
+a growing contempt that did not need words to express it. Harry Temple
+felt the color rise in his cheek, and his soul quaked for an instant. Then
+his habitual conceit arose and he tried to parry with his eye that keen
+piercing gaze of the other. It must have lasted a full minute, though it
+seemed to Mr. Temple it was five at the least. He made an attempt to offer
+his visitor a chair, but it was not noticed. David Spafford looked his man
+through and through, and knew him for exactly what he was. At last he
+spoke, quietly, in a tone that was too courteous to be contemptuous, but
+it humiliated the listener more even than contempt:
+
+"It would be well for you to leave town at once."
+
+That was all. The listener felt that it was a command. His wrath arose
+hotly, and beat itself against the calm exterior of his visitor's gaze in
+a look that was brazen enough to have faced a whole town of accusers.
+Harry Temple could look innocent and handsome when he chose.
+
+"I do not understand you, sir!" he said. "That is a most extraordinary
+statement!"
+
+"It would be well for you to leave town at once."
+
+This time the command was imperative. Harry's eyes blazed.
+
+"Why?" He asked it with that impertinent tilt to his chin which usually
+angered his opponent in any argument. Once he could break that steady,
+iron, self-control he felt he would have the best of things. He could
+easily persuade David Spafford that everything was all right if he could
+get him off his guard and make him angry. An angry man could do little but
+bluster.
+
+"You understand very well," replied David, his voice still, steady and his
+gaze not swerving.
+
+"Indeed! Well, this is most extraordinary," said Harry, losing control of
+himself again. "Of what do you accuse me, may I enquire?"
+
+"Of nothing that your own heart does not accuse you," said David. And
+somehow there was more than human indignation in the gaze now: there was
+pity, a sense of shame for another soul who could lower himself to do
+unseemly things. Before that look the blood crept into Harry's cheek
+again. An uncomfortable sensation entirely new was stealing over him. A
+sense of sin--no, not that exactly,--a sense that he had made a mistake,
+perhaps. He never was very hard upon himself even when the evidence was
+clear against him. It angered him to feel humiliated. What a fuss to make
+about a little thing! What a tiresome old cad to care about a little
+flirtation with his wife! He wished he had let the pretty baby alone
+entirely. She was of no finer stuff than many another who had accepted his
+advances with pleasure. He stiffened his neck and replied with much
+haughtiness:
+
+"My heart accuses me of nothing, sir. I assure you I consider your words
+an insult! I demand satisfaction for your insulting language, sir!" Harry
+Temple had never fought a duel, and had never been present when others
+fought, but that was the language in which a challenge was usually
+delivered in French novels.
+
+"It is not a matter for discussion!" said David Spafford, utterly ignoring
+the other's blustering words. "I am fully informed as to all that occurred
+yesterday afternoon, and I tell you once more, it would be well for you to
+leave town at once. I have nothing further to say."
+
+David turned and walked toward the door, and Harry stood, ignored, angry,
+crestfallen, and watched him until he reached the door.
+
+"You would better ask your informant further of her part in the matter!"
+he hissed, suddenly, an open sneer in his voice and a covert implication
+of deep meaning.
+
+David turned, his face flashing with righteous indignation. The man who
+was withered by the scorn of that glance wished heartily that he had not
+uttered the false sentence. He felt the smallness of his own soul, during
+the instant of silence in which his visitor stood looking at him.
+
+Then David spoke deliberately:
+
+"I knew you were a knave," said he, "but I did not suppose you were also a
+coward. A man who is not a coward will not try to put the blame upon a
+woman, especially upon an innocent one. You, sir, will leave town this
+evening. Any business further than you can settle between this and that I
+will see properly attended to. I warn you, sir, it will be unwise for you
+to remain longer than till the evening coach."
+
+Perfectly courteous were David's tones, keen command was in his eye and
+determination in every line of his face. Harry could not recover himself
+to reply, could not master his frenzy of anger and humiliation to face the
+righteous look of his accuser. Before he realized it, David was gone.
+
+He stood by the window and watched him go down the street with rapid, firm
+tread and upright bearing. Every line in that erect form spoke of
+determination. The conviction grew within him that the last words of his
+visitor were true, and that it would be wise for him to leave town. He
+rebelled at the idea. He did not wish to leave, for business matters were
+in such shape, or rather in such chaos, that it would be extremely awkward
+for him to meet his employers and explain his desertion at that time.
+Moreover there were several homes in the town open to him whenever he
+chose, where were many attractions. It was a lazy pleasant life he had
+been leading here, fully trusted, and wholly disloyal to the trust,
+troubled by no uneasy overseers, not even his own conscience, dined and
+smiled upon with lovely languishing eyes. He did not care to go, even
+though he had decried the town as dull and monotonous.
+
+But, on the other hand, things had occurred--not the unfortunate little
+mistake of yesterday, of course, but others, more serious things--that he
+would hardly care to have brought to the light of day, especially through
+the keen sarcastic columns of David Spafford's paper. He had seen other
+sinners brought to a bloodless retribution in those columns by dauntless
+weapons of sarcasm and wit which in David Spafford's hands could be made
+to do valiant work. He did not care to be humiliated in that way. He could
+not brazen it out. He was convinced that the man meant what he said, and
+from what he knew of his influence he felt that he would leave no stone
+unturned till he had made the place too hot to hold him. Only Harry Temple
+himself knew how easy that would be to do, for no one else knew how many
+"mistakes" (?) Harry had made, and he, unfortunately for himself, did not
+know how many of them were not known, by any who could harm him.
+
+He stood a long time clinking some sixpences and shillings together in his
+pocket, and scowling down the street after David had disappeared from
+sight.
+
+"Blame that little pink-cheeked, baby-eyed fool!" he said at last, turning
+on his heel with a sigh. "I might have known she was too goody-goody. Such
+people ought to die young before they grow up to make fools of other
+people. Bah! Think of a wife like that with no spirit of her own. A baby!
+Merely a baby!"
+
+Nevertheless, in his secret heart, he knew he honored Marcia and felt a
+true shame that she had looked into his tarnished soul.
+
+Then he looked round about upon his papers that represented a whole week's
+hard work and maybe more before they were cleared away, and reflected how
+much easier after all it would be to get up a good excuse and go away,
+leaving all this to some poor drudge who should be sent here in his place.
+He looked around again and his eyes lighted upon his book. He remembered
+the exciting crisis in which he had left the heroine and down he sat to
+his story again. At least there was nothing demanding attention this
+moment. He need not decide what he would do. If he went there were few
+preparations to make. He would toss some things into his carpet-bag and
+pretend to have been summoned to see a sick and dying relative, a
+long-lost brother or something. It would be easy to invent one when the
+time came. Then he could leave directions for the rest of his things to be
+packed if he did not return, and get rid of the trouble of it all. As for
+the letters, if he was going what use to bother with them? Let them wait
+till his successor should come. It mattered little to him whether his
+employers suffered for his negligence or not so long as he finished his
+story. Besides, it would not do to let that cad think he had frightened
+him. He would pretend he was not going, at least during his hours of
+grace. So he picked up his book and went on reading.
+
+At noon he sauntered back to his boarding house as usual for his dinner,
+having professed an unusually busy morning to those who came in to the
+office on business and made appointments with them for the next day. This
+had brought him much satisfaction as the morning wore away and he was left
+free to his book, and so before dinner he had come to within a very few
+pages of the end.
+
+After a leisurely dinner he sauntered back to the office again, rejoicing
+in the fact that circumstances had so arranged themselves that he had
+passed David Spafford in front of the newspaper office and given him a
+most elaborate and friendly bow in the presence of four or five
+bystanders. David's look in return had meant volumes, and decided Harry
+Temple to do as he had been ordered, not, of course, because he had been
+ordered to do so, but because it would be an easier thing to do. In fact
+he made up his mind that he was weary of this part of the country. He went
+back to his book.
+
+About the middle of the afternoon he finished the last pages. He rose up
+with alacrity then and began to think what he should do. He glanced around
+the room, sought out a few papers, took some daguerreotypes of girls from
+a drawer of his desk, gave a farewell glance around the dismal little room
+that had seen so much shirking for the past few months, and then went out
+and locked the door.
+
+He paused at the corner. Which way should he go? He did not care to go
+back to the office, for his book was done, and he scarcely needed to go to
+his room at his boarding place yet either, for the afternoon was but half
+over and he wished his departure to appear to be entirely unpremeditated.
+A daring thought came into his head. He would walk past David Spafford's
+house. He would let Marcia see him if possible. He would show them that he
+was not afraid in the least. He even meditated going in and explaining to
+Marcia that she had made a great mistake, that he had been merely admiring
+her, and that there was no harm in anything he had said or done yesterday,
+that he was exceedingly grieved and mortified that she should have
+mistaken his meaning for an insult, and so on and so on. He knew well how
+to make such honeyed talk when he chose, but the audacity of the thing was
+a trifle too much for even his bold nature, so he satisfied himself by
+strolling in a leisurely manner by the house.
+
+When he was directly opposite to it he raised his eyes casually and bowed
+and smiled with his most graceful air. True, he did not see any one, for
+Marcia had caught sight of him as she was coming out upon the stoop and
+had fled into her own room with the door buttoned, she was watching unseen
+from behind the folds of her curtain, but he made the bow as complete as
+though a whole family had been greeting him from the windows. Marcia, poor
+child, thought he must see her, and she felt frozen to the spot, and
+stared wildly through the little fold of her curtain with trembling hands
+and weak knees till he was passed. Well pleased at himself the young man
+walked on, knowing that at least three prominent citizens had seen him bow
+and smile, and that they would be witnesses, against anything David might
+say to the contrary, that he was on friendly terms with Mrs. Spafford.
+
+Hannah Heath was sitting on the front stoop with her knitting. She often
+sat there dressed daintily of an afternoon. Her hands were white and
+looked well against the blue yarn she was knitting. Besides there was
+something domestic and sentimental in a stocking. It gave a cosy, homey,
+air to a woman, Hannah considered. So she sat and knitted and smiled at
+whomsoever passed by, luring many in to sit and talk with her, so that the
+stockings never grew rapidly, but always kept at about the same stage. If
+it had been Miranda, Grandmother Heath would have made some sharp remarks
+about the length of time it took to finish that blue stocking, but as it
+was Hannah it was all right.
+
+Hannah sat upon the stoop and knitted as Harry Temple came by. Now, Hannah
+was not so great a favorite with Harry as Harry was with Hannah. She was
+of the kind who was conquered too easily, and he did not consider it worth
+his while to waste time upon her simperings usually. But this afternoon
+was different. He had nowhere to go for a little while, and Hannah's
+appearance on the stoop was opportune and gave him an idea. He would
+lounge there with her. Perchance fortune would favor him again and David
+Spafford would pass by and see him. There would be one more opportunity to
+stare insolently at him and defy him, before he bent his neck to obey.
+David had given him the day in which to do what he would, and he would
+make no move until the time was over and the coach he had named departed,
+but he knew that then he would bring down retribution. In just what form
+that retribution would come he was not quite certain, but he knew it would
+be severe.
+
+So when Hannah smiled upon him, Harry Temple stepped daintily across the
+mud in the road, and came and sat down beside her. He toyed with her
+knitting, caught one of her plump white hands, the one on the side away
+from the street, and held it, while Hannah pretended not to notice, and
+drooped her long eyelashes in a telling way. Hannah knew how. She had been
+at it a good many years.
+
+So he sat, toward five o'clock, when David came by, and bowed gravely to
+Hannah, but seemed not to see Harry. Harry let his eyes follow the tall
+figure in an insolent stare.
+
+"What a dough-faced cad that man is!" he said lazily, "no wonder his
+little pink-cheeked wife seeks other society. Handsome baby, though, isn't
+she?"
+
+Hannah pricked up her ears. Her loss of David was too recent not to cause
+her extreme jealousy of his pretty young wife. Already she fairly hated
+her. Her upbringing in the atmosphere of Grandmother Heath's sarcastic,
+ill-natured gossip had prepared her to be quick to see meaning in any
+insinuation.
+
+She looked at him keenly, archly for a moment, then replied with drooping
+gaze and coquettish manner:
+
+"You should not blame any one for enjoying your company."
+
+Hannah stole sly glances to see how he took this, but Harry was an old
+hand and proof against such scrutiny. He only shrugged his shoulder
+carelessly, as though he dropped all blame like a garment that he had no
+need for.
+
+"And what's the matter with David?" asked Hannah, watching David as he
+mounted his own steps, and thinking how often she had watched that tall
+form go down the street, and thought of him as destined to belong to her.
+The mortification that he had chosen some one else was not yet forgotten.
+It amounted almost to a desire for revenge.
+
+Harry lingered longer than he intended. Hannah begged him to remain to
+supper, but he declined, and when she pressed him to do so he looked
+troubled and said he was expecting a letter and must hurry back to see if
+it came in the afternoon coach. He told her that a dear friend, a beloved
+cousin, was lying very ill, and he might be summoned at any moment to his
+bedside, and Hannah said some comforting little things in a caressing
+voice, and hoped he would find the letter saying the cousin was better.
+Then he hurried away.
+
+It was easy at his boarding house to say he had been called away, and he
+rushed up to his room and threw some necessaries into his carpet-bag,
+scattering things around the room and helping out the impression that he
+was called away in a great hurry. When he was ready he looked at his
+watch. It was growing late. The evening coach left in half an hour. He
+knew its route well. It started at the village inn, and went down the old
+turnpike, stopping here and there to pick up passengers. There was always
+a convocation when it started. Perhaps David Spafford would be there and
+witness his obedience to the command given him. He set his lips and made
+up his mind to escape that at least. He would cheat his adversary of that
+satisfaction.
+
+It would involve a sacrifice. He would have to go without his supper, and
+he could smell the frying bacon coming up the stairs. But it would help
+the illusion and he could perhaps get something on the way when the coach
+stopped to change horses.
+
+He rushed downstairs and told his landlady that he must start at once, as
+he must see a man before the coach went, and she, poor lady, had no chance
+to suggest that he leave her a little deposit on the sum of his board
+which he already owed her. There was perhaps some method in his hurry for
+that reason also. It always bothered him to pay his bills, he had so many
+other ways of spending his money.
+
+So he hurried away and caught a ride in a farm wagon going toward the
+Cross Roads. When it turned off he walked a little way until another wagon
+came along; finally crossed several fields at a breathless pace and caught
+the coach just as it was leaving the Cross Roads, which was the last
+stopping place anywhere near the village. He climbed up beside the driver,
+still in a breathless condition, and detailed to him how he had received
+word, just before the coach started, by a messenger who came
+across-country on horseback, that his cousin was dying.
+
+After he had answered the driver's minutest questions, he sat back and
+reflected upon his course with satisfaction. He was off, and he had not
+been seen nor questioned by a single citizen, and by to-morrow night his
+story as he had told it to the driver would be fully known and circulated
+through the place he had just left. The stage driver was one of the best
+means of advertisement. It was well to give him full particulars.
+
+The driver after he had satisfied his curiosity about the young man by his
+side, and his reasons for leaving town so hastily, began to wax eloquent
+upon the one theme which now occupied his spare moments and his fluent
+tongue, the subject of a projected railroad. Whether some of the
+sentiments he uttered were his own, or whether he had but borrowed from
+others, they were at least uttered with force and apparent conviction, and
+many a traveller sat and listened as they were retailed and viewed the
+subject from the standpoint of the loud-mouthed coachman.
+
+A little later Tony Weller, called by some one "the best beloved of all
+coachmen," uttered much the same sentiments in the following words:
+
+"I consider that the railroad is unconstitutional and an invader o'
+privileges. As to the comfort, as an old coachman I may say it,--vere's the
+comfort o' sittin' in a harm-chair a lookin' at brick walls, and heaps o'
+mud, never comin' to a public 'ouse, never seein' a glass o' ale, never
+goin' through a pike, never meetin' a change o' no kind (hosses or
+otherwise), but always comin' to a place, ven you comes to vun at all, the
+werry picter o' the last.
+
+"As to the honor an' dignity o' travellin' vere can that be without a
+coachman, and vat's the rail, to sich coachmen as is sometimes forced to
+go by it, but an outrage and an hinsult? As to the ingen, a nasty,
+wheezin', gaspin', puffin', bustin' monster always out o' breath, with a
+shiny green and gold back like an onpleasant beetle; as to the ingen as is
+always a pourin' out red 'ot coals at night an' black smoke in the day,
+the sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is ven there's somethin' in
+the vay, it sets up that 'ere frightful scream vich seems to say, 'Now
+'ere's two 'undred an' forty passengers in the werry greatest extremity o'
+danger, an' 'ere's their two 'undred an' forty screams in vun!'"
+
+But such sentiments as these troubled Harry Temple not one whit. He cared
+not whether the present century had a railroad or whether it travelled by
+foot. He would not lift a white finger to help it along or hinder. As the
+talk went on he was considering how and where he might get his supper.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The weather turned suddenly cold and raw that Fall, and almost in one day,
+the trees that had been green, or yellowing in the sunshine, put on their
+autumn garments of defeat, flaunted them for a brief hour, and dropped
+them early in despair. The pleasant woods, to which Marcia had fled in her
+dismay, became a mass of finely penciled branches against a wintry sky,
+save for the one group of tall pines that hung out heavy above the rest,
+and seemed to defy even snowy blasts.
+
+Marcia could see those pines from her kitchen window, and sometimes as she
+worked, if her heart was heavy, she would look out and away to them, and
+think of the day she laid her head down beneath them to sob out her
+trouble, and awoke to find comfort. Somehow the memory of that little talk
+that she and David had then grew into vast proportions in her mind, and
+she loved to cherish it.
+
+There had come letters from home. Her stepmother had written, a stiff, not
+unloving letter, full of injunctions to be sure to remember this, and not
+do that, and on no account to let any relative or neighbor persuade her
+out of the ways in which she had been brought up. She was attempting to do
+as many mothers do, when they see the faults in the child they have
+brought up, try to bring them up over again. At some of the sentences a
+wild homesickness took possession of her. Some little homely phrase about
+one of the servants, or the mention of a pet hen or cow, would bring the
+longing tears to her eyes, and she would feel that she must throw away
+this new life and run back to the old one.
+
+School was begun at home. Mary Ann and Hanford would be taking the long
+walk back and forth together twice a day to the old school-house. She half
+envied them their happy, care-free life. She liked to think of the shy
+courting that she had often seen between scholars in the upper classes.
+Her imagination pleased itself sometimes when she was going to sleep,
+trying to picture out the school goings and home comings, and their sober
+talk. Not that she ever looked back to Hanford Weston with regret, not
+she. She knew always that he was not for her, and perhaps, even so early
+as that in her new life, if the choice had been given her whether she
+would go back to her girlhood again and be as she was before Kate had run
+away, or whether she would choose to stay here in the new life with David,
+it is likely she would have chosen to stay.
+
+There were occasional letters from Squire Schuyler. He wrote of politics,
+and sent many messages to his son-in-law which Marcia handed over to David
+at the tea table to read, and which always seemed to soften David and
+bring a sweet sadness into his eyes. He loved and respected his
+father-in-law. It was as if he were bound to him by the love of some one
+who had died. Marcia thought of that every time she handed David a letter,
+and sat and watched him read it.
+
+Sometimes little Harriet or the boys printed out a few words about the
+family cat, or the neighbors' children, and Marcia laughed and cried over
+the poor little attempts at letters and longed to have the eager childish
+faces of the writers to kiss.
+
+But in all of them there was never a mention of the bright, beautiful,
+selfish girl around whom the old home life used to centre and who seemed
+now, judging from the home letters, to be worse than dead to them all. But
+since the afternoon upon the hill a new and pleasant intercourse had
+sprung up between David and Marcia. True it was confined mainly to
+discussions of the new railroad, the possibilities of its success, and the
+construction of engines, tracks, etc. David was constantly writing up the
+subject for his paper, and he fell into the habit of reading his articles
+aloud to Marcia when they were finished. She would listen with breathless
+admiration, sometimes combating a point ably, with the old vim she had
+used in her discussion over the newspaper with her father, but mainly
+agreeing with every word he wrote, and always eager to understand it down
+to the minutest detail.
+
+He always seemed pleased at her praise, and wrote on while she put away
+the tea-things with a contented expression as though he had passed a high
+critic, and need not fear any other. Once he looked up with a quizzical
+expression and made a jocose remark about "our article," taking her into a
+sort of partnership with him in it, which set her heart to beating
+happily, until it seemed as if she were really in some part at least
+growing into his life.
+
+But after all their companionship was a shy, distant one, more like that
+of a brother and sister who had been separated all their lives and were
+just beginning to get acquainted, and ever there was a settled sadness
+about the lines of David's mouth and eyes. They sat around one table now,
+the evenings when they were at home, for there were still occasional
+tea-drinkings at their friends' houses; and there was one night a week
+held religiously for a formal supper with the aunts, which David kindly
+acquiesced in--more for the sake of his Aunt Clarinda than the
+others,--whenever he was not detained by actual business. Then, too, there
+was the weekly prayer meeting held at "early candle light" in the dim old
+shadowed church. They always walked down the twilighted streets together,
+and it seemed to Marcia there was a sweet solemnity about that walk. They
+never said much to each other on the way. David seemed preoccupied with
+holy thoughts, and Marcia walked softly beside him as if he had been the
+minister, looking at him proudly and reverently now and then. David was
+often called upon to pray in meeting and Marcia loved to listen to his
+words. He seemed to be more intimate with God than the others, who were
+mostly old men and prayed with long, rolling, solemn sentences that put
+the whole community down into the dust and ashes before their Creator.
+
+Marcia rather enjoyed the hour spent in the sombreness of the church, with
+the flickering candle light making grotesque forms of shadows on the wall
+and among the tall pews. The old minister reminded her of the one she had
+left at home, though he was more learned and scholarly, and when he had
+read the Scripture passages he would take his spectacles off and lay them
+across the great Bible where the candle light played at glances with the
+steel bows, and say: "Let us pray!" Then would come that soft stir and
+hush as the people took the attitude of prayer. Marcia sometimes joined in
+the prayer in her heart, uttering shy little petitions that were vague and
+indefinite, and had to do mostly with the days when she was troubled and
+homesick, and felt that David belonged wholly to Kate. Always her clear
+voice joined in the slow hymns that quavered out now and again, lined out
+to the worshippers.
+
+Marcia and David went out from that meeting down the street to their home
+with the hush upon them that must have been upon the Israelites of old
+after they had been to the solemn congregation.
+
+But once David had come in earlier than usual and had caught Marcia
+reading the Scottish Chiefs, and while she started guiltily to be found
+thus employed he smiled indulgently. After supper he said: "Get your book,
+child, and sit down. I have some writing to do, and after it is done I
+will read it to you." So after that, more and more often, it was a book
+that Marcia held in her hands in the long evenings when they sat together,
+instead of some useful employment, and so her education progressed. Thus
+she read Epictetus, Rasselas, The Deserted Village, The Vicar of
+Wakefield, Paradise Lost, the Mysteries of the Human Heart, Marshall's
+Life of Columbus, The Spy, The Pioneers, and The Last of the Mohicans.
+
+She had been asked to sing in the village choir. David sang a sweet high
+tenor there, and Marcia's voice was clear and strong as a blackbird's,
+with the plaintive sweetness of the wood-robin's.
+
+Hannah Heath was in the choir also, and jealously watched her every move,
+but of this Marcia was unaware until informed of it by Miranda. With her
+inherited sweetness of nature she scarcely credited it, until one Sunday,
+a few weeks after the departure of Harry Temple, Hannah leaned forward
+from her seat among the altos and whispered quite distinctly, so that
+those around could hear--it was just before the service--"I've just had a
+letter from your friend Mr. Temple. I thought you might like to know that
+his cousin got well and he has gone back to New York. He won't be
+returning here this year. On some accounts he thought it was better not."
+
+It was all said pointedly, with double emphasis upon the "your friend,"
+and "some accounts." Marcia felt her cheeks glow, much to her vexation,
+and tried to control her whisper to seem kindly as she answered
+indifferently enough.
+
+"Oh, indeed! But you must have made a mistake. Mr. Temple is a very slight
+acquaintance of mine. I have met him only a few times, and I know nothing
+about his cousin. I was not aware even that he had gone away."
+
+Hannah raised her speaking eyebrows and replied, quite loud now, for the
+choir leader had stood up already with his tuning-fork in hand, and one
+could hear it faintly twang:
+
+"Indeed!"--using Marcia's own word--and quite coldly, "I should have thought
+differently from what Harry himself told me," and there was that in her
+tone which deepened the color in Marcia's cheeks and caused it to stay
+there during the entire morning service as she sat puzzling over what
+Hannah could have meant. It rankled in her mind during the whole day. She
+longed to ask David about it, but could not get up the courage.
+
+She could not bear to revive the memory of what seemed to be her shame. It
+was at the minister's donation party that Hannah planted another thorn in
+her heart,--Hannah, in a green plaid silk with delicate undersleeves of
+lace, and a tiny black velvet jacket.
+
+She selected a time when Lemuel was near, and when Aunt Amelia and Aunt
+Hortense, who believed that all the young men in town were hovering about
+David's wife, sat one on either side of Marcia, as if to guard her for
+their beloved nephew--who was discussing politics with Mr. Heath--and who
+never seemed to notice, so blind he was in his trust of her.
+
+So Hannah paused and posed before the three ladies, and with Lemuel
+smiling just at her elbow, began in her affected way:
+
+"I've had another letter from New York, from your friend Mr. Temple," she
+said it with the slightest possible glance over her shoulder to get the
+effect of her words upon the faithful Lemuel, "and he tells me he has met
+a sister of yours. By the way, she told him that David used to be very
+fond of her before she was married. I suppose she'll be coming to visit
+you now she's so near as New York."
+
+Two pairs of suspicious steely eyes flew like stinging insects to gaze
+upon her, one on either side, and Marcia's heart stood still for just one
+instant, but she felt that here was her trying time, and if she would help
+David and do the work for which she had become his wife, she must protect
+him now from any suspicions or disagreeable tongues. By very force of will
+she controlled the trembling of her lips.
+
+"My sister will not likely visit us this winter, I think," she replied as
+coolly as if she had had a letter to that effect that morning, and then
+she deliberately looked at Lemuel Skinner and asked if he had heard of the
+offer of prizes of four thousand dollars in cash that the Baltimore and
+Ohio railroad had just made for the most approved engine delivered for
+trial before June first, 1831, not to exceed three and a half tons in
+weight and capable of drawing, day by day, fifteen tons inclusive of
+weight of wagons, fifteen miles per hour. Lemuel looked at her blankly and
+said he had not heard of it. He was engaged in thinking over what Hannah
+had said about a letter from Harry Temple. He cared nothing about
+railroads.
+
+"The second prize is thirty-five hundred dollars," stated Marcia eagerly,
+as though it were of the utmost importance to her.
+
+"Are you thinking of trying for one of the prizes?" sneered Hannah,
+piercing her with her eyes, and now indeed the ready color flowed into
+Marcia's face. Her ruse had been detected.
+
+"If I were a man and understood machinery I believe I would. What a grand
+thing it would be to be able to invent a thing like an engine that would
+be of so much use to the world," she answered bravely.
+
+"They are most dangerous machines," said Aunt Amelia disapprovingly. "No
+right-minded Christian who wishes to live out the life his Creator has
+given him would ever ride behind one. I have heard that boilers always
+explode."
+
+"They are most unnecessary!" said Aunt Hortense severely, as if that
+settled the question for all time and all railroad corporations.
+
+But Marcia was glad for once of their disapproval and entered most
+heartily into a discussion of the pros and cons of engines and steam,
+quoting largely from David's last article for the paper on the subject,
+until Hannah and Lemuel moved slowly away. The discussion served to keep
+the aunts from inquiring further that evening about the sister in New
+York.
+
+Marcia begged them to go with her into the kitchen and see the store of
+good things that had been brought to the minister's house by his loving
+parishioners. Bags of flour and meal, pumpkins, corn in the ear, eggs, and
+nice little pats of butter. A great wooden tub of doughnuts, baskets of
+apples and quinces, pounds of sugar and tea, barrels of potatoes, whole
+hams, a side of pork, a quarter of beef, hanks of yarn, and strings of
+onions. It was a goodly array. Marcia felt that the minister must be
+beloved by his people. She watched him and his wife as they greeted their
+people, and wished she knew them better, and might come and see them
+sometimes, and perhaps eventually feel as much at home with them as with
+her own dear minister.
+
+She avoided Hannah during the remainder of the evening. When the evening
+was over and she went upstairs to get her wraps from the high four-poster
+bedstead, she had almost forgotten Hannah and her ill-natured, prying
+remarks. But Hannah had not forgotten her. She came forth from behind the
+bed curtains where she had been searching for a lost glove, and remarked
+that she should think Marcia would be lonely this first winter away from
+home and want her sister with her a while.
+
+But the presence of Hannah always seemed a mental stimulus to the spirit
+of Marcia.
+
+"Oh, I'm not in the least lonely," she laughed merrily. "I have a great
+many interesting things to do, and I love music and books."
+
+"Oh, yes, I forgot you are very fond of music. Harry Temple told me about
+it," said Hannah. Again there was that disagreeable hint of something more
+behind her words, that aggravated Marcia almost beyond control. For an
+instant a cutting reply was upon her lips and her eyes flashed fire; then
+it came to her how futile it would be, and she caught the words in time
+and walked swiftly down the stairs. David watching her come down saw the
+admiring glances of all who stood in the hall below, and took her under
+his protection with a measure of pride in her youth and beauty that he did
+not himself at all realize. All the way home he talked with her about the
+new theory of railroad construction, quite contented in her companionship,
+while she, poor child, much perturbed in spirit, wondered how he would
+feel if he knew what Hannah had said.
+
+David fell into a deep study with a book and his papers about him, after
+they had reached home. Marcia went up to her quiet, lonely chamber, put
+her face in the pillow and thought and wept and prayed. When at last she
+lay down to rest she did not know anything she could do but just to go on
+living day by day and helping David all she could. At most there was
+nothing to fear for herself, save a kind of shame that she had not been
+the first sister chosen, and she found to her surprise that that was
+growing to be deeper than she had supposed.
+
+She wished as she fell asleep that her girl-dreams might have been left to
+develop and bloom like other girls', and that she might have had a real
+lover,--like David in every way, yet of course not David because he was
+Kate's. But a real lover who would meet her as David had done that night
+when he thought she was Kate, and speak to her tenderly.
+
+One afternoon David, being wearied with an unusual round of taxing cares,
+came home to rest and study up some question in his library.
+
+Finding the front door fastened, and remembering that he had left his key
+in his other pocket, he came around to the back door, and much preoccupied
+with thought went through the kitchen and nearly to the hall before the
+unusual sounds of melody penetrated to his ears. He stopped for an instant
+amazed, forgetting the piano, then comprehending he wondered who was
+playing. Perhaps some visitor was in the parlor. He would listen and find
+out. He was weary and dusty with the soil of the office upon his hands and
+clothes. He did not care to meet a visitor, so under cover of the music he
+slipped into the door of his library across the hall from the parlor and
+dropped into his great arm-chair.
+
+Softly and tenderly stole the music through the open door, all about him,
+like the gentle dropping of some tender psalms or comforting chapter in
+the Bible to an aching heart. It touched his brow like a soft soothing
+hand, and seemed to know and recognize all the agonies his heart had been
+passing through, and all the weariness his body felt.
+
+He put his head back and let it float over him and rest him. Tinkling
+brooks and gentle zephyrs, waving of forest trees, and twitterings of
+birds, calm lazy clouds floating by, a sweetness in the atmosphere, bells
+far away, lowing herds, music of the angels high in heaven, the soothing
+strain from each extracted and brought to heal his broken heart. It fell
+like dew upon his spirit. Then, like a fresh breeze with zest and life
+borne on, came a new strain, grand and fine and high, calling him to
+better things. He did not know it was a strain of Handel's music grown
+immortal, but his spirit recognized the higher call, commanding him to
+follow, and straightway he felt strengthened to go onward in the course he
+had been pursuing. Old troubles seemed to grow less, anguish fell away
+from him. He took new lease of life. Nothing seemed impossible.
+
+Then she played by ear one or two of the old tunes they sang in church,
+touching the notes tenderly and almost making them speak the words. It
+seemed a benediction. Suddenly the playing ceased and Marcia remembered it
+was nearly supper time.
+
+He met her in the doorway with a new look in his eyes, a look of high
+purpose and exultation. He smiled upon her and said: "That was good,
+child. I did not know you could do it. You must give it to us often."
+Marcia felt a glow of pleasure in his kindliness, albeit she felt that the
+look in his eyes set him apart and above her, and made her feel the child
+she was. She hurried out to get the supper between pleasure and a nameless
+unrest. She was glad of this much, but she wanted more, a something to
+meet her soul and satisfy.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The world had not gone well with Mistress Kate Leavenworth, and she was
+ill-pleased. She had not succeeded in turning her father's heart toward
+herself as she had confidently expected to do when she ran away with her
+sea captain. She had written a gay letter home, taking for granted, in a
+pretty way, the forgiveness she did not think it necessary to ask, but
+there had come in return a brief harsh statement from her father that she
+was no longer his daughter and must cease from further communication with
+the family in any way; that she should never enter his house again and not
+a penny of his money should ever pass to her. He also informed her plainly
+that the trousseau made for her had been given to her sister who was now
+the wife of the man she had not seen fit to marry.
+
+Over this letter Mistress Kate at first stormed, then wept, and finally
+sat down to frame epistle after epistle in petulant, penitent language.
+These epistles following each other by daily mail coaches still brought
+nothing further from her irate parent, and my lady was at last forced to
+face the fact that she must bear the penalty of her own misdeeds; a lesson
+she should have learned much earlier in life.
+
+The young captain, who had always made it appear that he had plenty of
+money, had spent his salary, and most of his mother's fortune, which had
+been left in his keeping as administrator of his father's estate; so he
+had really very little to offer the spoiled and petted beauty, who simply
+would not settle down to the inevitable and accept the fate she had
+brought upon herself and others. Day after day she fretted and blamed her
+husband until he heartily wished her back from whence he had taken her;
+wished her back with her straitlaced lover from whom he had stolen her;
+wished her anywhere save where she was. Her brightness and beauty seemed
+all gone: she was a sulky child insisting upon the moon or nothing. She
+waited to go to New York and be established in a fine house with plenty of
+servants and a carriage and horses, and the young captain had not the
+wherewithal to furnish these accessories to an elegant and luxurious life.
+
+He had loved her so far as his shallow nature could love, and perhaps she
+had returned it in the beginning. He wanted to spend his furlough in quiet
+places where he might have a honeymoon of his ideal, bantering Kate's
+sparkling sentences, looking into her beautiful eyes, touching her rosy
+lips with his own as often as he chose. But Mistress Kate had lost her
+sparkle. She would not be kissed until she had gained her point, her
+lovely eyes were full of disfiguring tears and angry flashes, and her
+speech scintillated with cutting sarcasms, which were none the less hard
+to bear that they pressed home some disagreeable truths to the easy,
+careless spendthrift. The rose had lost its dew and was making its thorns
+felt.
+
+And so they quarreled through their honeymoon, and Captain Leavenworth was
+not sorry when a hasty and unexpected end came to his furlough and he was
+ordered off with his ship for an indefinite length of time.
+
+Even then Kate thought to get her will before he left, and held on her
+sullen ways and her angry, blameful talk until the last minute, so that he
+hurried away without even one good-bye kiss, and with her angry sentences
+sounding in his ears.
+
+True, he repented somewhat on board the ship and sent her back more money
+than she could reasonably have expected under the circumstances, but he
+sent it without one word of gentleness, and Kate's heart was hard toward
+her husband.
+
+Then with bitterness and anguish,--that was new and fairly astonishing that
+it had come to her who had always had her way,--she sat down to think of
+the man she had jilted. He would have been kind to her. He would have
+given her all she asked and more. He would even have moved his business to
+New York to please her, she felt sure. Why had she been so foolish! And
+then, like many another sinner who is made at last to see the error of his
+ways, she cast hard thoughts at a Fate which had allowed her to make so
+great a mistake, and pitied her poor little self out of all recognition of
+the character she had formed.
+
+But she took her money and went to New York, for she felt that there only
+could she be at all happy, and have some little taste of the delights of
+true living.
+
+She took up her abode with an ancient relative of her own mother's, who
+lived in a quiet respectable part of the city, and who was glad to piece
+out her small annuity with the modest sum that Kate agreed to pay for her
+board.
+
+It was not long before Mistress Kate, with her beautiful face, and the
+pretty clothes which she took care to provide at once for herself,
+spending lavishly out of the diminishing sum her husband had sent her, and
+thinking not of the morrow, nor the day when the board bills would be due,
+became well known. The musty little parlor of the ancient relative was
+daily filled with visitors, and every evening Kate held court, with the
+old aunt nodding in her chair by the fireside.
+
+Neither did the poor old lady have a very easy time of it, in spite of the
+promise of weekly pay. Kate laughed at the old furniture and the old ways.
+She demanded new things, and got them, too, until the old lady saw little
+hope of any help from the board money when Kate was constantly saying: "I
+saw this in a shop down town, auntie, and as I knew you needed it I just
+bought it. My board this week will just pay for it." As always, Kate
+ruled. The little parlor took on an air of brightness, and Kate became
+popular. A few women of fashion took her up, and Kate launched herself
+upon a gay life, her one object to have as good a time as possible,
+regardless of what her husband or any one else might think.
+
+When Kate had been in New York about two months it happened one day that
+she went out to drive with one of her new acquaintances, a young married
+woman of about her own age, who had been given all in a worldly way that
+had been denied to Kate.
+
+They made some calls in Brooklyn, and returned on the ferry-boat, carriage
+and all, just as the sun was setting.
+
+The view was marvellous. The water a flood of pink and green and gold; the
+sails of the vessels along the shore lit up resplendently; the buildings
+of the city beyond sent back occasional flashes of reflected light from
+window glass or church spire. It was a picture worth looking upon, and
+Kate's companion was absorbed in it.
+
+Not so Kate. She loved display above all things. She sat up statelily,
+aware that she looked well in her new frock with the fine lace collar she
+had extravagantly purchased the day before, and her leghorn bonnet with
+its real ostrich feather, which was becoming in the extreme. She enjoyed
+sitting back of the colored coachman, her elegant friend by her side, and
+being admired by the two ladies and the little girl who sat in the ladies'
+cabin and occasionally peeped curiously at her from the window. She drew
+herself up haughtily and let her soul "delight itself in fatness"--borrowed
+fatness, perhaps, but still, the long desired. She told herself she had a
+right to it, for was she not a Schuyler? That name was respected
+everywhere.
+
+She bore a grudge at a man and woman who stood by the railing absorbed in
+watching the sunset haze that lay over the river showing the white sails
+in gleams like flashes of white birds here and there.
+
+A young man well set up, and fashionably attired, sauntered up to the
+carriage. He spoke to Kate's friend, and was introduced. Kate felt in her
+heart it was because of her presence there he came. His bold black eyes
+told her as much and she was flattered.
+
+They fell to talking.
+
+"You say you spent the summer near Albany, Mr. Temple," said Kate
+presently, "I wonder if you happen to know any of my friends. Did you meet
+a Mr. Spafford? David Spafford?"
+
+"Of course I did, knew him well," said the young man with guarded tone.
+But a quick flash of dislike, and perhaps fear had crossed his face at the
+name. Kate was keen. She analyzed that look. She parted her charming red
+lips and showed her sharp little teeth like the treacherous pearls in a
+white kitten's pink mouth.
+
+"He was once a lover of mine," said Kate carelessly, wrinkling her piquant
+little nose as if the idea were comical, and laughing out a sweet ripple
+of mirth that would have cut David to the heart.
+
+"Indeed!" said the ever ready Harry, "and I do not wonder. Is not every
+one that at once they see you, Madam Leavenworth? How kind of your husband
+to stay away at sea for so long a time and give us other poor fellows a
+chance to say pleasant things."
+
+Then Kate pouted her pretty lips in a way she had and tapped the delighted
+Harry with her carriage parasol across the fingers of his hand that had
+taken familiar hold of the carriage beside her arm.
+
+"Oh, you naughty man!" she exclaimed prettily. "How dare you! Yes, David
+Spafford and I were quite good friends. I almost gave in at one time and
+became Mrs. Spafford, but he was too good for me!"
+
+She uttered this truth in a mocking tone, and Harry saw her lead and
+hastened to follow. Here was a possible chance for revenge. He was ready
+for any. He studied the lady before him keenly. Of what did that face
+remind him? Had he ever seen her before?
+
+"I should judge him a little straitlaced for your merry ways," he
+responded gallantly, "but he's like all the rest, fickle, you know. He's
+married. Have you heard?"
+
+Kate's face darkened with something hard and cruel, but her voice was soft
+as a cat's purr:
+
+"Yes," she sighed, "I know. He married my sister. Poor child! I am sorry
+for her. I think he did it out of revenge, and she was too young to know
+her own mind. But they, poor things, will have to bear the consequences of
+what they have done. Isn't it a pity that that has to be, Mr. Temple? It
+is dreadful to have the innocent suffer. I have been greatly anxious about
+my sister." She lifted her large eyes swimming in tears, and he did not
+perceive the insincerity in her purring voice just then. He was thanking
+his lucky stars that he had been saved from any remarks about young Mrs.
+Spafford, whom her sister seemed to love so deeply. It had been on the tip
+of his tongue to suggest that she might be able to lead her husband a gay
+little dance if she chose. How lucky he had not spoken! He tried to say
+some pleasant comforting nothings, and found it delightful to see her face
+clear into smiles and her blue eyes look into his so confidingly. By the
+time the boat touched the New York side the two felt well acquainted, and
+Harry Temple had promised to call soon, which promise he lost no time in
+keeping.
+
+Kate's heart had grown bitter against the young sister who had dared to
+take her place, and against the lover who had so easily solaced himself.
+She could not understand it.
+
+She resolved to learn all that Mr. Temple knew about David, and to find
+out if possible whether he were happy. It was Kate's nature not to be able
+to give up anything even though she did not want it. She desired the
+life-long devotion of every man who came near her, and have it she would
+or punish him.
+
+Harry Temple, meanwhile, was reflecting upon his chance meeting that
+afternoon and wondering if in some way he might not yet have revenge upon
+the man who had humbled him. Possibly this woman could help him.
+
+After some thought he sat down and penned a letter to Hannah Heath,
+begemming it here and there with devoted sentences which caused that young
+woman's eyes to sparkle and a smile of anticipation to wreathe her lips.
+When she heard of the handsome sister in New York, and of her former
+relations with David Spafford, her eyes narrowed speculatively, and her
+fair brow drew into puzzled frowns. Harry Temple had drawn a word picture
+of Mrs. Leavenworth. Harry should have been a novelist. If he had not been
+too lazy he would have been a success. Gold hair! Ah! Hannah had heard of
+gold hair before, and in connection with David's promised wife. Here was a
+mystery and Hannah resolved to look into it. It would at least be
+interesting to note the effect of her knowledge upon the young bride next
+door. She would try it.
+
+Meantime, the acquaintance of Harry Temple and Kate Leavenworth had
+progressed rapidly. The second sight of the lady proved more interesting
+than the first, for now her beautiful gold hair added to the charm of her
+handsome face. Harry ever delighted in beauty of whatever type, and a
+blonde was more fascinating to him than a brunette. Kate had dressed
+herself bewitchingly, and her manner was charming. She knew how to assume
+pretty child-like airs, but she was not afraid to look him boldly in the
+eyes, and the light in her own seemed to challenge him. Here was a
+delightful new study. A woman fresh from the country, having all the charm
+of innocence, almost as child-like as her sister, yet with none of her
+prudishness. Kate's eyes held latent wickedness in them, or he was much
+mistaken. She did not droop her lids and blush when he looked boldly and
+admiringly into her face, but stared him back, smilingly, merrily,
+daringly, as though she would go quite as far as he would. Moreover, with
+her he was sure he need feel none of the compunctions he might have felt
+with her younger sister who was so obviously innocent, for whether Kate's
+boldness was from lack of knowledge, or from lack of innocence, she was
+quite able to protect herself, that was plain.
+
+So Harry settled into his chair with a smile of pleasant anticipation upon
+his face. He not only had the prospect before him of a possible ally in
+revenge against David Spafford, but he had the promise of a most unusually
+delightful flirtation with a woman who was worthy of his best efforts in
+that line.
+
+Almost at once it began, with pleasant banter, adorned with personal
+compliments.
+
+"Lovelier than I thought, my lady," said Harry, bowing low over the hand
+she gave him, in a courtly manner he had acquired, perhaps from the
+old-world novels he had read, and he brushed her pink finger tips with his
+lips in a way that signified he was her abject slave.
+
+Kate blushed and smiled, greatly pleased, for though she had held her own
+little court in the village where she was brought up, and queened it over
+the young men who had flocked about her willingly, she had not been used
+to the fulsome flattery that breathed from Harry Temple in every word and
+glance.
+
+He looked at her keenly as he stood back a moment, to see if she were in
+any wise offended with his salutation, and saw as he expected that she was
+pleased and flattered. Her cheeks had grown rosier, and her eyes sparkled
+with pleasure as she responded with a pretty, gracious speech.
+
+Then they sat down and faced one another. A good woman would have called
+his look impudent--insulting. Kate returned it with a look that did not
+shrink, nor waver, but fearlessly, recklessly accepted the challenge.
+Playing with fire, were these two, and with no care for the fearful
+results which might follow. Both knew it was dangerous, and liked it the
+better for that. There was a long silence. The game was opening on a wider
+scale than either had ever played before.
+
+"Do you believe in affinities?" asked the devil, through the man's voice.
+
+The woman colored and showed she understood his deeper meaning. Her eyes
+drooped for just the shade of an instant, and then she looked up and faced
+him saucily, provokingly:
+
+"Why?"
+
+He admired her with his gaze, and waited, lazily watching the color play
+in her cheeks.
+
+"Do you need to ask why?" he said at last, looking at her significantly.
+"I knew that you were my affinity the moment I laid my eyes upon you, and
+I hoped you felt the same. But perhaps I was mistaken." He searched her
+face.
+
+She kept her eyes upon his, returning their full gaze, as if to hold it
+from going too deep into her soul.
+
+"I did not say you were mistaken, did I?" said the rosy lips coquettishly,
+and Kate drooped her long lashes till they fell in becoming sweeps over
+her burning cheeks.
+
+Something in the curve of cheek and chin, and sweep of dark lash over
+velvet skin, reminded him of her sister. It was so she had sat, though
+utterly unconscious, while he had been singing, when there had come over
+him that overwhelming desire to kiss her. If he should kiss this fair lady
+would she slap him in the face and run into the garden? He thought not.
+Still, she was brought up by the same father and mother in all likelihood,
+and it was well to go slow. He reached forward, drawing his chair a little
+nearer to her, and then boldly took one of her small unresisting hands,
+gently, that he might not frighten her, and smoothed it thoughtfully
+between his own. He held it in a close grasp and looked into her face
+again, she meanwhile watching her hand amusedly, as though it were
+something apart from herself, a sort of distant possession, for which she
+was in no wise responsible.
+
+"I feel that you belong to me," he said boldly looking into her eyes with
+a languishing gaze. "I have known it from the first moment."
+
+Kate let her hand lie in his as if she liked it, but she said:
+
+"And what makes you think that, most audacious sir? Did you not know that
+I am married?" Then she swept her gaze up provokingly at him again and
+smiled, showing her dainty, treacherous, little teeth. She was so
+bewitchingly pretty and tempting then that he had a mind to kiss her on
+the spot, but a thought came to him that he would rather lead her further
+first. He was succeeding well. She had no mind to be afraid. She did her
+part admirably.
+
+"That makes no difference," said he smiling. "That another man has secured
+you first, and has the right to provide for you, and be near you, is my
+misfortune of course, but it makes no difference, you are mine? By all the
+power of love you are mine. Can any other man keep my soul from yours, can
+he keep my eyes from looking into yours, or my thoughts from hovering over
+you, or--" he hesitated and looked at her keenly, while she furtively
+watched him, holding her breath and half inviting him--"or my lips from
+drinking life from yours?" He stooped quickly and pressed his lips upon
+hers.
+
+Kate gave a quick little gasp like a sob and drew back. The aunt nodding
+over her Bible in the next room had not heard,--she was very deaf,--but for
+an instant the young woman felt that all the shades of her worthy
+patriarchal ancestors were hurrying around and away from her in horror.
+She had come of too good Puritan stock not to know that she was treading
+in the path of unrighteousness. Nevertheless it was a broad path, and
+easy. It tempted her. It was exciting. It lured her with promise of
+satisfying some of her untamed longings and impulses.
+
+She did not look offended. She only drew back to get breath and consider.
+The wild beating of her heart, the tumult of her cheeks and eyes were all
+a part of a new emotion. Her vanity was excited, and she thrilled with a
+wild pleasure. As a duck will take to swimming so she took to the new
+game, with wonderful facility.
+
+"But I didn't say you might," she cried with a bewildering smile.
+
+"I beg your pardon, fair lady, may I have another?"
+
+His bold, bad face was near her own, so that she did not see the evil
+triumph that lurked there. She had come to the turning of another way in
+her life, and just here she might have drawn back if she would. Half she
+knew this, yet she toyed with the opportunity, and it was gone. The new
+way seemed so alluring.
+
+"You will first have to prove your right!" she said decidedly, with that
+pretty commanding air that had conquered so many times.
+
+And in like manner on they went through the evening, frittering the time
+away at playing with edged tools.
+
+A friendship so begun--if so unworthy an intimacy may be called by that
+sweet name--boded no good to either of the two, and that evening marked a
+decided turn for the worse in Kate Leavenworth's career.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XX
+
+
+David had found it necessary to take a journey which might keep him away
+for several weeks.
+
+He told Marcia in the evening when he came home from the office. He told
+her as he would have told his clerk. It meant nothing to him but an
+annoyance that he had to start out in the early winter, leave his business
+in other's hands for an indefinite period, and go among strangers. He did
+not see the whitening of Marcia's lips, nor the quick little movement of
+her hand to her heart. Even Marcia herself did not realize all that it
+meant to her. She felt as if a sudden shock had almost knocked her off her
+feet. This quiet life in the big house, with only David at intervals to
+watch and speak to occasionally, and no one to open her true heart to, had
+been lonely; and many a time when she was alone at night she had wept
+bitter tears upon her pillow,--why she did not quite know. But now when she
+knew that it was to cease, and David was going away from her for a long
+time, perhaps weeks, her heart suddenly tightened and she knew how sweet
+it had been growing. Almost the tears came to her eyes, but she made a
+quick errand to the hearth for the teapot, busying herself there till they
+were under control again. When she returned to her place at the table she
+was able to ask David some commonplace question about the journey which
+kept her true feeling quite hidden from him.
+
+He was to start the next evening if possible. It appeared that there was
+something important about railroading coming up in Congress. It was
+necessary that he should be present to hear the debate, and also that he
+should see and interview influential men. It meant much to the success of
+the great new enterprises that were just in their infancy that he should
+go and find out all about them and write them up as only he whose heart
+was in it could do. He was pleased to have been selected for this; he was
+lifted for the time above himself and his life troubles, and given to feel
+that he had a work in the world that was worth while, a high calling, a
+chance to give a push to the unrolling of the secret possibilities of the
+universe and help them on their way.
+
+Marcia understood it all, and was proud and glad for him, but her own
+heart which beat in such perfect sympathy with the work felt lonely and
+left out. If only she could have helped too!
+
+There was no time for David to take Marcia to her home to stay during his
+absence. He spoke of it regretfully just as he was about to leave, and
+asked if she would like him to get some one to escort her by coach to her
+father's house until he could come for her; but she held back the tears by
+main force and shook her head. She had canvassed that question in the
+still hours of the night. She had met in imagination the home village with
+its kindly and unkindly curiosity, she had seen their hands lifted in
+suspicion; heard their covert whispers as to why her husband did not come
+with her; why he had left her so soon after the honeymoon; why--a hundred
+things. She had even thought of Aunt Polly and her acrid tongue and made
+up her mind that whatever happened she did not want to go home to stay.
+
+The only other alternative was to go to the aunts. David expected it, and
+the aunts spoke of it as if nothing else were possible. Marcia would have
+preferred to remain alone in her own house, with her beloved piano, but
+David would not consent, and the aunts were scandalized at the suggestion.
+So to the aunts went Marcia, and they took her in with a hope in their
+hearts that she might get the same good from the visit that the sluggard
+in the Bible is bidden to find.
+
+"We must do our duty by her for David's sake," said Aunt Hortense, with
+pursed lips and capable, folded hands that seemed fairly to ache to get at
+the work of reconstructing the new niece.
+
+"Yes, it is our opportunity," said Aunt Amelia with a snap as though she
+thoroughly enjoyed the prospect. "Poor David!" and so they sat and laid
+out their plans for their sweet young victim, who all unknowingly was
+coming to one of those tests in her life whereby we are tried for greater
+things and made perfect in patience and sweetness.
+
+It began with the first breakfast--the night before she had been company,
+at supper--but when the morning came they felt she must be counted one of
+the family. They examined her thoroughly on what she had been taught with
+regard to housekeeping. They made her tell her recipes for pickling and
+preserving. They put her through a catechism of culinary lore, and always
+after her most animated account of the careful way in which she had been
+trained in this or that housewifely art she looked up with wistful eyes
+that longed to please, only to be met by the hard set lips and steely
+glances of the two mentors who regretted that she should not have been
+taught their way which was so much better.
+
+Aunt Hortense even went so far once as to suggest that Marcia write to her
+stepmother and tell her how much better it was to salt the water in which
+potatoes were to be boiled before putting them in, and was much offended
+by the clear girlish laugh that bubbled up involuntarily at the thought of
+teaching her stepmother anything about cooking.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, instantly sobering as she saw the grim look of the
+aunt, and felt frightened at what she had done. "I did not mean to laugh,
+indeed I did not; but it seemed so funny to think of my telling mother how
+to do anything."
+
+"People are never too old to learn," remarked Aunt Hortense with offended
+mien, "and one ought never to be too proud when there is a better way."
+
+"But mother thinks there is no better way I am sure. She says that it
+makes potatoes soggy to boil them in salt. All that grows below the ground
+should be salted after it is cooked and all that grows above the ground
+should be cooked in salted water, is her rule."
+
+"I am surprised that your stepmother should uphold any such superstitious
+ideas," said Aunt Amelia with a self-satisfied expression.
+
+"One should never be too proud to learn something better," Aunt Hortense
+said grimly, and Marcia retreated in dire consternation at the thought of
+what might follow if these three notable housekeeping gentlewomen should
+come together. Somehow she felt a wicked little triumph in the thought
+that it would be hard to down her stepmother.
+
+Marcia was given a few light duties ostensibly to "make her feel at home,"
+but in reality, she knew, because the aunts felt she needed their
+instruction. She was asked if she would like to wash the china and glass;
+and regularly after each meal a small wooden tub and a mop were brought in
+with hot water and soap, and she was expected to handle the costly
+heirlooms under the careful scrutiny of their worshipping owners, who
+evidently watched each process with strained nerves lest any bit of
+treasured pottery should be cracked or broken. It was a trying ordeal.
+
+The girl would have been no girl if she had not chafed under this
+treatment. To hold her temper steady and sweet under it was almost more
+than she could bear.
+
+There were long afternoons when it was decreed that they should knit.
+
+Marcia had been used to take long walks at home, over the smooth crust of
+the snow, going to her beloved woods, where she delighted to wander among
+the bare and creaking trees; fancying them whispering sadly to one another
+of the summer that was gone and the leaves they had borne now dead. But it
+would be a dreadful thing in the aunts' opinion for a woman, and
+especially a young one, to take a long walk in the woods alone, in winter
+too, and with no object whatever in view but a walk! What a waste of time!
+
+There were two places of refuge for Marcia during the weeks that followed.
+There was home. How sweet that word sounded to her! How she longed to go
+back there, with David coming home to his quiet meals three times a day,
+and with her own time to herself to do as she pleased. With housewifely
+zeal that was commendable in the eyes of the aunts, Marcia insisted upon
+going down to her own house every morning to see that all was right,
+guiltily knowing that in her heart she meant to hurry to her beloved books
+and piano. To be sure it was cold and cheerless in the empty house. She
+dared not make up fires and leave them, and she dared not stay too long
+lest the aunts would feel hurt at her absence, but she longed with an
+inexpressible longing to be back there by herself, away from that terrible
+supervision and able to live her own glad little life and think her own
+thoughts untrammeled by primness.
+
+Sometimes she would curl up in David's big arm-chair and have a good cry,
+after which she would take a book and read until the creeping chills down
+her spine warned her she must stop. Even then she would run up and down
+the hall or take a broom and sweep vigorously to warm herself and then go
+to the cold keys and play a sad little tune. All her tunes seemed sad like
+a wail while David was gone.
+
+The other place of refuge was Aunt Clarinda's room. Thither she would
+betake herself after supper, to the delight of the old lady. Then the
+other two occupants of the house were left to themselves and might unbend
+from their rigid surveillance for a little while. Marcia often wondered if
+they ever did unbend.
+
+There was a large padded rocking chair in Aunt Clarinda's room and Marcia
+would laughingly take the little old lady in her arms and place her
+comfortably in it, after a pleasant struggle on Miss Clarinda's part to
+put her guest into it. They had this same little play every evening, and
+it seemed to please the old lady mightily. Then when she was conquered she
+always sat meekly laughing, a fine pink color in her soft peachy cheek,
+the candle light from the high shelf making flickering sparkles in her old
+eyes that always seemed young; and she would say: "That's just as David
+used to do."
+
+Then Marcia drew up the little mahogany stool covered with the worsted dog
+which Aunt Clarinda had worked when she was ten years old, and snuggling
+down at the old lady's feet exclaimed delightedly: "Tell me about it!" and
+they settled down to solid comfort.
+
+There came a letter from David after he had been gone a little over a
+week. Marcia had not expected to hear from him. He had said nothing about
+writing, and their relations were scarcely such as to make it necessary.
+Letters were an expensive luxury in those days. But when the letter was
+handed to her, Marcia's heart went pounding against her breast, the color
+flew into her cheeks, and she sped away home on feet swift as the wings of
+a bird. The postmaster's daughter looked after her, and remarked to her
+father: "My, but don't she think a lot of him!"
+
+Straight to the cold, lonely house she flew, and sitting down in his big
+chair read it.
+
+It was a pleasant letter, beginning formally: "My dear Marcia," and asking
+after her health. It brought back a little of the unacquaintedness she had
+felt when he was at home, and which had been swept away in part by her
+knowledge of his childhood. But it went on quite happily telling all about
+his journey and describing minutely the places he had passed through and
+the people he had met on the way; detailing every little incident as only
+a born writer and observer could do, until she felt as if he were talking
+to her. He told her of the men whom he had met who were interested in the
+new project. He told of new plans and described minutely his visit to the
+foundry at West Point and the machinery he had seen. Marcia read it all
+breathlessly, in search of something, she knew not what, that was not
+there. When she had finished and found it not, there was a sense of
+aloofness, a sad little disappointment which welled up in her throat. She
+sat back to think about it. He was having a good time, and he was not
+lonely. He had no longing to be back in the house and everything running
+as before he had gone. He was out in the big glorious world having to do
+with progress, and coming in contact with men who were making history. Of
+course he did not dream how lonely she was here, and how she longed, if
+for nothing else, just to be back here alone and do as she pleased, and
+not to be watched over. If only she might steal Aunt Clarinda and bring
+her back to live here with her while David was away! But that was not to
+be thought of, of course. By and by she mustered courage to be glad of her
+letter, and to read it over once more.
+
+That night she read the letter to Aunt Clarinda and together they
+discussed the great inventions, and the changes that were coming to pass
+in the land. Aunt Clarinda was just a little beyond her depth in such a
+conversation, but Marcia did most of the talking, and the dear old lady
+made an excellent listener, with a pat here, and a "Dearie me! Now you
+don't say so!" there, and a "Bless the boy! What great things he does
+expect. And I hope he won't be disappointed."
+
+That letter lasted them for many a day until another came, this time from
+Washington, with many descriptions of public men and public doings, and a
+word picture of the place which made it appear much like any other place
+after all if it was the capitol of the country. And once there was a
+sentence which Marcia treasured. It was, "I wish you could be here and see
+everything. You would enjoy it I know."
+
+There came another letter later beginning, "My dear little girl." There
+was nothing else in it to make Marcia's heart throb, it was all about his
+work, but Marcia carried it many days in her bosom. It gave her a thrill
+of delight to think of those words at the beginning. Of course it meant no
+more than that he thought of her as a girl, his little sister that was to
+have been, but there was a kind of ownership in the words that was sweet
+to Marcia's lonely heart. It had come to her that she was always looking
+for something that would make her feel that she belonged to David.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+When David had been in New York about three weeks, he happened one day to
+pass the house where Kate Leavenworth was living.
+
+Kate was standing listlessly by the window looking into the street. She
+was cross and felt a great depression settling over her. The flirtation
+with Harry Temple had begun to pall upon her. She wanted new worlds to
+conquer. She was restless and feverish. There was not excitement enough in
+the life she was living. She would like to meet more people, senators and
+statesmen--and to have plenty of money to dress as became her beauty, and
+be admired publicly. She half wished for the return of her husband, and
+meditated making up with him for the sake of going to Washington to have a
+good time in society there. What was the use of running away with a naval
+officer if one could not have the benefit of it? She had been a fool. Here
+she was almost to the last penny, and so many things she wanted. No word
+had come from her husband since he sent her the money at sailing. She felt
+a bitter resentment toward him for urging her to marry him. If she had
+only gone on and married David she would be living a life of ease
+now--plenty of money--nothing to do but what she pleased and no anxiety
+whatever, for David would have done just what she wanted.
+
+Then suddenly she looked up and David passed before her!
+
+He was walking with a tall splendid-looking man, with whom he was engaged
+in most earnest conversation, and his look was grave and deeply absorbed.
+He did not know of Kate's presence in New York, and passed the house in
+utter unconsciousness of the eyes watching him.
+
+Kate's lips grew white, and her limbs seemed suddenly weak, but she
+strained her face against the window to watch the retreating figure of the
+man who had almost been her husband. How well she knew the familiar
+outline. How fine and handsome he appeared now! Why had she not thought so
+before? Were her eyes blind, or had she been under some strange
+enchantment? Why had she not known that her happiness lay in the way that
+had been marked out for her? Well, at least she knew it now.
+
+She sat all day by that window and watched. She professed to have no
+appetite when pressed to come to the table, though she permitted herself
+to languidly consume the bountiful tray of good things that was brought
+her, but her eyes were on the street. She was watching to see if David
+would pass that way again. But though she watched until the sun went down
+and dusk sifted through the streets, she saw no sign nor heard the sound
+of his footsteps. Then she hastened up to her room, which faced upon the
+street also, and there, wrapped in blankets she sat in the cold frosty
+air, waiting and listening. And while she watched she was thinking bitter
+feverish thoughts. She heard Harry Temple knock and knew that he was told
+that she was not feeling well and had retired early. She watched him pause
+on the stoop thoughtfully as if considering what to do with the time thus
+unexpectedly thrown upon his hands, then saw him saunter up the street
+unconcernedly, and she wondered idly where he would go, and what he would
+do.
+
+It grew late, even for New York. One by one the lights in the houses along
+the street went out, and all was quiet. She drew back from the window at
+last, weary with excitement and thinking, and lay down on the bed, but she
+could not sleep. The window was open and her ears were on the alert, and
+by and by there came the distant echo of feet ringing on the pavement.
+Some one was coming. She sprang up. She felt sure he was coming. Yes,
+there were two men. They were coming back together. She could hear their
+voices. She fancied she heard David's long before it was possible to
+distinguish any words. She leaned far out of her upper window till she
+could discern dim forms under the starlight, and then just as they were
+under the window she distinctly heard David say:
+
+"There is no doubt but we shall win. The right is on our side, and it is
+the march of progress. Some of the best men in Congress are with us, and
+now that we are to have your influence I do not feel afraid of the issue."
+
+They had passed by rapidly, like men who had been on a long day's jaunt of
+some kind and were hastening home to rest. There was little in the
+sentence that Kate could understand. She had no more idea whether the
+subject of their discourse was railroads or the last hay crop. The
+sentence meant to her but one thing. It showed that David companioned with
+the great men of the land, and his position would have given her a
+standing that would have been above the one she now occupied. Tears of
+defeat ran down her cheeks. She had made a bad mistake and she saw no way
+to rectify it. If her husband should die,--and it might be, for the sea was
+often treacherous--of course there were all sorts of possibilities,--but
+even then there was Marcia! She set her sharp little teeth into her red
+lips till the blood came. She could not get over her anger at Marcia. It
+would not have been so bad if David had remained her lone lorn lover,
+ready to fly to her if others failed. Her self-love was wounded sorely,
+and she, poor silly soul, mistook it for love of David. She began to fancy
+that after all she had loved him, and that Fate had somehow played her a
+mad trick and tied her to a husband she had not wanted.
+
+Then out of the watchings of the day and the fancies of the night, there
+grew a thought--and the thought widened into a plan. She thought of her
+intimacy with Harry and her new found power. Might she perhaps exercise it
+over others as well as Harry Temple? Might she possibly lead back this man
+who had once been her lover, to bow at her feet again and worship her? If
+that might be she could bear all the rest. She began to long with intense
+craving to see David grovel at her feet, to hear him plead for a kiss from
+her, and tell her once more how beautiful she was, and how she fulfilled
+all his soul's ideals. She sat by the open window yet with the icy air of
+the night blowing upon her, but her cheeks burned red in the darkness, and
+her eyes glowed like coals of fire from the tawny framing of her fallen
+hair. The blankets slipped away from her throat and still she heeded not
+the cold, but sat with hot clenched hands planning with the devil's own
+strategy her shameless scheme.
+
+By and by she lighted a candle and drew her writing materials toward her
+to write, but it was long she sat and thought before she finally wrote the
+hastily scrawled note, signed and sealed it, and blowing out her candle
+lay down to sleep.
+
+The letter was addressed to David, and it ran thus:
+
+
+    "DEAR DAVID:"
+
+    "I have just heard that you are in New York. I am in great
+    distress and do not know where to turn for help. For the sake of
+    what we have been to each other in the past will you come to me?
+
+                                          "Hastily, your loving KATE."
+
+
+She did not know where David was but she felt reasonably sure she could
+find out his address in the morning. There was a small boy living next
+door who was capable of ferreting out almost anything for money. Kate had
+employed him more than once as an amateur detective in cases of minor
+importance. So, with a bit of silver and her letter she made her way to
+his familiar haunts and explained most carefully that the letter was to be
+delivered to no one but the man to whom it was addressed, naming several
+stopping places where he might be likely to be found, and hinting that
+there was more silver to be forthcoming when he should bring her an answer
+to the note. With a minute description of David the keen-eyed urchin set
+out, while Kate betook herself to her room to dress for David's coming.
+She felt sure he would be found, and confident that he would come at once.
+
+The icy wind of the night before blowing on her exposed throat and chest
+had given her a severe cold, but she paid no heed to that. Her eyes and
+cheeks were shining with fever. She knew she was entering upon a dangerous
+and unholy way. The excitement of it stimulated her. She felt she did not
+care for anything, right or wrong, sin or sorrow, only to win. She wanted
+to see David at her feet again. It was the only thing that would satisfy
+this insatiable longing in her, this wounded pride of self.
+
+When she was dressed she stood before the mirror and surveyed herself. She
+knew she was beautiful, and she defied the glass to tell her anything
+else. She raised her chin in haughty challenge to the unseen David to
+resist her charms. She would bring him low before her. She would make him
+forget Marcia, and his home and his staid Puritan notions, and all else he
+held dear but herself. He should bend and kiss her hand as Harry had done,
+only more warmly, for instinctively she felt that his had been the purer
+life and therefore his surrender would mean more. He should do whatever
+she chose. And her eyes glowed with an unhallowed light.
+
+She had chosen to array herself regally, in velvet, but in black, without
+a touch of color or of white. From her rich frock her slender throat rose
+daintily, like a stem upon which nodded the tempting flower of her face.
+No enameled complexion could have been more striking in its vivid reds and
+whites, and her mass of gold hair made her seem more lovely than she
+really was, for in her face was love of self, alluring, but heartless and
+cruel.
+
+The boy found David, as Kate had thought he would, in one of the quieter
+hostelries where men of letters were wont to stop when in New York, and
+David read the letter and came at once. She had known that he would do
+that, too. His heart beat wildly, to the exclusion of all other thoughts
+save that she was in trouble, his love, his dear one. He forgot Marcia,
+and the young naval officer, and everything but her trouble, and before he
+had reached her house the sorrow had grown in his imagination into some
+great danger to protect her from which he was hastening.
+
+She received him alone in the room where Harry Temple had first called,
+and a moment later Harry himself came to knock and enquire for the health
+of Mistress Leavenworth, and was told she was very much engaged at present
+with a gentleman and could not see any one, whereupon Harry scowled, and
+set himself at a suitable distance from the house to watch who should come
+out.
+
+David's face was white as death as he entered, his eyes shining like dark
+jewels blazing at her as if he would absorb the vision for the lonely
+future. She stood and posed,--not by any means the picture of broken sorrow
+he had expected to find from her note,--and let the sense of her beauty
+reach him. There she stood with the look on her face he had pictured to
+himself many a time when he had thought of her as his wife. It was a look
+of love unutterable, bewildering, alluring, compelling. It was so he had
+thought she would meet him when he came home to her from his daily
+business cares. And now she was there, looking that way, and he stood
+here, so near her, and yet a great gulf fixed! It was heaven and hell met
+together, and he had no power to change either.
+
+He did not come over to her and bow low to kiss the white hand as Harry
+had done,--as she had thought she could compel him to do. He only stood and
+looked at her with the pain of an anguish beyond her comprehension, until
+the look would have burned through to her heart--if she had had a heart.
+
+"You are in trouble," he spoke hoarsely, as if murmuring an excuse for
+having come.
+
+She melted at once into the loveliest sorrow, her mobile features taking
+on a wan cast only enlivened by the glow of her cheeks.
+
+"Sit down," she said, "you were so good to come to me, and so soon--" and
+her voice was like lily-bells in a quiet church-yard among the
+head-stones. She placed him a chair.
+
+"Yes, I am in trouble. But that is a slight thing compared to my
+unhappiness. I think I am the most miserable creature that breathes upon
+this earth."
+
+And with that she dropped into a low chair and hid her glowing face in a
+dainty, lace bordered kerchief that suppressed a well-timed sob.
+
+Kate had wisely calculated how she could reach David's heart. If she had
+looked up then and seen his white, drawn look, and the tense grasp of his
+hands that only the greatest self-control kept quiet on his knee, perhaps
+even her mercilessness would have been softened. But she did not look, and
+she felt her part was well taken. She sobbed quietly, and waited, and his
+hoarse voice asked once more, as gently as a woman's through his pain:
+
+"Will you tell me what it is and how I can help you?" He longed to take
+her in his arms like a little child and comfort her, but he might not. She
+was another's. And perhaps that other had been cruel to her! His clenched
+fists showed how terrible was the thought. But still the bowed figure in
+its piteous black sobbed and did not reply anything except, "Oh, I am so
+unhappy! I cannot bear it any longer."
+
+"Is--your--your--husband unkind to you?" The words tore themselves from his
+tense lips as though they were beyond his control.
+
+"Oh, no,--not exactly unkind--that is--he was not very nice before he went
+away," wailed out a sad voice from behind the linen cambric and lace, "and
+he went away without a kind word, and left me hardly any money--and he
+hasn't sent me any word since--and fa-father won't have anything to do with
+me any more--but--but--it's not that I mind, David. I don't think about those
+things at all. I'm so unhappy about you. I feel you do not forgive me, and
+I cannot stand it any longer. I have made a fearful mistake, and you are
+angry with me--I think about it at night"--the voice was growing lower now,
+and the sentences broken by sobs that told better than words what distress
+the sufferer would convey.
+
+"I have been so wicked--and you were so good and kind--and now you will
+never forgive me--I think it will kill me to keep on thinking about it--"
+her voice trailed off in tears again.
+
+David white with anguish sprang to his feet.
+
+"Oh, Kate," he cried, "my darling! Don't talk that way. You know I forgive
+you. Look up and tell me you know I forgive you."
+
+Almost she smiled her triumph beneath her sobs in the little lace border,
+but she looked up with real tears on her face. Even her tears obeyed her
+will. She was a good actress, also she knew her power over David.
+
+"Oh, David," she cried, standing up and clasping her hands beseechingly,
+"can it be true? Do you really forgive me? Tell me again."
+
+She came and stood temptingly near to the stern, suffering man wild with
+the tumult that raged within him. Her golden head was near his shoulder
+where it had rested more than once in time gone by. He looked down at her
+from his suffering height his arms folded tightly and said, as though
+taking oath before a court of justice:
+
+"I do."
+
+She looked up with her pleading blue eyes, like two jewels of light now,
+questioning whether she might yet go one step further. Her breath came
+quick and soft, he fancied it touched his cheek, though she was not tall
+enough for that. She lifted her tear-wet face like a flower after a storm,
+and pleaded with her eyes once more, saying in a whisper very soft and
+sweet:
+
+"If you really forgive me, then kiss me, just once, so I may remember it
+always."
+
+It was more than he could bear. He caught her to himself and pressed his
+lips upon hers in one frenzied kiss of torture. It was as if wrung from
+him against his will. Then suddenly it came upon him what he had done, as
+he held her in his arms, and he put her from him gently, as a mother might
+put away the precious child she was sacrificing tenderly, agonizingly, but
+finally. He put her from him thus and stood a moment looking at her, while
+she almost sparkled her pleasure at him through the tears. She felt that
+she had won.
+
+But gradually the silence grew ominous. She perceived he was not smiling.
+His mien was like one who looks into an open grave, and gazes for the last
+time at all that remains of one who is dear. He did not seem like one who
+had yielded a moral point and was ready now to serve her as she would. She
+grew uneasy under his gaze. She moved forward and put out her hands
+inviting, yielding, as only such a woman could do, and the spell which
+bound him seemed to be broken. He fumbled for a moment in his waistcoat
+pocket and brought out a large roll of bills which he laid upon the table,
+and taking up his hat turned toward the door. A cold wave of weakness
+seemed to pass over her, stung here and there by mortal pride that was in
+fear of being wounded beyond recovery.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked weakly, and her voice sounded to her from
+miles away, and strange.
+
+He turned and looked at her again and she knew the look meant farewell. He
+did not speak. Her whole being rose for one more mighty effort.
+
+"You are not going to leave me--now?" There was angelic sweetness in the
+voice, pleading, reproachful, piteous.
+
+"I must!" he said, and his voice sounded harsh. "I have just done that for
+which, were I your husband, I would feel like killing any other man. I
+must protect you against yourself,--against myself. You must be kept pure
+before God if it kills us both. I would gladly die if that could help you,
+but I am not even free to do that, for I belong to another."
+
+Then he turned and was gone.
+
+Kate's hands fell to her sides, and seemed stiff and lifeless. The bright
+color faded from her cheeks, and a cold frenzy of horror took possession
+of her. "Pure before God!" She shuddered at the name, and crimson shame
+rolled over forehead and cheek. She sank in a little heap on the floor
+with her face buried in the chair beside which she had been standing, and
+the waters of humiliation rolled wave on wave above her. She had failed,
+and for one brief moment she was seeing her own sinful heart as it was.
+
+But the devil was there also. He whispered to her now the last sentence
+that David had spoken: "I belong to another!"
+
+Up to that moment Marcia had been a very negative factor in the affair to
+Kate's mind. She had been annoyed and angry at her as one whose ignorance
+and impertinence had brought her into an affair where she did not belong,
+but now she suddenly faced the fact that Marcia must be reckoned with.
+Marcia the child, who had for years been her slave and done her bidding,
+had arisen in her way, and she hated her with a sudden vindictive hate
+that would have killed without flinching if the opportunity had presented
+at that moment. Kate had no idea how utterly uncontrolled was her whole
+nature. She was at the mercy of any passing passion. Hate and revenge took
+possession of her now. With flashing eyes she rose to her feet, brushing
+her tumbled hair back and wiping away angry tears. She was too much
+agitated to notice that some one had knocked at the front door and been
+admitted, and when Harry Temple walked into the room he found her standing
+so with hands clenched together, and tears flowing down her cheeks
+unchecked.
+
+Now a woman in tears, when the tears were not caused by his own actions,
+was Harry's opportunity. He had ways of comforting which were as
+unscrupulous as they generally proved effective, and so with affectionate
+tenderness he took Kate's hand and held it impressively, calling her
+"dear." He spoke soothing words, smoothed her hair, and kissed her flushed
+cheeks and eyes. It was all very pleasant to Kate's hurt pride. She let
+Harry comfort her, and pet her a while, and at last he said:
+
+"Now tell me all about it, dear. I saw Lord Spafford trail dejectedly away
+from here looking like death, and I come here and find my lady in a fine
+fury. What has happened? If I mistake not the insufferable cad has got
+badly hurt, but it seems to have ruffled the lady also."
+
+This helped. It was something to feel that David was suffering. She wanted
+him to suffer. He had brought shame and humiliation upon her. She never
+realized that the thing that shamed her was that he thought her better
+than she was.
+
+"He is offensively good. I _hate_ him!" she remarked as a kitten might who
+had got hurt at playing with a mouse in a trap.
+
+The man's face grew bland with satisfaction.
+
+"Not so good, my lady, but that he has been making love to you, if I
+mistake not, and he with a wife at home." The words were said quietly, but
+there was more of a question in them than the tone conveyed. The man
+wished to have evidence against his enemy.
+
+Kate colored uneasily and drooped her lashes.
+
+Harry studied her face keenly, and then went on cautiously:
+
+"If his wife were not your sister I should say that one might punish him
+well through her."
+
+Kate cast him a hard, scrutinizing look.
+
+"You have some score against him yourself," she said with conviction.
+
+"Perhaps I have, my lady. Perhaps I too hate him. He is offensively good,
+you know."
+
+There was silence in the room for a full minute while the devil worked in
+both hearts.
+
+"What did you mean by saying one might punish him through his wife? He
+does not love his wife."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"Perhaps he loves some one else, my lady."
+
+"He does." She said it proudly.
+
+"Perhaps he loves you, my lady." He said it softly like the suggestion
+from another world. The lady was silent, but he needed no other answer.
+
+"Then indeed, the way would be even clearer,--were not his wife your
+sister."
+
+Kate looked at him, a half knowledge of his meaning beginning to dawn in
+her eyes.
+
+"How?" she asked laconically.
+
+"In case his wife should leave him do you think my lord would hold his
+head so high?"
+
+Kate still looked puzzled.
+
+"If some one else should win her affection, and should persuade her to
+leave a husband who did not love her, and who was bestowing his heart"--he
+hesitated an instant and his eye traveled significantly to the roll of
+bills still lying where David had left them--"and his gifts," he hazarded,
+"upon another woman----"
+
+Kate grasped the thought at once and an evil glint of eagerness showed in
+her eyes. She could see what an advantage it would be to herself to have
+Marcia removed from the situation. It would break one more cord of honor
+that bound David to a code which was hateful to her now, because its
+existence shamed her. Nevertheless, unscrupulous as she was she could not
+see how this was a possibility.
+
+"But she is offensively good too," she said as if answering her own
+thoughts.
+
+"All goodness has its weak spot," sneered the man. "If I mistake not you
+have found my lord's. It is possible I might find his wife's."
+
+The two pairs of eyes met then, filled with evil light. It was as if for
+an instant they were permitted to look into the pit, and see the
+possibilities of wickedness, and exult in it. The lurid glare of their
+thoughts played in their faces. All the passion of hate and revenge rushed
+upon Kate in a frenzy. With all her heart she wished this might be. She
+looked her co-operation in the plan even before her hard voice answered:
+
+"You need not stop because she is my sister."
+
+He felt he had her permission, and he permitted himself a glance of
+admiration for the depths to which she could go without being daunted.
+Here was evil courage worthy of his teaching. She seemed to him beautiful
+enough and daring enough for Satan himself to admire.
+
+"And may I have the pleasure of knowing that I would by so doing serve my
+lady in some wise?"
+
+She drooped her shameless eyes and murmured guardedly, "Perhaps." Then she
+swept him a coquettish glance that meant they understood one another.
+
+"Then I shall feel well rewarded," he said gallantly, and bowing with more
+than his ordinary flattery of look bade her good day and went out.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+David stumbled blindly out the door and down the street. His one thought
+was to get to his room at the tavern and shut the door. He had an
+important appointment that morning, but it passed completely from his
+mind. He met one or two men whom he knew, but he did not see them, and
+passed them swiftly without a glance of recognition. They said one to
+another, "How absorbed he is in the great themes of the world!" but David
+passed on in his pain and misery and humiliation and never knew they were
+near him.
+
+He went to the room that had been his since he had reached New York, and
+fastening the door against all intrusion fell upon his knees beside the
+bed, and let the flood-tide of his sorrow roll over him. Not even when
+Kate had played him false on his wedding morning had he felt the pain that
+now cut into his very soul. For now there was mingled with it the agony of
+consciousness of sin. He had sinned against heaven, against honor and
+love, and all that was pure and good. He was just like any bad man. He had
+yielded to sudden temptation and taken another man's wife in his arms and
+kissed her! That the woman had been his by first right, and that he loved
+her: that she had invited the kiss, indeed pleaded for it, his sensitive
+conscience told him in no wise lessened the offense. He had also caused
+her whom he loved to sin. He was a man and knew the world. He should have
+shielded her against herself. And yet as he went over and over the whole
+painful scene through which he had just passed his soul cried out in agony
+and he felt his weakness more and more. He had failed, failed most
+miserably. Acted like any coward!
+
+The humiliation of it was unspeakable. Could any sorrow be like unto his?
+Like a knife flashing through the gloom of his own shame would come the
+echo of her words as she pleaded with him to kiss her. It was a kiss of
+forgiveness she had wanted, and she had put her heart into her eyes and
+begged as for her very life. How could he have refused? Then he would
+parley with himself for a long time trying to prove to himself that the
+kiss and the embrace were justified, that he had done no wrong in God's
+sight. And ever after this round of confused arguing he would end with the
+terrible conviction that he had sinned.
+
+Sometimes Marcia's sweet face and troubled eyes would appear to him as he
+wrestled all alone, and seemed to be longing to help him, and again would
+come the piercing thought that he had harmed this gentle girl also. He had
+tangled her into his own spoiled web of life, and been disloyal to her.
+She was pure and true and good. She had given up every thing to help him
+and he had utterly forgotten her. He had promised to love, cherish, and
+protect her! That was another sin. He could not love and cherish her when
+his whole heart was another's. Then he thought of Kate's husband, that
+treacherous man who had stolen his bride and now gone away and left her
+sorrowing--left her without money, penniless in a strange city. Why had he
+not been more calm and questioned her before he came away. Perhaps she was
+in great need. It comforted him to think he had left her all the money he
+had with him. There was enough to keep her from want for a while. And yet,
+perhaps he had been wrong to give it to her. He had no right to give it!
+
+He groaned aloud at the thought of his helplessness to help her
+helplessness. Was there not some way he could find out and help her
+without doing wrong?
+
+Over and over he went through the whole dreadful day, until his brain was
+weary and his heart failed him. The heavens seemed brass and no answer
+came to his cry,--the appeal of a broken soul. It seemed that he could not
+get up from his knees, could not go out into the world again and face
+life. He had been tried and had failed, and yet though he knew his sin he
+felt an intolerable longing to commit it over again. He was frightened at
+his own weakness, and with renewed vigor he began to pray for help. It was
+like the prayer of Jacob of old, the crying out of a soul that would not
+be denied. All day long the struggle continued, and far into the night. At
+last a great peace began to settle upon David's soul. Things that had been
+confused by his passionate longings grew clear as day. Self dropped away,
+and sin, conquered, slunk out of sight. Right and Wrong were once more
+clearly defined in his mind. However wrong it might or might not be he was
+here in this situation. He had married Marcia and promised to be true to
+her. He was doubly cut off from Kate by her own act and by his. That was
+his punishment,--and hers. He must not seek to lessen it even for her, for
+it was God-sent. Henceforth his path and hers must be apart. If she were
+to be helped in any way from whatsoever trouble was hers, it was not
+permitted him to be the instrument. He had shown his unfitness for it in
+his interview that morning, even if in the eyes of the world it could have
+been at all. It was his duty to cut himself off from her forever. He must
+not even think of her any more. He must be as true and good to Marcia as
+was possible. He must do no more wrong. He must grow strong and suffer.
+
+The peace that came with conviction brought sleep to his weary mind and
+body.
+
+When he awoke it was almost noon. He remembered the missed appointment of
+the day before, and the journey to Washington which he had planned for
+that day. With a start of horror he looked at his watch and found he had
+but a few hours in which to try to make up for the remissness of yesterday
+before the evening coach left for Philadelphia. It was as if some guardian
+angel had met his first waking thoughts with business that could not be
+delayed and so kept him from going over the painful events of the day
+before. He arose and hastened out into the world once more.
+
+Late in the afternoon he found the man he was to have met the day before,
+and succeeded in convincing him that he ought to help the new enterprise.
+He was standing on the corner saying the last few words as the two
+separated, when Kate drove by in a friend's carriage, surrounded by
+parcels. She had been on a shopping tour spending the money that David had
+given her, for silks and laces and jewelry, and now she was returning in
+high glee with her booty. The carriage passed quite near to David who
+stood with his back to the street, and she could see his animated face as
+he smiled at the other man, a fine looking man who looked as if he might
+be some one of note. The momentary glance did not show the haggard look of
+David's face nor the lines that his vigil of the night before had traced
+under his eyes, and Kate was angered to see him so unconcerned and
+forgetful of his pain of yesterday. Her face darkened with spite, and she
+resolved to make him suffer yet, and to the utmost, for the sin of
+forgetting her.
+
+But David was in the way of duty, and he did not see her, for his guardian
+angel was hovering close at hand.
+
+
+
+As the Fall wore on and the winter set in Harry's letters became less
+frequent and less intimate. Hannah was troubled, and after consultation
+with her grandmother, to which Miranda listened at the latch hole, duly
+reporting quotations to her adored Mrs. Spafford, Hannah decided upon an
+immediate trip to the metropolis.
+
+"Hannah's gone to New York to find out what's become of that nimshi Harry
+Temple. She thought she had him fast, an' she's been holdin' him over poor
+Lemuel Skinner's head like thet there sword hangin' by a hair I heard the
+minister tell about last Sunday, till Lemuel, he don't know but every
+minute's gone'll be his last. You mark my words, she'll hev to take poor
+Lem after all, an' be glad she's got him, too,--and she's none too good for
+him neither. He's ben faithful to her ever since she wore pantalets, an'
+she's ben keepin' him off'n on an' hopin' an' tryin' fer somebody bigger.
+It would jes' serve her right ef she'd get that fool of a Harry Temple,
+but she won't. He's too sharp for that ef he _is_ a fool. He don't want to
+tie himself up to no woman's aprun strings. He rather dandle about after
+'em all an' say pretty things, an' keep his earnin's fer himself."
+
+Hannah reached New York the week after David left for Washington. She
+wrote beforehand to Harry to let him know she was coming, and made plain
+that she expected his attentions exclusively while there, and he smiled
+blandly as he read the letter and read her intentions between the lines.
+He told Kate a good deal about her that evening when he went to call, told
+her how he had heard she was an old flame of David's, and Kate's jealousy
+was immediately aroused. She wished to meet Hannah Heath. There was a sort
+of triumph in the thought that she had scorned and flung aside the man
+whom this woman had "set her cap" for, even though another woman was now
+in the place that neither had. Hannah went to visit a cousin in New York
+who lived in a quiet part of the city and did not go out much, but for
+reasons best known to themselves, both Kate Leavenworth and Harry Temple
+elected to see a good deal of her while she was in the city. Harry was
+pleasant and attentive, but not more to one woman than to the other.
+Hannah, watching him jealously, decided that at least Kate was not her
+rival in his affections, and so Hannah and Kate became quite friendly.
+Kate had a way of making much of her women friends when she chose, and she
+happened to choose in this case, for it occurred to her it would be well
+to have a friend in the town where lived her sister and her former lover.
+There might be reasons why, sometime. She opened her heart of hearts to
+Hannah, and Hannah, quite discreetly, and without wasting much of her
+scanty store of love, entered, and the friendship was sealed. They had not
+known each other many days before Kate had confided to Hannah the story of
+her own marriage and her sister's, embellished of course as she chose.
+Hannah, astonished, puzzled, wondering, curious, at the tragedy that had
+been enacted at her very home door, became more friendly than ever and
+hated more cordially than ever the young and innocent wife who had stepped
+into the vacant place and so made her own hopes and ambitions impossible.
+She felt that she would like to put down the pert young thing for daring
+to be there, and to be pretty, and now she felt she had the secret which
+would help her to do so.
+
+As the visit went on and it became apparent to Hannah Heath that she was
+not the one woman in all the world to Harry Temple, she hinted to Kate
+that it was likely she would be married soon. She even went so far as to
+say that she had come away from home to decide the matter, and that she
+had but to say the word and the ceremony would come off. Kate questioned
+eagerly, and seeing her opportunity asked if she might come to the
+wedding. Hannah, flattered, and seeing a grand opportunity for a wholesale
+triumph and revenge, assented with pleasure. Afterward as Hannah had hoped
+and intended, Kate carried the news of the impending decision and probable
+wedding to the ears of Harry Temple.
+
+But Hannah's hint had no further effect upon the redoubtable Harry. Two
+days later he appeared, smiling, congratulatory, deploring the fact that
+she would be lost in a certain sense to his friendship, although he hoped
+always to be looked upon as a little more than a friend.
+
+Hannah covered her mortification under a calm and condescending exterior.
+She blushed appropriately, said some sentimental things about hoping their
+friendship would not be affected by the change, told him how much she had
+enjoyed their correspondence, but gave him to understand that it had been
+mere friendship of course from her point of view, and Harry indulgently
+allowed her to think that he had hoped for more and was grieved but
+consolable over the outcome.
+
+They waxed a trifle sentimental at the parting, but when Harry was gone,
+Hannah wrote a most touching letter to Lemuel Skinner which raised him to
+the seventh heaven of delight, causing him to feel that he was treading
+upon air as he walked the prosaic streets of his native town where he had
+been going about during Hannah's absence like a lost spirit without a
+guiding star.
+
+
+    "DEAR LEMUEL:" she wrote:--
+
+    "I am coming home. I wonder if you will be glad?
+
+
+(Artful Hannah, as if she did not know!)
+
+
+    "It is very delightful in New York and I have been having a gay
+    time since I came, and everybody has been most pleasant, but--
+
+      "'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
+      Still, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
+      A charm from the skies seems to hallow it there,
+      Which, go through the world, you'll not meet with elsewhere.
+                          Home, home, sweet home!
+                        There's no place like home.
+
+    "That is a new song, Lemuel, that everybody here is singing. It is
+    written by a young American named John Howard Payne who is in
+    London now acting in a great playhouse. Everybody is wild over
+    this song. I'll sing it for you when I come home.
+
+    "I shall be at home in time for singing school next week, Lemuel.
+    I wonder if you'll come to see me at once and welcome me. You
+    cannot think how glad I shall be to get home again. It seems as
+    though I had been gone a year at least. Hoping to see you soon, I
+    remain
+
+                                     "Always your sincere friend,
+
+                                                       "HANNAH HEATH."
+
+
+And thus did Hannah make smooth her path before her, and very soon after
+inditing this epistle she bade good-bye to New York and took her way home
+resolved to waste no further time in chasing will-o-the-wisps.
+
+When Lemuel received that letter he took a good look at himself in the
+glass. More than seven years had he served for Hannah, and little hope had
+he had of a final reward. He was older by ten years than she, and already
+his face began to show it. He examined himself critically, and was pleased
+to find with that light of hope in his eyes he was not so bad looking as
+he feared. He betook himself to the village tailor forthwith and ordered a
+new suit of clothes, though his Sunday best was by no means shiny yet. He
+realized that if he did not win now he never would, and he resolved to do
+his best.
+
+On the way home, during all the joltings of the coach over rough roads
+Hannah Heath was planning two campaigns, one of love with Lemuel, and one
+of hate with Marcia Spafford. She was possessed of knowledge which she
+felt would help her in the latter, and often she smiled vindictively as
+she laid her neat plans for the destruction of the bride's complacency.
+
+That night the fire in the Heath parlor burned high and glowed, and the
+candles in their silver holders flickered across fair Hannah's face as she
+dimpled and smiled and coquetted with poor Lemuel. But Lemuel needed no
+pity. He was not afraid of Hannah. Not for nothing had he served his seven
+years, and he understood every fancy and foible of her shallow nature. He
+knew his time had come at last, and he was getting what he had wanted
+long, for Lemuel had admired and loved Hannah in spite of the dance she
+had led him, and in spite of the other lovers she had allowed to come
+between them.
+
+Hannah had not been at home many days before she called upon Marcia.
+
+Marcia had just seated herself at the piano when Hannah appeared to her
+from the hall, coming in unannounced through the kitchen door according to
+old neighborly fashion.
+
+Marcia was vexed. She arose from the instrument and led the way to the
+little morning room which was sunny and cosy, and bare of music or books.
+She did not like to visit with Hannah in the parlor. Somehow her presence
+reminded her of the evil face of Harry Temple as he had stooped to kiss
+her.
+
+"You know how to play, too, don't you?" said Hannah as they sat down.
+"Your sister plays beautifully. Do you know the new song, 'Home, Sweet
+Home?' She plays it with so much feeling and sings it so that one would
+think her heart was breaking for her home. You must have been a united
+family." Hannah said it with sharp scrutiny in voice and eyes.
+
+"Sit down, Miss Heath," said Marcia coolly, lowering the yellow shades
+that her visitor's eyes might not be troubled by a broad sunbeam. "Did you
+have a pleasant time in New York?"
+
+Hannah could not be sure whether or not the question was an evasion. The
+utterly child-like manner of Marcia disarmed suspicion.
+
+"Oh, delightful, of course. Could any one have anything else in New York?"
+
+Hannah laughed disagreeably. She realized the limitations of life in a
+town.
+
+"I suppose," said Marcia, her eyes shining with the thought, "that you saw
+all the wonderful things of the city. I should enjoy being in New York a
+little while. I have heard of so many new things. Were there any ships in
+the harbor? I have always wanted to go over a great ship. Did you have
+opportunity of seeing one?"
+
+"Oh, dear me. No!" said Hannah. "I shouldn't have cared in the least for
+that. I'm sure I don't know whether there were any ships in or not. I
+suppose there were. I saw a lot of sails on the water, but I did not ask
+about them. I'm not interested in dirty boats. I liked visiting the shops
+best. Your sister took me about everywhere. She is a most charming
+creature. You must miss her greatly. You were a sly little thing to cut
+her out."
+
+Marcia's face flamed crimson with anger and amazement. Hannah's dart had
+hit the mark, and she was watching keenly to see her victim quiver.
+
+"I do not understand you," said Marcia with girlish dignity.
+
+"Oh, now don't pretend to misunderstand. I've heard all about it from
+headquarters," she said it archly, laughing. "But then I don't blame you.
+David was worth it." Hannah ended with a sigh. If she had ever cared for
+any one besides herself that one was David Spafford.
+
+"I do not understand you," said Marcia again, drawing herself up with all
+the Schuyler haughtiness she could master, till she quite resembled her
+father.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Spafford," said the visitor, looking straight into her face and
+watching every expression as a cat would watch a mouse, "you don't mean to
+tell me your sister was not at one time very intimate with your husband."
+
+"Mr. Spafford has been intimate in our family for a number of years," said
+Marcia proudly, her fighting fire up, "but as for my having 'cut my sister
+out' as you call it, you have certainly been misinformed. Excuse me, I
+think I will close the kitchen door. It seems to blow in here and make a
+draft."
+
+Marcia left the room with her head up and her fine color well under
+control, and when she came back her head was still up and a distant
+expression was in her face. Somehow Hannah felt she had not gained much
+after all. But Marcia, after Hannah's departure, went up to her cold room
+and wept bitter tears on her pillow alone.
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+       MARCIA PASSED FROM THE OLD STONE CHURCH WITH THE TWO AUNTS.]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+       MARCIA PASSED FROM THE OLD STONE CHURCH WITH THE TWO AUNTS.
+
+
+After that first visit Hannah never found the kitchen door unlocked when
+she came to make a morning call, but she improved every little opportunity
+to torment her gentle victim. She had had a letter from Kate and had
+Marcia heard? How often did Kate write her? Did Marcia know how fond Harry
+Temple was of Kate? And where was Kate's husband? Would he likely be
+ordered home soon? These little annoyances were almost unbearable
+sometimes and Marcia had much ado to keep her sweetness of outward
+demeanor.
+
+People looked upon Lemuel with new respect. He had finally won where they
+had considered him a fool for years for hanging on. The added respect
+brought added self-respect. He took on new manliness. Grandmother Heath
+felt that he really was not so bad after all, and perhaps Hannah might as
+well have taken him at first. Altogether the Heath family were well
+pleased, and preparations began at once for a wedding in the near future.
+
+And still David lingered, held here and there by a call from first one man
+and then another, and by important doings in Congress. He seemed to be
+rarely fitted for the work.
+
+Once he was called back to New York for a day or two, and Harry Temple
+happened to see him as he arrived. That night he wrote to Hannah a
+friendly letter--Harry was by no means through with Hannah yet--and casually
+remarked that he saw David Spafford was in New York again. He supposed now
+that Mrs. Leavenworth's evenings would be fully occupied and society would
+see little of her while he remained.
+
+The day after Hannah received that letter was Sunday.
+
+The weeks had gone by rapidly since David left his home, and now the
+spring was coming on. The grass was already green as summer and the willow
+tree by the graveyard gate was tender and green like a spring-plume. All
+the foliage was out and fluttering its new leaves in the sunshine as
+Marcia passed from the old stone church with the two aunts and opened her
+little green sunshade. Her motion made David's last letter rustle in her
+bosom. It thrilled her with pleasure that not even the presence of Hannah
+Heath behind her could cloud.
+
+However prim and fault-finding the two aunts might be in the seclusion of
+their own home, in public no two could have appeared more adoring than
+Amelia and Hortense Spafford. They hovered near Marcia and delighted to
+show how very close and intimate was the relationship between themselves
+and their new and beautiful niece, of whom in their secret hearts they
+were prouder than they would have cared to tell. In their best black silks
+and their fine lace shawls they walked beside her and talked almost
+eagerly, if those two stately beings could have anything to do with a
+quality so frivolous as eagerness. They wished it understood that David's
+wife was worthy of appreciation and they were more conscious than she of
+the many glances of admiration in her direction.
+
+Hannah Heath encountered some of those admiring glances and saw jealously
+for whom they were meant. She hastened to lean forward and greet Marcia,
+her spiteful tongue all ready for a stab.
+
+"Good morning, Mrs. Spafford. Is that husband of yours not home yet?
+Really! Why, he's quite deserted you. I call that hard for the first year,
+and your honeymoon scarcely over yet."
+
+"He's been called back to New York again," said Marcia annoyed over the
+spiteful little sentences. "He says he may be at home soon, but he cannot
+be sure. His business is rather uncertain."
+
+"New York!" said Hannah, and her voice was annoyingly loud. "What! Not
+again! There must be some great attraction there," and then with a meaning
+glance, "I suppose your sister is still there!"
+
+Marcia felt her face crimsoning, and the tears starting from angry eyes.
+She felt a sudden impulse to slap Hannah. What if she should! What would
+the aunts say? The thought of the tumult she might make roused her sense
+of humor and a laugh bubbled up instead of the tears, and Hannah,
+watching, cat-like, could only see eyes dancing with fun though the cheeks
+were charmingly red. By Hannah's expression Marcia knew she was baffled,
+but Marcia could not get away from the disagreeable suggestion that had
+been made.
+
+Yes, David was in New York, and Kate was there. Not for an instant did she
+doubt her husband's nobleness. She knew David would be good and true. She
+knew little of the world's wickedness, and never thought of any blame, as
+other women might, in such a suggestion. But a great jealousy sprang into
+being that she never dreamed existed. Kate was there, and he would perhaps
+see her, and all his old love and disappointment would be brought to mind
+again. Had she, Marcia, been hoping he would forget it? Had she been
+claiming something of him in her heart for herself? She could not tell.
+She did not know what all this tumult of feeling meant. She longed to get
+away and think it over, but the solemn Sunday must be observed. She must
+fold away her church things, put on another frock and come down to the
+oppressive Sunday dinner, hear Deacon Brown's rheumatism discussed, or
+listen to a long comparison of the morning's sermon with one preached
+twenty years ago by the minister, now long dead upon the same text. It was
+all very hard to keep her mind upon, with these other thoughts rushing
+pell-mell through her brain; and when Aunt Amelia asked her to pass the
+butter, she handed the sugar-bowl instead. Miss Amelia looked as shocked
+as if she had broken the great-grandmother's china teapot.
+
+Aunt Clarinda claimed her after dinner and carried her off to her room to
+talk about David, so that Marcia had no chance to think even then. Miss
+Clarinda looked into the sweet shadowed eyes and wondered why the girl
+looked so sad. She thought it was because David stayed away so long, and
+so she kept her with her all the rest of the day.
+
+When Marcia went to her room that night she threw herself on her knees
+beside the bed and tried to pray. She felt more lonely and heartsick than
+she ever felt before in her life. She did not know what the great hunger
+in her heart meant. It was terrible to think David had loved Kate. Kate
+never loved him in return in the right way. Marcia felt very sure of that.
+She wished she might have had the chance in Kate's place, and then all of
+a sudden the revelation came to her. She loved David herself with a great
+overwhelming love. Not just a love that could come and keep house for him
+and save him from the criticisms and comments of others; but with a love
+that demanded to be loved in return; a love that was mindful of every dear
+lineament of his countenance. The knowledge thrilled through her with a
+great sweetness. She did not seem to care for anything else just now, only
+to know that she loved David. David could never love her of course, not in
+that way, but she would love him. She would try to shut out the thought of
+Kate from him forever.
+
+And so, dreaming, hovering on the edge of all that was bitter and all that
+was sweet, she fell asleep with David's letter clasped close over her
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Marcia had gone down to her own house the next morning very early. She had
+hoped for a letter but none had come. Her soul was in torment between her
+attempt to keep out of her mind the hateful things Hannah Heath had said,
+and reproaching herself for what seemed to her her unseemly feeling toward
+David, who loved another and could never love her. It was not a part of
+her life-dream to love one who belonged to another. Yet her heart was his
+and she was beginning to know that everything belonging to him was dear to
+her. She went and sat in his place at the table, she touched with
+tenderness the books upon his desk that he had used before he went away,
+she went up to his room and laid her lips for one precious daring instant
+upon his pillow, and then drew back with wildly beating heart ashamed of
+her emotion. She knelt beside his bed and prayed: "Oh, God, I love him, I
+love him! I cannot help it!" as if she would apologize for herself, and
+then she hugged the thought of her love to herself, feeling its sweet pain
+drift through her like some delicious agony. Her love had come through
+sorrow to her, and was not as she would have had it could she have chosen.
+It brought no ray of happy hope for the future, save just the happiness of
+loving in secret, and of doing for the object loved, with no thought of a
+returned affection.
+
+Then she went slowly down the stairs, trying to think how it would seem
+when David came back. He had been so long gone that it seemed as if
+perhaps he might never return. She felt that it had been no part of the
+spirit of her contract with David that she should render to him this wild
+sweet love that he had expected Kate to give. He had not wanted it. He had
+only wanted a wife in name.
+
+Then the color would sweep over her face in a crimson drift and leave it
+painfully white, and she would glide to the piano like a ghost of her
+former self and play some sad sweet strain, and sometimes sing.
+
+She had no heart for her dear old woods in these days. She had tried it
+one day in spring; slipped over the back fence and away through the
+ploughed field where the sea of silver oats had surged, and up to the
+hillside and the woods; but she was so reminded of David that it only
+brought heart aches and tears. She wondered if it was because she was
+getting old that the hillside did not seem so joyous now, and she did not
+care to look up into the sky just for the pure joy of sky and air and
+clouds, nor to listen to the branches whisper to the robins nesting. She
+stooped and picked a great handful of spring beauties, but they did not
+seem to give her pleasure, and by and by she dropped them from listless
+fingers and walked sedately down to the house once more.
+
+On this morning she did not even care to play. She went into the parlor
+and touched a few notes, but her heart was heavy and sad. Life was growing
+too complex.
+
+Last week there had come a letter from Harry Temple. It had startled her
+when it arrived. She feared it was some ill-news about David, coming as it
+did from New York and being written in a strange hand.
+
+It had been a plea for forgiveness, representing that the writer had
+experienced nothing but deep repentance and sorrow since the time he had
+seen her last. He set forth his case in a masterly way, with little
+touching facts of his childhood, and lonely upbringing, with no mother to
+guide. He told her that her noble action toward him had but made him
+revere her the more, and that, in short, she had made a new creature of
+him by refusing to return his kiss that day, and leaving him alone with so
+severe a rebuke. He felt that if all women were so good and true men would
+be a different race, and now he looked up to her as one might look up to
+an angel, and he felt he could never be happy again on this earth until he
+had her written word of forgiveness. With that he felt he could live a new
+life, and she must rest assured that he would never offer other than
+reverence to any woman again. He further added that his action had not
+intended any insult to her, that he was merely expressing his natural
+admiration for a spirit so good and true, and that his soul was innocent
+of any intention of evil. With sophistry in the use of which he was an
+adept, he closed his epistle, fully clearing himself, and assuring her
+that he could have made her understand it that day if she had not left so
+suddenly, and he had not been almost immediately called away to the dying
+bed of his dear cousin. This contradictory letter had troubled Marcia
+greatly. She was keen enough to see that his logic was at fault, and that
+the two pages of his letter did not hang together, but one thing was
+plain, that he wished her forgiveness. The Bible said that one must
+forgive, and surely it was right to let him know that she did, though when
+she thought of the fright he had given her it was hard to do. Still, it
+was right, and if he was so unhappy, perhaps she had better let him know.
+She would rather have waited until David returned to consult him in the
+matter, but the letter seemed so insistent that she had finally written a
+stiff little note, in formal language, "Mrs. Spafford sends herewith her
+full and free forgiveness to Mr. Harry Temple, and promises to think no
+more of the matter."
+
+She would have liked to consult some one. She almost thought of taking
+Aunt Clarinda into her confidence, but decided that she might not
+understand. So she finally sent off the brief missive, and let her
+troubled thoughts wander after it more than once.
+
+She was standing by the window looking out into the yard perplexing
+herself over this again when there came a loud knocking at the front door.
+She started, half frightened, for the knock sounded through the empty
+house so insistently. It seemed like trouble coming. She felt nervous as
+she went down the hall.
+
+It was only a little urchin, barefoot, and tow-headed. He had ridden an
+old mare to the door, and left her nosing at the dusty grass. He brought
+her a letter. Again her heart fluttered excitedly. Who could be writing to
+her? It was not David. Why did the handwriting look familiar? It could not
+be from any one at home. Father? Mother? No, it was no one she knew. She
+tore it open, and the boy jumped on his horse and was off down the street
+before she realized that he was gone.
+
+
+    "DEAR MADAM:" the letter read,
+
+    "I bring you news of your husband, and having met with an accident
+    I am unable to come further. You will find me at the Green Tavern
+    two miles out on the corduroy road. As the business is private,
+    please come alone.
+
+                                                        "A MESSENGER."
+
+
+Marcia trembled so that she sat down on the stairs. A sudden weakness went
+over her like a wave, and the hall grew dark around her as though she were
+going to faint. But she did not. She was strong and well and had never
+fainted in her life. She rallied in a moment and tried to think. Something
+had happened to David. Something dreadful, perhaps, and she must go at
+once and find out. Still it must be something mysterious, for the man had
+said it was private. Of course that meant David would not want it known.
+David had intended that the man would come to her and tell her by herself.
+She must go. There was nothing else to be done. She must go at once and
+get rid of this awful suspense. It was a good day for the message to have
+come, for she had brought her lunch expecting to do some spring cleaning.
+David had been expected home soon, and she liked to make a bustle of
+preparation as if he might come in any day, for it kept up her good cheer.
+
+Having resolved to go she got up at once, closed the doors and windows,
+put on her bonnet and went out down the street toward the old corduroy
+road. It frightened her to think what might be at the end of her journey.
+Possibly David himself, hurt or dying, and he had sent for her in this way
+that she might break the news gently to his aunts. As she walked along she
+conjured various forms of trouble that might have come to him. Now and
+then she would try to take a cheerful view, saying to herself that David
+might have needed more important papers, papers which he would not like
+everyone to know about, and had sent by special messenger to her to get
+them. Then her face would brighten and her step grow more brisk. But
+always would come the dull thud of possibility of something more serious.
+Her heart beat so fast sometimes that she was forced to lessen her speed
+to get her breath, for though she was going through town, and must
+necessarily walk somewhat soberly lest she call attention to herself, she
+found that her nerves and imagination were fairly running ahead, and
+waiting impatiently for her feet to catch up at every turning place.
+
+At last she came to the corduroy road--a long stretch of winding way
+overlaid with logs which made an unpleasant path. Most of the way was
+swampy, and bordered in some places by thick, dark woods. Marcia sped on
+from log to log, with a nervous feeling that she must step on each one or
+her errand would not be successful. She was not afraid of the loneliness,
+only of what might be coming at the end of her journey.
+
+But suddenly, in the densest part of the wood, she became conscious of
+footsteps echoing hers, and a chill laid hold upon her. She turned her
+head and there, wildly gesticulating and running after her, was Miranda!
+
+Annoyed, and impatient to be on her way, and wondering what to do with
+Miranda, or what she could possibly want, Marcia stopped to wait for her.
+
+"I thought--as you was goin' 'long my way"--puffed Miranda, "I'd jes' step
+along beside you. You don't mind, do you?"
+
+Marcia looked troubled. If she should say she did then Miranda would think
+it queer and perhaps suspect something.
+
+She tried to smile and ask how far Miranda was going.
+
+"Oh, I'm goin' to hunt fer wild strawberries," said the girl nonchalantly
+clattering a big tin pail.
+
+"Isn't it early yet for strawberries?" questioned Marcia.
+
+"Well, mebbe, an' then ag'in mebbe 'tain't. I know a place I'm goin' to
+look anyway. Are you goin' 's fur 's the Green Tavern?"
+
+Miranda's bright eyes looked her through and through, and Marcia's
+truthful ones could not evade. Suddenly as she looked into the girl's
+homely face, filled with a kind of blind adoration, her heart yearned for
+counsel in this trying situation. She was reminded of Miranda's
+helpfulness the time she ran away to the woods, and the care with which
+she had guarded the whole matter so that no one ever heard of it. An
+impulse came to her to confide in Miranda. She was a girl of sharp common
+sense, and would perhaps be able to help with her advice. At least she
+could get comfort from merely telling her trouble and anxiety.
+
+"Miranda," she said, "can you keep a secret?"
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"Well, I'm going to tell you something, just because I am so troubled and
+I feel as if it would do me good to tell it." She smiled and Miranda
+answered the smile with much satisfaction and no surprise. Miranda had
+come for this, though she did not expect her way to be so easy.
+
+"I'll be mum as an oyster," said Miranda. "You jest tell me anything you
+please. You needn't be afraid Hannah Heath'll know a grain about it.
+She'n' I are two people. I know when to shut up."
+
+"Well, Miranda, I'm in great perplexity and anxiety. I've just had a note
+from a messenger my husband has sent asking me to come out to that Green
+Tavern you were talking about. He was sent to me with some message and has
+had an accident so he couldn't come. It kind of frightened me to think
+what might be the matter. I'm glad you are going this way because it keeps
+me from thinking about it. Are we nearly there? I never went out this road
+so far before."
+
+"It ain't fur," said Miranda as if that were a minor matter. "I'll go
+right along in with you, then you needn't feel lonely. I guess likely it's
+business. Don't you worry." The tone was reassuring, but Marcia's face
+looked troubled.
+
+"No, I guess that won't do, Miranda, for the note says it is a private
+matter and I must come alone. You know Mr. Spafford has matters to write
+about that are very important, railroads, and such things, and sometimes
+he doesn't care to have any one get hold of his ideas before they appear
+in the paper. His enemies might use them to stop the plans of the great
+improvements he is writing about."
+
+"Let me see that note!" demanded Miranda. "Got it with you?" Marcia
+hesitated. Perhaps she ought not to show it, and yet there was nothing in
+the note but what she had already told the girl, and she felt sure she
+would not breathe a word to a living soul after her promise. She handed
+Miranda the letter, and they stopped a moment while she slowly spelled it
+out. Miranda was no scholar. Marcia watched her face eagerly, as if to
+gather a ray of hope from it, but she was puzzled by Miranda's look. A
+kind of satisfaction had overspread her homely countenance.
+
+"Should you think from that that David was hurt--or ill--or--or--killed--or
+anything?" She asked the question as if Miranda were a wizard, and hung
+anxiously upon her answer.
+
+"Naw, I don't reckon so!" said Miranda. "Don't you worry. David's all
+right somehow. I'll take care o' you. You go 'long up and see what's the
+business, an' I'll wait here out o' sight o' the tavern. Likely's not he
+might take a notion not to tell you ef he see me come along with you. You
+jest go ahead, and I'll be on hand when you get through. If you need me
+fer anything you jest holler out 'Randy!' good and loud an' I'll hear you.
+Guess I'll set on this log. The tavern's jest round that bend in the road.
+Naw, you needn't thank me. This is a real pretty mornin' to set an' rest.
+Good-bye."
+
+Marcia hurried on, glancing back happily at her protector in a calico
+sunbonnet seated stolidly on a log with her tin pail beside her.
+
+Poor stupid Miranda! Of course she could not understand what a comfort it
+was to have confided her trouble. Marcia went up to the tavern with almost
+a smile on her face, though her heart began to beat wildly as a slatternly
+girl led her into a big room at the right of the hall.
+
+As Marcia disappeared behind the bend in the road, Miranda stealthily
+stole along the edge of the woods, till she stood hidden behind a clump of
+alders where she could peer out and watch Marcia until she reached the
+tavern and passed safely by the row of lounging, smoking men, and on into
+the doorway. Then Miranda waited just an instant to look in all
+directions, and sped across the road, mounting the fence and on through
+two meadows, and the barnyard to the kitchen door of the tavern.
+
+"Mornin'! Mis' Green," she said to the slovenly looking woman who sat by
+the table peeling potatoes. "Mind givin' me a drink o' water? I'm terrible
+thirsty, and seemed like I couldn't find the spring. Didn't thare used to
+be a spring 'tween here'n town?"
+
+"Goodness sakes! Randy! Where'd you come from? Water! Jes' help yourself.
+There's the bucket jes' from the spring five minutes since, an' there's
+the gourd hanging up on the wall. I can't get up, I'm that busy. Twelve to
+dinner to-day, an' only me to do the cookin'. 'Melia she's got to be
+upstairs helpin' at the bar."
+
+"Who all you got here?" questioned Miranda as she took a draught from the
+old gourd.
+
+"Well, got a gentleman from New York fur one. He's real pretty. Quite a
+beau. His clo'es are that nice you'd think he was goin' to court. He's
+that particular 'bout his eatin' I feel flustered. Nothin' would do but he
+hed to hev a downstairs room. He said he didn't like goin' upstairs. He
+don't look sickly, neither."
+
+"Mebbe he's had a accident an' lamed himself," suggested Miranda
+cunningly. "Heard o' any accidents? How'd he come? Coach or horseback?"
+
+"Coach," said Mrs. Green. "Why do you ask? Got any friends in New York?"
+
+"Not many," responded Miranda importantly, "but my cousin Hannah Heath
+has. You know she's ben up there for a spell visitin' an' they say there
+was lots of gentlemen in love with her. There's one in particular used to
+come round a good deal. It might be him come round to see ef it's true
+Hannah's goin' to get married to Lem Skinner. Know what this fellow's name
+is?"
+
+"You don't say! Well now it might be. No, I don't rightly remember his
+name. Seems though it was something like Church er Chapel. 'Melia could
+tell ye, but she's busy."
+
+"Where's he at? Mebbe I could get a glimpse o' him. I'd jest like to know
+ef he was comin' to bother our Hannah."
+
+"Well now. Mebbe you could get a sight o' him. There's a cupboard between
+his room an' the room back. It has a door both sides. Mebbe ef you was to
+slip in there you might see him through the latch hole. I ain't usin' that
+back room fer anythin' but a store-room this spring, so look out you don't
+stumble over nothin' when you go in fer it's dark as a pocket. You go
+right 'long in. I reckon you'll find the way. Yes, it's on the right hand
+side o' the hall. I've got to set here an' finish these potatoes er
+dinner'll be late. I'd like to know real well ef he's one o' Hannah
+Heath's beaux."
+
+Miranda needed no second bidding. She slipped through the hall and store
+room, and in a moment stood before the door of the closet. Softly she
+opened it, and stepped in, lifting her feet cautiously, for the closet
+floor seemed full of old boots and shoes.
+
+It was dark in there, very dark, and only one slat of light stabbed the
+blackness coming through the irregular shape of the latch hole. She could
+hear voices in low tones speaking on the other side of the door. Gradually
+her eyes grew accustomed to the light and one by one objects came out of
+the shadows and looked at her. A white pitcher with a broken nose, a row
+of bottles, a bunch of seed corn with the husks braided together and hung
+on a nail, an old coat on another nail.
+
+Down on her knees beside the crack of light went Miranda. First her eye
+and then her ear were applied to the small aperture. She could see nothing
+but a table directly in front of the door about a foot away on which were
+quills, paper, and a large horn inkstand filled with ink. Some one
+evidently had been writing, for a page was half done, and the pen was laid
+down beside a word.
+
+The limits of the latch hole made it impossible for Miranda to make out
+any more. She applied her ear and could hear a man's voice talking in low
+insinuating tones, but she could make little of what was said. It drove
+her fairly frantic to think that she was losing time. Miranda had no mind
+to be balked in her purpose. She meant to find out who was in that room
+and what was going on. She felt a righteous interest in it.
+
+Her eyes could see quite plainly now in the dark closet. There was a big
+button on the door. She no sooner discovered it than she put up her hand
+and tried to turn it. It was tight and made a slight squeak in turning.
+She stopped but the noise seemed to have no effect upon the evenly
+modulated tones inside. Cautiously she moved the button again, holding the
+latch firmly in her other hand lest the door should suddenly fly open. It
+was an exciting moment when at last the button was turned entirely away
+from the door frame and the lifted latch swung free in Miranda's hand. The
+door opened outward. If it were allowed to go it would probably strike
+against the table. Miranda only allowed it to open a crack. She could hear
+words now, and the voice reminded her of something unpleasant. The least
+little bit more she dared open the door, and she could see, as she had
+expected, Marcia's bonnet and shoulder cape as she sat at the other side
+of the room. This then was the room of the messenger who had sent for Mrs.
+Spafford so peremptorily. The next thing was to discover the identity of
+the messenger. Miranda had suspicions.
+
+The night before she had seen a man lurking near the Spafford house when
+she went out in the garden to feed the chickens. She had watched him from
+behind the lilac bush, and when he had finally gone away she had followed
+him some distance until he turned into the old corduroy road and was lost
+in the gathering dusk. The man she had seen before, and had reason to
+suspect. It was not for nothing that she had braved her grandmother and
+gone hunting wild strawberries out of season.
+
+With the caution of a creature of the forest Miranda opened the door an
+inch further, and applied her eye to the latch hole again. The man's head
+was in full range of her eye then, and her suspicion proved true.
+
+When Marcia entered the big room and the heavy oak door closed behind her
+her heart seemed almost choking her, but she tried with all her might to
+be calm. She was to know the worst now.
+
+On the other side of the room in a large arm-chair, with his feet extended
+on another and covered by a travelling shawl, reclined a man. Marcia went
+toward him eagerly, and then stopped:
+
+"Mr. Temple!" There was horror, fear, reproach in the way she spoke it.
+
+"I know you are astonished, Mrs. Spafford, that the messenger should be
+one so unworthy, and let me say at the beginning that I am more thankful
+than I can express that your letter of forgiveness reached me before I was
+obliged to start on my sorrowful commission. I beg you will sit down and
+be as comfortable as you can while I explain further. Pardon my not
+rising. I have met with a bad sprain caused by falling from my horse on
+the way, and was barely able to reach this stopping place. My ankle is
+swollen so badly that I cannot step upon my foot."
+
+Marcia, with white face, moved to the chair he indicated near him, and sat
+down. The one thought his speech had conveyed to her had come through
+those words "my sorrowful commission." She felt the need of sitting down,
+for her limbs would no longer bear her up, and she felt she must
+immediately know what was the matter.
+
+"Mrs. Spafford, may I ask you once more to speak your forgiveness? Before
+I begin to tell you what I have come for, I long to hear you say the words
+'I forgive you.' Will you give me your hand and say them?"
+
+"Mr. Temple, I beg you will tell me what is the matter. Do not think any
+further about that other matter. I meant what I said in the note. Tell me
+quick! Is my husband--has anything happened to Mr. Spafford? Is he ill? Is
+he hurt?"
+
+"My poor child! How can I bear to tell you? It seems terrible to put your
+love and trust upon another human being and then suddenly find---- But wait.
+Let me tell the story in my own way. No, your husband is not hurt,
+physically. Illness, and death even, are not the worst things that can
+happen to a mortal soul. It seems to me cruel, as I see you sit there so
+young and tender and beautiful, that I should have to hurt you by what I
+have to say. I come from the purest of motives to tell you a sad truth
+about one who should be nearest and dearest to you of all the earth. I beg
+you will look upon me kindly and believe that it hurts me to have to tell
+you these things. Before I begin I pray you will tell me that you forgive
+me for all I have to say. Put your hand in mine and say so."
+
+Marcia had listened to this torrent of words unable to stop them, a
+choking sensation in her throat, fear gripping her heart. Some terrible
+thing had happened. Her senses refused to name the possibility. Would he
+never tell? What ailed the man that he wanted her hand in forgiveness? Of
+course she forgave him. She could not speak, and he kept urging.
+
+"I cannot talk until I have your hand as a pledge that you will forgive me
+and think not unkindly of me for what I am about to tell you."
+
+He must have seen how powerfully he wrought upon her, for he continued
+until wild with frantic fear she stumbled toward him and laid her hand in
+his. He grasped it and thanked her profusely. He looked at the little cold
+hand in his own, and his lying tongue went on:
+
+"Mrs. Spafford, you are good and true. You have saved me from a life of
+uselessness, and your example and high noble character have given me new
+inspiration. It seems a poor gratitude that would turn and stab you to the
+heart. Ah! I cannot do it, and yet I must."
+
+This was torture indeed! Marcia drew her hand sharply away and held it to
+her heart. She felt her brain reeling with the strain. Harry Temple saw he
+must go on at once or he would lose what he had gained. He had meant to
+keep that little hand and touch it gently with a comforting pressure as
+his story went on, but it would not do to frighten her or she might take
+sudden alarm.
+
+"Sit down," he begged, reaching out and drawing a chair near to his own,
+but she stepped back and dropped into the one which she had first taken.
+
+"You know your husband has been in New York?" he began. She nodded. She
+could not speak.
+
+"Did you never suspect why he is there and why he stays so long?" A cold
+vise gripped Marcia's heart, but though she turned white she said nothing,
+only looked steadily into the false eyes that glowed and burned at her
+like two hateful coals of fire that would scorch her soul and David's to a
+horrid death.
+
+"Poor child, you cannot answer. You have trusted perfectly. You thought he
+was there on business connected with his writing, but did it never occur
+to you what a very long time he has been away and that--that there might be
+some other reason also which he has not told? But you must know it now, my
+child. I am sorry to say it, but he has been keeping it from you, and
+those who love you think you ought to know. Let me explain. Very soon
+after he reached New York he met a lady whom he used to know and admire.
+She is a very beautiful woman, and though she is married is still much
+sought after. Your husband, like the rest of her admirers, soon lost his
+heart completely, and his head. Strange that he could so easily forget the
+pearl of women he had left behind! He went to see her. He showed his
+affection for her in every possible way. He gave her large sums of money.
+In fact, to make a long story short, he is lingering in New York just to
+be near her. I hesitate to speak the whole truth, but he has surely done
+that which you cannot forgive. You with your lofty ideas--Mrs. Spafford--he
+has cut himself off from any right to your respect or love.
+
+"And now I am here to-day to offer to do all in my power to help you. From
+what I know of your husband's movements, he is likely to return to you
+soon. You cannot meet him knowing that the lips that will salute you have
+been pressed upon the lips of another woman, and that woman _your own
+sister_, dear Mrs. Spafford!
+
+"Ah! Now you understand, poor child. Your lips quiver! You have reason to
+understand. I know, I know you cannot think what to do. Let me think for
+you." His eyes were glowing and his face animated. He was using all his
+persuasive power, and her gaze was fixed upon him as though he had
+mesmerized her. She could not resist the flood-tide of his eloquence. She
+could only look on and seem to be gradually turning to stone--frozen with
+horror.
+
+He felt he had almost won, and with demoniacal skill he phrased his
+sentences.
+
+"I am here for that purpose. I am here to help you and for no other
+reason. In the stable are horses harnessed and a comfortable carriage. My
+advice to you is to fly from here as fast as these fleet horses can carry
+you. Where you go is for you to say. I should advise going to your
+father's house. That I am sure is what will please him best. He is your
+natural refuge at such a time as this. If, however, you shrink from
+appearing before the eyes of the village gossips in your native town, I
+will take you to the home of a dear old friend of mine, hidden among the
+quiet hills, where you will be cared for most royally and tenderly for my
+sake, and where you can work out your life problem in the way that seems
+best to you. It is there that I am planning to take you to-night. We can
+easily reach there before evening if we start at once."
+
+Marcia started to her feet in horror.
+
+"What do you mean?" she stammered in a choking voice. "I could never go
+anywhere with you Mr. Temple. You are a bad man! You have been telling me
+lies! I do not believe one word of what you have said. My husband is noble
+and good. If he did any of those things you say he did he had a reason for
+it. I shall never distrust him."
+
+Marcia's head was up grandly now and her voice had come back. She looked
+the man in the eye until he quailed, but still he sought to hold his power
+over her.
+
+"You poor child!" and his voice was gentleness and forbearance itself. "I
+do not wonder in your first horror and surprise that you feel as you do. I
+anticipated this. Sit down and calm yourself and let me tell you more
+about it. I can prove everything that I have said. I have letters here----"
+and he swept his hand toward a pile of letters lying on the table; Miranda
+in the closet marked well the position of those letters. "All that I have
+said is only too true, I am sorry to say, and you must listen to me----"
+
+Marcia interrupted him, her eyes blazing, her face excited: "Mr. Temple, I
+shall not listen to another word you say. You are a wicked man and I was
+wrong to come here at all. You deceived me or I should not have come. I
+must go home at once." With that she started toward the door.
+
+Harry Temple flung aside the shawl that covered his sometime sprained
+ankle and arose quickly, placing himself before her, forgetful of his
+invalid rôle:
+
+"Not so fast, my pretty lady," he said, grasping her wrists fiercely in
+both his hands. "You need not think to escape so easily. You shall not
+leave this room except in my company. Do you not know that you are in my
+power? You have spent nearly an hour alone in my bedchamber, and what will
+your precious husband have to do with you after this is known?"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Miranda's time had come. She had seen it coming and was prepared.
+
+With a movement like a flash she pushed open the closet door, seized the
+pot of ink from the table, and before the two excited occupants of the
+room had time to even hear her or realize that she was near, she hurled
+the ink pot full into the insolent face of Harry Temple. The inkstand
+itself was a light affair of horn and inflicted only a slight wound, but
+the ink came into his eyes in a deluge blinding him completely, as Miranda
+had meant it should do. She had seen no other weapon of defense at hand.
+
+Harry Temple dropped Marcia's wrists and groaned in pain, staggering back
+against the wall and sinking to the floor. But Miranda would not stay to
+see the effect of her punishment. She seized the frightened Marcia,
+dragged her toward the cupboard door, sweeping as she passed the pile of
+letters, finished and unfinished, into her apron, and closed the cupboard
+doors carefully behind her. Then she guided Marcia through the dark mazes
+of the store room to the hall, and pushing her toward the front door,
+whispered: "Go quick 'fore he gets his eyes open. I've got to go this way.
+Run down the road fast as you can an' I'll be at the meetin' place first.
+Hurry, quick!"
+
+Marcia went with feet that shook so that every step seemed like to slip,
+but with beating heart she finally traversed the length of the piazza with
+a show of dignity, passed the loungers, and was out in the road. Then
+indeed she took courage and fairly flew.
+
+Miranda, breathless, but triumphant, went back into the kitchen: "I guess
+'tain't him after all," she said to the interested woman who was putting
+on the potatoes to boil. "He's real interesting to look at though. I'd
+like to stop and watch him longer but I must be goin'. I come out to hunt
+fer"--Miranda hesitated for a suitable object before this country-bred
+woman who well knew that strawberries were not ripe yet--"wintergreens fer
+Grandma," she added cheerfully, not quite sure whether they grew around
+these parts, "and I must be in a hurry. Good-bye! Thank you fer the
+drink."
+
+Miranda whizzed out of the door breezily, calling a good morning to one of
+the hostlers as she passed the barnyard, and was off through the meadows
+and over the fence like a bird, the package of letters rustling loud in
+her bosom where she had tucked them before she entered the kitchen.
+
+Neither of the two girls spoke for some minutes after they met, but
+continued their rapid gait, until the end of the corduroy road was in
+sight and they felt comparatively safe.
+
+"Wal, that feller certainly ought to be strung up an' walluped, now, fer
+sure," remarked Miranda, "an I'd like to help at the wallupin'."
+
+Marcia's overstrung nerves suddenly dissolved into hysterical laughter.
+The contrast from the tragic to the ridiculous was too much for her. She
+laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, and then she cried in
+earnest. Miranda stopped and put her arms about her as gently as a mother
+might have done, and smoothed her hair back from the hot cheek, speaking
+tenderly:
+
+"There now, you poor pretty little flower. Jest you cry 's hard 's you
+want to. I know how good it makes you feel to cry. I've done it many a
+time up garret where nobody couldn't hear me. That old Satan, he won't
+trouble you fer a good long spell again. When he gets his evil eyes open,
+if he ever does, he'll be glad to get out o' these parts or I miss my
+guess. Now don't you worry no more. He can't hurt you one mite. An' don't
+you think a thing about what he said. He's a great big liar, that's what
+he is."
+
+"Miranda, you saved me. Yes, you did. I never can thank you enough. If you
+hadn't come and helped me something awful might have happened!" Marcia
+shuddered and began to sob convulsively again.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Miranda, pleased. "I didn't do a thing worth mentioning.
+Now you jest wipe your eyes and chirk up. We've got to go through town an'
+you don't want folks to wonder what's up."
+
+Miranda led Marcia up to the spring whose location had been known to her
+all the time of course, and Marcia bathed her eyes and was soon looking
+more like herself, though there was a nervous tremor to her lips now and
+then. But her companion talked gaily, and tried to keep her mind from
+going over the events of the morning.
+
+When they reached the village Miranda suggested they go home by the back
+street, slipping through a field of spring wheat and climbing the garden
+fence. She had a mind to keep out of her grandmother's sight for a while
+longer.
+
+"I might's well be hung for a sheep's a lamb," she remarked, as she slid
+in at Marcia's kitchen door in the shadow of the morning-glory vines. "I'm
+goin' to stay here a spell an' get you some dinner while you go upstairs
+an' lie down. You don't need to go back to your aunt's till near night,
+an' you can wait till dusk an' I'll go with you. Then you needn't be out
+alone at all. I know how you feel, but I don't believe you need worry.
+He'll be done with you now forever, er I'll miss my guess. Now you go lie
+down till I make a cup o' tea."
+
+Marcia was glad to be alone, and soon fell asleep, worn out with the
+excitement, her brain too weary to go over the awful occurrences of the
+morning. That would come later. Now her body demanded rest.
+
+Miranda, coming upstairs with the tea, tiptoed in and looked at her,--one
+round arm thrown over her head, and her smooth peachy cheek resting
+against it. Miranda, homely, and with no hope of ever attaining any of the
+beautiful things of life, loved unselfishly this girl who had what she had
+not, and longed with all her heart to comfort and protect the sweet young
+thing who seemed so ill-prepared to protect herself. She stooped over the
+sleeper for one yearning moment, and touched her hair lightly with her
+lips. She felt a great desire to kiss the soft round cheek, but was afraid
+of wakening her. Then she took the cup of tea and tiptoed out again, her
+eyes shining with satisfaction. She had a self-imposed task before her,
+and was well pleased that Marcia slept, for it gave her plenty of
+opportunity to carry out her plans.
+
+She went quickly to David's library, opened drawers and doors in the desk
+until she found writing materials, and sat down to work. She had a letter
+to write, and a letter, to Miranda, was the achievement of a lifetime. She
+did not much expect to ever have to write another. She plunged into her
+subject at once.
+
+
+    "DEAR MR. DAVID:" (she was afraid that sounded a little stiff, but
+    she felt it was almost too familiar to say "David" as he was
+    always called.)
+
+    "I ain't much on letters, but this one has got to be writ.
+    Something happened and somebody's got to tell you about it. I'm
+    most sure she wont, and nobody else knows cept me.
+
+    "Last night 'bout dark I went out to feed the chickens, an' I see
+    that nimshi Harry Temple skulkin round your house. It was all dark
+    there, an he walked in the side gate and tried to peek in the
+    winders, only the shades was down an he couldn't see a thing. I
+    thought he was up to some mischief so I followed him down the
+    street a piece till he turned down the old corduroy road. It was
+    dark by then an I come home, but I was on the watchout this
+    morning, and after Mis' Spafford come down to the house I heard a
+    horse gallopin by an I looked out an saw a boy get off an take a
+    letter to the door an ride away, an pretty soon all in a hurry
+    your wife come out tyin her bonnet and hurryin along lookin
+    scared. I grabbed my sunbonnet an clipped after her, but she went
+    so fast I didn't get up to her till she got on the old corduroy
+    road. She was awful scared lookin an she didn't want me much I
+    see, but pretty soon she up an told me she had a note sayin there
+    was a messenger with news from you out to the old Green Tavern. He
+    had a accident an couldn't come no further. He wanted her to come
+    alone cause the business was private, so I stayed down by the turn
+    of the road till she got in an then I went cross lots an round to
+    the kitchen an called on Mis' Green a spell. She was tellin me
+    about her boarders an I told her I thought mebbe one of em was a
+    friend o' Hannah Heath's so she said I might peek through the key
+    hole of the cubberd an see. She was busy so I went alone.
+
+    "Well sir, I jest wish you'd been there. That lying nimshi was
+    jest goin on the sweetest, as respectful an nice a thankin your
+    wife fer comin, an excusin himself fer sendin fer her, and sayin
+    he couldn't bear to tell her what he'd come fer, an pretty soon
+    when she was scared 's death he up an told her a awful fib bout
+    you an a woman called Kate, whoever she is, an he jest poured the
+    words out fast so she couldn't speak, an he said things about you
+    he shouldn't uv, an you could see he was makin it up as he went
+    along, an he said he had proof. So he pointed at a pile of letters
+    on the table an I eyed em good through the hole in the door.
+    Pretty soon he ups and perposes that he carry her off in a
+    carriage he has all ready, and takes her to a friend of his, so
+    she wont be here when you come home, cause you're so bad, and she
+    gets up looking like she wanted to scream only she didn't dare,
+    and she says he dont tell the truth, it wasn't so any of it, and
+    if it was it was all right anyway, that you had some reason, an
+    she wouldn't go a step with him anywhere. An then he forgets all
+    about the lame ankle he had kept covered up on a chair pertendin
+    it was hurt fallin off his horse when the coach brought him all
+    the way fer I asked Mis' Green--and he ketches her by the wrists,
+    and he says she can't go without him, and she needn't be in such a
+    hurry fer you wouldn't have no more to do with her anyway after
+    her being shut up there with him so long, an then she looked jest
+    like she was going to faint, an I bust out through the door an
+    ketched up the ink pot, it want heavy enough to kill him, an I
+    slung it at him, an the ink went square in his eyes, an we slipped
+    through the closet an got away quick fore anybody knew a thing.
+
+    "I brought all the letters along so here they be. I havn't read a
+    one, cause I thought mebbe you'd ruther not. She aint seen em
+    neither. She dont know I've got em. I hid em in my dress. She's
+    all wore out with cryin and hurryin, and being scared, so she's
+    upstairs now asleep, an she dont know I'm writing. I'm goin to
+    send this off fore she knows, fer I think she wouldn't tell you
+    fear of worryin you. I'll look after her es well's I can till you
+    get back, but I think that feller ought to be strung up. But
+    you'll know what to do, so no more at present from your obedient
+    servent,
+
+                                                    "MIRANDA GRISCOM."
+
+
+Having at last succeeded in sealing her packet to her satisfaction and the
+diminishing of the stick of sealing wax she had found in the drawer,
+Miranda slid out the front door, and by a detour went to David Spafford's
+office.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Clark," she said to the clerk importantly. "Grandma
+sends her respecks and wants to know ef you'd be so kind as to back this
+letter fer her to Mr. David Spafford. She's writin' to him on business an'
+she don't rightly know his street an' number in New York."
+
+Mr. Clark willingly wrote the address, and Miranda took it to the post
+office, and sped back to Marcia, happy in the accomplishment of her
+purpose.
+
+
+
+In the same mail bag that brought Miranda's package came a letter from
+Aunt Clarinda. David's face lit up with a pleased smile. Her letters were
+so infrequent that they were a rare pleasure. He put aside the thick
+package written in his clerk's hand. It was doubtless some business papers
+and could wait.
+
+Aunt Clarinda wrote in a fine old script that in spite of her eighty years
+was clear and legible. She told about the beauty of the weather, and how
+Amelia and Hortense were almost done with the house cleaning, and how
+Marcia had been going to their house every day putting it in order. Then
+she added a paragraph which David, knowing the old lady well, understood
+to be the _raison d'être_ of the whole letter:
+
+"I think your wife misses you very much, Davie, she looks sort of peeked
+and sad. It is hard on her being separated from you so long this first
+year. Men don't think of those things, but it is lonely for a young thing
+like her here with three old women, and you know Hortense and Amelia never
+try to make it lively for anybody. I have been watching her, and I think
+if I were you I would let the business finish itself up as soon as
+possible and hurry back to put a bit of cheer into that child. She's
+whiter than she ought to be."
+
+David read it over three times in astonishment with growing, mingled
+feelings which he could not quite analyze.
+
+Poor Aunt Clarinda! Of course she did not understand the situation, and
+equally of course she was mistaken. Marcia was not sighing for him, though
+it might be dull for her at the old house. He ought to have thought of
+that; and a great burden suddenly settled down upon him. He was not doing
+right by Marcia. It could not be himself of course that Marcia was
+missing, if indeed Aunt Clarinda was right and she was worried about
+anything. Perhaps something had occurred to trouble her. Could that snake
+of a Temple have turned up again? No, he felt reasonably sure he would
+have heard of that, besides he saw him not long ago on the street at a
+distance. Could it be some boy-lover at home whose memory came to trouble
+her? Or had she discovered what a sacrifice she had made of her young
+life? Whatever it was, it was careless and cruel in him to have left her
+alone with his aunts all this time. He was a selfish man, he told himself,
+to have accepted her quiet little sacrifice of all for him. He read the
+letter over again, and suddenly there came to him a wish that Marcia _was_
+missing him. It seemed a pleasant thought to have her care. He had been
+trying to train himself to the fact that no one would ever care for him
+again, but now it seemed dear and desirable that his sweet young companion
+should like to have him back. He had a vision of home as it had been, so
+pleasant and restful, always the food that he liked, always the thought
+for his wishes, and he felt condemned. He had not noticed or cared. Had
+she thought him ungrateful?
+
+He read the letter over again, noting every mention of his wife in the
+account of the daily living at home. He was searching for some clue that
+would give him more information about her. And when he reached the last
+paragraph about missing him, a little tingle of pleasure shot through him
+at the thought. He did not understand it. After all she was his, and if it
+was possible he must help to make up to her for what she had lost in
+giving herself to him. If the thought of doing so brought a sense of
+satisfaction to him that was unexpected, he was not to blame in any wise.
+
+Since his interview with Kate, and the terrible night of agony through
+which he had passed, David had plunged into his business with all his
+might. Whenever a thought of Kate came he banished it if possible, and if
+it would not go he got out his writing materials and went to work at an
+article, to absorb his mind. He had several times arisen in the night to
+write because he could not sleep, and must think.
+
+When he was obliged to be in New York he had steadily kept away from the
+house where Kate lived, and never walked through the streets without
+occupying his mind as fully as possible so that he should not chance to
+see her. In this way his sorrow was growing old without having been worn
+out, and he was really regaining a large amount of his former happiness
+and interest in life. Not so often now did the vision of Kate come to
+trouble him. He thought she was still his one ideal of womanly beauty and
+grace and perfection of course, and always would be, but she was not for
+him to think upon any more. A strong true man he was growing, out of his
+sorrow. And now when the thought of Marcia came to him with a certain
+sweetness he could be glad that it was so, and not resent it. Of course no
+one could ever take the place of Kate, that was impossible.
+
+So reflecting, with a pleasant smile upon his face, he opened Miranda's
+epistle.
+
+Puzzled and surprised he began to read the strange chirography, and as he
+read his face darkened and he drew his brows in a heavy frown. "The
+scoundrel!" he muttered as he turned the sheet. Then as he went on his
+look grew anxious. He scanned the page quickly as if he would gather the
+meaning from the crooked ill-spelled words without taking them one by one.
+But he had to go slowly, for Miranda had not written with as much
+plainness as haste. He fairly held his breath when he thought of the
+gentle girl in the hands of the unscrupulous man of the world. A terrible
+fear gripped his heart, Marcia, little Marcia, so sweet and pure and good.
+A vision of her face as she lay asleep in the woods came between him and
+the paper. Why had he left her unprotected all these months? Fool that he
+was! She was worth more than all the railroads put together. As if his own
+life was in the balance, he read on, growing sick with horror. Poor child!
+what had she thought? And how had his own sin and weakness been found out,
+or was it merely Harry Temple's wicked heart that had evolved these
+stories? The letter smote him with terrible accusation, and all at once it
+was fearful to him to think that Marcia had heard such things about him.
+When he came to her trust in him he groaned aloud and buried his face in
+the letter, and then raised it quickly to read to the end.
+
+When he had finished he rose with sudden determination to pack his
+carpet-bag and go home at once. Marcia needed him, and he felt a strong
+desire to be near her, to see her and know she was safe. It was
+overwhelming. He had not known he could ever feel strongly again. He must
+confess his own weakness of course, and he would. She should know all and
+know that she might trust his after all.
+
+But the motion of rising had sent the other papers to the floor, and in
+falling the bundle of letters that Miranda had enclosed, scattered about
+him. He stooped to pick them up and saw his own name written in Kate's
+handwriting. Old association held him, and wondering, fearful, not wholly
+glad to see it, he picked up the letter. It was an epistle of Kate's,
+written in intimate style to Harry Temple and speaking of himself in terms
+of the utmost contempt. She even stooped to detail to Harry an account of
+her own triumph on that miserable morning when he had taken her in his
+arms and kissed her. There were expressions in the letter that showed her
+own wicked heart, as nothing else could ever have done, to David. As he
+read, his soul growing sick within him,--read one letter after another, and
+saw how she had plotted with this bad man to wreck the life of her young
+sister for her own triumph and revenge,--the beautiful woman whom he had
+loved, and whom he had thought beautiful within as well as without,
+crumbled into dust before him. When he looked up at last with white face
+and firmly set lips, he found that his soul was free forever from the
+fetters that had bound him to her.
+
+He went to the fireplace and laid the pile of letters among the embers,
+blowing them into a blaze, and watched them until they were eaten up by
+the fire and nothing remained but dead grey ashes. The thought came to him
+that that was like his old love. It was burnt out. There had not been the
+right kind of fuel to feed it. Kate was worthless, but his own self was
+alive, and please God he would yet see better days. He would go home at
+once to the child wife who needed him, and whom now he might love as she
+should be loved. The thought became wondrously sweet to him as he rapidly
+threw the things into his travelling bag and went about arrangements for
+his trip home. He determined that if he ever came to New York again Marcia
+should come with him.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Marcia hurried down to her own house early one morning. The phantoms of
+her experiences in the old Green Tavern were pursuing her.
+
+Once there she could do nothing but go over and over the dreadful things
+that Harry Temple had said. In vain did she try to work. She went into the
+library and took up a book, but her mind would wander to David.
+
+She sat down at the piano and played a few tender chords and sang an old
+Italian song which somebody had left at their house several years before:
+
+                "Dearest, believe,
+                   When e'er we part:
+                 Lonely I grieve,
+                   In my sad heart:--"
+
+With a sob her head dropped upon her hands in one sad little crash of
+wailing tones, while the sound died away in reverberation after
+reverberation of the strings till Marcia felt as if a sea of sound were
+about her in soft ebbing, flowing waves.
+
+The sound covered the lifting of the side door latch and the quiet step of
+a foot. Marcia was absorbed in her own thoughts. Her smothered sobs were
+mingling with the dying sounds of the music, still audible to her fine
+ear.
+
+David had come by instinct to his own home first. He felt that Marcia
+would be there, and now that he was come and the morning sun flooded
+everything and made home look so good he felt that he must find her first
+of all before his relationship with home had been re-established. He
+passed through kitchen, dining room and hall, and by the closed parlor
+door. He never thought of her being in there with the door closed. He
+glanced into the library and saw the book lying in his chair as she had
+left it, and it gave a touch of her presence which pleased him. He went
+softly toward the stairs thinking to find her. He had stopped at a shop
+the last thing and bought a beautiful creamy shawl of China crêpe heavily
+embroidered, and finished with long silken fringe. He had taken it from
+his carpet-bag and was carrying it in its rice paper wrappings lest it
+should be crushed. He was pleased as a child at the present he had brought
+her, and felt strangely shy about giving it to her.
+
+Just then there came a sound from the parlor, sweet and tender and
+plaintive. Marcia had conquered her sobs and was singing again with her
+whole soul, singing as if she were singing to David. The words drew him
+strangely, wonderingly toward the parlor door, yet so softly that he heard
+every syllable.
+
+                "Dearest, believe,
+                   When e'er we part:
+                 Lonely I grieve,
+                   In my sad heart:--
+                 Thy faithful slave,
+                   Languishing sighs,
+                 Haste then and save--"
+
+Here the words trailed away again into a half sob, and the melody
+continued in broken, halting chords that flickered out and faded into the
+shadows of the room.
+
+David's heart was pierced with a belief that Aunt Clarinda was right and
+something was the matter with Marcia. A great trouble and tenderness, and
+almost jealousy, leaped up in his heart which were incomprehensible to
+him. Who was Marcia singing this song for? That it was a true cry from a
+lonely soul he could but believe. Was she feeling her prison-bars here in
+the lonely old house with only a forlorn man whose life and love had been
+thrown away upon another? Poor child! Poor child! If he might but save her
+from suffering, cover her with his own tenderness and make her content
+with that. Would it be possible if he devoted himself to it to make her
+forget the one for whom she was sighing; to bring peace and a certain sort
+of sweet forgetfulness and interest in other things into her life? He
+wanted to make a new life for her, his little girl whom he had so
+unthinkingly torn from the home nest and her future, and compelled to take
+up his barren way with him. He would make it up to her if such a thing
+were possible. Then he opened the door.
+
+In the soft green light of the noonday coming through the shades Marcia's
+color did not show as it flew into her cheeks. Her hands grew weak and
+dropped upon the keys with a soft little tinkle of surprise and joy. She
+sprang up and came a step toward him, then clasped her hands against her
+breast and stopped shyly. David coming into the room, questioning,
+wondering, anxious, stopped midway too, and for an instant they looked
+upon one another. David saw a new look in the girl's face. She seemed
+older, much older than when he had left her. The sweet round cheeks were
+thinner, her mouth drooped sadly, pathetically. For an instant he longed
+to take her in his arms and kiss her. The longing startled him. So many
+months he had thought of only Kate in that way, and then had tried to
+teach himself never to think of Kate or any woman as one to be caressed by
+him, that it shocked him. He felt that he had been disloyal to himself, to
+honor,--to Kate--no--not to Kate, he had no call to be loyal to her. She had
+not been loyal to him ever. Perhaps rather he would have put it loyalty to
+Love for Love's sake, love that is worthy to be crowned by a woman's love.
+
+With all these mingling feelings David was embarrassed. He came toward her
+slowly, trying to be natural, trying to get back his former way with her.
+He put out his hand stiffly to shake hands as he had done when he left,
+and timidly she put hers into it, yet as their fingers closed there leaped
+from one to the other a thrill of sweetness, that neither guessed the
+other knew and each put by in memory for closer inspection as to what it
+could mean. Their hands clung together longer than either had meant, and
+there was something pleasant to each in the fact that they were together
+again. David thought it was just because it was home, rest, and peace, and
+a relief from his anxiety about Marcia now that he saw she was all right.
+Marcia knew it was better to have David standing there with his strong
+fingers about her trembling ones, than to have anything else in the world.
+But she would not have told him so.
+
+"That was a sweet song you were singing," said David. "I hope you were
+singing it for me, and that it was true! I am glad I am come home, and you
+must sing it again for me soon."
+
+It was not in the least what he intended to say, and the words tumbled
+themselves out so tumultuously that he was almost ashamed and wondered if
+Marcia would think he had lost his mind in New York. Marcia, dear child,
+treasured them every word and hugged them to her heart, and carried them
+in her prayers.
+
+They went out together and got dinner as if they had been two children,
+with a wild excited kind of glee; and they tried to get back their natural
+ways of doing and saying things, but they could not.
+
+Instead they were forever blundering and halting in what they said; coming
+face to face and almost running over one another as they tried to help
+each other; laughing and blushing and blundering again.
+
+When they each tried to reach for the tea kettle to fill the coffee pot
+and their fingers touched, each drew back and pretended not to notice, but
+yet had felt the contact sweet.
+
+They were lingering over the dinner when Hannah Heath came to the door.
+David had been telling of some of his adventures in detail and was
+enjoying the play of expression on Marcia's face as she listened eagerly
+to every word. They had pushed their chairs back a little and were sitting
+there talking,--or rather David was talking, Marcia listening. Hannah stood
+for one jealous instant and saw it all. This was what she had dreamed for
+her own long years back, she and David. She had questioned much just what
+feeling there might be between him and Marcia, and now more than ever she
+desired to bring him face to face with Kate and read for herself what the
+truth had been. She hated Marcia for that look of intense delight and
+sympathy upon her face; hated her that she had the right to sit there and
+hear what David had to say--some stupid stuff about railroads. She did not
+see that she herself would have made an ill companion for a man like
+David.
+
+As yet neither Marcia nor David had touched upon the subjects which had
+troubled them. They did not realize it, but they were so suddenly happy in
+each other's company they had forgotten for the moment. The pleasant
+converse was broken up at once. Marcia's face hardened into something like
+alarm as she saw who stood in the doorway.
+
+"Why, David, have you got home at last?" said Hannah. "I did not know it."
+That was an untruth. She had watched him from behind Grandmother Heath's
+rose bush. "Where did you come from last? New York? Oh, then you saw Mrs.
+Leavenworth. How is she? I fell in love with her when I was there."
+
+Now David had never fully taken in Kate's married name. He knew it of
+course, but in his present state of happiness at getting home, and his
+absorption in the work he had been doing, the name "Mrs. Leavenworth"
+conveyed nothing whatever to David's mind. He looked blankly at Hannah and
+replied indifferently enough with a cool air. "No, Miss Hannah, I had no
+time for social life. I was busy every minute I was away."
+
+David never expected Hannah to say anything worth listening to, and he was
+so full of his subject that he had not noticed that she made no reply.
+
+Hannah watched him curiously as he talked, his remarks after all were
+directed more to Marcia than to her, and when he paused she said with a
+contemptuous sneer in her voice, "I never could understand, David, how you
+who seem to have so much sense in other things will take up with such
+fanciful, impractical dreams as this railroad. Lemuel says it'll never
+run."
+
+Hannah quoted her lover with a proud bridling of her head as if the matter
+were settled once and for all. It was the first time she had allowed the
+world to see that she acknowledged her relation to Lemuel. She was not
+averse to having David understand that she felt there were other men in
+the world besides himself. But David turned merry eyes on her.
+
+"Lemuel says?" he repeated, and he made a sudden movement with his arm
+which sent a knife and spoon from the table in a clatter upon the floor.
+
+"And how much does Lemuel know about the matter?"
+
+"Lemuel has good practical common sense," said Hannah, vexed, "and he
+knows what is possible and what is not. He does not need to travel all
+over the country on a wild goose chase to learn that."
+
+Now that she had accepted him Hannah did not intend to allow Lemuel to be
+discounted.
+
+"He has not long to wait to be convinced," said David thoughtfully and
+unaware of her tart tone. "Before the year is out it will be a settled
+fact that every one can see."
+
+"Well, it's beyond comprehension what you care, anyway," said Hannah
+contemptuously. "Did you really spend all your time in New York on such
+things? It seems incredible. There certainly must have been other
+attractions?"
+
+There was insinuation in Hannah's voice though it was smooth as butter,
+but David had had long years of experience in hearing Hannah Heath's sharp
+tongue. He minded it no more than he would have minded the buzzing of a
+fly. Marcia's color rose, however. She made a hasty errand to the pantry
+to put away the bread, and her eyes flashed at Hannah through the close
+drawn pantry door. But Hannah did not give up so easily.
+
+"It is strange you did not stay with Mrs. Leavenworth," she said. "She
+told me you were one of her dearest friends, and you used to be quite fond
+of one another."
+
+Then it suddenly dawned upon David who Mrs. Leavenworth was, and a
+sternness overspread his face.
+
+"Mrs. Leavenworth, did you say? Ah! I did not understand. I saw her but
+once and that for only a few minutes soon after I first arrived. I did not
+see her again." His voice was cool and steady. Marcia coming from the
+pantry with set face, ready for defence if there was any she could give,
+marvelled at his coolness. Her heart was gripped with fear, and yet
+leaping with joy at David's words. He had not seen Kate but once. He had
+known she was there and yet had kept away. Hannah's insinuations were
+false. Mr. Temple's words were untrue. She had known it all the time, yet
+what sorrow they had given her!
+
+"By the way, Marcia," said David, turning toward her with a smile that
+seemed to erase the sternness in his voice but a moment before. "Did you
+not write me some news? Miss Hannah, you are to be congratulated I
+believe. Lemuel is a good man. I wish you much happiness."
+
+And thus did David, with a pleasant speech, turn aside Hannah Heath's
+dart. Yet while she went from the house with a smile and a sound of
+pleasant wishes in her ears, she carried with her a bitter heart and a
+revengeful one.
+
+David was suddenly brought face to face with the thing he had to tell
+Marcia. He sat watching her as she went back and forth from pantry to
+kitchen, and at last he came and stood beside her and took her hands in
+his looking down earnestly into her face. It seemed terrible to him to
+tell this thing to the innocent girl, now, just when he was growing
+anxious to win her confidence, but it must be told, and better now than
+later lest he might be tempted not to tell it at all.
+
+"Marcia!" He said the name tenderly, with an inflection he had never used
+before. It was not lover-like, nor passionate, but it reached her heart
+and drew her eyes to his and the color to her cheeks. She thought how
+different his clasp was from Harry Temple's hateful touch. She looked up
+at him trustingly, and waited.
+
+"You heard what I said to Hannah Heath just now, about--your----" He paused,
+dissatisfied--"about Mrs. Leavenworth"--it was as if he would set the
+subject of his words far from them. Marcia's heart beat wildly,
+remembering all that she had been told, yet she looked bravely, trustingly
+into his eyes.
+
+"It was true what I told her. I met Mrs. Leavenworth but once while I was
+away. It was in her own home and she sent for me saying she was in
+trouble. She told me that she was in terrible anxiety lest I would not
+forgive her. She begged me to say that I forgave her, and when I told her
+I did she asked me to kiss her once to prove it. I was utterly overcome
+and did so, but the moment my lips touched hers I knew that I was doing
+wrong and I put her from me. She begged me to remain, and I now know that
+she was utterly false from the first. It was but a part she was playing
+when she touched my heart until I yielded and sinned. I have only learned
+that recently, within a few days, and from words written by her own hand
+to another. I will tell you about it all sometime. But I want to confess
+to you this wrong I have done, and to let you know that I went away from
+her that day and have never seen her since. She had said she was without
+money, and I left her all I had with me. I know now that that too was
+unwise,--perhaps wrong. I feel that all this was a sin against you. I would
+like you to forgive me if you can, and I want you to know that this other
+woman who was the cause of our coming together, and yet has separated us
+ever since we have been together, is no longer anything to me. Even if she
+and I were both free as we were when we first met, we could never be
+anything but strangers. Can you forgive me now, Marcia, and can you ever
+trust me after what I have told you?"
+
+Marcia looked into his eyes, and loved him but the more for his
+confession. She felt she could forgive him anything, and her whole soul in
+her countenance answered with her voice, as she said: "I can." It made
+David think of their wedding day, and suddenly it came over him with a
+thrill that this sweet womanly woman belonged to him. He marvelled at her
+sweet forgiveness. The joy of it surprised him beyond measure.
+
+"You have had some sad experiences yourself. Will you tell me now all
+about it?" He asked the question wistfully still holding her hands in a
+firm close grasp, and she let them lie nestling there feeling safe as
+birds in the nest.
+
+"Why, how did you know?" questioned Marcia, her whole face flooded with
+rosy light for joy at his kind ways and relief that she did not have to
+open the story.
+
+"Oh, a little bird, or a guardian angel whispered the tale," he said
+pleasantly. "Come into the room where we can be sure no Hannah Heaths will
+trouble us," and he drew her into the library and seated her beside him on
+the sofa.
+
+"But, indeed, Marcia," and his face sobered, "it is no light matter to me,
+what has happened to you. I have been in an agony all the way home lest I
+might not find you safe and well after having escaped so terrible a
+danger."
+
+He drew the whole story from her bit by bit, tenderly questioning her, his
+face blazing with righteous wrath, and darkening with his wider knowledge
+as she told on to the end, and showed him plainly the black heart of the
+villain who had dared so diabolical a conspiracy; and the inhumanity of
+the woman who had helped in the intrigue against her own sister,--nay even
+instigated it. His feelings were too deep for utterance. He was shaken to
+the depths. His new comprehension of Kate's character was confirmed at the
+worst. Marcia could only guess his deep feelings from his shaken
+countenance and the earnest way in which he folded his hands over hers and
+said in low tones filled with emotion: "We should be deeply thankful to
+God for saving you, and I must be very careful of you after this. That
+villain shall be searched out and punished if it takes a lifetime, and
+Miranda,--what shall we do for Miranda? Perhaps we can induce her
+grandmother to let us have her sometime to help take care of us. We seem
+to be unable to get on without her. We'll see what we can do sometime in
+return for the great service she has rendered."
+
+But the old clock striking in the hall suddenly reminded David that he
+should go at once to the office, so he hurried away and Marcia set about
+her work with energy, a happy song of praise in her heart.
+
+There was much to be done. David had said he would scarcely have time to
+go over to his aunts that night, so she had decided to invite them to tea.
+She would far rather have had David to herself this first evening, but it
+would please them to come, especially Aunt Clarinda. There was not much
+time to prepare supper to be sure, but she would stir up a gingerbread,
+make some puffy cream biscuits, and there was lovely white honey and fresh
+eggs and peach preserves.
+
+So she ran to Deacon Appleby's to get some cream for her biscuits and to
+ask Tommy Appleby to harness David's horse and drive over for Aunt
+Clarinda. Then she hurried down to the aunts to give her invitation.
+
+Aunt Clarinda sat down in her calico-covered rocking chair, wiped her dear
+old eyes and her glasses, and said, over and over again: "Dear child!
+Bless her! Bless her!"
+
+It was a happy gathering that evening. David was as pleased as they could
+have desired, and looked about upon the group in the dining-room with
+genuine boyish pleasure. It did his heart good to see Aunt Clarinda there.
+It had never occurred to him before that she could come. He turned to
+Marcia with a light in his eyes that fully repaid her for the little
+trouble she had had in carrying out her plan. He began to feel that home
+meant something even though he had lost the home of his long dreams and
+ideals.
+
+He talked a great deal about his trip, and in between the sentences, he
+caught himself watching Marcia, noting the curve of her round chin, the
+dimple in her left cheek when she smiled, the way her hair waved off from
+her forehead, the pink curves of her well-shaped ears. He found a distinct
+pleasure in noting these things and he wondered at himself. It was as if
+he had suddenly been placed before some great painting and become
+possessed of the knowledge wherewith to appreciate art to its fullest. It
+was as if he had heard a marvellous piece of music and had the eyes and
+ears of his understanding opened to take in the gracious melodies and
+majestic harmonies.
+
+Aunt Clarinda watched his eyes, and Aunt Clarinda was satisfied. Aunt
+Hortense watched his eyes, jealously and sighed. Aunt Amelia watched his
+eyes and set her lips and feared to herself. "He will spoil her if he does
+like that. She will think she can walk right over him." But Aunt Clarinda
+knew better. She recognized the eternal right of love.
+
+They took the three old ladies home in the rising of an early moon, Marcia
+walking demurely on the sidewalk with Aunt Amelia, while David drove the
+chaise with Aunt Clarinda and Aunt Hortense.
+
+As he gently lifted Aunt Clarinda down and helped her to her room David
+felt her old hands tremble and press his arm, and when he had reached her
+door he stooped and kissed her.
+
+"Davie," she said in the voice that used to comfort his little childish
+troubles, or tell him of some nice surprise she had for him, "Davie, she's
+a dear child! She's just as good as gold. She's the princess I used to put
+in all your fairy-tales. David, she's just the right one for you!" and
+David answered earnestly, solemnly, as if he were discovering a truth
+which surprised him but yet was not unwelcome. "I believe she is, Aunt
+Clarinda."
+
+They drove to the barn and Marcia sat in the chaise in the sweet
+hay-scented darkness while David put up the horse by the cobwebby light of
+the lantern; then they walked quietly back to the house. David had drawn
+Marcia's hand through his arm and it rested softly on his coat sleeve. She
+was silently happy, she knew not why, afraid to think of it lest to-morrow
+would show her there was nothing out of the ordinary monotony to be happy
+about.
+
+David was silent, wondering at himself. What was this that had come to
+him? A new pleasure in life. A little trembling rill of joy bubbling up in
+his heart; a rift in the dark clouds of fate; a show of sunshine where he
+had expected never to see the light again. Why was it so pleasant to have
+that little hand resting upon his arm? Was it really pleasant or was it
+only a part of the restfulness of getting home again away from strange
+faces and uncomfortable beds, and poor tables?
+
+They let themselves into the house as if they were walking into a new
+world together and both were glad to be there again. When she got up to
+her room Marcia went and stood before the glass and looked at herself by
+the flickering flame of the candle. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks
+burned red in the centre like two soft deep roses. She felt she hardly
+knew herself. She tried to be critical. Was this person she was examining
+a pretty person? Would she be called so in comparison with Kate and Hannah
+Heath? Would a man,--would David,--if his heart were not filled,--think so?
+She decided not. She felt she was too immature. There was too much shyness
+in her glance, too much babyishness about her mouth. No, David could never
+have thought her beautiful, even if he had seen her before he knew Kate.
+But perhaps, if Kate had been married first and away and then he had come
+to their home, perhaps if he knew no one else well enough to love,--could
+he have cared for her?
+
+Oh, it was a dreadful, beautiful thought. It thrilled through and through
+her till she hid her face from her own gaze. She suddenly kissed the hand
+that had rested on his sleeve, and then reproached herself for it. She
+loved him, but was it right to do so?
+
+As for David, he was sitting on the side of his bed with his chin in his
+hands examining himself.
+
+He had supposed that with the reading of those letters which had come to
+him but two short days before all possibility of love and happiness had
+died, but lo! he found himself thrilling with pleasure over the look in a
+girl's soft eyes, and the touch of her hand. And that girl was his wife.
+It was enough to keep him awake to try to understand himself.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Hannah Heath's wedding day dawned bright enough for a less calculating
+bride.
+
+David did not get home until half past three. He had been obliged to drive
+out to the starting place of the new railroad, near Albany, where it was
+important that he get a few points correctly. On the morrow was to be the
+initial trip, by the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, of the first train drawn
+by a steam engine in the state of New York.
+
+His article about it, bargained for by a New York paper, must be on its
+way by special post as soon after the starting of the train as possible.
+He must have all items accurate; technicalities of preparation;
+description of engine and coaches; details of arrangements, etc.; before
+he added the final paragraphs describing the actual start of the train.
+His article was practically done now, save for these few items. He had
+started early that morning on his long drive, and, being detained longer
+than he had expected, arrived at home with barely time to put himself into
+wedding garments, and hasten in at the last moment with Marcia who stood
+quietly waiting for him in the front hall. They were the last guests to
+arrive. It was time for the ceremony, but the bride, true to her nature to
+the last, still kept Lemuel waiting; and Lemuel, true to the end, stood
+smiling and patient awaiting her pleasure.
+
+David and Marcia entered the wide parlor and shook hands here and there
+with those assembled, though for the most part a hushed air pervaded the
+room, as it always does when something is about to happen.
+
+Soon after their arrival some one in purple silk came down the stairs and
+seated herself in a vacant chair close to where the bride was to stand.
+She had gold hair and eyes like forget-me-nots. She was directly opposite
+to David and Marcia. David was engrossed in a whispered conversation with
+Mr. Brentwood about the events of the morrow, and did not notice her
+entrance, though she paused in the doorway and searched him directly from
+amongst the company before she took her seat. Marcia, who was talking with
+Rose Brentwood, caught the vision of purple and gold and turned to face
+for one brief instant the scornful, half-merry glance of her sister. The
+blood in her face fled back to her heart and left it white.
+
+Then Marcia summoned all her courage and braced herself to face what was
+to come. She forced herself to smile in answer to Rose Brentwood's
+question. But all the while she was trying to understand what it was in
+her sister's look that had hurt her so. It was not the anger,--for that she
+was prepared. It was not the scorn, for she had often faced that. Was it
+the almost merriment? Yes, there was the sting. She had felt it so keenly
+when as a little girl Kate had taken to making fun of some whim of hers.
+She could not see why Kate should find cause for fun just now. It was as
+if she by her look ignored Marcia's relation to David in scornful laugh
+and appropriated him herself. Marcia's inmost soul rebelled. The color
+came back as if by force of her will. She would show Kate,--or she would
+show David at least,--that she could bear all things for him. She would
+play well her part of wife this day. The happy two months that had passed
+since David came back from New York had made her almost feel as if she was
+really his and he hers. For this hour she would forget that it was
+otherwise. She would look at him and speak to him as if he had been her
+husband for years, as if there were the truest understanding between
+them,--as indeed, of a certain wistful, pleasant sort there was. She would
+not let the dreadful thought of Kate cloud her face for others to see.
+Bravely she faced the company, but her heart under Kate's blue frock sent
+up a swift and pleading prayer demanding of a higher Power something she
+knew she had not in herself, and must therefore find in Him who had
+created her. It was the most trustful, and needy prayer that Marcia ever
+uttered and yet there were no words, not even the closing of an eyelid.
+Only her heart took the attitude of prayer.
+
+The door upstairs opened in a business-like way, and Hannah's composed
+voice was heard giving a direction. Hannah's silken tread began to be
+audible. Miranda told Marcia afterward that she kept her standing at the
+window for an hour beforehand to see when David arrived, and when they
+started over to the house. Hannah kept herself posted on what was going on
+in the room below as well as if she were down there. She knew where David
+and Marcia stood, and told Kate exactly where to go. It was like Hannah
+that in the moment of her sacrifice of the long cherished hopes of her
+life she should have planned a dramatic revenge to help carry her through.
+
+The bride's rustle became at last so audible that even David and Mr.
+Brentwood heard and turned from their absorbing conversation to the
+business in hand.
+
+Hannah was in the doorway when David looked up, very cold and beautiful in
+her bridal array despite the years she had waited, and almost at once
+David saw the vision in purple and gold like a saucy pansy, standing near
+her.
+
+Kate's eyes were fixed upon him with their most bewitching, dancing smile
+of recognition, like a naughty little child who had been in hiding for a
+time and now peeps out laughing over the discomfiture of its elders. So
+Kate encountered the steadfast gaze of David's astonished eyes.
+
+But there was no light of love in those eyes as she had expected to see.
+Instead there grew in his face such a blaze of righteous indignation as
+the lord of the wedding feast might have turned upon the person who came
+in without a wedding garment. In spite of herself Kate was disconcerted.
+She was astonished. She felt that David was challenging her presence
+there. It seemed to her he was looking through her, searching her, judging
+her, sentencing her, and casting her out, and presently his eyes wandered
+beyond her through the open hall door and out into God's green world; and
+when they came back and next rested upon her his look had frozen into the
+glance of a stranger.
+
+Angry, ashamed, baffled, she bit her lips in vexation, but tried to keep
+the merry smile. In her heart she hated him, and vowed to make him bow
+before her smiles once more.
+
+David did not see the bride at all to notice her, but the bride, unlike
+the one of the psalmist's vision whose eyes were upon "her dear
+bridegroom's face," was looking straight across the room with evident
+intent to observe David.
+
+The ceremony proceeded, and Hannah went through her part correctly and
+calmly, aware that she was giving herself to Lemuel Skinner irrevocably,
+yet perfectly aware also of the discomfiture of the sweet-faced girl-wife
+who sat across the room bravely watching the ceremony with white cheeks
+and eyes that shone like righteous lights.
+
+Marcia did not look at David. She was with him in heart, suffering with
+him, feeling for him, quivering in every nerve for what he might be
+enduring. She had no need to look. Her part was to ignore, and help to
+cover.
+
+They went through it all well. Not once did Aunt Amelia or Aunt Hortense
+notice anything strange in the demeanor of their nephew or his wife. Aunt
+Clarinda was not there. She was not fond of Hannah.
+
+As soon as the service was over and the relatives had broken the solemn
+hush by kissing the bride, David turned and spoke to Rose Brentwood,
+making some smiling remark about the occasion. Rose Brentwood was looking
+her very prettiest in a rose-sprigged delaine and her wavy dark hair in a
+beaded net tied round with a rose-colored lute-string ribbon.
+
+Kate flushed angrily at this. If it had been Marcia to whom he had spoken
+she would have judged he did it out of pique, but a pretty stranger coming
+upon the scene at this critical moment was trying. And then, too, David's
+manner was so indifferent, so utterly natural. He did not seem in the
+least troubled by the sight of herself.
+
+David and Marcia did not go up to speak to the bride at once. David
+stepped back into the deep window seat to talk with Mr. Brentwood, and
+seemed to be in no hurry to follow the procession who were filing past the
+calm bride to congratulate her. Marcia remained quietly talking to Rose
+Brentwood.
+
+At last David turned toward his wife with a smile as though he had known
+she was there all the time, and had felt her sympathy. Her heart leaped up
+with new strength at that look, and her husband's firm touch as he drew
+her hand within his arm to lead her over to the bride gave her courage.
+She felt that she could face the battle, and with a bright smile that lit
+up her whole lovely face she marched bravely to the front to do or to die.
+
+"I had about given up expecting any congratulations from you," said Hannah
+sharply as they came near. It was quite evident she had been watching for
+them.
+
+"I wish you much joy, Mrs. Skinner," said David mechanically, scarcely
+feeling that she would have it for he knew her unhappy, dissatisfied
+nature.
+
+"Yes," said Marcia, "I wish you may be happy,--as happy as I am!"
+
+It was an impetuous, childish thing to say, and Marcia scarcely realized
+what words she meant to speak until they were out, and then she blushed
+rosy red. Was she happy? Why was she happy? Yes, even in the present
+trying circumstances she suddenly felt a great deep happiness bubbling up
+in her heart. Was it David's look and his strong arm under her hand?
+
+Hannah darted a look at her. She was stung by the words. But did the
+girl-bride before her mean to flaunt her own triumphs in her face? Did she
+fully understand? Or was she trying to act a part and make them believe
+she was happy? Hannah was baffled once more as she had been before with
+Marcia.
+
+Kate turned upon Marcia for one piercing instant again, that look of
+understanding, mocking merriment, which cut through the soul of her
+sister.
+
+But did Marcia imagine it, or was it true that at her words to Hannah,
+David's arm had pressed hers closer as they stood there in the crowd? The
+thought thrilled through her and gave her greater strength.
+
+Hannah turned toward Kate.
+
+"David," she said, as she had always called him, and it is possible that
+she enjoyed the triumph of this touch of intimacy before her guest, "you
+knew my friend Mrs. Leavenworth!"
+
+David bowed gravely, but did not attempt to put out his hand to take the
+one which Kate offered in greeting. Instead he laid it over Marcia's
+little trembling one on his arm as if to steady it.
+
+"We have met before," said David briefly in an impenetrable tone, and
+turning passed out of the room to make way for the Brentwoods who were
+behind him.
+
+Hannah scarcely treated the Brentwoods with decency, so vexed was she with
+the way things were turning out. To think that David should so completely
+baffle her. She turned an annoyed look at Kate, who flashed her blue eyes
+contemptuously as if to blame Hannah.
+
+Soon the whole little gathering were in the dining-room and wide hall
+being served with Grandmother Heath's fried chicken and currant jelly,
+delicate soda biscuits, and fruit cake baked months before and left to
+ripen.
+
+The ordeal through which they were passing made David and Marcia feel, as
+they sat down, that they would not be able to swallow a mouthful, but
+strangely enough they found themselves eating with relish, each to
+encourage the other perhaps, but almost enjoying it, and feeling that they
+had not yet met more than they would be able to withstand.
+
+Kate was seated on the other side of the dining-room, by Hannah, and she
+watched the two incessantly with that half merry contemptuous look, toying
+with her own food, and apparently waiting for their acting to cease and
+David to put on his true character. She never doubted for an instant that
+they were acting.
+
+The wedding supper was over at last. The guests crowded out to the front
+stoop to bid good-bye to the happy bridegroom and cross-looking bride, who
+seemed as if she left the gala scene reluctantly.
+
+Marcia, for the instant, was separated from David, who stepped down upon
+the grass and stood to one side to let the bridal party pass. The minister
+was at the other side. Marcia had slipped into the shelter of Aunt
+Amelia's black silk presence and wished she might run out the back door
+and away home.
+
+Suddenly a shimmer of gold with the sunlight through it caught her gaze,
+and a glimpse of sheeny purple. There, close behind David, standing upon
+the top step, quite unseen by him, stood her sister Kate.
+
+Marcia's heart gave a quick thump and seemed to stop, then went painfully
+laboring on. She stood quite still watching for the moment to come when
+David would turn around and see Kate that she might look into his face and
+read there what was written.
+
+Hannah had been put carefully into the carriage by the adoring Lemuel,
+with many a pat, and a shaking of cushions, and an adjustment of curtains
+to suit her whim. It pleased Hannah, now in her last lingering moment of
+freedom, to be exacting and show others what a slave her husband was.
+
+They all stood for an instant looking after the carriage, but Marcia
+watched David. Then, just as the carriage wound around the curve in the
+road and was lost from view, she saw him turn, and at once knew she must
+not see his face as he looked at Kate. Closing her eyes like a flash she
+turned and fled upstairs to get her shawl and bonnet. There she took
+refuge behind the great white curtains, and hid her face for several
+minutes, praying wildly, she hardly knew what, thankful she had been kept
+from the sight which yet she had longed to behold.
+
+As David turned to go up the steps and search for Marcia he was confronted
+by Kate's beautiful, smiling face, radiant as it used to be when it had
+first charmed him. He exulted, as he looked into it, that it did not any
+longer charm.
+
+"David, you don't seem a bit glad to see me," blamed Kate sweetly in her
+pretty, childish tones, looking into his face with those blue eyes so like
+to liquid skies. Almost there was a hint of tears in them. He had been
+wont to kiss them when she looked like that. Now he felt only disgust as
+some of the flippant sentences in her letters to Harry Temple came to his
+mind.
+
+His face was stern and unrecognizing.
+
+"David, you are angry with me yet! You said you would forgive!" The gentle
+reproach minimized the crime, and enlarged the punishment. It was Kate's
+way. The pretty pout on the rosy lips was the same as it used to be when
+she chided him for some trifling forgetfulness of her wishes.
+
+The other guests had all gone into the house now. David made no response,
+but, nothing daunted, Kate spoke again.
+
+"I have something very important to consult you about. I came here on
+purpose. Can you give me some time to-morrow morning?"
+
+She wrinkled her pretty face into a thousand dimples and looked her most
+bewitching like a naughty child who knew she was loved in spite of
+anything, and coquettishly putting her head on one side, added, in the
+tone she used of old to cajole him:
+
+"You know you never could refuse me anything, David."
+
+David did not smile. He did not answer the look. With a voice that
+recognized her only as a stranger he said gravely:
+
+"I have an important engagement to-morrow morning."
+
+"But you will put off the engagement." She said it confidently.
+
+"It is impossible!" said David decidedly. "I am starting quite early to
+drive over to Albany. I am under obligation to be present at the starting
+of the new steam railroad."
+
+"Oh, how nice!" said Kate, clapping her hands childishly, "I have wanted
+to be there, and now you will take me. Then I--we--can talk on the way. How
+like old times that will be!" She flashed him a smile of molten sunshine,
+alluring and transforming.
+
+"That, too, is impossible, Mrs. Leavenworth. My wife accompanies me!" he
+answered her promptly and clearly and with a curt bow left her and went
+into the house.
+
+Kate Leavenworth was angry, and for Kate to be angry, meant to visit it
+upon some one, the offender if possible, if not the nearest to the
+offender. She had failed utterly in her attempt to win back the friendship
+of her former lover. She had hoped to enjoy his attention to a certain
+extent and bathe her sad (?) heart in the wistful glances of the man she
+had jilted; and incidentally perhaps be invited to spend a little time in
+his house, by which she would contrive to have a good many of her own
+ways. A rich brother-in-law who adored one was not a bad thing to have,
+especially when his wife was one's own little sister whom one had always
+dominated. She was tired of New York and at this season of the year the
+country was much preferable. She could thus contrive to hoard her small
+income, and save for the next winter, as well as secure a possible
+entrance finally into her father's good graces again through the
+forgiveness of David and Marcia. But she had failed. Could it be that he
+cared for Marcia! That child! Scout the idea! She would discover at once.
+
+Hurriedly she searched through the rooms downstairs and then went
+stealthily upstairs. Instinctively she went to the room where Marcia had
+hidden herself.
+
+Marcia, with that strong upward breath of prayer had grown steady again.
+She was standing with her back to the door looking out of the window
+toward her own home when Kate entered the room. Without turning about she
+felt Kate's presence and knew that it was she. The moment had come. She
+turned around, her face calm and sweet, with two red spots upon her
+cheeks, and her bonnet,--Kate's bonnet and shawl, Kate's fine lace shawl
+sent from Paris--grasped in her hands.
+
+They faced each other, the sisters, and much was understood between them
+in a flash without a word spoken. Marcia suddenly saw herself standing
+there in Kate's rightful place, Kate's things in her hands, Kate's
+garments upon her body, Kate's husband held by her. It was as if Kate
+charged her with all these things, as she looked her through and over,
+from her slipper tips to the ruffle around the neck. And oh, the scorn
+that flamed from Kate's eyes playing over her, and scorching her cheeks
+into crimson, and burning her lips dry and stiff! And yet when Kate's eyes
+reached her face and charged her with the supreme offense of taking David
+from her, Marcia's eyes looked bravely back, and were not burned by the
+fire, and she felt that her soul was not even scorched by it. Something
+about the thought of David like an angelic presence seemed to save her.
+
+The silence between them was so intense that nothing else could be heard
+by the two. The voices below were drowned by it, the footstep on the stair
+was as if it were not.
+
+At last Kate spoke, angered still more by her sister's soft eyes which
+gazed steadily back and did not droop before her own flashing onslaught.
+Her voice was cold and cruel. There was nothing sisterly in it, nothing to
+remind either that the other had ever been beloved.
+
+"Fool!" hissed Kate. "Silly fool! Did you think you could steal a husband
+as you stole your clothes? Did you suppose marrying David would make him
+yours, as putting on my clothes seemed to make them yours? Well I can tell
+you he will never be a husband to you. He doesn't love you and he never
+can. He will always love me. He's as much mine as if I had married him, in
+spite of all your attempts to take him. Oh, you needn't put up your baby
+mouth and pucker it as if you were going to cry. Cry away. It won't do any
+good. You can't make a man yours, any more than you can make somebody's
+clothes yours. They don't fit you any more than he does. You look horrid
+in blue, and you know it, in spite of all your prinking around and
+pretending. I'd be ashamed to be tricked out that way and know that every
+dud I had was made for somebody else. As for going around and pretending
+you have a husband--it's a lie. You know he's nothing to you. You know he
+never told you he cared for you. I tell you he's mine, and he always will
+be."
+
+"Kate, you're married!" cried Marcia in shocked tones. "How can you talk
+like that?"
+
+"Married! Nonsense! What difference does that make? It's hearts that
+count, not marriages. Has your marriage made you a wife? Answer me that!
+Has it? Does David love you? Does he ever kiss you? Yet he came to see me
+in New York this winter, and took me in his arms and kissed me. He gave me
+money too. See this brooch?"--she exhibited a jeweled pin--"that was bought
+with his money. You see he loves me still. I could bring him to my feet
+with a word to-day. He would kiss me if I asked him. He is weak as water
+in my hands."
+
+Marcia's cheeks burned with shame and anger. Almost she felt at the limit
+of her strength. For the first time in her life she felt like
+striking,--striking her own sister. Horrified over her feelings, and the
+rage which was tearing her soul, she looked up, and there stood David in
+the doorway, like some tall avenging angel!
+
+Kate had her back that way and did not see at once, but Marcia's eyes
+rested on him hungrily, pleadingly, and his answered hers. From her sudden
+calmness Kate saw there was some one near, and turning, looked at David.
+But he did not glance her way. How much or how little he had heard of
+Kate's tirade, which in her passion had been keyed in a high voice, he
+never let them know and neither dared to ask him, lest perhaps he had not
+heard anything. There was a light of steel in his eyes toward everything
+but Marcia, and his tone had in it kindness and a recognition of mutual
+understanding as he said:
+
+"If you are ready we had better go now, dear, had we not?"
+
+Oh how gladly Marcia followed her husband down the stairs and out the
+door! She scarcely knew how she went through the formalities of getting
+away. It seemed as she looked back upon them that David had sheltered her
+from it all, and said everything needful for her, and all she had done was
+to smile an assent. He talked calmly to her all the way home; told her Mr.
+Brentwood's opinion about the change in the commerce of the country the
+new railroad was going to make; told her though he must have known she
+could not listen. Perhaps both were conscious of the bedroom window over
+the way and a pair of blue eyes that might be watching them as they passed
+into the house. David took hold of her arm and helped her up the steps of
+their own home as if she had been some great lady. Marcia wondered if Kate
+saw that. In her heart she blessed David for this outward sign of their
+relationship. It gave her shame a little cover at least. She glanced up
+toward the next house as she passed in and felt sure she saw a glimmer of
+purple move away from the window. Then David shut the door behind them and
+led her gently in.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+He made her go into the parlor and sit down and she was all unnerved by
+his gentle ways. The tears would come in spite of her. He took his own
+fine wedding handkerchief and wiped them softly off her hot cheeks. He
+untied the bonnet that was not hers, and flung it far into a corner in the
+room. Marcia thought he put force into the fling. Then he unfolded the
+shawl from her shoulders and threw that into another corner. Kate's
+beautiful thread lace shawl. Marcia felt a hysterical desire to laugh, but
+David's voice was steady and quiet when he spoke as one might speak to a
+little child in trouble.
+
+"There now, dear," he said. He had never called her dear before. "There,
+that was an ordeal, and I'm glad, it's over. It will never trouble us that
+way again. Let us put it aside and never think about it any more. We have
+our own lives to live. I want you to go with me to-morrow morning to see
+the train start if you feel able. We must start early and you must take a
+good rest. Would you like to go?"
+
+Marcia's face like a radiant rainbow answered for her as she smiled behind
+her tears, and all the while he talked David's hand, as tender as a
+woman's, was passing back and forth on Marcia's hot forehead and smoothing
+the hair. He talked on quietly to soothe her, and give her a chance to
+regain her composure, speaking of a few necessary arrangements for the
+morning's ride. Then he said, still in his quiet voice: "Now dear, I want
+you to go to bed, for we must start rather early, but first do you think
+you could sing me that little song you were singing the day I came home?
+Don't if you feel too tired, you know."
+
+Then Marcia, an eager light in her eyes, sprang up and went to the piano,
+and began to play softly and sing the tender words she had sung once
+before when he was listening and she knew it not.
+
+                "Dearest, believe,
+                   When e'er we part:
+                 Lonely I grieve,
+                   In my sad heart:--"
+
+Kate, standing within the chintz curtains across the yard shedding angry
+tears upon her purple silk, heard presently the sweet tones of the piano,
+which might have been hers; heard her sister's voice singing, and began to
+understand that she must bear the punishment of her own rash deeds.
+
+The room had grown from a purple dusk into quiet darkness while Marcia was
+singing, for the sun was almost down when they walked home. When the song
+was finished David stood half wistfully looking at Marcia for a moment.
+Her eyes shone to his through the dusk like two bright stars. He hesitated
+as though he wanted to say something more, and then thought better of it.
+At last he stooped and lifted her hand from the keys and led her toward
+the door.
+
+"You must go to sleep at once," he said gently. "You'll need all the rest
+you can get." He lighted a candle for her and said good-night with his
+eyes as well as his lips. Marcia felt that she was moving up the stairs
+under a spell of some gentle loving power that surrounded her and would
+always guard her.
+
+And it was about this time that Miranda, having been sent over to take a
+forgotten piece of bride's cake to Marcia, and having heard the piano, and
+stolen discreetly to the parlor window for a moment, returned and detailed
+for the delectation of that most unhappy guest Mrs. Leavenworth why she
+could not get in and would have to take it over in the morning:
+
+"The window was open in the parlor and they were in there, them two, but
+they was so plum took up with their two selves, as they always are, that
+there wasn't no use knockin' fer they'd never hev heard."
+
+Miranda enjoyed making those remarks to the guest. Some keen instinct
+always told her where best to strike her blows.
+
+When Marcia had reached the top stair she looked down and there was David
+smiling up to her.
+
+"Marcia," said he in a tone that seemed half ashamed and half amused,
+"have you, any--that is--things--that you had before--all your own I mean?"
+With quick intuition Marcia understood and her own sweet shame about her
+clothes that were not her own came back upon her with double force. She
+suddenly saw herself again standing before the censure of her sister. She
+wondered if David had heard. If not, how then did he know? Oh, the shame
+of it!
+
+She sat down weakly upon the stair.
+
+"Yes," said she, trying to think. "Some old things, and one frock."
+
+"Wear it then to-morrow, dear," said David, in a compelling voice and with
+the sweet smile that took the hurt out of his most severe words.
+
+Marcia smiled. "It is very plain," she said, "only chintz, pink and white.
+I made it myself."
+
+"Charming!" said David. "Wear it, dear. Marcia, one thing more. Don't wear
+any more things that don't belong to you. Not a Dud. Promise me? Can you
+get along without it?"
+
+"Why, I guess so," said Marcia laughing joyfully. "I'll try to manage. But
+I haven't any bonnet. Nothing but a pink sunbonnet."
+
+"All right, wear that," said David.
+
+"It will look a little queer, won't it?" said Marcia doubtfully, and yet
+as if the idea expressed a certain freedom which was grateful to her.
+
+"Never mind," said David. "Wear it. Don't wear any more of those other
+things. Pack them all up and send them where they belong, just as quick as
+we get home."
+
+There was something masterful and delightful in David's voice, and Marcia
+with a happy laugh took her candle and got up saying, with a ring of joy
+in her voice: "All right!" She went to her room with David's second
+good-night ringing in her ears and her heart so light she wanted to sing.
+
+Not at once did Marcia go to her bed. She set her candle upon the bureau
+and began to search wildly in a little old hair-cloth trunk, her own
+special old trunk that had contained her treasures and which had been sent
+her after she left home. She had scarcely looked into it since she came to
+the new home. It seemed as if her girlhood were shut up in it. Now she
+pulled it out from the closet.
+
+What a flood of memories rushed over her as she opened it! There were
+relics of her school days, and of her little childhood. But she had no
+time for them now. She was in search of something. She touched them
+tenderly, but laid them all out one after another upon the floor until
+down in the lower corner she found a roll of soft white cloth. It
+contained a number of white garments, half a dozen perhaps in all,
+finished, and several others cut out barely begun. They were her own work,
+every stitch, the first begun when she was quite a little girl, and her
+stepmother started to teach her to sew. What pride she had taken in them!
+How pleased she had been when allowed to put real tucks in some of them!
+She had thought as she sewed upon them at different times that they were
+to be a part of her own wedding trousseau. And then her wedding had come
+upon her unawares, with the trousseau ready-made, and everything belonged
+to some one else. She had folded her own poor little garments away and
+thought never to take them out again, for they seemed to belong to her
+dead self.
+
+But now that dead self had suddenly come to life again. These hated things
+that she had worn for a year that were not hers were to be put away, and,
+pretty as they were, many of them, she regretted not a thread of them.
+
+She laid the white garments out upon a chair and decided that she would
+put on what she needed of them on the morrow, even though they were
+rumpled with long lying away. She even searched out an old pair of her own
+stockings and laid them on a chair with the other things. They were neatly
+darned as all things had always been under her stepmother's supervision.
+Further search brought a pair of partly worn prunella slippers to light,
+with narrow ankle ribbons.
+
+Then Marcia took down the pink sprigged chintz that she had made a year
+ago and laid it near the other things, with a bit of black velvet and the
+quaint old brooch. She felt a little dubious about appearing on such a
+great occasion, almost in Albany, in a chintz dress and with no wrap.
+Stay! There was the white crêpe shawl, all her own, that David had brought
+her. She had not felt like wearing it to Hannah Heath's wedding, it seemed
+too precious to take near an unloving person like Hannah. Before that she
+had never felt an occasion great enough. Now she drew it forth
+breathlessly. A white crêpe shawl and a pink calico sunbonnet! Marcia
+laughed softly. But then, what matter! David had said wear it.
+
+All things were ready for the morrow now. There were even her white lace
+mitts that Aunt Polly in an unusual fit of benevolence had given her.
+
+Then, as if to make the change complete, she searched out an old night
+robe, plain but smooth and clean and arrayed herself in it, and so,
+thankful, happy, she lay down as she had been bidden and fell asleep.
+
+David in the room below pondered, strange to say, the subject of dress.
+There was some pride beneath it all, of course; there always is behind the
+great problem of dress. It was the rejected bonnet lying in the corner
+with its blue ribbons limp and its blue flowers crushed that made that
+subject paramount among so many others he might have chosen for his
+night's meditation.
+
+He was going over to close the parlor window, when he saw the thing lying
+innocent and discarded in the corner. Though it bore an injured look, it
+yet held enough of its original aristocratic style to cause him to stop
+and think.
+
+It was all well enough to suggest that Marcia wear a pink sunbonnet. It
+sounded deliciously picturesque. She looked lovely in pink and a sunbonnet
+was pretty and sensible on any one; but the morrow was a great day. David
+would be seen of many and his wife would come under strict scrutiny.
+Moreover it was possible that Kate might be upon the scene to jeer at her
+sister in a sunbonnet. In fact, when he considered it he would not like to
+take his wife to Albany in a sunbonnet. It behoved him to consider. The
+outrageous words which he had heard Mistress Leavenworth speak to his wife
+still burned in his brain like needles of torture: revelation of the true
+character of the woman he had once longed to call his own.
+
+But that bonnet! He stood and examined it. What was a bonnet like? The
+proper kind of a bonnet for a woman in his wife's position to wear. He had
+never noticed a woman's bonnet before except as he had absent-mindedly
+observed them in front of him in meeting. Now he brought his mind to bear
+upon that bonnet. It seemed to be made up of three component parts--a
+foundation: a girdle apparently to bind together and tie on the head; and
+a decoration. Straw, silk and some kind of unreal flowers. Was that all?
+He stooped down and picked the thing up with the tips of his fingers, held
+it at arms length as though it were contaminating, and examined the
+inside. Ah! There was another element in its construction, a sort of frill
+of something thin,--hardly lace,--more like the foam of a cloud. He touched
+the tulle clumsily with his thumb and finger and then he dropped the
+bonnet back into the corner again. He thought he understood well enough to
+know one again. He stood pondering a moment, and looked at his watch.
+
+Yes, it was still early enough to try at least, though of course the shop
+would be closed. But the village milliner lived behind her little store.
+It would be easy enough to rouse her, and he had known her all his life.
+He took his hat as eagerly as he had done when as a boy Aunt Clarinda had
+given him a penny to buy a top and permission to go to the corner and buy
+it before Aunt Amelia woke up from her nap. He went quietly out of the
+door, fastening it behind him and walked rapidly down the street.
+
+Yes, the milliner's shop was closed, but a light in the side windows
+shining through the veiling hop-vines guided him, and he was presently
+tapping at Miss Mitchell's side door. She opened the door cautiously and
+peeped over her glasses at him, and then a bright smile overspread her
+face. Who in the whole village did not welcome David whenever he chanced
+to come? Miss Mitchell was resting from her labors and reading the village
+paper. She had finished the column of gossip and was quite ready for a
+visitor.
+
+"Come right in, David," she said heartily, for she had known him all the
+years, "it does a body good to see you though your visits are as few and
+far between as angels' visits. I'm right glad to see you! Sit down." But
+David was too eager about his business.
+
+"I haven't any time to sit down to-night, Miss Susan," he said eagerly,
+"I've come to buy a bonnet. Have you got one? I hope it isn't too late
+because I want it very early in the morning."
+
+"A bonnet! Bless me! For yourself?" said Miss Mitchell from mere force of
+commercial habit. But neither of them saw the joke, so intent upon
+business were they. "For my wife, Miss Mitchell. You see she is going with
+me over to Albany to-morrow morning and we start quite early. We are going
+to see the new railroad train start, you know, and she seems to think she
+hasn't a bonnet that's suitable."
+
+"Going to see a steam engine start, are you! Well, take care, David, you
+don't get too near. They do say they're terrible dangerous things, and fer
+my part I can't see what good they'll be, fer nobody'll ever be willin' to
+ride behind 'em, but I'd like to see it start well enough. And that sweet
+little wife of yours thinks she ain't got a good enough bonnet. Land
+sakes! What is the matter with her Dunstable straw, and what's become of
+that one trimmed with blue lutestrings, and where's the shirred silk one
+she wore last Sunday? They're every one fine bonnets and ought to last her
+a good many years yet if she cares fer 'em. The mice haven't got into the
+house and et them, hev they?"
+
+"No, Miss Susan, those bonnets are all whole yet I believe, but they don't
+seem to be just the suitable thing. In fact, I don't think they're
+over-becoming to her, do you? You see they're mostly blue----"
+
+"That's so!" said Miss Mitchell. "I think myself she'd look better in
+pink. How'd you like white? I've got a pretty thing that I made fer Hannah
+Heath an' when it was done Hannah thought it was too plain and wouldn't
+have it. I sent for the flowers to New York and they cost a high price.
+Wait! I will show it to you."
+
+She took a candle and he followed her to the dark front room ghostly with
+bonnets in various stages of perfection.
+
+It was a pretty thing. Its foundation was of fine Milan braid, creamy
+white and smooth and even. He knew at a glance it belonged to the higher
+order of things, and was superior to most of the bonnets produced in the
+village.
+
+It was trimmed with plain white taffeta ribbon, soft and silky. That was
+all on the outside. Around the face was a soft ruching of tulle, and
+clambering among it a vine of delicate green leaves that looked as if they
+were just plucked from a wild rose bank. David was delighted. Somehow the
+bonnet looked like Marcia. He paid the price at once, declining to look at
+anything else. It was enough that he liked it and that Hannah Heath had
+not. He had never admired Hannah's taste. He carried it home in triumph,
+letting himself softly into the house, lighted three candles, took the
+bonnet out and hung it upon a chair. Then he walked around it surveying it
+critically, first from this side, then from that. It pleased him
+exceedingly. He half wished Marcia would hear him and come down. He wanted
+to see it on her, but concluded that he was growing boyish and had better
+get himself under control.
+
+The bonnet approved, he walked back and forth through the kitchen and
+dining-room thinking. He compelled himself to go over the events of the
+afternoon and analyze most carefully his own innermost feelings. In fact,
+after doing that he began further back and tried to find out how he felt
+toward Marcia. What was this something that had been growing in him
+unaware through the months; that had made his homecoming so sweet, and had
+brightened every succeeding day; and had made this meeting with Kate a
+mere commonplace? What was this precious thing that nestled in his heart?
+Might he, had he a right to call it love? Surely! Now all at once his
+pulses thrilled with gladness. He loved her! It was good to love her! She
+was the most precious being on earth to him. What was Kate in comparison
+with her? Kate who had shown herself cold and cruel and unloving in every
+way?
+
+His anger flamed anew as he thought of those cutting sentences he had
+overheard, taunting her own sister about the clothes she wore. Boasting
+that he still belonged to her! She, a married woman! A woman who had of
+her own free will left him at the last moment and gone away with another!
+His whole nature recoiled against her. She had sinned against her
+womanhood, and might no longer demand from man the homage that a true
+woman had a right to claim.
+
+Poor little bruised flower! His heart went out to Marcia. He could not
+bear to think of her having to stand and listen to that heartless tirade.
+And he had been the cause of all this. He had allowed her to take a
+position which threw her open to Kate's vile taunts.
+
+Up and down he paced till the torrent of his anger spent itself, and he
+was able to think more calmly. Then he went back in his thoughts to the
+time when he had first met Kate and she had bewitched him. He could see
+now the heartlessness of her. He had met her first at the house of a
+friend where he was visiting, partly on pleasure, partly on business. She
+had devoted herself to him during the time of her stay in a most charming
+way, though now he recalled that she had also been equally devoted to the
+son of the house whom he was visiting. When she went home she had asked
+him to come and call, for her home was but seven miles away. He had been
+so charmed with her that he had accepted the invitation, and, rashly he
+now saw, had engaged himself to her, after having known her in all face to
+face but a few days. To be sure he had known of her father for years, and
+he took a good deal for granted on account of her fine family. They had
+corresponded after their engagement which had lasted for nearly a year,
+and in that time David had seen her but twice, for a day or two at a time,
+and each time he had thought her grown more lovely. Her letters had been
+marvels of modesty, and shy admiration. It was easy for Kate to maintain
+her character upon paper, though she had had little trouble in making
+people love her under any circumstances. Now as he looked back he could
+recall many instances when she had shown a cruel, heartless nature.
+
+Then, all at once, with a throb of joy, it came to him to be thankful to
+God for the experience through which he had passed. After all it had not
+been taken from him to love with a love enduring, for though Kate had been
+snatched from him just at the moment of his possession, Marcia had been
+given him. Fool that he was! He had been blind to his own salvation.
+Suppose he had been allowed to go on and marry Kate! Suppose he had had
+her character revealed to him suddenly as those letters of hers to Harry
+Temple had revealed it--as it surely would have been revealed in time, for
+such things cannot be hid,--and she had been his _wife!_ He shuddered. How
+he would have loathed her! How he loathed her now!
+
+Strangely enough the realization of that fact gave him joy. He sprang up
+and waved his hands about in silent delight. He felt as if he must shout
+for gladness. Then he gravely knelt beside his chair and uttered an
+audible thanksgiving for his escape and the joy he had been given. Nothing
+else seemed fitting expression of his feelings.
+
+There was one other question to consider--Marcia's feelings. She had always
+been kind and gentle and loving to him, just as a sister might have been.
+She was exceedingly young yet. Did she know, could she understand what it
+meant to be loved the way he was sure he could love a woman? And would she
+ever be able to love him in that way? She was so silent and shy he hardly
+knew whether she cared for him or not. But there was one thought that gave
+him unbounded joy and that was that she was his wife. At least no one else
+could take her from him. He had felt condemned that he had married her
+when his heart was heavy lest she would lose the joy of life, but all that
+was changed now. Unless she loved some one else surely such love as his
+could compel hers and finally make her as happy as a woman could be made.
+
+A twinge of misgiving crossed his mind as he admitted the possibility that
+Marcia might love some one else. True, he knew of no one, and she was so
+young it was scarcely likely she had left any one back in her girlhood to
+whom her heart had turned when she was out of his sight. Still there were
+instances of strong union of hearts of those who had loved from early
+childhood. It might be that Marcia's sometime-sadness was over a companion
+of her girlhood.
+
+A great longing took possession of him to rush up and waken her and find
+out if she could ever care for him. He scarcely knew himself. This was not
+his dignified contained self that he had lived with for twenty-seven
+years.
+
+It was very late before he finally went upstairs. He walked softly lest he
+disturb Marcia. He paused before her door listening to see if she was
+asleep, but there was only the sound of the katydids in the branches
+outside her window, and the distant tree-toads singing a fugue in an
+orchard not far away. He tiptoed to his room but he did not light his
+candle, therefore there was no light in the back room of the Spafford
+house that night for any watching eyes to ponder over. He threw himself
+upon the bed. He was weary in body yet his soul seemed buoyant as a bird
+in the morning air. The moon was casting long bars of silver across the
+rag carpet and white counterpane. It was almost full moon. Yes, to-morrow
+it would be entirely full. It was full moon the night he had met Marcia
+down by the gate, and kissed her. It was the first time he had thought of
+that kiss with anything but pain. It used to hurt him that he had made the
+mistake and taken her for Kate. It had seemed like an ill-omen of what was
+to come. But now, it thrilled him with a great new joy. After all he had
+given the kiss to the right one. It was Marcia to whom his soul bowed in
+the homage that a man may give to a woman. Did his good angel guide him to
+her that night? And how was it he had not seen the sweetness of Marcia
+sooner? How had he lived with her nearly a year, and watched her dainty
+ways, and loving ministry and not known that his heart was hers? How was
+it he had grieved so long over Kate, and now since he had seen her once
+more, not a regret was in his heart that she was not his; but a beautiful
+revelation of his own love to Marcia had been wrought in him? How came it?
+
+And the importunate little songsters in the night answered him a thousand
+times: "Kate-did-it! Kate-she-did it! Yes she did! I say she did. Kate did
+it!"
+
+Had angel voices reached him through his dreams, and suddenly given him
+the revelation which the little insects had voiced in their ridiculous
+colloquy? It was Kate herself who had shown him how he loved Marcia.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Slowly the moon rode over the house, and down toward its way in the West,
+and after its vanishing chariot the night stretched wistful arms. Softly
+the grey in the East tinged into violet and glowed into rose and gold. The
+birds woke up and told one another that the first of August was come and
+life was good.
+
+The breath that came in the early dawn savored of new-mown hay, and the
+bird songs thrilled Marcia as if it were the day of her dreams.
+
+She forgot all her troubles; forgot even her wayward sister next door; and
+rose with the song of the birds in her heart. This was to be a great day.
+No matter what happened she had now this day to date from. David had asked
+her to go somewhere just because he wanted her to. She knew it from the
+look in his eyes when he told her, and she knew it because he might have
+asked a dozen men to go with him. There was no reason why he need have
+taken her to-day, for it was distinctly an affair for men, this great
+wonder of machinery. It was a privilege for a woman to go. She felt it.
+She understood the honor.
+
+With fingers trembling from joy she dressed. Not the sight of her pink
+calico sunbonnet lying on the chair, nor the thought of wearing it upon so
+grand an occasion, could spoil the pleasure of the day. Among so large a
+company her bonnet would hardly be noticed. If David was satisfied why
+what difference did it make? She was glad it would be early when they
+drove by the aunts, else they might be scandalized. But never mind! Trill!
+She hummed a merry little tune which melted into the melody of the song
+she had sung last night.
+
+Then she smiled at herself in the glass. She was fastening the brooch in
+the bit of velvet round her neck, and she thought of the day a year ago
+when she had fastened that brooch. She had wondered then how she would
+feel if the next day was to be her own wedding day. Now as she smiled back
+at herself in the glass all at once she thought it seemed as if this was
+her wedding day. Somehow last night had seemed to realize her dreams. A
+wonderful joy had descended upon her heart. Maybe she was foolish, but was
+she not going to ride with David? She did not long for the green fields
+and a chance to run wild through the wood now. This was better than those
+childish pleasures. This was real happiness. And to think it should have
+come through David!
+
+She hurried with the arrangement of her hair until her fingers trembled
+with excitement. She wanted to get downstairs and see if it were all
+really true or if she were dreaming it. Would David look at her as he had
+done last night? Would he speak that precious word "dear" to her again
+to-day? Would he take her by the hand and lead her sometimes, or was that
+a special gentleness because he knew she had suffered from her sister's
+words? She clasped her hands with a quick, convulsive gesture over her
+heart and looking back to the sweet face in the glass, said softly, "Oh, I
+love him, love him! And it cannot be wrong, for Kate is married."
+
+But though she was up early David had been down before her. The fire was
+ready lighted and the kettle singing over it on the crane. He had even
+pulled out the table and put up the leaf, and made some attempt to put the
+dishes upon it for breakfast. He was sitting by the hearth impatient for
+her coming, with a bandbox by his side.
+
+It was like another sunrise to watch their eyes light up as they saw one
+another. Their glances rushed together as though they had been a long time
+withholden from each other, and a rosy glow came over Marcia's face that
+made her long to hide it for a moment from view. Then she knew in her
+heart that her dream was not all a dream. David was the same. It had
+lasted, whatever this wonderful thing was that bound them together. She
+stood still in her happy bewilderment, looking at him, and he, enjoying
+the radiant morning vision of her, stood too.
+
+David found that longing to take her in his arms overcoming him again. He
+had made strict account with himself and was resolved to be careful and
+not frighten her. He must be sure it would not be unpleasant to her before
+he let her know his great deep love. He must be careful. He must not take
+advantage of the fact that she was his and could not run away from him. If
+she dreaded his attentions, neither could she any more say no.
+
+And so their two looks met, and longed to come closer, but were held back,
+and a lovely shyness crept over Marcia's sweet face. Then David bethought
+himself of his bandbox.
+
+He took up the box and untied it with unaccustomed fingers, fumbling among
+the tissue paper for the handle end of the thing. Where did they take hold
+of bonnets anyway? He had no trouble with it the night before, but then he
+was not thinking about it. Now he was half afraid she might not like it.
+He remembered that Hannah Heath had pronounced against it. It suddenly
+seemed impossible that he should have bought a bonnet that a pretty woman
+had said was not right. There must be something wrong with it after all.
+
+Marcia stood wondering.
+
+"I thought maybe this would do instead of the sunbonnet," he said at last,
+getting out the bonnet by one string and holding it dangling before him.
+
+Marcia caught it with deft careful hands and an exclamation of delight. He
+watched her anxiously. It had all the requisite number of materials,--one,
+two, three, four,--like the despised bonnet he threw on the floor--straw,
+silk, lace and flowers. Would she like it? Her face showed that she did.
+Her cheeks flushed with pleasure, and her eyes danced with joy. Marcia's
+face always showed it when she liked anything. There was nothing half-way
+about her.
+
+"Oh, it is beautiful!" she said delightedly. "It is so sweet and white and
+cool with that green vine. Oh, I am glad, glad, glad! I shall never wear
+that old blue bonnet again." She went over to the glass and put it on. The
+soft ruching settled about her brown hair, and made a lovely setting for
+her face. The green vine twined and peeped in and out under the round brim
+and the ribbon sat in a prim bow beneath her pretty chin.
+
+She gave one comprehensive glance at herself in the glass and then turned
+to David. In that glance was revealed to her just how much she had dreaded
+wearing her pink sunbonnet, and just how relieved she was to have a
+substitute.
+
+Her look was shy and sweet as she said with eyes that dared and then
+drooped timidly:
+
+"You--are--very--good to me!"
+
+Almost he forgot his vow of carefulness at that, but remembered when he
+had got half across the room toward her, and answered earnestly:
+
+"Dear, _you_ have been very good to _me_."
+
+Marcia's eyes suddenly sobered and half the glow faded from her face. Was
+it then only gratitude? She took off the bonnet and touched the bows with
+wistful tenderness as she laid it by till after breakfast. He watched her
+and misinterpreted the look. Was she then disappointed in the bonnet? Was
+it not right after all? Had Hannah known better than he? He hesitated and
+then asked her:
+
+"Is there---- Is it---- That is--perhaps you would rather take it back and and
+choose another. You know how to choose one better than I. There were
+others I think. In fact, I forgot to look at any but this because I liked
+it, but I'm only a man----" he finished helplessly.
+
+"No! No! No!" said Marcia, her eyes sparkling emphatically again. "There
+couldn't be a better one. This is just exactly what I like. I do not want
+anything else. And I--like it all the better because you selected it," she
+added daringly, suddenly lifting her face to his with a spice of her own
+childish freedom.
+
+His eyes admired her.
+
+"She told me Hannah Heath thought it too plain," he added honestly.
+
+"Then I'm sure I like it all the better for that," said Marcia so
+emphatically that they both laughed.
+
+It all at once became necessary to hurry, for the old clock in the hall
+clanged out the hour and David became aware that haste was imperative.
+
+Early as Marcia had come down, David had been up long before her, his
+heart too light to sleep. In a dream, or perchance on the borders of the
+morning, an idea had come to him. He told Marcia that he must go out now
+to see about the horse, but he also made a hurried visit to the home of
+his office clerk and another to the aunts, and when he returned with the
+horse he had left things in such train that if he did not return that
+evening he would not be greatly missed. But he said nothing to Marcia
+about it. He laughed to himself as he thought of the sleepy look on his
+clerk's face, and the offended dignity expressed in the ruffle of Aunt
+Hortense's night cap all awry as she had peered over the balusters to
+receive his unprecedentedly early visit. The aunts were early risers. They
+prided themselves upon it. It hurt their dignity and their pride to have
+anything short of sudden serious illness, or death, or a fire cause others
+to arise before them. Therefore they did not receive the message that
+David was meditating another trip away from the village for a few days
+with good grace. Aunt Hortense asked Aunt Amelia if she had ever feared
+that Marcia would have a bad effect upon David by making him frivolous.
+Perhaps he would lose interest in his business with all his careering
+around the country. Aunt Amelia agreed that Marcia must be to blame in
+some way, and then discovering they had a whole hour before their usual
+rising time, the two good ladies settled themselves with indignant
+composure to their interrupted repose.
+
+Breakfast was ready when David returned. Marcia supposed he had only been
+to harness the horse. She glanced out happily through the window to where
+the horse stood tied to the post in front of the house. She felt like
+waving her hand to him, and he turned and seemed to see her; rolling the
+whites of his eyes around, and tossing his head as if in greeting.
+
+Marcia would scarcely have eaten anything in her excitement if David had
+not urged her to do so. She hurried with her clearing away, and then flew
+upstairs to arrange her bonnet before the glass and don the lovely folds
+of the creamy crêpe shawl, folding it demurely around her shoulders and
+knotting it in front. She put on her mitts, took her handkerchief folded
+primly, and came down ready.
+
+But David no longer seemed in such haste. He made a great fuss fastening
+up everything. She wondered at his unusual care, for she thought
+everything quite safe for the day.
+
+She raised one shade toward the Heath house. It was the first time she had
+permitted herself this morning to think of Kate. Was she there yet?
+Probably, for no coach had left since last night, and unless she had gone
+by private conveyance there would have been no way to go. She looked up to
+the front corner guest room where the windows were open and the white
+muslin curtains swayed in the morning breeze. No one seemed to be moving
+about in the room. Perhaps Kate was not awake. Just then she caught the
+flutter of a blue muslin down on the front stoop. Kate was up, early as it
+was, and was coming out. A sudden misgiving seized Marcia's heart, as when
+a little child, she had seen her sister coming to eat up the piece of cake
+or sweetmeat that had been given to her. Many a time had that happened.
+Now, she felt that in some mysterious way Kate would contrive to take from
+her her new-found joy.
+
+She could not resist her,--David could not resist her,--no one could ever
+resist Kate. Her face turned white and her hand began to tremble so that
+she dropped the curtain she had been holding up.
+
+Just then came David's clear voice, louder than would have been necessary,
+and pitched as if he were calling to some one upstairs, though he knew she
+was just inside the parlor where she had gone to make sure of the window
+fastening.
+
+"Come, dear! Aren't you ready? It is more than time we started."
+
+There was a glad ring in David's voice that somehow belied the somewhat
+exacting words he had spoken, and Marcia's heart leaped up to meet him.
+
+"Yes, I'm all ready, dear!" she called back with a hysterical little
+laugh. Of course Kate could not hear so far, but it gave her satisfaction
+to say it. The final word was unpremeditated. It bubbled up out of the
+depths of her heart and made the red rush back into her cheeks when she
+realized what she had said. It was the first time she had ever used a term
+of endearment toward David. She wondered if he noticed it and if he would
+think her very--bold,--queer,--immodest, to use it. She looked shyly up at
+him, enquiring with her eyes, as she came out to him on the front stoop,
+and he looked down with such a smile she felt as if it were a caress. And
+yet neither was quite conscious of this little real by-play they were
+enacting for the benefit of the audience of one in blue muslin over the
+way. How much she heard, or how little they could not tell, but it gave
+satisfaction to go through with it inasmuch as it was real, and not acting
+at all.
+
+David fastened the door and then helped Marcia into the carriage. They
+were both laughing happily like two children starting upon a picnic.
+Marcia was serenely conscious of her new bonnet, and it was pleasant to
+have David tuck the linen lap robe over her chintz frock so carefully. She
+was certain Kate could not identify it now at that distance, thanks to the
+lap robe and her crêpe shawl. At least Kate could not see any of her own
+trousseau on her sister now.
+
+Kate was sitting on the little white seat in the shelter of the
+honeysuckle vine facing them on the stoop of the Heath house. It was
+impossible for them to know whether she was watching them or not. They did
+not look up to see. She was talking with Mr. Heath who, in his milking
+garb, was putting to rights some shrubs and plants near the walk that had
+been trampled upon during the wedding festivities. But Kate must have seen
+a good deal that went on.
+
+David took up the reins, settled himself with a smile at Marcia, touched
+the horse with the tip of the whip, which caused him to spring forward in
+astonishment--that from David! No horse in town would have expected it of
+him. They had known him from babyhood, most of them, and he was gentleness
+itself. It must have been a mistake. But the impression lasted long enough
+to carry them a rod or two past the Heath house at a swift pace, with only
+time for a lifting of David's hat, prolonged politely,--which might or
+might not have included Kate, and they were out upon their way together.
+
+Marcia could scarcely believe her senses that she was really here beside
+David, riding with him swiftly through the village and leaving Kate
+behind. She felt a passing pity for Kate. Then she looked shyly up at
+David. Would his gaiety pass when they were away, and would he grow grave
+and sad again so soon as he was out of Kate's sight? She had learned
+enough of David's principles to know that he would not think it right to
+let his thoughts stray to Kate now, but did his heart still turn that way
+in spite of him?
+
+Through the town they sped, glad with every roll of the wheels that took
+them further away from Kate. Each was conscious, as they rolled along, of
+that day one year ago when they rode together thus, out through the fields
+into the country. It was a day much as that other one, just as bright,
+just as warm, yet oh, so much more radiant to both! Then they were sad and
+fearful of the future. All their life seemed in the past. Now the darkness
+had been led through, and they had reached the brightness again. In fact,
+all the future stretched out before them that fair morning and looked
+bright as the day.
+
+They were conscious of the blueness of the sky, of the soft clouds that
+hovered in haziness on the rim of the horizon, as holding off far enough
+to spoil no moment of that perfect day. They were conscious of the waving
+grains and of the perfume of the buckwheat drifting like snow in the
+fields beyond the wheat; conscious of the meadow-lark and the wood-robin's
+note; of the whirr of a locust; and the thud of a frog in the cool green
+of a pool deep with brown shadows; conscious of the circling of mated
+butterflies in the simmering gold air; of the wild roses lifting fair pink
+petals from the brambly banks beside the road; conscious of the whispering
+pine needles in a wood they passed; the fluttering chatter of leaves and
+silver flash of the lining of poplar leaves, where tall trees stood like
+sentinels, apart and sad; conscious of a little brook that tinkled under a
+log bridge they crossed, then hurried on its way unmindful of their happy
+crossing; conscious of the dusty daisy beside the road, closing with a
+bumbling bee who wanted honey below the market price; conscious of all
+these things; but most conscious of each other, close, side by side.
+
+It was all so dear, that ride, and over so soon. Marcia was just trying to
+get used to looking up into the dazzling light of David's eyes. She had to
+droop her own almost immediately for the truth she read in his was
+overpowering. Could it be? A fluttering thought came timidly to her heart
+and would not be denied.
+
+"Can it be, can it be that he cares for me? He loves me. He loves me!" It
+sang its way in with thrill after thrill of joy and more and more David's
+eyes told the story which his lips dared not risk yet. But eyes and hearts
+are not held by the conventions that bind lips. They rushed into their
+inheritance of each other and had that day ahead, a day so rare and sweet
+that it would do to set among the jewels of fair days for all time and for
+any one.
+
+All too soon they began to turn into roads where were other vehicles, many
+of them, and all going in the same direction. Men and women in gala day
+attire all laughing and talking expectantly and looking at one another as
+the carriages passed with a degree of familiar curiosity which betokens a
+common errand. Family coaches, farm wagons, with kitchen chairs for
+accommodation of the family; old one-horse chaises, carryalls, and even a
+stage coach or two wheeled into the old turnpike. David and Marcia settled
+into subdued quiet, their joy not expressing itself in the ripples of
+laughter that had rung out earlier in the morning when they were alone.
+They sought each other's eyes often and often, and in one of these
+excursions that David's eyes made to Marcia's face he noticed how
+extremely becoming the new bonnet was. After thinking it over he decided
+to risk letting her know. He was not shy about it now.
+
+"Do you know, dear," he said,--there had been a good many "dear's" slipping
+back and forth all unannounced during that ride, and not openly
+acknowledged either. "Do you know how becoming your new bonnet is to you?
+You look prettier than I ever saw you look but once before." He kept his
+eyes upon her face and watched the sweet color steal up to her drooping
+eyelashes.
+
+"When was that?" she asked coyly, to hide her embarrassment, and sweeping
+him one laughing glance.
+
+"Why, that night, dear, at the gate, in the moonlight. Don't you
+remember?"
+
+"Oh-h-h-h!" Marcia caught her breath and a thrill of joy passed through
+her that made her close her eyes lest the glad tears should come. Then the
+little bird in her heart set up the song in earnest to the tune of Wonder:
+"He loves me, He loves me, He loves me!"
+
+He leaned a little closer to her.
+
+"If there were not so many people looking I think I should have to kiss
+you now."
+
+"Oh-h-h-h!" said Marcia drawing in her breath and looking around
+frightened on the number of people that were driving all about them, for
+they were come almost to the railroad now, and could see the black smoke
+of the engine a little beyond as it stood puffing and snorting upon its
+track like some sulky animal that had been caught and chained and
+harnessed and was longing to leap forward and upset its load.
+
+But though Marcia looked about in her happy fright, and sat a trifle
+straighter in the chaise, she did not move her hand away that lay next
+David's, underneath the linen lap robe, and he put his own hand over it
+and covered it close in his firm hold. Marcia trembled and was so happy
+she was almost faint with joy. She wondered if she were very foolish
+indeed to feel so, and if all love had this terrible element of solemn joy
+in it that made it seem too great to be real.
+
+They had to stop a number of times to speak to people. Everybody knew
+David, it appeared. This man and that had a word to speak with him, some
+bit of news that he must not omit to notice in his article, some new
+development about the attitude of a man of influence that was important;
+the change of two or three of those who were to go in the coaches on this
+trial trip.
+
+To all of them David introduced his wife, with a ring of pride in his
+voice as he said the words "My wife," and all of them stopped whatever
+business they had in hand and stepped back to bow most deferentially to
+the beautiful woman who sat smiling by his side. They wondered why they
+had not heard of her before, and they looked curiously, enviously at
+David, and back in admiration at Marcia. It was quite a little court she
+held sitting there in the chaise by David's side.
+
+Men who have since won a mention in the pages of history were there that
+day, and nearly all of them had a word for David Spafford and his lovely
+wife. Many of them stood for some time and talked with her. Mr. Thurlow
+Weed was the last one to leave them before the train was actually ready
+for starting, and he laid an urging hand upon David's arm as he went.
+"Then you think you cannot go with us? Better come. Mrs. Spafford will let
+you I am sure. You're not afraid are you, Mrs. Spafford? I am sure you are
+a brave woman. Better come, Spafford."
+
+But David laughingly thanked him again as he had thanked others, and said
+that he would not be able to go, as he and his wife had other plans, and
+he must go on to Albany as soon as the train had started.
+
+Marcia looked up at him half worshipfully as he said this, wondering what
+it was, instinctively knowing that it was for her sake he was giving up
+this honor which they all wished to put upon him. It would naturally have
+been an interesting thing to him to have taken this first ride behind the
+new engine "Dewitt Clinton."
+
+Then, suddenly, like a chill wind from a thunder cloud that has stolen up
+unannounced and clutched the little wild flowers before they have time to
+bind up their windy locks and duck their heads under cover, there happened
+a thing that clutched Marcia's heart and froze all the joy in her veins.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+A coach was approaching filled with people, some of them Marcia knew; they
+were friends and neighbors from their own village, and behind it plodding
+along came a horse with a strangely familiar gait drawing four people. The
+driver was old Mr. Heath looking unbelievingly at the scene before him. He
+did not believe that an engine would be able to haul a train any
+appreciable distance whatever, and he believed that he had come out here
+to witness this entire company of fanatics circumvented by the ill-natured
+iron steed who stood on the track ahead surrounded by gaping boys and a
+flock of quacking ganders, living symbol of the people who had come to see
+the thing start; so thought Mr. Heath. He told himself he was as much of a
+goose as any of them to have let this chit of a woman fool him into coming
+off out here when he ought to have been in the hay field to-day.
+
+By his side in all the glory of shimmering blue with a wide white lace
+bertha and a bonnet with a steeple crown wreathed about heavily with roses
+sat Kate, a blue silk parasol shading her eyes from the sun, those eyes
+that looked to conquer, and seemed to pierce beyond and through her sister
+and ignore her. Old Mrs. Heath and Miranda were along, but they did not
+count, except to themselves. Miranda was all eyes, under an ugly bonnet.
+She desired above all things to see that wonderful engine in which David
+was so interested.
+
+Marcia shrunk and seemed to wither where she sat. All her bright bloom
+faded in an instant and a kind of frenzy seized her. She had a wild desire
+to get down out of the carriage and run with all her might away from this
+hateful scene. The sky seemed to have suddenly clouded over and the hum
+and buzz of voices about seemed a babel that would never cease.
+
+David felt the arm beside his cringe, and shrink back, and looking down
+saw the look upon her sweet frightened face; following her glance his own
+face hardened into what might have been termed righteous wrath. But not a
+word did he say, and neither did he apparently notice the oncoming
+carriage. He busied himself at once talking with a man who happened to
+pass the carriage, and when Mr. Heath drove by to get a better view of the
+engine he was so absorbed in his conversation that he did not notice them,
+which seemed but natural.
+
+But Kate was not to be thus easily foiled. She had much at stake and she
+must win if possible. She worked it about that Squire Heath should drive
+around to the end of the line of coaches, quite out of sight of the engine
+and where there was little chance of seeing the train and its
+passengers,--the only thing Squire Heath cared about. But there was an
+excellent view of David's carriage and Kate would be within hailing
+distance if it should transpire that she had no further opportunity of
+speaking with David. It seemed strange to Squire Heath, as he sat there
+behind the last coach patiently, that he had done what she asked. She did
+not look like a woman who was timid about horses, yet she had professed a
+terrible fear that the screech of the engine would frighten the staid old
+Heath horse. Miranda, at that, had insisted upon changing seats, thereby
+getting herself nearer the horse, and the scene of action. Miranda did not
+like to miss seeing the engine start.
+
+At last word to start was given. A man ran along by the train and mounted
+into his high seat with his horn in his hand ready to blow. The fireman
+ceased his raking of the glowing fire and every traveller sprang into his
+seat and looked toward the crowd of spectators importantly. This was a
+great moment for all interested. The little ones whose fathers were in the
+train began to call good-bye and wave their hands, and one old lady whose
+only son was going as one of the train assistants began to sob aloud.
+
+A horse in the crowd began to act badly. Every snort of the engine as the
+steam was let off made him start and rear. He was directly behind Marcia,
+and she turned her head and looked straight into his fiery frightened
+eyes, red with fear and frenzy, and felt his hot breath upon her cheek. A
+man was trying most ineffectually to hold him, but it seemed as if in
+another minute he would come plunging into the seat with them. Marcia
+uttered a frightened cry and clutched at David's arm. He turned, and
+seeing instantly what was the matter, placed his arm protectingly about
+her and at once guided his own horse out of the crowd, and around nearer
+to the engine. Somehow that protecting arm gave Marcia a steadiness once
+more and she was able to watch the wonderful wheels begin to turn and the
+whole train slowly move and start on its way. Her lips parted, her breath
+came quick, and for the instant she forgot her trouble. David's arm was
+still about her, and there was a reassuring pressure in it. He seemed to
+have forgotten that the crowd might see him--if the crowd had not been too
+busy watching something more wonderful. It is probable that only one
+person in that whole company saw David sitting with his arm about his
+wife--for he soon remembered and put it quietly on the back of the seat,
+where it would call no one's attention--and that person was Kate. She had
+not come to this hot dusty place to watch an engine creak along a track,
+she had come to watch David, and she was vexed and angry at what she saw.
+Here was Marcia flaunting her power over David directly in her face.
+Spiteful thing! She would pay her back yet and let her know that she could
+not touch the things that she, Kate, had put her own sign and seal upon.
+For this reason it was that at the last minute Kate allowed poor Squire
+Heath to drive around near the front of the train, saying that as David
+Spafford seemed to find it safe she supposed she ought not to hold them
+back for her fears. It needed but the word to send the vexed and curious
+Squire around through the crowd to a spot directly behind David's
+carriage, and there Miranda could see quite well, and Kate could sit and
+watch David and frame her plans for immediate action so soon as the
+curtain should fall upon this ridiculous engine play over which everybody
+was wild.
+
+And so, amid shouts and cheers, and squawking of the geese that attempted
+to precede the engine like a white frightened body-guard down the track;
+amid the waving of handkerchiefs, the shouts of excited little boys, and
+the neighing of frightened horses, the first steam engine that ever drew a
+train in New York state started upon its initial trip.
+
+Then there came a great hush upon the spectators assembled. The wheels
+were rolling, the carriages were moving, the train was actually going by
+them, and what had been so long talked about was an assured fact. They
+were seeing it with their own eyes, and might be witnesses of it to all
+their acquaintances. It was true. They dared not speak nor breathe lest
+something should happen and the great miracle should stop. They hushed
+simultaneously as though at the passing of some great soul. They watched
+in silence until the train went on between the meadows, grew smaller in
+the distance, slipped into the shadow of the wood, flashed out into the
+sunlight beyond again, and then was lost behind a hill. A low murmur
+growing rapidly into a shout of cheer arose as the crowd turned and faced
+one another and the fact of what they had seen.
+
+"By gum! She kin do it!" ejaculated Squire Heath, who had watched the
+melting of his skeptical opinions in speechless amazement.
+
+The words were the first intimation the Spaffords had of the proximity of
+Kate. They made David smile, but Marcia turned white with sudden fear
+again. Not for nothing had she lived with her sister so many years. She
+knew that cruel nature and dreaded it.
+
+David looked at Marcia for sympathy in his smile at the old Squire, but
+when he saw her face he turned frowning toward those behind him.
+
+Kate saw her opportunity. She leaned forward with honeyed smile, and wily
+as the serpent addressed her words to Marcia, loud and clear enough for
+all those about them to hear.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Spafford! I am going to ask a great favor of you. I am sure you
+will grant it when you know I have so little time. I am extremely anxious
+to get a word of advice from your husband upon business matters that are
+very pressing. Would you kindly change places with me during the ride
+home, and give me a chance to talk with him about it? I would not ask it
+but that I must leave for New York on the evening coach and shall have no
+other opportunity to see him."
+
+Kate's smile was roses and cream touched with frosty sunshine, and to
+onlookers nothing could have been sweeter. But her eyes were coldly cruel
+as sharpened steel, and they said to her sister as plainly as words could
+have spoken: "Do you obey my wish, my lady, or I will freeze the heart out
+of you."
+
+Marcia turned white and sick. She felt as if her lips had suddenly
+stiffened and refused to obey her when they ought to have smiled. What
+would all these people think of her, and how was she behaving? For David's
+sake she ought to do something, say something, look something, but
+what--what should she do?
+
+While she was thinking this, with the freezing in her heart creeping up
+into her throat, the great tears beating at the portals of her eyes, and
+time standing suddenly still waiting for her leaden tongue to speak, David
+answered:
+
+All gracefully 'twas done, with not so much as a second's
+hesitation,--though it had seemed so long to Marcia,--nor the shadow of a
+sign that he was angry:
+
+"Mrs. Leavenworth," he said in his masterful voice, "I am sure my wife
+would not wish to seem ungracious, or unwilling to comply with your
+request, but as it happens it is impossible. We are not returning home for
+several days. My wife has some shopping to do in Albany, and in fact we
+are expecting to take a little trip. A sort of second honeymoon, you
+know,"--he added, smiling toward Mrs. Heath and Miranda; "it is the first
+time I have had leisure to plan for it since we were married. I am sorry I
+have to hurry away, but I am sure that my friend Squire Heath can give as
+much help in a business way as I could, and furthermore, Squire Schuyler
+is now in New York for a few days as I learned in a letter from him which
+arrived last evening. I am sure he can give you more and better advice
+than any I could give. I wish you good morning. Good morning, Mrs. Heath.
+Good morning, Miss Miranda!"
+
+Lifting his hat David drove away from them and straight over to the little
+wayside hostelry where he was to finish his article to send by the
+messenger who was even then ready mounted for the purpose.
+
+"My! Don't he think a lot of her though!" said Miranda, rolling the words
+as a sweet morsel under her tongue. "It must be nice to have a man so fond
+of you." This was one of the occasions when Miranda wished she had eyes in
+the back of her head. She was sharp and she had seen a thing or two, also
+she had heard scraps of her cousin Hannah's talk. But she sat demurely in
+the recesses of her deep, ugly bonnet and tried to imagine how the guest
+behind her looked.
+
+All trembling sat Marcia in the rusty parlor of the little hostelry, while
+David at the table wrote with hurried hand, glancing up at her to smile
+now and then, and passing over the sheets as he finished them for her
+criticism. She thought she had seen the Heath wagon drive away in the home
+direction, but she was not sure. She half expected to see the door open
+and Kate walk in. Her heart was thumping so she could scarcely sit still
+and the brightness of the world outside seemed to make her dizzy. She was
+glad to have the sheets to look over, for it took her thoughts away from
+herself and her nameless fears. She was not quite sure what it was she
+feared, only that in some way Kate would have power over David to take him
+away from her. As he wrote she studied the dear lines of his face and
+knew, as well as human heart may ever know, how dear another soul had
+grown to hers.
+
+David had not much to write and it was soon signed, approved, and sealed.
+He sent his messenger on the way and then coming back closed the door and
+went and stood before Marcia.
+
+As though she felt some critical moment had come she arose, trembling, and
+looked into his eyes questioningly.
+
+"Marcia," he said, and his tone was grave and earnest, putting her upon an
+equality with him, not as if she were a child any more. "Marcia, I have
+come to ask your forgiveness for the terrible thing I did to you in
+allowing you, who scarcely knew what you were doing then, to give your
+life away to a man who loved another woman."
+
+Marcia's heart stood still with horror. It had come then, the dreadful
+thing she had feared. The blow was going to fall. He did not love her!
+What a fool she had been!
+
+But the steady voice went on, though the blood in her neck and temples
+throbbed in such loud waves that she could scarcely hear the words to
+understand them.
+
+"It was a crime, Marcia, and I have come to realize it more and more
+during all the days of this year that you have so uncomplainingly spent
+yourself for me. I know now, as I did not think then in my careless,
+selfish sorrow, that I was as cruel to you, with your sweet young life, as
+your sister was cruel to me. You might already have given your heart to
+some one else; I never stopped to inquire. You might have had plans and
+hopes for your own future; I never even thought of it. I was a brute. Can
+you forgive me? Sometimes the thought of the responsibility I took upon
+myself has been so terrible to me that I felt I could not stand it. You
+did not realize what it was then that you were giving, perhaps, but
+somehow I think you have begun to realize now. Will you forgive me?" He
+stopped and looked at her anxiously. She was drooped and white as if a
+blast had suddenly struck her and faded her sweet bloom. Her throat was
+hot and dry and she had to try three times before she could frame the
+words, "Yes, I forgive."
+
+There was no hope, no joy in the words, and a sudden fear descended upon
+David's heart. Had he then done more damage than he knew? Was the child's
+heart broken by him, and did she just realize it? What could he do? Must
+he conceal his love from her? Perhaps this was no time to tell it. But he
+must. He could not bear the burden of having done her harm and not also
+tell her how he loved her. He would be very careful, very considerate, he
+would not press his love as a claim, but he must tell her.
+
+"And Marcia, I must tell you the rest," he went on, his own words seeming
+to stay upon his lips, and then tumble over one another; "I have learned
+to love you as I never loved your sister. I love you more and better than
+I ever could have loved her. I can see how God has led me away from her
+and brought me to you. I can look back to that night when I came to her
+and found you there waiting for me, and kissed you,--darling. Do you
+remember?" He took her cold little trembling hands and held them firmly as
+he talked, his whole soul in his face, as if his life depended upon the
+next few moments. "I was troubled at the time, dear, for having kissed
+you, and given you the greeting that I thought belonged to her. I have
+rebuked myself for thinking since how lovely you looked as you stood there
+in the moonlight. But afterward I knew that it was you after all that my
+love belonged to, and to you rightfully the kiss should have gone. I am
+glad it was so, glad that God overruled my foolish choosing. Lately I have
+been looking back to that night I met you at the gate, and feeling jealous
+that that meeting was not all ours; that it should be shadowed for us by
+the heartlessness of another. It gives me much joy now to think how I took
+you in my arms and kissed you. I cannot bear to think it was a mistake.
+Yet glad as I am that God sent you down to that gate to meet me, and much
+as I love you, I would rather have died than feel that I have brought
+sorrow into your life, and bound you to one whom you cannot love. Marcia,
+tell me truly, never mind my feelings, tell me! Can you ever love me?"
+
+Then did Marcia lift her flower-like face, all bright with tears of joy
+and a flood of rosy smiles, the light of seven stars in her eyes. But she
+could not speak, she could only look, and after a little whisper, "Oh,
+David, I think I have always loved you! I think I was waiting for you that
+night, though I did not know it. And look!"--with sudden thought----
+
+She drew from the folds of her dress a little old-fashioned locket hung by
+a chain about her neck out of sight. She opened it and showed him a soft
+gold curl which she touched gently with her lips, as though it were
+something very sacred.
+
+"What is it, darling?" asked David perplexed, half happy, half afraid as
+he took the locket and touched the curl more thrilled with the thought
+that she had carried it next her heart than with the sight of it.
+
+"It is yours," she said, disappointed that he did not understand. "Aunt
+Clarinda gave it to me while you were away. I've worn it ever since. And
+she gave me other things, and told me all about you. I know it all, about
+the tops and marbles, and the spelling book, and I've cried with you over
+your punishments, and--I--love it all!"
+
+He had fastened the door before he began to talk, but he caught her in his
+arms now, regardless of the fact that the shades were not drawn down, and
+that they swayed in the summer breeze.
+
+"Oh, my darling! My wife!" he cried, and kissed her lips for the third
+time.
+
+The world was changed then for those two. They belonged to each other they
+believed, as no two that ever walked through Eden had ever belonged. When
+they thought of the precious bond that bound them together their hearts
+throbbed with a happiness that well-nigh overwhelmed them.
+
+A dinner of stewed chickens and little white soda biscuits was served
+them, fit for a wedding breakfast, for the barmaid whispered to the cook
+that she was sure there was a bride and groom in the parlor they looked so
+happy and seemed to forget anybody else was by. But it might have been ham
+and eggs for all they knew what it was they ate, these two who were so
+happy they could but look into each other's eyes.
+
+When the dinner was over and they started on their way again, with Albany
+shimmering in the hot sun in the distance, and David's arm sliding from
+the top of the seat to circle Marcia's waist, David whispered:
+
+"This is our real wedding journey, dearest, and this is our bridal day.
+We'll go to Albany and buy you a trousseau, and then we will go wherever
+you wish. I can stay a whole week if you wish. Would you like to go home
+for a visit?"
+
+Marcia, with shining eyes and glowing cheeks, looked her love into his
+face and answered: "Yes, _now_ I would like to go home,--just for a few
+days--and then back to our home."
+
+And David looking into her eyes understood why she had not wanted to go
+before. She was taking her husband, _her_ husband, not Kate's, with her
+now, and might be proud of his love. She could go among her old comrades
+and be happy, for he loved her. He looked a moment, comprehended,
+sympathized, and then pressing her hand close--for he might not kiss her,
+as there was a load of hay coming their way--he said: "Darling!" But their
+eyes said more.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 AD PAGES
+
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                         FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS
+                        IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. By George Barr McCutcheon. With Color Frontispiece
+and other illustrations by Harrison Fisher. Beautiful inlay picture in
+colors of Beverly on the cover.
+
+"The most fascinating, engrossing and picturesque of the season's
+novels."--_Boston Herald._ "'Beverly' is altogether charming--almost living
+flesh and blood."--_Louisville Times._ "Better than 'Graustark'."--_Mail and
+Express._ "A sequel quite as impossible as 'Graustark' and quite as
+entertaining."--_Bookman._ "A charming love story well told."--_Boston
+Transcript_.
+
+
+HALF A ROGUE. By Harold MacGrath. With illustrations and inlay cover
+picture by Harrison Fisher.
+
+"Here are dexterity of plot, glancing play at witty talk, characters
+really human and humanly real, spirit and gladness, freshness and quick
+movement. 'Half a Rogue' is as brisk as a horseback ride on a glorious
+morning. It is as varied as an April day. It is as charming as two most
+charming girls can make it. Love and honor and success and all the great
+things worth fighting for and living for the involved in 'Half a
+Rogue.'"--_Phila. Press._
+
+
+THE GIRL FROM TIM'S PLACE. By Charles Clark Munn. With illustrations by
+Frank T. Merrill.
+
+"Figuring in the pages of this story there are several strong characters.
+Typical New England folk and an especially sturdy one, old Cy Walker,
+through whose instrumentality Chip comes to happiness and fortune. There
+is a chain of comedy, tragedy, pathos and love, which makes a dramatic
+story."--_Boston Herald._
+
+
+THE LION AND THE MOUSE. A story of American Life. By Charles Klein, and
+Arthur Hornblow. With illustrations by Stuart Travis, and Scenes from the
+Play.
+
+The novel duplicated the success of the play; in fact the book is greater
+than the play. A portentous clash of dominant personalties that form the
+essence of the play are necessarily touched upon but briefly in the short
+space of four acts. All this is narrated in the novel with a wealth of
+fascinating and absorbing detail, making it one of the most powerfully
+written and exciting works of fiction given to the world in years.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                         FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS
+                        IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+BARBARA WINSLOW, REBEL. By Elizabeth Ellis. With illustrations by John
+Rae, and colored inlay cover.
+
+The following, taken from story, will best describe the heroine: A TOAST:
+"To the bravest comrade in misfortune, the sweetest companion in peace and
+at all times the most courageous of women."--_Barbara Winslow._ "A romantic
+story, buoyant, eventful, and in matters of love exactly what the heart
+could desire."--_New York Sun._
+
+
+SUSAN. By Ernest Oldmeadow. With a color frontispiece by Frank Haviland.
+Medallion in color on front cover.
+
+Lord Ruddington falls helplessly in love with Miss Langley, whom he sees
+in one of her walks accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a
+misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive to
+the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary
+love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a
+droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly
+clever in the telling.
+
+
+WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE. By Jean Webster. With illustrations by C. D.
+Williams.
+
+"The book is a treasure."--_Chicago Daily News._ "Bright, whimsical, and
+thoroughly entertaining."--_Buffalo Express._ "One of the best stories of
+life in a girl's college that has ever been written."--_N. Y. Press._ "To
+any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot
+fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who have not
+been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure to be no
+less delightful."--_Public Opinion._
+
+
+THE MASQUERADER. By Katherine Cecil Thurston. With illustrations by
+Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+"You can't drop it till you have turned the last page."--_Cleveland
+Leader._ "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost
+takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is
+sublime."--_Boston Transcript._ "The literary hit of a generation. The best
+of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly story."--_St. Louis
+Dispatch._ "The story is ingeniously told, and cleverly constructed."--_The
+Dial._
+
+
+THE GAMBLER. By Katherine Cecil Thurston. With illustrations by John
+Campbell.
+
+"Tells of a high strung young Irish woman who has a passion for gambling,
+inherited from a long line of sporting ancestors. She has a high sense of
+honor, too, and that causes complications. She is a very human, lovable
+character, and love saves her."--_N. Y. Times._
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                         FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS
+                        IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations by
+Martin Justice.
+
+"As superlatively clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the
+reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort, and it is handled
+with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably novel."--_Boston
+Transcript._ "A feast of humor and good cheer, yet subtly pervaded by
+special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or whimsicality. A merry
+thing in prose."--_St. Louis Democrat._
+
+
+ROSE O' THE RIVER. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations by George
+Wright.
+
+"'Rose o' the River,' a charming bit of sentiment, gracefully written and
+deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book--daintily
+illustrated."--_New York Tribune._ "A wholesome, bright, refreshing story,
+an ideal book to give a young girl."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ "An idyllic
+story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As story-telling it is
+perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to the life."--_London
+Mail._
+
+
+TILLIE: A Mennonite Maid. By Helen R. Martin. With illustrations by
+Florence Scovel Shinn.
+
+The little "Mennonite Maid" who wanders through these pages is something
+quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love; and
+she comes into her inheritance at the end. "Tillie is faulty, sensitive,
+big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always lovable. Her
+charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the characters skilfully
+developed."--_The Book Buyer._
+
+
+LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. With illustrations by Howard
+Chandler Christy.
+
+"The most marvellous work of its wonderful author."--_New York World._ "We
+touch regions and attain altitudes which it is not given to the ordinary
+novelist even to approach."--_London Times._ "In no other story has Mrs.
+Ward approached the brilliancy and vivacity of Lady Rose's
+Daughter."--_North American Review._
+
+
+THE BANKER AND THE BEAR. By Henry K. Webster.
+
+"An exciting and absorbing story."--_New York Times._ "Intensely thrilling
+in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a love affair
+of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on the bank
+which is almost worth a year's growth, and there is all manner of
+exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book into high and
+permanent favor."--_Chicago Evening Post._
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               NATURE BOOKS
+
+             With Colored Plates, and Photographs from Life.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+BIRD NEIGHBORS. An Introductory Acquaintance with 150 Birds Commonly Found
+in the Woods, Fields and Gardens About Our Homes. By Neltje Blanchan. With
+an Introduction by John Burroughs, and many plates of birds in natural
+colors. Large Quarto, size 7-3/4 x 10-3/8, Cloth. Formerly published at
+$2.00. Our special price, $1.00.
+
+As an aid to the elementary study of bird life nothing has ever been
+published more satisfactory than this most successful of Nature Books.
+This book makes the identification of our birds simple and positive, even
+to the uninitiated, through certain unique features. I. All the birds are
+grouped according to color, in the belief that a bird's coloring is the
+first and often the only characteristic noticed. II. By another
+classification, the birds are grouped according to their season. III. All
+the popular names by which a bird is known are given both in the
+descriptions and the index. The colored plates are the most beautiful and
+accurate ever given in a moderate-priced and popular book. The most
+successful and widely sold Nature Book yet published.
+
+
+BIRDS THAT HUNT AND ARE HUNTED. Life Histories of 170 Birds of Prey, Game
+Birds and Water-Fowls. By Neltje Blanchan. With Introduction by G. O.
+Shields (Coquina). 24 photographic illustrations in color. Large Quarto,
+size 7-3/4 x 10-3/8. Formerly published at $2.00. Our special price,
+$1.00.
+
+No work of its class has ever been issued that contains so much valuable
+information, presented with such felicity and charm. The colored plates
+are true to nature. By their aid alone any bird illustrated may be readily
+identified. Sportsmen will especially relish the twenty-four color plates
+which show the more important birds in characteristic poses. They are
+probably the most valuable and artistic pictures of the kind available
+to-day.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               NATURE BOOKS
+
+             With Colored Plates, and Photographs from Life.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+NATURE'S GARDEN. An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect
+Visitors. 24 colored plates, and many other illustrations photographed
+directly from nature. Text by Neltje Blanchan. Large Quarto, size 7-3/4 x
+10-3/8. Cloth. Formerly published at $3.00 net. Our special price, $1.25.
+
+Superb color portraits of many familiar flowers in their living tints, and
+no less beautiful pictures in black and white of others--each blossom
+photographed directly from nature--form an unrivaled series. By their aid
+alone the novice can name the flowers met afield.
+
+Intimate life-histories of over five hundred species of wild flowers,
+written in untechnical, vivid language, emphasize the marvelously
+interesting and vital relationship existing between these flowers and the
+special insect to which each is adapted.
+
+The flowers are divided into five color groups, because by this
+arrangement any one with no knowledge of botany whatever can readily
+identify the specimens met during a walk. The various popular names by
+which each species is known, its preferred dwelling-place, months of
+blooming and geographical distribution follow its description. Lists of
+berry-bearing and other plants most conspicuous after the flowering
+season, of such as grow together in different kinds of soil, and finally
+of family groups arranged by that method of scientific classification
+adopted by the International Botanical Congress which has now superseded
+all others, combine to make "Nature's Garden" an indispensable guide.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                         FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS
+                        IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. By Edith Elmer Wood. With illustrations by
+Rufus Zogbaum.
+
+The standards and life of "the new navy" are breezily set forth with a
+genuine ring impossible from the most gifted "outsider." "The story of the
+destruction of the 'Maine,' and of the Battle of Manila, are very
+dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife of
+another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in 'The Spirit of the
+Service.'"--_The Book Buyer._
+
+
+A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in
+striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time of
+the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth century
+for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in adventure,
+mystery, peril and suspense.
+
+
+THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting
+or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again
+into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all of
+Miss Murfree's novels.
+
+
+THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by Harrison
+Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.
+
+As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like callousness,
+her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of God and man,
+she was condemned to bury her magnificent personality, her transcendent
+beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a King's left hand.
+A powerful story powerfully told.
+
+
+THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With illustrations by E.
+Pollak.
+
+A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and never
+attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date story of
+love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern improvements.
+The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner and the romance
+of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for the romance, old
+as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  ERRATA
+
+
+      CHAPTER I
+      Changed: girl in the *fairy tale* who left jewels
+      To: girl in the *fairy-tale* who left jewels
+
+      CHAPTER I
+      Changed: ever walked in *fairy tale*. But she saw
+      To: ever walked in *fairy-tale*. But she saw
+
+      CHAPTER III
+      Changed: before, but covered *wth* confusion and shame,
+      To: before, but covered *with* confusion and shame,
+
+      CHAPTER III
+      Changed: and she turned *delberately*, one dainty, slippered
+      To: and she turned *deliberately*, one dainty, slippered
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: her that this *wholsale* disposal of Marcia
+      To: her that this *wholesale* disposal of Marcia
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: Phoebe takes your place and then come back.* *
+      To: Phoebe takes your place and then come back.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: fine places, to *tea drinkings* and the like,
+      To: fine places, to *tea-drinkings* and the like,
+
+      CHAPTER VI
+      Changed: out radiant and *childlike* through her tears.
+      To: out radiant and *child-like* through her tears.
+
+      CHAPTER X
+      Changed: was always something *childlike* about Marcia's
+      To: was always something *child-like* about Marcia's
+
+      CHAPTER X
+      Changed: her old home *plentfully* supplied with those
+      To: her old home *plentifully* supplied with those
+
+      CHAPTER XII
+      Changed: got David that's worth everything.* *
+      To: got David that's worth everything.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XII
+      Changed: position on the *haircloth* sofa. But if
+      To: position on the *hair-cloth* sofa. But if
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: had Mary Ann's *hand-writing* looked so pleasant
+      To: had Mary Ann's *handwriting* looked so pleasant
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: seemed half a *life-time* to the girl
+      To: seemed half a *lifetime* to the girl
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: my old calico *tomorrow* morning again, and
+      To: my old calico *to-morrow* morning again, and
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: house with big *collums* to the front
+      To: house with big *columns* to the front
+
+      CHAPTER XV
+      Changed: table, and the *tea-kettle* was singing on
+      To: table, and the *tea kettle* was singing on
+
+      CHAPTER XV
+      Changed: The neighbor had *staid* longer than usual,
+      To: The neighbor had *stayed* longer than usual,
+
+      CHAPTER XVI
+      Changed: thus melted into *childlike* enthusiasm, felt his
+      To: thus melted into *child-like* enthusiasm, felt his
+
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+      Changed: with the flickering *candle-light* making grotesque
+      To: with the flickering *candle light* making grotesque
+
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+      Changed: Bible where the *candle-light* played at glances
+      To: Bible where the *candle light* played at glances
+
+      CHAPTER XXI
+      Changed: if he would *absord* the vision for
+      To: if he would *absorb* the vision for
+
+      CHAPTER XXII
+      Changed: and let the *floodtide* of his sorrow
+      To: and let the *flood-tide* of his sorrow
+
+      CHAPTER XXII
+      Changed: an' hopin' an' *tryin* fer somebody bigger.
+      To: an' hopin' an' *tryin'* fer somebody bigger.
+
+      CHAPTER XXII
+      Changed: There's no place like home.*'*
+      To: There's no place like home.* *
+
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+      Changed: * *MIRANDA GRISCOM."
+      To: *"*MIRANDA GRISCOM."
+
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+      Changed: all items accurate* * technicalities of preparation;
+      To: all items accurate*;* technicalities of preparation;
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: need all the rest you can get.* *
+      To: need all the rest you can get.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: had before--all your own I mean?* *
+      To: had before--all your own I mean?*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: any bonnet. Nothing but a pink sunbonnet.* *
+      To: any bonnet. Nothing but a pink sunbonnet.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: a little old *haircloth* trunk, her own
+      To: a little old *hair-cloth* trunk, her own
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: had done when* *a boy Aunt Clarinda
+      To: had done when* as *a boy Aunt Clarinda
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: Kate a mere *common-place*? What was this
+      To: Kate a mere *commonplace*? What was this
+
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+      Changed: Marcia lift her *flowerlike* face, all bright
+      To: Marcia lift her *flower-like* face, all bright
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: love story well told."--_Boston Transcript_*,*
+      To: love story well told."--_Boston Transcript_*.*
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: by Frank Haviland. *Medalion* in color on
+      To: by Frank Haviland. *Medallion* in color on
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: *Suberb* color portraits of many familiar flowers
+      To: *Superb* color portraits of many familiar flowers
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: her magnificent *personalty*, her transcendent
+      To: her magnificent *personality*, her transcendent
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCIA SCHUYLER***
+
+
+
+CREDITS
+
+
+October 20, 2007
+
+            Project Gutenberg Edition
+            Roland Schlenker and
+            Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG
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@@ -0,0 +1,12426 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marcia Schuyler by Grace Livingston Hill
+Lutz
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Marcia Schuyler
+
+Author: Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
+
+Release Date: August 2007 [Ebook #23132]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCIA SCHUYLER***
+
+
+
+
+
+Marcia Schuyler
+
+
+by Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
+
+
+
+
+Edition 1, (August 2007)
+
+
+
+
+
+                             MARCIA SCHUYLER
+
+
+                              SIXTH EDITION
+
+
+
+
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+     "OH, YOU NAUGHTY MAN!" SHE EXCLAIMED PRETTILY, "HOW DARE YOU!"]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+      "OH, YOU NAUGHTY MAN!" SHE EXCLAIMED PRETTILY, "HOW DARE YOU!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                             Marcia Schuyler
+
+
+                                   by
+
+                       Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
+           Author of "The Story of a Whim," "According to the
+                  Pattern," "An Unwilling Guest," etc.
+
+
+                           _Illustrations by_
+                            E. L. HENRY, N.A.
+
+
+                            GROSSET & DUNLAP
+                          PUBLISHERS . NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+                             Copyright, 1908
+                       By J. B. Lippincott Company
+
+
+                        Published February, 1908
+
+
+         _Electrotyped and printed by J. B. Lippincott Company_
+          _The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U. S. A._
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+                           THE DEAR MEMORY OF
+                                MY FATHER
+                 The Rev. CHARLES MONTGOMERY LIVINGSTON
+                  WHOSE COMPANIONSHIP AND ENCOURAGEMENT
+                        HAVE BEEN MY HELP THROUGH
+                                THE YEARS
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+CHAPTER II
+CHAPTER III
+CHAPTER IV
+CHAPTER V
+CHAPTER VI
+CHAPTER VII
+CHAPTER VIII
+CHAPTER IX
+CHAPTER X
+CHAPTER XI
+CHAPTER XII
+CHAPTER XIII
+CHAPTER XIV
+CHAPTER XV
+CHAPTER XVI
+CHAPTER XVII
+CHAPTER XVIII
+CHAPTER XIX
+CHAPTER XX
+CHAPTER XXI
+CHAPTER XXII
+CHAPTER XXIII
+CHAPTER XXIV
+CHAPTER XXV
+CHAPTER XXVI
+CHAPTER XXVII
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+CHAPTER XXIX
+AD PAGES
+ERRATA
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             Marcia Schuyler
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+The sun was already up and the grass blades were twinkling with sparkles
+of dew, as Marcia stepped from the kitchen door.
+
+She wore a chocolate calico with little sprigs of red and white scattered
+over it, her hair was in smooth brown braids down her back, and there was
+a flush on her round cheeks that might have been but the reflection of the
+rosy light in the East. Her face was as untroubled as the summer morning,
+in its freshness, and her eyes as dreamy as the soft clouds that hovered
+upon the horizon uncertain where they were to be sent for the day.
+
+Marcia walked lightly through the grass, and the way behind her sparkled
+again like that of the girl in the fairy-tale who left jewels wherever she
+passed.
+
+A rail fence stopped her, which she mounted as though it had been a steed
+to carry her onward, and sat a moment looking at the beauty of the
+morning, her eyes taking on that far-away look that annoyed her stepmother
+when she wanted her to hurry with the dishes, or finish a long seam before
+it was time to get supper.
+
+She loitered but a moment, for her mind was full of business, and she
+wished to accomplish much before the day was done. Swinging easily down to
+the other side of the fence she moved on through the meadow, over another
+fence, and another meadow, skirting the edge of a cool little strip of
+woods which lured her with its green mysterious shadows, its whispering
+leaves, and twittering birds. One wistful glance she gave into the sweet
+silence, seeing a clump of maiden-hair ferns rippling their feathery locks
+in the breeze. Then resolutely turning away she sped on to the slope of
+Blackberry Hill.
+
+It was not a long climb to where the blackberries grew, and she was soon
+at work, the great luscious berries dropping into her pail almost with a
+touch. But while she worked the vision of the hills, the sheep meadow
+below, the river winding between the neighboring farms, melted away, and
+she did not even see the ripe fruit before her, because she was planning
+the new frock she was to buy with these berries she had come to pick.
+
+Pink and white it was to be; she had seen it in the store the last time
+she went for sugar and spice. There were dainty sprigs of pink over the
+white ground, and every berry that dropped into her bright pail was no
+longer a berry but a sprig of pink chintz. While she worked she went over
+her plans for the day.
+
+There had been busy times at the old house during the past weeks. Kate,
+her elder sister, was to be married. It was only a few days now to the
+wedding.
+
+There had been a whole year of preparation: spinning and weaving and fine
+sewing. The smooth white linen lay ready, packed between rose leaves and
+lavender. There had been yards and yards of tatting and embroidery made by
+the two girls for the trousseau, and the village dressmaker had spent days
+at the house, cutting, fitting, shirring, till now there was a goodly
+array of gorgeous apparel piled high upon bed, and chairs, and hanging in
+the closets of the great spare bedroom. The outfit was as fine as that
+made for Patience Hartrandt six months before, and Mr. Hartrandt had given
+his one daughter all she had asked for in the way of a "setting out." Kate
+had seen to it that her things were as fine as Patience's,--but, they were
+all for Kate!
+
+Of course, that was right! Kate was to be married, not Marcia, and
+everything must make way for that. Marcia was scarcely more than a child
+as yet, barely seventeen. No one thought of anything new for her just
+then, and she did not expect it. But into her heart there had stolen a
+longing for a new frock herself amid all this finery for Kate. She had her
+best one of course. That was good, and pretty, and quite nice enough to
+wear to the wedding, and her stepmother had taken much relief in the
+thought that Marcia would need nothing during the rush of getting Kate
+ready.
+
+But there were people coming to the house every day, especially in the
+afternoons, friends of Kate, and of her stepmother, to be shown Kate's
+wardrobe, and to talk things over curiously. Marcia could not wear her
+best dress all the time. And _he_ was coming! That was the way Marcia
+always denominated the prospective bridegroom in her mind.
+
+His name was David Spafford, and Kate often called him Dave, but Marcia,
+even to herself, could never bring herself to breathe the name so
+familiarly. She held him in great awe. He was so fine and strong and good,
+with a face like a young saint in some old picture, she thought. She often
+wondered how her wild, sparkling sister Kate dared to be so familiar with
+him. She had ventured the thought once when she watched Kate dressing to
+go out with some young people and preening herself like a bird of Paradise
+before the glass. It all came over her, the vanity and frivolousness of
+the life that Kate loved, and she spoke out with conviction:
+
+"Kate, you'll have to be very different when you're married." Kate had
+faced about amusedly and asked why.
+
+"Because _he_ is so good," Marcia had replied, unable to explain further.
+
+"Oh, is that all?" said the daring sister, wheeling back to the glass.
+"Don't you worry; I'll soon take that out of him."
+
+But Kate's indifference had never lessened her young sister's awe of her
+prospective brother-in-law. She had listened to his conversations with her
+father during the brief visits he had made, and she had watched his face
+at church while he and Kate sang together as the minister lined it out:
+"Rock of Ages cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee," a new song which
+had just been written. And she had mused upon the charmed life Kate would
+lead. It was wonderful to be a woman and be loved as Kate was loved,
+thought Marcia.
+
+So in all the hurry no one seemed to think much about Marcia, and she was
+not satisfied with her brown delaine afternoon dress. Truth to tell, it
+needed letting down, and there was no more left to let down. It made her
+feel like last year to go about in it with her slender ankles so plainly
+revealed. So she set her heart upon the new chintz.
+
+Now, with Marcia, to decide was to do. She did not speak to her stepmother
+about it, for she knew it would be useless; neither did she think it worth
+while to go to her father, for she knew that both his wife and Kate would
+find it out and charge her with useless expense just now when there were
+so many other uses for money, and they were anxious to have it all flow
+their way. She had an independent spirit, so she took the time that
+belonged to herself, and went to the blackberry patch which belonged to
+everybody.
+
+Marcia's fingers were nimble and accustomed, and the sun was not very high
+in the heavens when she had finished her task and turned happily toward
+the village. The pails would not hold another berry.
+
+Her cheeks were glowing with the sun and exercise, and little wisps of
+wavy curls had escaped about her brow, damp with perspiration. Her eyes
+were shining with her purpose, half fulfilled, as she hastened down the
+hill.
+
+Crossing a field she met Hanford Weston with a rake over his shoulder and
+a wide-brimmed straw hat like a small shed over him. He was on his way to
+the South meadow. He blushed and greeted her as she passed shyly by. When
+she had passed he paused and looked admiringly after her. They had been in
+the same classes at school all winter, the girl at the head, the boy at
+the foot. But Hanford Weston's father owned the largest farm in all the
+country round about, and he felt that did not so much matter. He would
+rather see Marcia at the head anyway, though there never had been the
+slightest danger that he would take her place. He felt a sudden desire now
+to follow her. It would be a pleasure to carry those pails that she bore
+as if they were mere featherweights.
+
+He watched her long, elastic step for a moment, considered the sun in the
+sky, and his father's command about the South meadow, and then strode
+after her.
+
+It did not take long to reach her side, swiftly as she had gone.
+
+As well as he could, with the sudden hotness in his face and the tremor in
+his throat, he made out to ask if he might carry her burden for her.
+Marcia stopped annoyed. She had forgotten all about him, though he was an
+attractive fellow, sometimes called by the girls "handsome Hanford."
+
+She had been planning exactly how that pink sprigged chintz was to be
+made, and which parts she would cut first in order to save time and
+material. She did not wish to be interrupted. The importance of the matter
+was too great to be marred by the appearance of just a schoolmate whom she
+might meet every day, and whom she could so easily "spell down." She
+summoned her thoughts from the details of mutton-leg sleeves and looked
+the boy over, to his great confusion. She did not want him along, and she
+was considering how best to get rid of him.
+
+"Weren't you going somewhere else?" she asked sweetly. "Wasn't there a
+rake over your shoulder? What have you done with it?"
+
+The culprit blushed deeper.
+
+"Where were you going?" she demanded.
+
+"To the South meadow," he stammered out.
+
+"Oh, well, then you must go back. I shall do quite well, thank you. Your
+father will not be pleased to have you neglect your work for me, though
+I'm much obliged I'm sure."
+
+Was there some foreshadowing of her womanhood in the decided way she
+spoke, and the quaint, prim set of her head as she bowed him good morning
+and went on her way once more? The boy did not understand. He only felt
+abashed, and half angry that she had ordered him back to work; and, too,
+in a tone that forbade him to take her memory with him as he went.
+Nevertheless her image lingered by the way, and haunted the South meadow
+all day long as he worked.
+
+Marcia, unconscious of the admiration she had stirred in the boyish heart,
+went her way on fleet feet, her spirit one with the sunny morning, her
+body light with anticipation, for a new frock of her own choice was yet an
+event in her life.
+
+She had thought many times, as she spent long hours putting delicate
+stitches into her sister's wedding garments, how it would seem if they
+were being made for her. She had whiled away many a dreary seam by
+thinking out, in a sort of dream-story, how she would put on this or that
+at will if it were her own, and go here or there, and have people love and
+admire her as they did Kate. It would never come true, of course. She
+never expected to be admired and loved like Kate. Kate was beautiful,
+bright and gay. Everybody loved her, no matter how she treated them. It
+was a matter of course for Kate to have everything she wanted. Marcia felt
+that she never could attain to such heights. In the first place she
+considered her own sweet serious face with its pure brown eyes as
+exceedingly plain. She could not catch the lights that played at hide and
+seek in her eyes when she talked with animation. Indeed few saw her at her
+best, because she seldom talked freely. It was only with certain people
+that she could forget herself.
+
+She did not envy Kate. She was proud of her sister, and loved her, though
+there was an element of anxiety in the love. But she never thought of her
+many faults. She felt that they were excusable because Kate was Kate. It
+was as if you should find fault with a wild rose because it carried a
+thorn. Kate was set about with many a thorn, but amid them all she
+bloomed, her fragrant pink self, as apparently unconscious of the many
+pricks she gave, and as unconcerned, as the flower itself.
+
+So Marcia never thought to be jealous that Kate had so many lovely things,
+and was going out into the world to do just as she pleased, and lead a
+charmed life with a man who was greater in the eyes of this girl than any
+prince that ever walked in fairy-tale. But she saw no harm in playing a
+delightful little dream-game of "pretend" now and then, and letting her
+imagination make herself the beautiful, admired, elder sister instead of
+the plain younger one.
+
+But this morning on her way to the village store with her berries she
+thought no more of her sister's things, for her mind was upon her own
+little frock which she would purchase with the price of the berries, and
+then go home and make.
+
+A whole long day she had to herself, for Kate and her stepmother were gone
+up to the neighboring town on the packet to make a few last purchases.
+
+She had told no one of her plans, and was awake betimes in the morning to
+see the travellers off, eager to have them gone that she might begin to
+carry out her plan.
+
+Just at the edge of the village Marcia put down the pails of berries by a
+large flat stone and sat down for a moment to tidy herself. The lacing of
+one shoe had come untied, and her hair was rumpled by exercise. But she
+could not sit long to rest, and taking up her burdens was soon upon the
+way again.
+
+Mary Ann Fothergill stepped from her own gate lingering till Marcia should
+come up, and the two girls walked along side by side. Mary Ann had stiff,
+straight, light hair, and high cheek bones. Her eyes were light and her
+eyelashes almost white. They did not show up well beneath her checked
+sunbonnet. Her complexion was dull and tanned. She was a contrast to
+Marcia with her clear red and white skin. She was tall and awkward and
+wore a linsey-woolsey frock as though it were a meal sack temporarily
+appropriated. She had the air of always trying to hide her feet and hands.
+Mary Ann had some fine qualities, but beauty was not one of them. Beside
+her Marcia's delicate features showed clear-cut like a cameo, and her
+every movement spoke of patrician blood.
+
+Mary Ann regarded Marcia's smooth brown braids enviously. Her own sparse
+hair barely reached to her shoulders, and straggled about her neck
+helplessly and hopelessly, in spite of her constant efforts.
+
+"It must be lots of fun at your house these days," said Mary Ann
+wistfully. "Are you most ready for the wedding?"
+
+Marcia nodded. Her eyes were bright. She could see the sign of the village
+store just ahead and knew the bolts of new chintz were displaying their
+charms in the window.
+
+"My, but your cheeks do look pretty," admired Mary Ann impulsively. "Say,
+how many of each has your sister got?"
+
+"Two dozens," said Marcia conscious of a little swelling of pride in her
+breast. It was not every girl that had such a setting out as her sister.
+
+"My!" sighed Mary Ann. "And outside things, too. I 'spose she's got one of
+every color. What are her frocks? Tell me about them. I've been up to
+Dutchess county and just got back last night, but Ma wrote Aunt Tilly that
+Mis' Hotchkiss said her frocks was the prettiest Miss Hancock's ever sewed
+on."
+
+"We think they are pretty," admitted Marcia modestly. "There's a sprigged
+chin--" here she caught herself, remembering, and laughed. "I mean
+muslin-de-laine, and a blue delaine, and a blue silk----"
+
+"My! silk!" breathed Mary Ann in an ecstasy of wonder. "And what's she
+going to be married in?"
+
+"White," answered Marcia, "white satin. And the veil was mother's--our own
+mother's, you know."
+
+Marcia spoke it reverently, her eyes shining with something far away that
+made Mary Ann think she looked like an angel.
+
+"Oh, my! Don't you just envy her?"
+
+"No," said Marcia slowly; "I think not. At least--I hope not. It wouldn't
+be right, you know. And then she's my sister and I love her dearly, and
+it's nearly as nice to have one's sister have nice things and a good time
+as to have them one's self."
+
+"You're good," said Mary Ann decidedly as if that were a foregone
+conclusion. "But I should envy her, I just should. Mis' Hotchkiss told Ma
+there wa'nt many lots in life so all honey-and-dew-prepared like your
+sister's. All the money she wanted to spend on clo'es, and a nice set out,
+and a man as handsome as you'll find anywhere, and he's well off too,
+ain't he? Ma said she heard he kept a horse and lived right in the village
+too, not as how he needed to keep one to get anywhere, either. That's what
+I call luxury--a horse to ride around with. And then Mr. What's-his-name? I
+can't remember. Oh, yes, Spafford. He's good, and everybody says he won't
+make a bit of fuss if Kate does go around and have a good time. He'll just
+let her do as she pleases. Only old Grandma Doolittle says she doesn't
+believe it. She thinks every man, no matter how good he is, wants to
+manage his wife, just for the name of it. She says your sister'll have to
+change her ways or else there'll be trouble. But that's Grandma! Everybody
+knows her. She croaks! Ma says Kate's got her nest feathered well if ever
+a girl had. My! I only wish I had the same chance!"
+
+Marcia held her head a trifle high when Mary Ann touched upon her sister's
+personal character, but they were nearing the store, and everybody knew
+Mary Ann was blunt. Poor Mary Ann! She meant no harm. She was but
+repeating the village gossip. Besides, Marcia must give her mind to
+sprigged chintz. There was no time for discussions if she would accomplish
+her purpose before the folks came home that night.
+
+"Mary Ann," she said in her sweet, prim way that always made the other
+girl stand a little in awe of her, "you mustn't listen to gossip. It isn't
+worth while. I'm sure my sister Kate will be very happy. I'm going in the
+store now, are you?" And the conversation was suddenly concluded.
+
+Mary Ann followed meekly watching with wonder and envy as Marcia made her
+bargain with the kindly merchant, and selected her chintz. What a
+delicious swish the scissors made as they went through the width of cloth,
+and how delightfully the paper crackled as the bundle was being wrapped!
+Mary Ann did not know whether Kate or Marcia was more to be envied.
+
+"Did you say you were going to make it up yourself?" asked Mary Ann.
+
+Marcia nodded.
+
+"Oh, my! Ain't you afraid? I would be. It's the prettiest I ever saw.
+Don't you go and cut both sleeves for one arm. That's what I did the only
+time Ma ever let me try." And Mary Ann touched the package under Marcia's
+arm with wistful fingers.
+
+They had reached the turn of the road and Mary Ann hoped that Marcia would
+ask her out to "help," but Marcia had no such purpose.
+
+"Well, good-bye! Will you wear it next Sunday?" she asked.
+
+"Perhaps," answered Marcia breathlessly, and sped on her homeward way, her
+cheeks bright with excitement.
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+   KATE AND HER STEPMOTHER WERE GONE UP TO THE NEIGHBORING TOWN ON THE
+                                 PACKET.]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+   KATE AND HER STEPMOTHER WERE GONE UP TO THE NEIGHBORING TOWN ON THE
+                                 PACKET.
+
+
+In her own room she spread the chintz out upon the bed and with trembling
+fingers set about her task. The bright shears clipped the edge and tore
+off the lengths exultantly as if in league with the girl. The bees hummed
+outside in the clover, and now and again buzzed between the muslin
+curtains of the open window, looked in and grumbled out again. The birds
+sang across the meadows and the sun mounted to the zenith and began its
+downward march, but still the busy fingers worked on. Well for Marcia's
+scheme that the fashion of the day was simple, wherein were few puckers
+and plaits and tucks, and little trimming required, else her task would
+have been impossible.
+
+Her heart beat high as she tried it on at last, the new chintz that she
+had made. She went into the spare room and stood before the long mirror in
+its wide gilt frame that rested on two gilt knobs standing out from the
+wall like giant rosettes. She had dared to make the skirt a little longer
+than that of her best frock. It was almost as long as Kate's, and for a
+moment she lingered, sweeping backward and forward before the glass and
+admiring herself in the long graceful folds. She caught up her braids in
+the fashion that Kate wore her hair and smiled at the reflection of
+herself in the mirror. How funny it seemed to think she would soon be a
+woman like Kate. When Kate was gone they would begin to call her "Miss"
+sometimes. Somehow she did not care to look ahead. The present seemed
+enough. She had so wrapped her thoughts in her sister's new life that her
+own seemed flat and stale in comparison.
+
+The sound of a distant hay wagon on the road reminded her that the sun was
+near to setting. The family carryall would soon be coming up the lane from
+the evening packet. She must hurry and take off her frock and be dressed
+before they arrived.
+
+Marcia was so tired that night after supper that she was glad to slip away
+to bed, without waiting to hear Kate's voluble account of her day in town,
+the beauties she had seen and the friends she had met.
+
+She lay down and dreamed of the morrow, and of the next day, and the next.
+In strange bewilderment she awoke in the night and found the moonlight
+streaming full into her face. Then she laughed and rubbed her eyes and
+tried to go to sleep again; but she could not, for she had dreamed that
+she was the bride herself, and the words of Mary Ann kept going over and
+over in her mind. "Oh, don't you envy her?" _Did_ she envy her sister? But
+that was wicked. It troubled her to think of it, and she tried to banish
+the dream, but it would come again and again with a strange sweet
+pleasure.
+
+She lay wondering if such a time of joy would ever come to her as had come
+to Kate, and whether the spare bed would ever be piled high with clothes
+and fittings for her new life. What a wonderful thing it was anyway to be
+a woman and be loved!
+
+Then her dreams blended again with the soft perfume of the honeysuckle at
+the window, and the hooting of a young owl.
+
+The moon dropped lower, the bright stars paled, dawn stole up through the
+edges of the woods far away and awakened a day that was to bring a strange
+transformation over Marcia's life.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+As a natural consequence of her hard work and her midnight awakening,
+Marcia overslept the next morning. Her stepmother called her sharply and
+she dressed in haste, not even taking time to glance toward the new folds
+of chintz that drew her thoughts closetward. She dared not say anything
+about it yet. There was much to be done, and not even Kate had time for an
+idle word with her. Marcia was called upon to run errands, to do odds and
+ends of things, to fill in vacant places, to sew on lost buttons, to do
+everything for which nobody else had time. The household had suddenly
+become aware that there was now but one more intervening day between them
+and the wedding.
+
+It was not until late in the afternoon that Marcia ventured to put on her
+frock. Even then she felt shy about appearing in it.
+
+Madam Schuyler was busy in the parlor with callers, and Kate was locked in
+her own room whither she had gone to rest. There was no one to notice if
+Marcia should "dress up," and it was not unlikely that she might escape
+much notice even at the supper table, as everybody was so absorbed in
+other things.
+
+She lingered before her own little glass looking wistfully at herself. She
+was pleased with the frock she had made and liked her appearance in it,
+but yet there was something disappointing about it. It had none of the
+style of her sister's garments, newly come from the hand of the village
+mantua-maker. It was girlish, and showed her slip of a form prettily in
+the fashion of the day, but she felt too young. She wanted to look older.
+She searched her drawer and found a bit of black velvet which she pinned
+about her throat with a pin containing the miniature of her mother, then
+with a second thought she drew the long braids up in loops and fastened
+them about her head in older fashion. It suited her well, and the change
+it made astonished her. She decided to wear them so and see if others
+would notice. Surely, some day she would be a young woman, and perhaps
+then she would be allowed to have a will of her own occasionally.
+
+She drew a quick breath as she descended the stairs and found her
+stepmother and the visitor just coming into the hall from the parlor.
+
+They both involuntarily ceased their talk and looked at her in surprise.
+Over Madam Schuyler's face there came a look as if she had received a
+revelation. Marcia was no longer a child, but had suddenly blossomed into
+young womanhood. It was not the time she would have chosen for such an
+event. There was enough going on, and Marcia was still in school. She had
+no desire to steer another young soul through the various dangers and
+follies that beset a pretty girl from the time she puts up her hair until
+she is safely married to the right man--or the wrong one. She had just
+begun to look forward with relief to having Kate well settled in life.
+Kate had been a hard one to manage. She had too much will of her own and a
+pretty way of always having it. She had no deep sense of reverence for
+old, staid manners and customs. Many a long lecture had Madam Schuyler
+delivered to Kate upon her unseemly ways. It did not please her to think
+of having to go through it all so soon again, therefore upon her usually
+complacent brow there came a look of dismay.
+
+"Why!" exclaimed the visitor, "is this the bride? How tall she looks! No!
+Bless me! it isn't, is it? Yes,--Well! I'll declare. It's just Marsh! What
+have you got on, child? How old you look!"
+
+Marcia flushed. It was not pleasant to have her young womanhood
+questioned, and in a tone so familiar and patronizing. She disliked the
+name of "Marsh" exceedingly, especially upon the lips of this woman, a
+sort of second cousin of her stepmother's. She would rather have chosen
+the new frock to pass under inspection of her stepmother without
+witnesses, but it was too late to turn back now. She must face it.
+
+Though Madam Schuyler's equilibrium was a trifle disturbed, she was not
+one to show it before a visitor. Instantly she recovered her balance, and
+perhaps Marcia's ordeal was less trying than if there had been no third
+person present.
+
+"That looks very well, child!" she said critically with a shade of
+complacence in her voice. It is true that Marcia had gone beyond orders in
+purchasing and making garments unknown to her, yet the neatness and fit
+could but reflect well upon her training. It did no harm for cousin Maria
+to see what a child of her training could do. It was, on the whole, a very
+creditable piece of work, and Madam Schuyler grew more reconciled to it as
+Marcia came down toward them.
+
+"Make it herself?" asked cousin Maria. "Why, Marsh, you did real well. My
+Matilda does all her own clothes now. It's time you were learning. It's a
+trifle longish to what you've been wearing them, isn't it? But you'll grow
+into it, I dare say. Got your hair a new way too. I thought you were Kate
+when you first started down stairs. You'll make a good-looking young lady
+when you grow up; only don't be in too much hurry. Take your girlhood
+while you've got it, is what I always tell Matilda."
+
+Matilda was well on to thirty and showed no signs of taking anything else.
+
+Madam Schuyler smoothed an imaginary pucker across the shoulders and again
+pronounced the work good.
+
+"I picked berries and got the cloth," confessed Marcia.
+
+Madam Schuyler smiled benevolently and patted Marcia's cheek.
+
+"You needn't have done that, child. Why didn't you come to me for money?
+You needed something new, and that is a very good purchase, a little
+light, perhaps, but very pretty. We've been so busy with Kate's things you
+have been neglected."
+
+Marcia smiled with pleasure and passed into the dining room wondering what
+power the visitor had over her stepmother to make her pass over this
+digression from her rules so sweetly,--nay, even with praise.
+
+At supper they all rallied Marcia upon her changed appearance. Her father
+jokingly said that when the bridegroom arrived he would hardly know which
+sister to choose, and he looked from one comely daughter to the other with
+fatherly pride. He praised Marcia for doing the work so neatly, and
+inwardly admired the courage and independence that prompted her to get the
+money by her own unaided efforts rather than to ask for it, and later, as
+he passed through the room where she was helping to remove the dishes from
+the table, he paused and handed her a crisp five-dollar note. It had
+occurred to him that one daughter was getting all the good things and the
+other was having nothing. There was a pleasant tenderness in his eyes, a
+recognition of her rights as a young woman, that made Marcia's heart
+exceedingly light. There was something strange about the influence this
+little new frock seemed to have upon people.
+
+Even Kate had taken a new tone with her. Much of the time at supper she
+had sat staring at her sister. Marcia wondered about it as she walked down
+toward the gate after her work was done. Kate had never seemed so quiet.
+Was she just beginning to realize that she was leaving home forever, and
+was she thinking how the home would be after she had left it? How she,
+Marcia, would take the place of elder sister, with only little Harriet and
+the boys, their stepsister and brothers, left? Was Kate sad over the
+thought of going so far away from them, or was she feeling suddenly the
+responsibility of the new position she was to occupy and the duties that
+would be hers? No, that could not be it, for surely that would bring a
+softening of expression, a sweetness of anticipation, and Kate's
+expression had been wondering, perplexed, almost troubled. If she had not
+been her own sister Marcia would have added, "hard," but she stopped short
+at that.
+
+It was a lovely evening. The twilight was not yet over as she stepped from
+the low piazza that ran the length of the house bearing another above it
+on great white pillars. A drapery of wistaria in full bloom festooned
+across one end and half over the front. Marcia stepped back across the
+stone flagging and driveway to look up the purple clusters of graceful
+fairy-like shape that embowered the house, and thought how beautiful it
+would look when the wedding guests should arrive the day after the morrow.
+Then she turned into the little gravel path, box-bordered, that led to the
+gate. Here and there on either side luxuriant blooms of dahlias, peonies
+and roses leaned over into the night and peered at her. The yard had never
+looked so pretty. The flowers truly had done their best for the occasion,
+and they seemed to be asking some word of commendation from her.
+
+They nodded their dewy heads sleepily as she went on.
+
+To-morrow the children would be coming back from Aunt Eliza's, where they
+had been sent safely out of the way for a few days, and the last things
+would arrive,--and _he_ would come. Not later than three in the afternoon
+he ought to arrive, Kate had said, though there was a possibility that he
+might come in the morning, but Kate was not counting upon it. He was to
+drive from his home to Schenectady and, leaving his own horse there to
+rest, come on by coach. Then he and Kate would go back in fine style to
+Schenectady in a coach and pair, with a colored coachman, and at
+Schenectady take their own horse and drive on to their home, a long
+beautiful ride, so thought Marcia half enviously. How beautiful it would
+be! What endless delightful talks they might have about the trees and
+birds and things they saw in passing only Kate did not love to talk about
+such things. But then she would be with David, and he talked beautifully
+about nature or anything else. Kate would learn to love it if she loved
+him. Did Kate love David? Of course she must or why should she marry him?
+Marcia resented the thought that Kate might have other objects in view,
+such as Mary Ann Fothergill had suggested for instance. Of course Kate
+would never marry any man unless she loved him. That would be a dreadful
+thing to do. Love was the greatest thing in the world. Marcia looked up to
+the stars, her young soul thrilling with awe and reverence for the great
+mysteries of life. She wondered again if life would open sometime for her
+in some such great way, and if she would ever know better than now what it
+meant. Would some one come and love her? Some one whom she could love in
+return with all the fervor of her nature?
+
+She had dreamed such dreams before many times, as girls will, while lovers
+and future are all in one dreamy, sweet blending of rosy tints and joyous
+mystery, but never had they come to her with such vividness as that night.
+Perhaps it was because the household had recognized the woman in her for
+the first time that evening. Perhaps because the vision she had seen
+reflected in her mirror before she left her room that afternoon had opened
+the door of the future a little wider than it had ever opened before.
+
+She stood by the gate where the syringa and lilac bushes leaned over and
+arched the way, and the honeysuckle climbed about the fence in a wild
+pretty way of its own and flung sweetness on the air in vivid, erratic
+whiffs.
+
+The sidewalk outside was brick, and whenever she heard footsteps coming
+she stepped back into the shadow of the syringa and was hidden from view.
+She was in no mood to talk with any one.
+
+She could look out into the dusty road and see dimly the horses and
+carryalls as they passed, and recognize an occasional laughing voice of
+some village maiden out with her best young man for a ride. Others
+strolled along the sidewalk, and fragments of talk floated back. Almost
+every one had a word to say about the wedding as they neared the gate, and
+if Marcia had been in another mood it would have been interesting and
+gratifying to her pride. Every one had a good word for Kate, though many
+disapproved of her in a general way for principle's sake.
+
+Hanford Weston passed, with long, slouching gait, hands in his trousers
+pockets, and a frightened, hasty, sideways glance toward the lights of the
+house beyond. He would have gone in boldly to call if he had dared, and
+told Marcia that he had done her bidding and now wanted a reward, but John
+Middleton had joined him at the corner and he dared not make the attempt.
+John would have done it in a minute if he had wished. He was brazen by
+nature, but Hanford knew that he would as readily laugh at another for
+doing it. Hanford shrank from a laugh more than from the cannon's mouth,
+so he slouched on, not knowing that his goddess held her breath behind a
+lilac bush not three feet away, her heart beating in annoyed taps to be
+again interrupted by him in her pleasant thoughts.
+
+Merry, laughing voices mingling with many footsteps came sounding down the
+street and paused beside the gate. Marcia knew the voices and again slid
+behind the shrubbery that bordered all the way to the house, and not even
+a gleam of her light frock was visible. They trooped in, three or four
+girl friends of Kate's and a couple of young men.
+
+Marcia watched them pass up the box-bordered path from her shadowy
+retreat, and thought how they would miss Kate, and wondered if the young
+men who had been coming there so constantly to see her had no pangs of
+heart that their friend and leader was about to leave them. Then she
+smiled at herself in the dark. She seemed to be doing the retrospect for
+Kate, taking leave of all the old friends, home, and life, in Kate's
+place. It was not her life anyway, and why should she bother herself and
+sigh and feel this sadness creeping over her for some one else? Was it
+that she was going to lose her sister? No, for Kate had never been much of
+a companion to her. She had always put her down as a little girl and made
+distinct and clear the difference in their ages. Marcia had been the
+little maid to fetch and carry, the errand girl, and unselfish, devoted
+slave in Kate's life. There had been nothing protective and elder-sisterly
+in her manner toward Marcia. At times Marcia had felt this keenly, but no
+expression of this lack had ever crossed her lips, and afterwards her
+devotion to her sister had been the greater, to in a measure compensate
+for this reproachful thought.
+
+But Marcia could not shake the sadness off. She stole in further among the
+trees to think about it till the callers should go away. She felt no
+desire to meet any of them.
+
+She began again to wonder how she would feel if day after to-morrow were
+her wedding day, and she were going away from home and friends and all the
+scenes with which she had been familiar since babyhood. Would she mind
+very much leaving them all? Father? Yes, father had been good to her, and
+loved her and was proud of her in a way. But one does not lose one's
+father no matter how far one goes. A father is a father always; and Mr.
+Schuyler was not a demonstrative man. Marcia felt that her father would
+not miss her deeply, and she was not sure she would miss him so very much.
+She had read to him a great deal and talked politics with him whenever he
+had no one better by, but aside from that her life had been lived much
+apart from him. Her stepmother? Yes, she would miss her as one misses a
+perfect mentor and guide. She had been used to looking to her for
+direction. She was thoroughly conscious that she had a will of her own and
+would like a chance to exercise it, still, she knew that in many cases
+without her stepmother she would be like a rudderless ship, a guideless
+traveller. And she loved her stepmother too, as a young girl can love a
+good woman who has been her guide and helper, even though there never has
+been great tenderness between them. Yes, she would miss her stepmother,
+but she would not feel so very sad over it. Harriet and the little
+brothers? Oh, yes, she would miss them, they were dear little things and
+devoted to her.
+
+Then there were the neighbors, and the schoolmates, and the people of the
+village. She would miss the minister,--the dear old minister and his wife.
+Many a time she had gone with her arms full of flowers to the parsonage
+down the street, and spent the afternoon with the minister's wife. Her
+smooth white hair under its muslin cap, and her soft wrinkled cheek were
+very dear to the young girl. She had talked to this friend more freely
+about her innermost thoughts than she had ever spoken to any living being.
+Oh, she would miss the minister's wife very much if she were to go away.
+
+The names of her schoolmates came to her. Harriet Woodgate, Eliza
+Buchanan, Margaret Fletcher, three girls who were her intimates. She would
+miss them, of course, but how much? She could scarcely tell. Margaret
+Fletcher more than the other two. Mary Ann Fothergill? She almost laughed
+at the thought of anybody missing Mary Ann. John Middleton? Hanford
+Weston? There was not a boy in the school she would miss for an instant,
+she told herself with conviction. Not one of them realized her ideal.
+There was much pairing off of boy and girl in school, but Marcia, like the
+heroine of "Comin' thro' the Rye," was good friends with all the boys and
+intimate with none. They all counted it an honor to wait upon her, and she
+cared not a farthing for any. She felt herself too young, of course, to
+think of such things, but when she dreamed her day dreams the lover and
+prince who figured in them bore no familiar form or feature. He was a
+prince and these were only schoolboys.
+
+The merry chatter of the young people in the house floated through the
+open windows, and Marcia could hear her sister's voice above them all.
+Chameleon-like she was all gaiety and laughter now, since her gravity at
+supper.
+
+They were coming out the front door and down the walk. Kate was with them.
+Marcia could catch glimpses of the girls' white frocks as they came
+nearer. She saw that her sister was walking with Captain Leavenworth. He
+was a handsome young man who made a fine appearance in his uniform. He and
+Kate had been intimate for two years, and it might have been more than
+friendship had not Kate's father interfered between them. He did not think
+so well of the handsome young captain as did either his daughter Kate or
+the United States Navy who had given him his position. Squire Schuyler
+required deep integrity and strength of moral character in the man who
+aspired to be his son-in-law. The captain did not number much of either
+among his virtues.
+
+There had been a short, sharp contest which had ended in the departure of
+young Leavenworth from the town some three years before, and the temporary
+plunging of Kate Schuyler into a season of tears and pouting. But it had
+not been long before her gay laughter was ringing again, and her father
+thought she had forgotten. About that time David Spafford had appeared and
+promptly fallen in love with the beautiful girl, and the Schuyler mind was
+relieved. So it came about that, upon the reappearance of the handsome
+young captain wearing the insignia of his first honors, the Squire
+received him graciously. He even felt that he might be more lenient about
+his moral character, and told himself that perhaps he was not so bad after
+all, he must have something in him or the United States government would
+not have seen fit to honor him. It was easier to think so, now Kate was
+safe.
+
+Marcia watched her sister and the captain go laughing down to the gate,
+and out into the street. She wondered that Kate could care to go out
+to-night when it was to be almost her last evening at home; wondered, too,
+that Kate would walk with Captain Leavenworth when she belonged to David
+now. She might have managed it to go with one of the girls. But that was
+Kate's way. Kate's ways were not Marcia's ways.
+
+Marcia wondered if she would miss Kate, and was obliged to acknowledge to
+herself that in many ways her sister's absence would be a relief to her.
+While she recognized the power of her sister's beauty and will over her,
+she felt oppressed sometimes by the strain she was under to please, and
+wearied of the constant, half-fretful, half playful fault-finding.
+
+The gay footsteps and voices died away down the village street, and Marcia
+ventured forth from her retreat. The moon was just rising and came up a
+glorious burnished disk, silhouetting her face as she stood a moment
+listening to the stirring of a bird among the branches. It was her will
+to-night to be alone and let her fancies wander where they would. The
+beauty and the mystery of a wedding was upon her, touching all her deeper
+feelings, and she wished to dream it out and wonder over it. Again it came
+to her what if the day after the morrow were her wedding day and she stood
+alone thinking about it. She would not have gone off down the street with
+a lot of giggling girls nor walked with another young man. She would have
+stood here, or down by the gate--and she moved on toward her favorite arch
+of lilac and syringa--yes, down by the gate in the darkness looking out and
+thinking how it would be when he should come. She felt sure if it had been
+herself who expected David she would have begun to watch for him a week
+before the time he had set for coming, heralding it again and again to her
+heart in joyous thrills of happiness, for who knew but he might come
+sooner and surprise her? She would have rejoiced that to-night she was
+alone, and would have excused herself from everything else to come down
+there in the stillness and watch for him, and think how it would be when
+he would really get there. She would hear his step echoing down the street
+and would recognize it as his. She would lean far over the gate to listen
+and watch, and it would come nearer and nearer, and her heart would beat
+faster and faster, and her breath come quicker, until he was at last by
+her side, his beautiful surprise for her in his eyes. But now, if David
+should really try to surprise Kate by coming that way to-night he would
+not find her waiting nor thinking of him at all, but off with Captain
+Leavenworth.
+
+With a passing pity for David she went back to her own dream. With one
+elbow on the gate and her cheek in her hand she thought it all over. The
+delayed evening coach rumbled up to the tavern not far away and halted.
+Real footsteps came up the street, but Marcia did not notice them only as
+they made more vivid her thoughts.
+
+Her dream went on and the steps drew nearer until suddenly they halted and
+some one appeared out of the shadow. Her heart stood still, for form and
+face in the darkness seemed unreal, and the dreams had been most vivid.
+Then with tender masterfulness two strong arms were flung about her and
+her face was drawn close to his across the vine-twined gate until her lips
+touched his. One long clinging kiss of tenderness he gave her and held her
+head close against his breast for just a moment while he murmured: "My
+darling! My precious, precious Kate, I have you at last!"
+
+The spell was broken! Marcia's dream was shattered. Her mind awoke. With a
+scream she sprang from him, horror and a wild but holy joy mingling with
+her perplexity. She put her hand upon her heart, marvelling over the
+sweetness that lingered upon her lips, trying to recover her senses as she
+faced the eager lover who opened the little gate and came quickly toward
+her, as yet unaware that it was not Kate to whom he had been talking.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+Marcia stood quivering, trembling. She comprehended all in an instant.
+David Spafford had come a day earlier than he had been expected, to
+surprise Kate, and Kate was off having a good time with some one else. He
+had mistaken her for Kate. Her long dress and her put-up hair had deceived
+him in the moonlight. She tried to summon some womanly courage, and in her
+earnestness to make things right she forgot her natural timidity.
+
+"It is not Kate," she said gently; "it is only Marcia. Kate did not know
+you were coming to-night. She did not expect you till to-morrow. She had
+to go out,--that is--she has gone with--" the truthful, youthful, troubled
+sister paused. To her mind it was a calamity that Kate was not present to
+meet her lover. She should at least have been in the house ready for a
+surprise like this. Would David not feel the omission keenly? She must
+keep it from him if she could about Captain Leavenworth. There was no
+reason why he should feel badly about it, of course, and yet it might
+annoy him. But he stepped back laughing at his mistake.
+
+"Why! Marcia, is it you, child? How you have grown! I never should have
+known you!" said the young man pleasantly. He had always a grave
+tenderness for this little sister of his love. "Of course your sister did
+not know I was coming," he went on, "and doubtless she has many things to
+attend to. I did not expect her to be out here watching for me, though for
+a moment I did think she was at the gate. You say she is gone out? Then we
+will go up to the house and I will be there to surprise her when she
+comes."
+
+Marcia turned with relief. He had not asked where Kate was gone, nor with
+whom.
+
+The Squire and Madam Schuyler greeted the arrival with elaborate welcome.
+The Squire like Marcia seemed much annoyed that Kate had gone out. He kept
+fuming back and forth from the window to the door and asking: "What did
+she go out for to-night? She ought to have stayed at home!"
+
+But Madam Schuyler wore ample satisfaction upon her smooth brow. The
+bridegroom had arrived. There could be no further hitch in the ceremonies.
+He had arrived a day before the time, it is true; but he had not found
+_her_ unprepared. So far as she was concerned, with a few extra touches
+the wedding might proceed at once. She was always ready for everything in
+time. No one could find a screw loose in the machinery of her household.
+
+She bustled about, giving orders and laying a bountiful supper before the
+young man, while the Squire sat and talked with him, and Marcia hovered
+watchfully, waiting upon the table, noticing with admiring eyes the
+beautiful wave of his abundant hair, tossed back from his forehead. She
+took a kind of pride of possession in his handsome face,--the far-removed
+possession of a sister-in-law. There was his sunny smile, that seemed as
+though it could bring joy out of the gloom of a bleak December day, and
+there were the two dimples--not real dimples, of course, men never had
+dimples--but hints, suggestions of dimples, that caught themselves when he
+smiled, here and there like hidden mischief well kept under control, but
+still merrily ready to come to the surface. His hands were white and firm,
+the fingers long and shapely, the hands of a brain worker. The vision of
+Hanford Weston's hands, red and bony, came up to her in contrast. She had
+not known that she looked at them that day when he had stood awkwardly
+asking if he might walk with her. Poor Hanford! He would ill compare with
+this cultured scholarly man who was his senior by ten years, though it is
+possible that with the ten years added he would have been quite worthy of
+the admiration of any of the village girls.
+
+The fruit cake and raspberry preserves and doughnuts and all the various
+viands that Madam Schuyler had ordered set out for the delectation of her
+guest had been partaken of, and David and the Squire sat talking of the
+news of the day, touching on politics, with a bit of laughter from the
+Squire at the man who thought he had invented a machine to draw carriages
+by steam in place of horses.
+
+"There's a good deal in it, I believe," said the younger man. "His theory
+is all right if he can get some one to help him carry it out."
+
+"Well, maybe, maybe," said the Squire shaking his head dubiously, "but it
+seems to me a very fanciful scheme. Horses are good enough for me. I
+shouldn't like to trust myself to an unknown quantity like steam, but time
+will tell."
+
+"Yes, and the world is progressing. Something of the sort is sure to come.
+It has come in England. It would make a vast change in our country,
+binding city to city and practically eradicating space."
+
+"Visionary schemes, David, visionary schemes, that's what I call them. You
+and I'll never see them in our day, I'm sure of that. Remember this is a
+new country and must go slow." The Squire was half laughing, half in
+earnest.
+
+Amid the talk Marcia had quietly slipped out. It had occurred to her that
+perhaps the captain might return with her sister.
+
+She must watch for Kate and warn her. Like a shadow in the moonlight she
+stepped softly down the gravel path once more and waited at the gate. Did
+not that sacred kiss placed upon her lips all by mistake bind her to this
+solemn duty? Had it not been given to her to see as in a revelation, by
+that kiss, the love of one man for one woman, deep and tender and true?
+
+In the fragrant darkness her soul stood still and wondered over Love, the
+marvellous. With an insight such as few have who have not tasted years of
+wedded joy, Marcia comprehended the possibility and joy of sacrifice that
+made even sad things bright because of Love. She saw like a flash how Kate
+could give up her gay life, her home, her friends, everything that life
+had heretofore held dear for her, that she might be by the side of the man
+who loved her so. But with this knowledge of David's love for Kate came a
+troubled doubt. Did Kate love David that way? If Kate had been the one who
+received that kiss would she have returned it with the same tenderness and
+warmth with which it was given? Marcia dared not try to answer this. It
+was Kate's question, not hers, and she must never let it enter her mind
+again. Of course she must love him that way or she would never marry him.
+
+The night crept slowly for the anxious little watcher at the gate. Had she
+been sure where to look for her sister, and not afraid of the tongues of a
+few interested neighbors who had watched everything at the house for days
+that no item about the wedding should escape them, she would have started
+on a search at once. She knew if she just ran into old Miss Pemberton's,
+whose house stood out upon the street with two straight-backed little,
+high, white seats each side of the stoop, a most delightful post of
+observation, she could discover at once in which direction Kate had gone,
+and perhaps a good deal more of hints and suggestions besides. But Marcia
+had no mind to make gossip. She must wait as patiently as she could for
+Kate. Moreover Kate might be walking even now in some secluded, rose-lined
+lane arm in arm with the captain, saying a pleasant farewell. It was
+Kate's way and no one might gainsay her.
+
+Marcia's dreams came back once more, the thoughts that had been hers as
+she stood there an hour before. She thought how the kiss had fitted into
+the dream. Then all at once conscience told her it was Kate's lover, not
+her own, whose arms had encircled her. And now there was a strange
+unwillingness to go back to the dreams at all, a lingering longing for the
+joys into whose glory she had been for a moment permitted to look. She
+drew back from all thoughts and tried to close the door upon them. They
+seemed too sacred to enter. Her maidenhood was but just begun and she had
+much yet to learn of life. She was glad, glad for Kate that such
+wonderfulness was coming to her. Kate would be sweeter, softer in her ways
+now. She could not help it with a love like that enfolding her life.
+
+At last there were footsteps! Hark! Two people--only two! Just what Marcia
+had expected. The other girls and boys had dropped into other streets or
+gone home. Kate and her former lover were coming home alone. And,
+furthermore, Kate would not be glad to see her sister at the gate. This
+last thought came with sudden conviction, but Marcia did not falter.
+
+"Kate, David has come!" Marcia said it in low, almost accusing tones, at
+least so it sounded to Kate, before the two had hardly reached the gate.
+They had been loitering along talking in low tones, and the young
+captain's head was bent over his companion in an earnest, pleading
+attitude. Marcia could not bear to look, and did not wish to see more, so
+she had spoken.
+
+Kate, startled, sprang away from her companion, a white angry look in her
+face.
+
+"How you scared me, Marsh!" she exclaimed pettishly. "What if he has come?
+That's nothing. I guess he can wait a few minutes. He had no business to
+come to-night anyway. He knew we wouldn't be ready for him till
+to-morrow."
+
+Kate was recovering her self-possession in proportion as she realized the
+situation. That she was vexed over her bridegroom's arrival neither of the
+two witnesses could doubt. It stung her sister with a deep pity for David.
+He was not getting as much in Kate as he was giving. But there was no time
+for such thoughts, besides Marcia was trembling from head to foot, partly
+with her own daring, partly with wrath at her sister's words.
+
+"For shame, Kate!" she cried. "How can you talk so, even in fun! David
+came to surprise you, and I think he had a right to expect to find you
+here so near to the time of your marriage."
+
+There was a flash in the young eyes as she said it, and a delicate lifting
+of her chin with the conviction of the truth she was speaking, that gave
+her a new dignity even in the moonlight. Captain Leavenworth looked at her
+in lazy admiration and said:
+
+"Why, Marsh, you're developing into quite a spitfire. What have you got on
+to-night that makes you look so tall and handsome? Why didn't you stay in
+and talk to your fine gentleman? I'm sure he would have been just as well
+satisfied with you as your sister."
+
+Marcia gave one withering glance at the young man and then turned her back
+full upon him. He was not worth noticing. Besides he was to be pitied, for
+he evidently cared still for Kate.
+
+But Kate was fairly white with anger. Perhaps her own accusing conscience
+helped it on. Her voice was imperious and cold. She drew herself up
+haughtily and pointed toward the house.
+
+"Marcia Schuyler," she said coldly, facing her sister, "go into the house
+and attend to your own affairs. You'll find that you'll get into serious
+trouble if you attempt to meddle with mine. You're nothing but a child yet
+and ought to be punished for your impudence. Go! I tell you!" she stamped
+her foot, "I will come in when I get ready."
+
+Marcia went. Not proudly as she might have gone the moment before, but
+covered with confusion and shame, her head drooping like some crushed lily
+on a bleeding stalk. Through her soul rushed indignation, mighty and
+forceful; indignation and shame, for her sister, for David, for herself.
+She did not stop to analyze her various feelings, nor did she stop to
+speak further with those in the house. She fled to her own room, and
+burying her face in the pillow she wept until she fell asleep.
+
+The moon-shadows grew longer about the arbored gateway where the two she
+had left stood talking in low tones, looking furtively now and then toward
+the house, and withdrawing into the covert of the bushes by the walk. But
+Kate dared not linger long. She could see her father's profile by the
+candle light in the dining room. She did not wish to receive further
+rebuke, and so in a very few minutes the two parted and Kate ran up the
+box-edged path, beginning to hum a sweet old love song in a gay light
+voice, as she tripped by the dining-room windows, and thus announced her
+arrival. She guessed that Marcia would have gone straight to her room and
+told nothing. Kate intended to be fully surprised. She paused in the hall
+to hang up the light shawl she had worn, calling good-night to her
+stepmother and saying she was very tired and was going straight to bed to
+be ready for to-morrow. Then she ran lightly across the hall to the
+stairs.
+
+She knew they would call her back, and that they would all come into the
+hall with David to see the effect of his surprise upon her. She had
+planned to a nicety just which stair she could reach before they got
+there, and where she would pause and turn and poise, and what pose she
+would take with her round white arm stretched to the handrail, the sleeve
+turned carelessly back. She had ready her countenances, a sleepy
+indifference, then a pleased surprise, and a climax of delight. She
+carried it all out, this little bit of impromptu acting, as well as though
+she had rehearsed it for a month.
+
+They called her, and she turned deliberately, one dainty, slippered foot,
+with its crossed black ribbons about the slender ankle, just leaving the
+stair below, and showing the arch of the aristocratic instep. Her gown was
+blue and she held it back just enough for the stiff white frill of her
+petticoat to peep below. Well she read the admiration in the eyes below
+her. Admiration was Kate's life: she thrived upon it. She could not do
+without it.
+
+David stood still, his love in his eyes, looking upon the vision of his
+bride, and his heart swelled within him that so great a treasure should be
+his. Then straightway they all forgot to question where she had been or to
+rebuke her that she had been at all. She had known they would. She ever
+possessed the power to make others forget her wrong doings when it was
+worth her while to try.
+
+The next morning things were astir even earlier than usual. There was the
+sound of the beating of eggs, the stirring of cakes, the clatter of pots
+and pans from the wide, stone-flagged kitchen.
+
+Marcia, fresh as a flower from its morning dew in spite of her cry the
+night before, had arisen to new opportunities for service. She was glad
+with the joyous forgetfulness of youth when she looked at David's happy
+face, and she thought no more of Kate's treatment of herself.
+
+David followed Kate with a true lover's eyes and was never for more than a
+few moments out of her sight, though it seemed to Marcia that Kate did not
+try very hard to stay with him. When afternoon came she dismissed him for
+what she called her "beauty nap." Marcia was passing through the hall at
+the time and she caught the tender look upon his face as he touched her
+brow with reverent fingers and told her she had no need for that. Her eyes
+met Kate's as they were going up the stairs, and in spite of what Kate had
+said the night before Marcia could not refrain from saying: "Oh, Kate! how
+could you when he loves you so? You know you never take a nap in the
+daytime!"
+
+"You silly girl!" said Kate pleasantly enough, "don't you know the less a
+man sees of one the more he thinks of her?" With this remark she closed
+and fastened her door after her.
+
+Marcia pondered these words of wisdom for some time, wondering whether
+Kate had really done it for that reason, or whether she did not care for
+the company of her lover. And why should it be so that a man loved you
+less because he saw you more? In her straightforward code the more you
+loved persons the more you desired to be in their company.
+
+Kate had issued from her "beauty nap" with a feverish restlessness in her
+eyes, an averted face, and ink upon one finger. At supper she scarcely
+spoke, and when she did she laughed excitedly over little things. Her
+lover watched her with eyes of pride and ever increasing wonder over her
+beauty, and Marcia, seeing the light in his face, watched for its answer
+in her sister's, and finding it not was troubled.
+
+She watched them from her bedroom window as they walked down the path
+where she had gone the evening before, decorously side by side, Kate
+holding her light muslin frock back from the dew on the hedges. She
+wondered if it was because Kate had more respect for David than for
+Captain Leavenworth that she never seemed to treat him with as much
+familiarity. She did not take possession of him in the same sweet
+imperious way.
+
+Marcia had not lighted her candle. The moon gave light enough and she was
+very weary, so she undressed in the dim chamber and pondered upon the ways
+of the great world. Out there in the moonlight were those two who
+to-morrow would be one, and here was she, alone. The world seemed all
+circling about that white chamber of hers, and echoing with her own
+consciousness of self, and a loneliness she had never felt before. She
+wondered what it might be. Was it all sadness at parting with Kate, or was
+it the sadness over inevitable partings of all human relationships, and
+the all-aloneness of every living spirit?
+
+She stood for a moment, white-robed, beside her window, looking up into
+the full round moon, and wondering if God knew the ache of loneliness in
+His little human creatures' souls that He had made, and whether He had
+ready something wherewith to satisfy. Then her meek soul bowed before the
+faith that was in her and she knelt for her shy but reverent evening
+prayer.
+
+She heard the two lovers come in early and go upstairs, and she heard her
+father fastening up the doors and windows for the night. Then stillness
+gradually settled down and she fell asleep. Later, in her dreams, there
+echoed the sound of hastening hoofs far down the deserted street and over
+the old covered bridge, but she took no note of any sound, and the weary
+household slept on.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The wedding was set for ten o'clock in the morning, after which there was
+to be a wedding breakfast and the married couple were to start immediately
+for their new home.
+
+David had driven the day before with his own horse and chaise to a town
+some twenty miles away, and there left his horse at a tavern to rest for
+the return trip, for Kate would have it that they must leave the house in
+high style. So the finest equipage the town afforded had been secured to
+bear them on the first stage of their journey, with a portly negro driver
+and everything according to the custom of the greatest of the land.
+Nothing that Kate desired about the arrangements had been left undone.
+
+The household was fully astir by half past four, for the family breakfast
+was to be at six promptly, that all might be cleared away and in readiness
+for the early arrival of the various aunts and uncles and cousins and
+friends who would "drive over" from the country round about. It would have
+been something Madam Schuyler would never have been able to get over if
+aught had been awry when a single uncle or aunt appeared upon the scene,
+or if there seemed to be the least evidence of fluster and nervousness.
+
+The rosy sunlight in the east was mixing the morning with fresher air, and
+new odors for the new day that was dawning, when Marcia awoke. The sharp
+click of spoons and dishes, the voices of the maids, the sizzle, sputter,
+odor of frying ham and eggs, mingled with the early chorus of the birds,
+and calling to life of all living creatures, like an intrusion upon
+nature. It seemed not right to steal the morning's "quiet hour" thus
+rudely. The thought flitted through the girl's mind, and in an instant
+more the whole panorama of the day's excitement was before her, and she
+sprang from her bed. As if it had been her own wedding day instead of her
+sister's, she performed her dainty toilet, for though there was need for
+haste, she knew she would have no further time beyond a moment to slip on
+her best gown and smooth her hair.
+
+Marcia hurried downstairs just as the bell rang for breakfast, and David,
+coming down smiling behind her, patted her cheek and greeted her with,
+"Well, little sister, you look as rested as if you had not done a thing
+all day yesterday."
+
+She smiled shyly back at him, and her heart filled with pleasure over his
+new name for her. It sounded pleasantly from his happy lips. She was
+conscious of a gladness that he was to be so nearly related to her. She
+fancied how it would seem to say to Mary Ann: "My brother-in-law says so
+and so." It would be grand to call such a man "brother."
+
+They were all seated at the table but Kate, and Squire Schuyler waited
+with pleasantly frowning brows to ask the blessing on the morning food.
+Kate was often late. She was the only member of the family who dared to be
+late to breakfast, and being the bride and the centre of the occasion more
+leniency was granted her this morning than ever before. Madam Schuyler
+waited until every one at the table was served to ham and eggs, coffee and
+bread-and-butter, and steaming griddle cakes, before she said, looking
+anxiously at the tall clock: "Marcia, perhaps you better go up and see if
+your sister needs any help. She ought to be down by now. Uncle Joab and
+Aunt Polly will be sure to be here by eight. She must have overslept, but
+we made so much noise she is surely awake by this time."
+
+Marcia left her half-eaten breakfast and went slowly upstairs. She knew
+her sister would not welcome her, for she had often been sent on like
+errands before, and the brunt of Kate's anger had fallen upon the hapless
+messenger, wearing itself out there so that she might descend all smiles
+to greet father and mother and smooth off the situation in a most
+harmonious manner.
+
+Marcia paused before the door to listen. Perhaps Kate was nearly ready and
+her distasteful errand need not be performed. But though she held her
+breath to listen, no sound came from the closed door. Very softly she
+tried to lift the latch and peep in. Kate must still be asleep. It was not
+the first time Marcia had found that to be the case when sent to bring her
+sister.
+
+But the latch would not lift. The catch was firmly down from the inside.
+Marcia applied her eye to the keyhole, but could get no vision save a dim
+outline of the window on the other side of the room. She tapped gently
+once or twice and waited again, then called softly: "Kate, Kate! Wake up.
+Breakfast is ready and everybody is eating. Aunt Polly and Uncle Joab will
+soon be here."
+
+She repeated her tapping and calling, growing louder as she received no
+answer. Kate would often keep still to tease her thus. Surely though she
+would not do so upon her wedding morning!
+
+She called and called and shook the door, not daring, however, to make
+much of an uproar lest David should hear. She could not bear he should
+know the shortcomings of his bride.
+
+But at last she grew alarmed. Perhaps Kate was ill. At any rate, whatever
+it was, it was time she was up. She worked for some minutes trying to
+loosen the catch that held the latch, but all to no purpose. She was
+forced to go down stairs and whisper to her stepmother the state of the
+case.
+
+Madam Schuyler, excusing herself from the table, went upstairs, purposeful
+decision in every line of her substantial body, determination in every
+sound of her footfall. Bride though she be, Kate would have meted out to
+her just dues this time. Company and a lover and the nearness of the
+wedding hour were things not to be trifled with even by a charming Kate.
+
+But Madam Schuyler returned in a short space of time, puffing and panting,
+somewhat short of breath, and color in her face. She looked troubled, and
+she interrupted the Squire without waiting for him to finish his sentence
+to David.
+
+"I cannot understand what is the matter with Kate," she said, looking at
+her husband. "She does not seem to be awake, and I cannot get her door
+open. She sleeps soundly, and I suppose the unusual excitement has made
+her very tired. But I should think she ought to hear my voice. Perhaps you
+better see if you can open the door."
+
+There was studied calm in her voice, but her face belied her words. She
+was anxious lest Kate was playing one of her pranks. She knew Kate's
+careless, fun-loving ways. It was more to her that all things should move
+decently and in order than that Kate should even be perfectly well. But
+Marcia's white face behind her stepmother's ample shoulder showed a dread
+of something worse than a mere indisposition. David Spafford took alarm at
+once. He put down the silver syrup jug from which he had been pouring
+golden maple syrup on his cakes, and pushed his chair back with a click.
+
+"Perhaps she has fainted!" he said, and Marcia saw how deeply he was
+concerned. Father and lover both started up stairs, the father angry, the
+lover alarmed. The Squire grumbled all the way up that Kate should sleep
+so late, but David said nothing. He waited anxiously behind while the
+Squire worked with the door. Madam Schuyler and Marcia had followed them,
+and halting curiously just behind came the two maids. They all loved Miss
+Kate and were deeply interested in the day's doings. They did not want
+anything to interfere with the well-planned pageant.
+
+The Squire fumbled nervously with the latch, all the time calling upon his
+daughter to open the door; then wrathfully placed his solid shoulder and
+knee in just the right place, and with a groan and wrench the latch gave
+way, and the solid oak door swung open, precipitating the anxious group
+somewhat suddenly into the room.
+
+Almost immediately they all became aware that there was no one there.
+David had stood with averted eyes at first, but that second sense which
+makes us aware without sight when others are near or absent, brought with
+it an unnamed anxiety. He looked wildly about.
+
+The bed had not been slept in; that they all saw at once. The room was in
+confusion, but perhaps not more than might have been expected when the
+occupant was about to leave on the morrow. There were pieces of paper and
+string upon the floor and one or two garments lying about as if carelessly
+cast off in a hurry. David recognized the purple muslin frock Kate had
+worn the night before, and put out his hand to touch it as it lay across
+the foot of the bed, vainly reaching after her who was not there.
+
+They stood in silence, father, mother, sister, and lover, and took in
+every detail of the deserted room, then looked blankly into one another's
+white faces, and in the eyes of each a terrible question began to dawn.
+Where was she?
+
+Madam Schuyler recovered her senses first. With her sharp practical system
+she endeavored to find out the exact situation.
+
+"Who saw her last?" she asked sharply looking from one to the other. "Who
+saw her last? Has she been down stairs this morning?" she looked straight
+at Marcia this time, but the girl shook her head.
+
+"I went to bed last night before they came in," she said, looking
+questioningly at David, but a sudden remembrance and fear seized her
+heart. She turned away to the window to face it where they could not look
+at her.
+
+"We came in early," said David, trying to keep the anxiety out of his
+voice, as he remembered his well-beloved's good-night. Surely, surely,
+nothing very dreadful could have happened just over night, and in her
+father's own house. He looked about again to see the natural, every-day,
+little things that would help him drive away the thoughts of possible
+tragedy.
+
+"Kate was tired. She said she was going to get up very early this morning
+and wash her face in the dew on the grass." He braved a smile and looked
+about on the troubled group. "She must be out somewhere upon the place,"
+he continued, gathering courage with the thought; "she told me it was an
+old superstition. She has maybe wandered further than she intended, and
+perhaps got into some trouble. I'd better go and search for her. Is there
+any place near here where she would be likely to be?" He turned to Marcia
+for help.
+
+"But Kate would never delay so long I'm sure," said the stepmother
+severely. "She's not such a fool as to go traipsing through the wet grass
+before daylight for any nonsense. If it were Marcia now, you might expect
+anything, but Kate would be satisfied with the dew on the grass by the
+kitchen pump. I know Kate."
+
+Marcia's face crimsoned at her stepmother's words, but she turned her
+troubled eyes to David and tried to answer him.
+
+"There are plenty of places, but Kate has never cared to go to them. I
+could go out and look everywhere." She started to go down, but as she
+passed the wide mahogany bureau she saw a bit of folded paper lying under
+the corner of the pincushion. With a smothered exclamation she went over
+and picked it up. It was addressed to David in Kate's handwriting, fine
+and even like copperplate. Without a word Marcia handed it to him, and
+then stood back where the wide draperies of the window would shadow her.
+
+Madam Schuyler, with sudden keen prescience, took alarm. Noticing the two
+maids standing wide-mouthed in the hallway, she summoned her most
+commandatory tone, stepped into the hall, half closing the door behind
+her, and cowed the two handmaidens under her glance.
+
+"It is all right!" she said calmly. "Miss Kate has left a note, and will
+soon return. Go down and keep her breakfast warm, and not a word to a
+soul! Dolly, Debby, do you understand? Not a word of this! Now hurry and
+do all that I told you before breakfast."
+
+They went with downcast eyes and disappointed droops to their mouths, but
+she knew that not a word would pass their lips. They knew that if they
+disobeyed that command they need never hope for favor more from madam.
+Madam's word was law. She would be obeyed. Therefore with remarkable
+discretion they masked their wondering looks and did as they were bidden.
+So while the family stood in solemn conclave in Kate's room the
+preparations for the wedding moved steadily forward below stairs, and only
+two solemn maids, of all the helpers that morning, knew that a tragedy was
+hovering in the air and might burst about them.
+
+David had grasped for the letter eagerly, and fumbled it open with
+trembling hand, but as he read, the smile of expectation froze upon his
+lips and his face grew ashen. He tottered and grasped for the mantel shelf
+to steady himself as he read further, but he did not seem to take in the
+meaning of what he read. The others waited breathless, a reasonable length
+of time, Madam Schuyler impatiently patient. She felt that long delay
+would be perilous to her arrangements. She ought to know the whole truth
+at once and be put in command of the situation. Marcia with sorrowful face
+and drooping eyelashes stood quiet behind the curtain, while over and over
+the echo of a horse's hoofs in a silent street and over a bridge sounded
+in her brain. She did not need to be told, she knew intuitively what had
+happened, and she dared not look at David.
+
+"Well, what has she done with herself?" said the Squire impatiently. He
+had not finished his plate of cakes, and now that there was word he wanted
+to know it at once and go back to his breakfast. The sight of his
+daughter's handwriting relieved and reassured him. Some crazy thing she
+had done of course, but then Kate had always done queer things, and
+probably would to the end of time. She was a hussy to frighten them so,
+and he meant to tell her so when she returned, if it was her wedding day.
+But then, Kate would be Kate, and his breakfast was getting cold. He had
+the horses to look after and orders to give to the hands before the early
+guests arrived.
+
+But David did not answer, and the sight of him was alarming. He stood as
+one stricken dumb all in a moment. He raised his eyes to the
+Squire's--pleading, pitiful. His face had grown strained and haggard.
+
+"Speak out, man, doesn't the letter tell?" said the Squire imperiously.
+"Where is the girl?"
+
+And this time David managed to say brokenly: "She's gone!" and then his
+head dropped forward on his cold hand that rested on the mantel. Great
+beads of perspiration stood out upon his white forehead, and the letter
+fluttered gayly, coquettishly to the floor, a reminder of the uncertain
+ways of its writer.
+
+The Squire reached for it impatiently, and wiping his spectacles
+laboriously put them on and drew near to the window to read, his heavy
+brows lowering in a frown. But his wife did not need to read the letter,
+for she, like Marcia, had divined its purport, and already her able
+faculties were marshalled to face the predicament.
+
+The Squire with deepening frown was studying his elder daughter's letter,
+scarce able to believe the evidence of his senses that a girl of his could
+be so heartless.
+
+
+    "DEAR DAVID," the letter ran,--written as though in a hurry, done
+    at the last moment,--which indeed it was:--
+
+    "I want you to forgive me for what I am doing. I know you will
+    feel bad about it, but really I never was the right one for you.
+    I'm sure you thought me all too good, and I never could have
+    stayed in a strait-jacket, it would have killed me. I shall always
+    consider you the best man in the world, and I like you better than
+    anyone else except Captain Leavenworth. I can't help it, you know,
+    that I care more for him than anyone else, though I've tried. So I
+    am going away to-night and when you read this we shall have been
+    married. You are so very good that I know you will forgive me, and
+    be glad I am happy. Don't think hardly of me for I always did care
+    a great deal for you.
+
+                                                     "Your loving
+
+                                                               "KATE."
+
+
+It was characteristic of Kate that she demanded the love and loyalty of
+her betrayed lover to the bitter end, false and heartless though she had
+been. The coquette in her played with him even now in the midst of the
+bitter pain she must have known she was inflicting. No word of contrition
+spoke she, but took her deed as one of her prerogatives, just as she had
+always taken everything she chose. She did not even spare him the loving
+salutation that had been her custom in her letters to him, but wrote
+herself down as she would have done the day before when all was fair and
+dear between them. She did not hint at any better day for David, or give
+him permission to forget her, but held him for all time as her own, as she
+had known she would by those words of hers, "I like you better than anyone
+else except!--" Ah! That fatal "except!" Could any knife cut deeper and
+more ways? They sank into the young man's heart as he stood there those
+first few minutes and faced his trouble, his head bowed upon the
+mantel-piece.
+
+Meantime Madam Schuyler's keen vision had spied another folded paper
+beside the pincushion. Smaller it was than the other, and evidently
+intended to be placed further out of sight. It was addressed to Kate's
+father, and her stepmother opened it and read with hard pressure of her
+thin lips, slanted down at the corners, and a steely look in her eyes. Was
+it possible that the girl, even in the midst of her treachery, had enjoyed
+with a sort of malicious glee the thought of her stepmother reading that
+note and facing the horror of a wedding party with no bride? Knowing her
+stepmother's vast resources did she not think that at last she had brought
+her to a situation to which she was unequal? There had always been this
+unseen, unspoken struggle for supremacy between them; though it had been a
+friendly one, a sort of testing on the girl's part of the powers and
+expedients of the woman, with a kind of vast admiration, mingled with
+amusement, but no fear for the stepmother who had been uniformly kind and
+loving toward her, and for whom she cared, perhaps as much as she could
+have cared for her own mother. The other note read:
+
+
+    "DEAR FATHER:--I am going away to-night to marry Captain
+    Leavenworth. You wouldn't let me have him in the right way, so I
+    had to take this. I tried very hard to forget him and get
+    interested in David, but it was no use. You couldn't stop it. So
+    now I hope you will see it the way we do and forgive us. We are
+    going to Washington and you can write us there and say you forgive
+    us, and then we will come home. I know you will forgive us, Daddy
+    dear. You know you always loved your little Kate and you couldn't
+    really want me to be unhappy. Please send my trunks to Washington.
+    I've tacked the card with the address on the ends.
+
+                                        "Your loving little girl,
+
+                                                               "KATE."
+
+
+There was a terrible stillness in the room, broken only by the crackling
+of paper as the notes were turned in the hands of their readers. Marcia
+felt as if centuries were passing. David's soul was pierced by one awful
+thought. He had no room for others. She was gone! Life was a blank for
+him! stretching out into interminable years. Of her treachery and
+false-heartedness in doing what she had done in the way she had done it,
+he had no time to take account. That would come later. Now he was trying
+to understand this one awful fact.
+
+Madam Schuyler handed the second note to her husband, and with set lips
+quickly skimmed through the other one. As she read, indignation rose
+within her, and a great desire to outwit everybody. If it had been
+possible to bring the erring girl back and make her face her disgraced
+wedding alone, Madam Schuyler would have been glad to do it. She knew that
+upon her would likely rest all the re-arrangements, and her ready brain
+was already taking account of her servants and the number of messages that
+would have to be sent out to stop the guests from arriving. She waited
+impatiently for her husband to finish reading that she might consult with
+him as to the best message to send, but she was scarcely prepared for the
+burst of anger that came with the finish of the letters. The old man
+crushed his daughter's note in his hand and flung it from him. He had
+great respect and love for David, and the sight of him broken in grief,
+the deed of his daughter, roused in him a mighty indignation. His voice
+shook, but there was a deep note of command in it that made Madam Schuyler
+step aside and wait. The Squire had arisen to the situation, and she
+recognized her lord and master.
+
+"She must be brought back at once at all costs!" he exclaimed. "That
+rascal shall not outwit us. Fool that I was to trust him in the house!
+Tell the men to saddle the horses. They cannot have gone far yet, and
+there are not so many roads to Washington. We may yet overtake them, and
+married or unmarried the hussy shall be here for her wedding!"
+
+But David raised his head from the mantel-shelf and steadied his voice:
+
+"No, no, you must not do that--father--" the appellative came from his lips
+almost tenderly, as if he had long considered the use of it with pleasure,
+and now he spoke it as a tender bond meant to comfort.
+
+The older man started and his face softened. A flash of understanding and
+love passed between the two men.
+
+"Remember, she has said she loves some one else. She could never be mine
+now."
+
+There was terrible sadness in the words as David spoke them, and his voice
+broke. Madam Schuyler turned away and took out her handkerchief, an
+article of apparel for which she seldom had use except as it belonged to
+every well ordered toilet.
+
+The father stood looking hopelessly at David and taking in the thought.
+Then he too bowed his head and groaned.
+
+"And my daughter, _my little Kate_ has done it!" Marcia covered her face
+with the curtains and her tears fell fast.
+
+David went and stood beside the Squire and touched his arm.
+
+"Don't!" he said pleadingly. "You could not help it. It was not your
+fault. Do not take it so to heart!"
+
+"But it is my disgrace. I have brought up a child who could do it. I
+cannot escape from that. It is the most dishonorable thing a woman can do.
+And look how she has done it, brought shame upon us all! Here we have a
+wedding on our hands, and little or no time to do anything! I have lived
+in honor all my life, and now to be disgraced by my own daughter!"
+
+Marcia shuddered at her father's agony. She could not bear it longer. With
+a soft cry she went to him, and nestled her head against his breast
+unnoticed.
+
+"Father, father, don't!" she cried.
+
+But her father went on without seeming to see her.
+
+"To be disgraced and deserted and dishonored by my own child! Something
+must be done. Send the servants! Let the wedding be stopped!"
+
+He looked at Madam and she started toward the door to carry out his
+bidding, but he recalled her immediately.
+
+"No, stay!" he cried. "It is too late to stop them all. Let them come. Let
+them be told! Let the disgrace rest upon the one to whom it belongs!"
+
+Madam stopped in consternation! A wedding without a bride! Yet she knew it
+was a serious thing to try to dispute with her husband in that mood. She
+paused to consider.
+
+"Oh, father!" exclaimed Marcia, "we couldn't! Think of David."
+
+Her words seemed to touch the right chord, for he turned toward the young
+man, intense, tender pity in his face.
+
+"Yes, David! We are forgetting David! We must do all we can to make it
+easier for you. You will be wanting to get away from us as quickly as
+possible. How can we manage it for you? And where will you go? You will
+not want to go home just yet?"
+
+He paused, a new agony of the knowledge of David's part coming to him.
+
+"No, I cannot go home," said David hopelessly, a look of keen pain darting
+across his face, "for the house will be all ready for her, and the table
+set. The friends will be coming in, and we are invited to dinner and tea
+everywhere. They will all be coming to the house, my friends, to welcome
+us. No, I cannot go home." Then he passed his hand over his forehead
+blindly, and added, in a stupefied tone, "and yet I must--sometime--I
+must--go--home!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+The room was very still as he spoke. Madam Schuyler forgot the coming
+guests and the preparations, in consternation over the thought of David
+and his sorrow. Marcia sobbed softly upon her father's breast, and her
+father involuntarily placed his arm about her as he stood in painful
+thought.
+
+"It is terrible!" he murmured, "terrible! How could she bear to inflict
+such sorrow! She might have saved us the scorn of all of our friends.
+David, you must not go back alone. It must not be. You must not bear that.
+There are lovely girls in plenty elsewhere. Find another one and marry
+her. Take your bride home with you, and no one in your home need be the
+wiser. Don't sorrow for that cruel girl of mine. Give her not the
+satisfaction of feeling that your life is broken. Take another. Any girl
+might be proud to go with you for the asking. Had I a dozen other
+daughters you should have your pick of them, and one should go with you,
+if you would condescend to choose another from the home where you have
+been so treacherously dealt with. But I have only this one little girl.
+She is but a child as yet and cannot compare with what you thought you
+had. I blame you not if you do not wish to wed another Schuyler, but if
+you will she is yours. And she is a good girl. David, though she is but a
+child. Speak up, child, and say if you will make amends for the wrong your
+sister has done!"
+
+The room was so still one could almost hear the heartbeats. David had
+raised his head once more and was looking at Marcia. Sad and searching was
+his gaze, as if he fain would find the features of Kate in her face, yet
+it seemed to Marcia, as she raised wide tear-filled eyes from her father's
+breast where her head still lay, that he saw her not. He was looking
+beyond her and facing the home-going alone, and the empty life that would
+follow.
+
+Her thoughts the last few days had matured her wonderfully. She understood
+and pitied, and her woman-nature longed to give comfort, yet she shrunk
+from going unasked. It was all terrible, this sudden situation thrust upon
+her, yet she felt a willing sacrifice if she but felt sure it was his
+wish.
+
+But David did not seem to know that he must speak. He waited, looking
+earnestly at her, through her, beyond her, to see if Heaven would grant
+this small relief to his sufferings. At last Marcia summoned her voice:
+
+"If David wishes I will go."
+
+She spoke the words solemnly, her eyes lifted slightly above him as if she
+were speaking to Another One higher than he. It was like an answer to a
+call from God. It had come to Marcia this way. It seemed to leave her no
+room for drawing back, if indeed she had wished to do so. Other
+considerations were not present. There was just the one great desire in
+her heart to make amends in some measure for the wrong that had been done.
+She felt almost responsible for it, a family responsibility. She seemed to
+feel the shame and pain as her father was feeling it. She would step into
+the empty place that Kate had left and fill it as far as she could. Her
+only fear was that she was not acceptable, not worthy to fill so high a
+place. She trembled over it, yet she could not hold back from the high
+calling. It was so she stood in a kind of sorrowful exaltation waiting for
+David. Her eyes lowered again, looking at him through the lashes and
+pleading for recognition. She did not feel that she was pleading for
+anything for herself, only for the chance to help him.
+
+Her voice had broken the spell. David looked down upon her kindly, a
+pleasant light of gratitude flashing through the sternness and sorrow in
+his face. Here was comradeship in trouble, and his voice recognized it as
+he said:
+
+"Child, you are good to me, and I thank you. I will try to make you happy
+if you will go with me, and I am sure your going will be a comfort in many
+ways, but I would not have you go unwillingly."
+
+There was a dull ache in Marcia's heart, its cause she could not
+understand, but she was conscious of a gladness that she was not counted
+unworthy to be accepted, young though she was, and child though he called
+her. His tone had been kindness itself, the gentle kindliness that had won
+her childish sisterly love when first he began to visit her sister. She
+had that answer of his to remember for many a long day, and to live upon,
+when questionings and loneliness came upon her. But she raised her face to
+her father now, and said: "I will go, father!"
+
+The Squire stooped and kissed his little girl for the last time. Perhaps
+he realized that from this time forth she would be a little girl no
+longer, and that he would never look into those child-eyes of hers again,
+unclouded with the sorrows of life, and filled only with the
+wonder-pictures of a rosy future. She seemed to him and to herself to be
+renouncing her own life forever, and to be taking up one of sacrificial
+penitence for her sister's wrong doing.
+
+The father then took Marcia's hand and placed it in David's, and the
+betrothal was complete.
+
+Madam Schuyler, whose reign for the time was set aside, stood silent, half
+disapproving, yet not interfering. Her conscience told her that this
+wholesale disposal of Marcia was against nature. The new arrangement was a
+relief to her in many ways, and would make the solution of the day less
+trying for every one. But she was a woman and knew a woman's heart. Marcia
+was not having her chance in life as her sister had had, as every woman
+had a right to have. Then her face hardened. How had Kate used her
+chances? Perhaps it was better for Marcia to be well placed in life before
+she grew headstrong enough to make a fool of herself as Kate had done.
+David would be good to her, that was certain. One could not look at the
+strong, pleasant lines of his well cut mouth and chin and not be sure of
+that. Perhaps it was all for the best. At least it was not her doing. And
+it was only the night before that she had been looking at Marcia and
+worrying because she was growing into a woman so fast. Now she would be
+relieved of that care, and could take her ease and enjoy life until her
+own children were grown up. But the voice of her husband aroused her to
+the present.
+
+"Let the wedding go on as planned, Sarah, and no one need know until the
+ceremony is over except the minister. I myself will go and tell the
+minister. There will need to be but a change of names."
+
+"But," said the Madam, with housewifely alarm, as the suddenness of the
+whole thing flashed over her, "Marcia is not ready. She has no suitable
+clothes for her wedding."
+
+"Not ready! No clothes!" said the Squire, now thoroughly irritated over
+this trivial objection, as a fly will sometimes ruffle the temper of a man
+who has kept calm under fire of an enemy. "And where are all the clothes
+that have been making these weeks and months past? What more preparation
+does she need? Did the hussy take her wedding things with her? What's in
+this trunk?"
+
+"But those are Kate's things, father," said Marcia in gentle explanation.
+"Kate would be very angry if I took her things. They were made for her,
+you know."
+
+"And what if they were made for her?" answered the father, very angry now
+at Kate. "You are near of a size. What will do for one is good enough for
+the other, and Kate may be angry and get over it, for not one rag of it
+all will she get, nor a penny of my money will ever go to her again. She
+is no daughter of mine from henceforth. That rascal has beaten me and
+stolen my daughter, but he gets a dowerless lass. Not a penny will ever go
+from the Schuyler estate into his pocket, and no trunk will ever travel
+from here to Washington for that heartless girl. I forbid it. Let her feel
+some of the sorrow she has inflicted upon others more innocent. I forbid
+it, do you hear?" He brought his fist down upon the solid mahogany bureau
+until the prisms on a candle-stand in front of the mirror jangled
+discordantly.
+
+"Oh, father!" gasped Marcia, and turned with terror to her stepmother. But
+David stood with his back toward the rest looking out of the window. He
+had forgotten them all.
+
+Madam Schuyler was now in command again. For once the Squire had
+anticipated his wife, and the next move had been planned without her help,
+but it was as she would have it. Her face had lost its consternation and
+beamed with satisfaction beneath its mask of grave perplexity. She could
+not help it that she was glad to have the terrible ordeal of a wedding
+without a bride changed into something less formidable.
+
+At least the country round about could not pity, for who was to say but
+that David was as well suited with one sister as with the other? And
+Marcia was a good girl; doubtless she would grow into a good wife. Far
+more suitable for so good and steady a man as David than pretty, imperious
+Kate.
+
+Madam Schuyler took her place of command once more and began to issue her
+orders.
+
+"Come, then, Marcia, we have no time to waste. It is all right, as your
+father has said. Kate's things will fit you nicely and you must go at once
+and put everything in readiness. You will want all your time to dress, and
+pack a few things, and get calm. Go to your room right away and pick up
+anything you will want to take with you, and I'll go down and see that
+Phoebe takes your place and then come back."
+
+David and the Squire went out like two men who had suddenly grown old, and
+had not the strength to walk rapidly. No one thought any more of
+breakfast. It was half-past seven by the old tall clock that stood upon
+the stair-landing. It would not be long before Aunt Polly and Uncle Joab
+would be driving up to the door.
+
+Straight ahead went the preparations, just as if nothing had happened, and
+if Mistress Kate Leavenworth could have looked into her old room an hour
+after the discovery of her flight she would have been astonished beyond
+measure.
+
+Up in her own room stood poor bewildered Marcia. She looked about upon her
+little white bed, and thought she would never likely sleep in it again.
+She looked out of the small-paned window with its view of distant hill and
+river, and thought she was bidding it good-bye forever. She went toward
+her closet and put out her hand to choose what she would take with her,
+and her heart sank. There hung the faded old ginghams short and scant, and
+scorned but yesterday, yet her heart wildly clung to them. Almost would
+she have put one on and gone back to her happy care-free school life. The
+thought of the new life frightened her. She must give up her girlhood all
+at once. She might not keep a vestige of it, for that would betray David.
+She must be Kate from morning to evening. Like a sword thrust came the
+remembrance that she had envied Kate, and God had given her the punishment
+of being Kate in very truth. Only there was this great difference. She was
+not the chosen one, and Kate had been. She must bear about forever in her
+heart the thought of Kate's sin.
+
+The voice of her stepmother drew nearer and warned her that her time alone
+was almost over, and out on the lawn she could hear the voices of Uncle
+Joab and Aunt Polly who had just arrived.
+
+She dropped upon her knees for one brief moment and let her young soul
+pour itself out in one great cry of distress to God, a cry without words
+borne only on the breath of a sob. Then she arose, hastily dashed cold
+water in her face, and dried away the traces of tears. There was no more
+time to think. With hurried hand she began to gather a few trifles
+together from closet and drawer.
+
+One last lingering look she took about her room as she left it, her arms
+filled with the things she had hastily culled from among her own. Then she
+shut the door quickly and went down the hall to her sister's room to enter
+upon her new life. She was literally putting off herself and putting on a
+new being as far as it was possible to do so outwardly.
+
+There on the bed lay the bridal outfit. Madam Schuyler had just brought it
+from the spare room that there might be no more going back and forth
+through the halls to excite suspicion. She was determined that there
+should be no excitement or demonstration or opportunity for gossip among
+the guests at least until the ceremony was over. She had satisfied herself
+that not a soul outside the family save the two maids suspected that aught
+was the matter, and she felt sure of their silence.
+
+Kate had taken very little with her, evidently fearing to excite
+suspicion, and having no doubt that her father would relent and send all
+her trousseau as she had requested in her letter. For once Mistress Kate
+had forgotten her fineries and made good her escape with but two frocks
+and a few other necessaries in a small hand-bag.
+
+Madam Schuyler was relieved to the point of genuine cheerfulness, over
+this, despite the cloud of tragedy that hung over the day. She began to
+talk to Marcia as if she had been Kate, as she smoothed down this and that
+article and laid them back in the trunk, telling how the blue gown would
+be the best for church and the green silk for going out to very fine
+places, to tea-drinkings and the like, and how she must always be sure to
+wear the cream undersleeves with the Irish point lace with her silk gown
+as they set it off to perfection. She recalled, too, how little experience
+Marcia had had in the ways of the world, and all the while the girl was
+being dressed in the dainty bridal garments she gave her careful
+instructions in the art of being a success in society, until Marcia felt
+that the green fields and the fences and trees to climb and the excursions
+after blackberries, and all the joyful merry-makings of the boys and girls
+were receding far from her. She could even welcome Hanford Weston as a
+playfellow in her new future, if thereby a little fresh air and freedom of
+her girlhood might be left. Nevertheless there gradually came over her an
+elation of excitement. The feel of the dainty garments, the delicate
+embroidery, the excitement lest the white slippers would not fit her, the
+difficulty of making her hair stay up in just Kate's style--for her
+stepmother insisted that she must dress it exactly like Kate's and make
+herself look as nearly as possible as Kate would have looked,--all drove
+sadness from her mind and she began to taste a little delight in the
+pretty clothes, the great occasion, and her own importance. The vision in
+the looking-glass, too, told her that her own face was winsome, and the
+new array not unbecoming. Something of this she had seen the night before
+when she put on her new chintz; now the change was complete, as she stood
+in the white satin and lace with the string of seed pearls that had been
+her mother's tied about her soft white throat. She thought about the
+tradition of the pearls that Kate's girl friends had laughingly reminded
+her of a few days before when they were looking at the bridal garments.
+They had said that each pearl a bride wore meant a tear she would shed.
+She wondered if Kate had escaped the tears with the pearls, and left them
+for her.
+
+She was ready at last, even to the veil that had been her mother's, and
+her mother's mother's before her. It fell in its rich folds, yellowed by
+age, from her head to her feet, with its creamy frost-work of rarest
+handiwork, transforming the girl into a woman and a bride.
+
+Madam Schuyler arranged and rearranged the folds, and finally stood back
+to look with half-closed eyes at the effect, deciding that very few would
+notice that the bride was other than they had expected until the ceremony
+was over and the veil thrown back. The sisters had never looked alike, yet
+there was a general family resemblance that was now accentuated by the
+dress; perhaps only those nearest would notice that it was Marcia instead
+of Kate. At least the guests would have the good grace to keep their
+wonderment to themselves until the ceremony was over.
+
+Then Marcia was left to herself with trembling hands and wildly throbbing
+heart. What would Mary Ann think! What would all the girls and boys think?
+Some of them would be there, and others would be standing along the shady
+streets to watch the progress of the carriage as it drove away. And they
+would see her going away instead of Kate. Perhaps they would think it all
+a great joke and that she had been going to be married all the time and
+not Kate. But no; the truth would soon come out. People would not be
+astonished at anything Kate did. They would only say it was just what they
+had all along expected of her, and pity her father, and pity her perhaps.
+But they would look at her and admire her and for once she would be the
+centre of attraction. The pink of pride swelled up into her cheeks, and
+then realizing what she was thinking she crushed the feeling down. How
+could she think of such things when Kate had done such a dreadful thing,
+and David was suffering so terribly? Here was she actually enjoying, and
+delighting in the thought of being in Kate's place. Oh, she was wicked,
+wicked! She must not be happy for a moment in what was Kate's shame and
+David's sorrow. Of her future with David she did not now think. It was of
+the pageant of the day that her thoughts were full. If the days and weeks
+and months that were to follow came into her mind at all between the other
+things it was always that she was to care for David and to help him, and
+that she would have to grow up quickly; and remember all the hard
+housewifely things her stepmother had taught her; and try to order his
+house well. But that troubled her not at all at present. She was more
+concerned with the ceremony, and the many eyes that would be turned upon
+her. It was a relief when a tap came on the door and the dear old minister
+entered.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+He stood a moment by the door looking at her, half startled. Then he came
+over beside her, put his hands upon her shoulders, looking down into her
+upturned, veiled face.
+
+"My child!" he said tenderly, "my little Marcia, is this you? I did not
+know you in all this beautiful dress. You look as your own mother looked
+when she was married. I remember perfectly as if it were but yesterday,
+her face as she stood by your father's side. I was but a young man then,
+you know, and it was my first wedding in my new church, so you see I could
+not forget it. Your mother was a beautiful woman, Marcia, and you are like
+her both in face and life."
+
+The tears came into Marcia's eyes and her lips trembled.
+
+"Are you sure, child," went on the gentle voice of the old man, "that you
+understand what a solemn thing you are doing? It is not a light thing to
+give yourself in marriage to any man. You are so young yet! Are you doing
+this thing quite willingly, little girl? Are you sure? Your father is a
+good man, and a dear old friend of mine, but I know what has happened has
+been a terrible blow to him, and a great humiliation. It has perhaps
+unnerved his judgment for the time. No one should have brought pressure to
+bear upon a child like you to make you marry against your will. Are you
+sure it is all right, dear?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!" Marcia raised her tear-filled eyes. "I am doing it quite
+of myself. No one has made me. I was glad I might. It was so dreadful for
+David!"
+
+"But child, do you love him?" the old minister said, searching her face
+closely.
+
+Marcia's eyes shone out radiant and child-like through her tears.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir! I love him of course. No one could help loving David."
+
+There was a tap at the door and the Squire entered. With a sigh the
+minister turned away, but there was trouble in his heart. The love of the
+girl had been all too frankly confessed. It was not as he would have had
+things for a daughter of his, but it could not be helped of course, and he
+had no right to interfere. He would like to speak to David, but David had
+not come out of his room yet. When he did there was but a moment for them
+alone and all he had opportunity to say was:
+
+"Mr. Spafford, you will be good to the little girl, and remember she is
+but a child. She has been dear to us all."
+
+David looked at him wonderingly, earnestly, in reply:
+
+"I will do all in my power to make her happy," he said.
+
+The hour had come, and all things, just as Madam Schuyler had planned,
+were ready. The minister took his place, and the impatient bridesmaids
+were in a flutter, wondering why Kate did not call them in to see her.
+Slowly, with measured step, as if she had practised many times, Marcia,
+the maiden, walked down the hall on her father's arm. He was bowed with
+his trouble and his face bore marks of the sudden calamity that had
+befallen his house, but the watching guests thought it was for sorrow at
+giving up his lovely Kate, and they said one to another, "How much he
+loved her!"
+
+The girl's face drooped with gentle gravity. She scarcely felt the
+presence of the guests she had so much dreaded, for to her the ceremony
+was holy. She was giving herself as a sacrifice for the sin of her sister.
+She was too young and inexperienced to know all that would be thought and
+said as soon as the company understood. She also felt secure behind that
+film of lace. It seemed impossible that they could know her, so softly and
+so mistily it shut her in from the world. It was like a kind of moving
+house about her, a protection from all eyes. So sheltered she might go
+through the ceremony with composure. As yet she had not begun to dread the
+afterward. The hall was wide through which she passed, and the day was
+bright, but the windows were so shadowed by the waiting bridesmaids that
+the light did not fall in full glare upon her, and it was not strange they
+did not know her at once. She heard their smothered exclamations of wonder
+and admiration, and one, Kate's dearest friend, whispered softly behind
+her: "Oh, Kate, why did you keep us waiting, you sly girl! How lovely you
+are! You look like an angel straight from heaven."
+
+There were other whispered words which Marcia heard sadly. They gave her
+no pleasure. The words were for Kate, not her. What would they say when
+they knew all?
+
+There was David in the distance waiting for her. How fine he looked in his
+wedding clothes! How proud Kate might have been of him! How pitiful was
+his white face! He had summoned his courage and put on a mask of happiness
+for the eyes of those who saw him, but it could not deceive the heart of
+Marcia. Surely not since the days when Jacob served seven years for Rachel
+and then lifted the bridal veil to look upon the face of her sister Leah,
+walked there sadder bridegroom on this earth than David Spafford walked
+that day.
+
+Down the stairs and through the wide hall they came, Marcia not daring to
+look up, yet seeing familiar glimpses as she passed. That green plaid silk
+lap at one side of the parlor door, in which lay two nervous little hands
+and a neatly folded pocket handkerchief, belonged to Sabrina Bates, she
+knew; and the round lace collar a little farther on, fastened by the
+brooch with a colored daguerreotype encircled by a braid of faded brown
+hair under glass, must be about the neck of Aunt Polly. There was not
+another brooch like that in New York state, Marcia felt sure. Beyond were
+Uncle Joab's small meek Sunday boots, toeing in, and next were little feet
+covered by white stockings and slippers fastened with crossed black
+ribbons, some child's, not Harriet--Marcia dared not raise her eyes to
+identify them now. She must fix her mind upon the great things before her.
+She wondered at herself for noticing such trivial things when she was
+walking up to the presence of the great God, and there before her stood
+the minister with his open book!
+
+Now, at last, with the most of the audience behind her, shut in by the
+film of lace, she could raise her eyes to the minister's familiar face,
+take David's arm without letting her hand tremble much, and listen to the
+solemn words read out to her. For her alone they seemed to be read.
+David's heart she knew was crushed, and it was only a form for him. She
+must take double vows upon her for the sake of the wrong done to him. So
+she listened:
+
+"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together"--how the words thrilled her!--"in
+the sight of God and in the presence of this company to join together this
+man and woman in the bonds of holy matrimony;"--a deathly stillness rested
+upon the room and the painful throbbing of her heart was all the little
+bride could hear. She was glad she might look straight into the dear face
+of the old minister. Had her mother felt this way when she was being
+married? Did her stepmother understand it? Yes, she must, in part at
+least, for she had bent and kissed her most tenderly upon the brow just
+before leaving her, a most unusually sentimental thing for her to do. It
+touched Marcia deeply, though she was fond of her stepmother at all times.
+
+She waited breathless with drooped eyes while the minister demanded, "If
+any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together,
+let him now declare it, or else hereafter forever hold his peace." What if
+some one should recognize her and, thinking she had usurped Kate's place,
+speak out and stop the marriage! How would David feel? And she? She would
+sink to the floor. Oh, did they any of them know? How she wished she dared
+raise her eyes to look about and see. But she must not. She must listen.
+She must shake off these worldly thoughts. She was not hearing for idle
+thinking. It was a solemn, holy vow she was taking upon herself for life.
+She brought herself sharply back to the ceremony. It was to David the
+minister was talking now:
+
+"Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in
+health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye
+both shall live?"
+
+It was hard to make David promise that when his heart belonged to Kate.
+She wondered that his voice could be so steady when it said, "I will," and
+the white glove of Kate's which was just a trifle large for her, trembled
+on David's arm as the minister next turned to her:
+
+"Wilt thou, Marcia"--Ah! It was out now! and the sharp rustle of silk and
+stiff linen showed that all the company were aware at last who was the
+bride; but the minister went steadily on. He cared not what the listening
+assembly thought. He was talking earnestly to his little friend,
+Marcia,--"have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after
+God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and
+serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health"--the words
+of the pledge went on. It was not hard. The girl felt she could do all
+that. She was relieved to find it no more terrible, and to know that she
+was no longer acting a lie. They all knew who she was now. She held up her
+flower-like head and answered in her clear voice, that made her few
+schoolmates present gasp with admiration:
+
+"I will!"
+
+And the dear old minister's wife, sitting sweet and dove-like in her soft
+grey poplin, fine white kerchief, and cap of book muslin, smiled to
+herself at the music in Marcia's voice and nodded approval. She felt that
+all was well with her little friend.
+
+They waited, those astonished people, till the ceremony was concluded and
+the prayer over, and then they broke forth. There had been lifted brows
+and looks passing from one to another, of question, of disclaiming any
+knowledge in the matter, and just as soon as the minister turned and took
+the bride's hand to congratulate her the heads bent together behind fans
+and the soft buzz of whispers began.
+
+What does it mean? Where is Kate? She isn't in the room! Did he change his
+mind at the last minute? How old is Marcia? Mercy me! Nothing but a child!
+Are you sure? Why, my Mary Ann is older than that by three months, and
+she's no more able to become mistress of a home than a nine-days-old
+kitten. Are you sure it's Marcia? Didn't the minister make a mistake in
+the name? It looked to me like Kate. Look again. She's put her veil back.
+No, it can't be! Yes, it is! No, it looks like Kate! Her hair's done the
+same, but, no, Kate never had such a sweet innocent look as that. Why,
+when she was a child her face always had a sharpness to it. Look at
+Marcia's eyes, poor lamb! I don't see how her father could bear it, and
+she so young. But Kate! Where can she be? What has happened? You don't
+say! Yes, I did see that captain about again last week or so. Do you
+believe it? Surely she never would. Who told you? Was he sure? But Maria
+and Janet are bridesmaids and they didn't see any signs of anything. They
+were over here yesterday. Yes, Kate showed them everything and planned how
+they would all walk in. No, she didn't do anything queer, for Janet would
+have mentioned it. Janet always sees everything. Well, they say he's a
+good man and Marcia'll be well provided for. Madam Schuyler'll be relieved
+about that. Marcia can't ever lead her the dance Kate has among the young
+men. How white he looks! Do you suppose he loves her? What on earth can it
+all mean? Do you s'pose Kate feels bad? Where is she anyway? Wouldn't she
+come down? Well, if 'twas his choosing it serves her right. She's too much
+of a flirt for a good man and maybe he found her out. She's probably got
+just what she deserves, and _I_ think Marcia'll make a good little wife.
+She always was a quiet, grown-up child and Madam Schuyler has trained her
+well! But what will Kate do now? Hush! They are coming this way. How do
+you suppose we can find out? Go ask Cousin Janet, perhaps they've told
+her, or Aunt Polly. Surely she knows.
+
+But Aunt Polly sat with pursed lips of disapproval. She had not been told,
+and it was her prerogative to know everything. She always made a point of
+being on hand early at all funerals and weddings, especially in the family
+circle, and learning the utmost details, which she dispensed at her
+discretion to late comers in fine sepulchral whispers.
+
+Now she sat silent, disgraced, unable to explain a thing. It was
+unhandsome of Sarah Schuyler, she felt, though no more than she might have
+expected of her, she told herself. She had never liked her. Well, wait
+until her opportunity came. If they did not wish her to say the truth she
+must say something. She could at least tell what she thought. And what
+more natural than to let it be known that Sarah Schuyler had always held a
+dislike for Marcia, and to suggest that it was likely she was glad to get
+her off her hands. Aunt Polly meant to find a trail somewhere, no matter
+how many times they threw her off the scent.
+
+Meantime for Marcia the sun seemed to have shined out once more with
+something of its old brightness. The terrible deed of self-renunciation
+was over, and familiar faces actually were smiling upon her and wishing
+her joy. She felt the flutter of her heart in her throat beneath the
+string of pearls, and wondered if after all she might hope for a little
+happiness of her own. She could climb no more fences nor wade in gurgling
+brooks, but might there not be other happy things as good? A little touch
+of the pride of life had settled upon her. The relatives were coming with
+pleasant words and kisses. The blushes upon her cheeks were growing
+deeper. She almost forgot David in the pretty excitement. A few of her
+girl friends ventured shyly near, as one might look at a mate suddenly and
+unexpectedly translated into eternal bliss. They put out cold fingers in
+salute with distant, stiff phrases belonging to a grown-up world. Not one
+of them save Mary Ann dared recognize their former bond of playmates. Mary
+Ann leaned down and whispered with a giggle: "Say, you didn't need to envy
+Kate, did you? My! Ain't you in clover! Say, Marsh," wistfully, "do invite
+me fer a visit sometime, won't you?"
+
+Now Mary Ann was not quite on a par with the Schuylers socially, and had
+it not been for a distant mutual relative she would not have been asked to
+the wedding. Marcia never liked her very much, but now, with the
+uncertain, dim future it seemed pleasant and home-like to think of a visit
+from Mary Ann and she nodded and said childishly: "Sometime, Mary Ann, if
+I can."
+
+Mary Ann squeezed her hand, kissed her, blushed and giggled herself out of
+the way of the next comer.
+
+They went out to the dining room and sat around the long table. It was
+Marcia's timid hand that cut the bridecake, and all the room full watched
+her. Seeing the pretty color come and go in her excited cheeks, they
+wondered that they had never noticed before how beautiful Marcia was
+growing. A handsome couple they would make! And they looked from Marcia to
+David and back again, wondering and trying to fathom the mystery.
+
+It was gradually stealing about the company, the truth about Kate and
+Captain Leavenworth. The minister had told it in his sad and gentle way.
+Just the facts. No gossip. Naturally every one was bristling with
+questions, but not much could be got from the minister.
+
+"I really do not know," he would say in his courteous, old-worldly way,
+and few dared ask further. Perhaps the minister, wise by reason of much
+experience, had taken care to ask as few questions as possible himself,
+and not to know too much before undertaking this task for his old friend
+the Squire.
+
+And so Kate's marriage went into the annals of the village, at least so
+far as that morning was concerned, quietly, and with little exclamation
+before the family. The Squire and his wife controlled their faces
+wonderfully. There was an austerity about the Squire as he talked with his
+friends that was new to his pleasant face, but Madam conversed with her
+usual placid self-poise, and never gave cause for conjecture as to her
+true feelings.
+
+There were some who dared to offer their surprised condolences. To such
+the stepmother replied that of course the outcome of events had been a
+sore trial to the Squire, and all of them, but they were delighted at the
+happy arrangement that had been made. She glanced contentedly toward the
+child-bride.
+
+It was a revelation to the whole village that Marcia had grown up and was
+so handsome.
+
+Dismay filled the breasts of the village gossips. They had been defrauded.
+Here was a fine scandal which they had failed to discover in time and
+spread abroad in its due course.
+
+Everybody was shy of speaking to the bride. She sat in her lovely finery
+like some wild rose caught as a sacrifice. Yet every one admitted that she
+might have done far worse. David was a good man, with prospects far beyond
+most young men of his time. Moreover he was known to have a brilliant
+mind, and the career he had chosen, that of journalism, in which he was
+already making his mark, was one that promised to be lucrative as well as
+influential.
+
+It was all very hurried at the last. Madam Schuyler and Dolly the maid
+helped her off with the satin and lace finery, and she was soon out of her
+bridal attire and struggling with the intricacies of Kate's travelling
+costume.
+
+Marcia was not Marcia any longer, but Mrs. David Spafford. She had been
+made to feel the new name almost at once, and it gave her a sense of
+masquerading pleasant enough for the time being, but with a dim foreboding
+of nameless dread and emptiness for the future, like all masquerading
+which must end sometime. And when the mask is taken off how sad if one is
+not to find one's real self again: or worse still if one may never remove
+the mask, but must grow to it and be it from the soul.
+
+All this Marcia felt but dimly of course, for she was young and light
+hearted naturally, and the excitement and pretty things about her could
+not but be pleasant.
+
+To have Kate's friends stand about her, half shyly trying to joke with her
+as they might have done with Kate, to feel their admiring glances, and
+half envious references to her handsome husband, almost intoxicated her
+for the moment. Her cheeks grew rosier as she tied on Kate's pretty poke
+bonnet whose nodding blue flowers had been brought over from Paris by a
+friend of Kate's. It seemed a shame that Kate should not have her things
+after all. The pleasure died out of Marcia's eyes as she carefully looped
+the soft blue ribbons under her round chin and drew on Kate's long gloves.
+There was no denying the fact that Kate's outfit was becoming to Marcia,
+for she had that complexion that looks well with any color under the sun,
+though in blue she was not at her best.
+
+When Marcia was ready she stood back from the little looking-glass, with a
+frightened, half-childish gaze about the room.
+
+Now that the last minute was come, there was no one to understand Marcia's
+feelings nor help her. Even the girls were merely standing there waiting
+to say the last formal farewell that they might be free to burst into an
+astonished chatter of exclamations over Kate's romantic disappearance.
+They were Kate's friends, not Marcia's, and they were bidding Kate's
+clothes good-bye for want of the original bride. Marcia's friends were too
+young and too shy to do more than stand back in awe and gaze at their mate
+so suddenly promoted to a life which but yesterday had seemed years away
+for any of them.
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+                 THE STEPMOTHER'S ARMS WERE AROUND HER.]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+                  THE STEPMOTHER'S ARMS WERE AROUND HER.
+
+
+So Marcia walked alone down the hall--yet, no, not all the way alone. A
+little wrinkled hand was laid upon her gloved one, and a little old lady,
+her true friend, the minister's wife, walked down the stairs with the
+bride arm in arm. Marcia's heart fluttered back to warmth again and was
+glad for her friend, yet all she had said was: "My dear!" but there was
+that in her touch and the tone of her gentle voice that comforted Marcia.
+
+She stood at the edge of the steps, with her white hair shining in the
+morning, her kind-faced husband just behind her during all the farewell,
+and Marcia felt happier because of her motherly presence.
+
+The guests were all out on the piazza in the gorgeousness of the summer
+morning. David stood on the flagging below the step beside the open coach
+door, a carriage lap-robe over his arm and his hat on, ready. He was
+talking with the Squire. Every one was looking at them, and they were
+entirely conscious of the fact. They laughed and talked with studied
+pleasantness, though there seemed to be an undertone of sadness that the
+most obtuse guest could not fail to detect.
+
+Harriet, as a small flower-girl, stood upon the broad low step ready to
+fling posies before the bride as she stepped into the coach.
+
+The little boys, to whom a wedding merely meant a delightful increase of
+opportunities, stood behind a pillar munching cake, more of which
+protruded from their bulging pockets.
+
+Marcia, with a lump in her throat that threatened tears, slipped behind
+the people, caught the two little step-brothers in her arms and smothered
+them with kisses, amid their loud protestations and the laughter of those
+who stood about. But the little skirmish had served to hide the tears, and
+the bride came back most decorously to where her stepmother stood awaiting
+her with a smile of complacent--almost completed--duty upon her face. She
+wore the sense of having carried off a trying situation in a most
+creditable manner, and she knew she had won the respect and awe of every
+matron present thereby. That was a great deal to Madam Schuyler.
+
+The stepmother's arms were around her and Marcia remembered how kindly
+they had felt when they first clasped her little body years ago, and she
+had been kissed, and told to be a good little girl. She had always liked
+her stepmother. And now, as she came to say good-bye to the only mother
+she had ever known, who had been a true mother to her in many ways, her
+young heart almost gave way, and she longed to hide in that ample bosom
+and stay under the wing of one who had so ably led her thus far along the
+path of life.
+
+Perhaps Madam Schuyler felt the clinging of the girl's arms about her, and
+perchance her heart rebuked her that she had let so young and
+inexperienced a girl go out to the cares of life all of a sudden in this
+way. At least she stooped and kissed Marcia again and whispered: "You have
+been a good girl, Marcia."
+
+Afterwards, Marcia cherished that sentence among memory's dearest
+treasures. It seemed as though it meant that she had fulfilled her
+stepmother's first command, given on the night when her father brought
+home their new mother.
+
+Then the flowers were thrown upon the pavement, to make it bright for the
+bride. She was handed into the coach behind the white-haired negro
+coachman, and by his side Kate's fine new hair trunk. Ah! That was a
+bitter touch! Kate's trunk! Kate's things! Kate's husband! If it had only
+been her own little moth-eaten trunk that had belonged to her mother, and
+filled with her own things--and if he had only been her own husband! Yet
+she wanted no other than David--only if he could have been _her_ David!
+
+Then Madam Schuyler, her heart still troubled about Marcia, stepped down
+and whispered:
+
+"David, you will remember she is young. You will deal gently with her?"
+
+Gravely David bent his head and answered:
+
+"I will remember. She shall not be troubled. I will care for her as I
+would care for my own sister." And Madam Schuyler turned away half
+satisfied. After all, was that what woman wanted? Would she have been
+satisfied to have been cared for as a sister?
+
+Then gravely, with his eyes half unseeing her, the father kissed his
+daughter good-bye, David got into the coach, the door was slammed shut,
+and the white horses arched their necks and stepped away, amid a shower of
+rice and slippers.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+For some distance the way was lined with people they knew, servants and
+negroes, standing about the driveway and outside the fence, people of the
+village grouped along the sidewalk, everybody out upon their doorsteps to
+watch the coach go by, and to all the face of the bride was a puzzle and a
+surprise. They half expected to see another coach coming with the other
+bride behind.
+
+Marcia nodded brightly to those she knew, and threw flowers from the great
+nosegay that had been put upon her lap by Harriet. She felt for a few
+minutes like a girl in a fairy-tale riding in this fine coach in grand
+attire. She stole a look at David. He certainly looked like a prince, but
+gravity was already settling about his mouth. Would he always look so now,
+she wondered, would he never laugh and joke again as he used to do? Could
+she manage to make him happy sometimes for a little while and help him to
+forget?
+
+Down through the village they passed, in front of the store and
+post-office where Marcia had bought her frock but three days before, and
+they turned up the road she had come with Mary Ann. How long ago that
+seemed! How light her heart was then, and how young! All life was before
+her with its delightful possibilities. Now it seemed to have closed for
+her and she was some one else. A great ache came upon her heart. For a
+moment she longed to jump down and run away from the coach and David and
+the new clothes that were not hers. Away from the new life that had been
+planned for some one else which she must live now. She must always be a
+woman, never a girl any more.
+
+Out past Granny McVane's they drove, the old lady sitting upon her front
+porch knitting endless stockings. She stared mildly, unrecognizingly at
+Marcia and paused in her rocking to crane her neck after the coach.
+
+The tall corn rustled and waved green arms to them as they passed, and the
+cows looked up munching from the pasture in mild surprise at the turnout.
+The little coach dog stepped aside from the road to give them a bark as he
+passed, and then pattered and pattered his tiny feet to catch up. The old
+school house came in sight with its worn playground and dejected summer
+air, and Marcia's eyes searched out the window where she used to sit to
+eat her lunch in winters, and the tree under which she used to sit in
+summers, and the path by which she and Mary Ann used to wander down to the
+brook, or go in search of butternuts, even the old door knob that her hand
+would probably never grasp again. She searched them all out and bade them
+good-bye with her eyes. Then once she turned a little to see if she could
+catch a glimpse of the old blackboard through the window where she and
+Susanna Brown and Miller Thompson used to do arithmetic examples. The dust
+of the coach, or the bees in the sunshine, or something in her eyes
+blurred her vision. She could only see a long slant ray of a sunbeam
+crossing the wall where she knew it must be. Then the road wound around
+through a maple grove and the school was lost to view.
+
+They passed the South meadow belonging to the Westons, and Hanford was
+plowing. Marcia could see him stop to wipe the perspiration from his brow,
+and her heart warmed even to this boy admirer now that she was going from
+him forever.
+
+Hanford had caught sight of the coach and he turned to watch it thinking
+to see Kate sitting in the bride's place. He wondered if the bride would
+notice him, and turned a deeper red under his heavy coat of tan.
+
+And the bride did notice him. She smiled the sweetest smile the boy had
+ever seen upon her face, the smile he had dreamed of as he thought of her,
+at night standing under the stars all alone by his father's gate post
+whittling the cross bar of the gate. For a moment he forgot that it was
+the bridal party passing, forgot the stern-faced bridegroom, and saw only
+Marcia--his girl love. His heart stood still, and a bright light of
+response filled his eyes. He took off his wide straw hat and bowed her
+reverence. He would have called to her, and tried three times, but his dry
+throat gave forth no utterance, and when he looked again the coach was
+passed and only the flutter of a white handkerchief came back to him and
+told him the beginning of the truth.
+
+Then the poor boy's face grew white, yes, white and stricken under the
+tan, and he tottered to the roadside and sat down with his face in his
+hands to try and comprehend what it might mean, while the old horse
+dragged the plow whither he would in search of a bite of tender grass.
+
+What could it mean? And why did Marcia occupy that place beside the
+stranger, obviously the bridegroom? Was she going on a visit? He had heard
+of no such plan. Where was her sister? Would there be another coach
+presently, and was this man then not the bridegroom but merely a friend of
+the family? Of course, that must be it. He got up and staggered to the
+fence to look down the road, but no one came by save the jogging old gray
+and carryall, with Aunt Polly grim and offended and Uncle Joab meek and
+depressed beside her. Could he have missed the bridal carriage when he was
+at the other end of the lot? Could they have gone another way? He had a
+half a mind to call to Uncle Joab to enquire only he was a timid boy and
+shrank back until it was too late.
+
+But why had Marcia as she rode away wafted that strange farewell that had
+in it the familiarity of the final? And why did he feel so strange and
+weak in his knees?
+
+Marcia was to help his mother next week at the quilting bee. She had not
+gone away to stay, of course. He got up and tried to whistle and turn the
+furrows evenly as before, but his heart was heavy, and, try as he would,
+he could not understand the feeling that kept telling him Marcia was gone
+out of his life forever.
+
+At last his day's work was done and he could hasten to the house. Without
+waiting for his supper, he "slicked up," as he called it, and went at once
+to the village, where he learned the bitter truth.
+
+It was Mary Ann who told him.
+
+Mary Ann, the plain, the awkward, who secretly admired Hanford Weston as
+she might have admired an angel, and who as little expected him to speak
+to her as if he had been one. Mary Ann stood by her front gate in the dusk
+of the summer evening, the halo of her unusual wedding finery upon her,
+for she had taken advantage of being dressed up to make two or three
+visits since the wedding, and so prolong the holiday. The light of the
+sunset softened her plain features, and gave her a gentler look than was
+her wont. Was it that, and an air of lonesomeness akin to his own, that
+made Hanford stop and speak to her?
+
+And then she told him. She could not keep it in long. It was the wonder of
+her life, and it filled her so that her thought had no room for anything
+else. To think of Marcia taken in a day, gone from their midst forever,
+gone to be a grown-up woman in a new world! It was as strange as sudden
+death, and almost as terrible and beautiful.
+
+There were tears in her eyes, and in the eyes of the boy as they spoke
+about the one who was gone, and the kind dusk hid the sight so that
+neither knew, but each felt a subtle sympathy with the other, and before
+Hanford started upon his desolate way home under the burden of his first
+sorrow he took Mary Ann's slim bony hand in his and said quite stiffly:
+"Well, good night, Miss Mary Ann. I'm glad you told me," and Mary Ann
+responded, with a deep blush under her freckles in the dark, "Good night,
+Mr. Weston, and--call again!"
+
+Something of the sympathy lingered with the boy as he went on his way and
+he was not without a certain sort of comfort, while Mary Ann climbed to
+her little chamber in the loft with a new wonder to dream over.
+
+Meanwhile the coach drove on, and Marcia passed from her childhood's home
+into the great world of men and women, changes, heartbreakings, sorrows
+and joys.
+
+David spoke to her kindly now and then; asked if she was comfortable; if
+she would prefer to change seats with him; if the cushions were right; and
+if she had forgotten anything. He seemed nervous, and anxious to have this
+part of the journey over and asked the coachman frequent questions about
+the horses and the speed they could make. Marcia thought she understood
+that he was longing to get away from the painful reminder of what he had
+expected to be a joyful trip, and her young heart pitied him, while yet it
+felt an undertone of hurt for herself. She found so much unadulterated joy
+in this charming ride with the beautiful horses, in this luxurious coach,
+that she could not bear to have it spoiled by the thought that only
+David's sadness and pain had made it possible for her.
+
+Constantly as the scene changed, and new sights came upon her view, she
+had to restrain herself from crying out with happiness over the beauty and
+calling David's attention. Once she did point out a bird just leaving a
+stalk of goldenrod, its light touch making the spray to bow and bend.
+David had looked with unseeing eyes, and smiled with uncomprehending
+assent. Marcia felt she might as well have been talking to herself. He was
+not even the old friend and brother he used to be. She drew a gentle
+little sigh and wished this might have been only a happy ride with the
+ending at home, and a longer girlhood uncrossed by this wall of trouble
+that Kate had put up in a night for them all.
+
+The coach came at last to the town where they were to stop for dinner and
+a change of horses.
+
+Marcia looked about with interest at the houses, streets, and people.
+There were two girls of about her own age with long hair braided down
+their backs. They were walking with arms about each other as she and Mary
+Ann had often done. She wondered if any such sudden changes might be
+coming to them as had come into her life. They turned and looked at her
+curiously, enviously it seemed, as the coach drew up to the tavern and she
+was helped out with ceremony. Doubtless they thought of her as she had
+thought of Kate but last week.
+
+She was shown into the dim parlor of the tavern and seated in a stiff
+hair-cloth chair. It was all new and strange and delightful.
+
+Before a high gilt mirror set on great glass knobs like rosettes, she
+smoothed her wind-blown hair, and looked back at the reflection of her
+strange self with startled eyes. Even her face seemed changed. She knew
+the bonnet and arrangement of hair were becoming, but she felt
+unacquainted with them, and wished for her own modest braids and plain
+bonnet. Even a sunbonnet would have been welcome and have made her feel
+more like herself.
+
+David did not see how pretty she looked when he came to take her to the
+dining room ten minutes later. His eyes were looking into the hard future,
+and he was steeling himself against the glances of others. He must be the
+model bridegroom in the sight of all who knew him. His pride bore him out
+in this. He had acquaintances all along the way home.
+
+They were expecting the bridal party, for David had arranged that a fine
+dinner should be ready for his bride. Fine it was, with the best cooking
+and table service the mistress of the tavern could command, and with many
+a little touch new and strange to Marcia, and therefore interesting. It
+was all a lovely play till she looked at David.
+
+David ate but little, and Marcia felt she must hurry through the meal for
+his sake. Then when the carryall was ready he put her in and they drove
+away.
+
+Marcia's keen intuition told her how many little things had been thought
+of and planned for, for the comfort of the one who was to have taken this
+journey with David. Gradually the thought of how terrible it was for him,
+and how dreadful of Kate to have brought this sorrow upon him, overcame
+all other thoughts.
+
+Sitting thus quietly, with her hands folded tight in the faded bunch of
+roses little Harriet had given her at parting, the last remaining of the
+flowers she had carried with her, Marcia let the tears come. Silently they
+flowed in gentle rain, and had not David been borne down with the thought
+of his own sorrow he must have noticed long before he did the sadness of
+the sweet young face beside him. But she turned away from him as much as
+possible that he might not see, and so they must have driven for half an
+hour through a dim sweet wood before he happened to catch a sight of the
+tear-wet face, and knew suddenly that there were other troubles in the
+world beside his own.
+
+"Why, child, what is the matter?" he said, turning to her with grave
+concern. "Are you so tired? I'm afraid I have been very dull company,"
+with a sigh. "You must forgive me--child, to-day."
+
+"Oh, David, don't," said Marcia putting her face down into her hands and
+crying now regardless of the roses. "I do not want you to think of me. It
+is dreadful, dreadful for you. I am so sorry for you. I wish I could do
+something."
+
+"Dear child!" he said, putting his hand upon hers. "Bless you for that.
+But do not let your heart be troubled about me. Try to forget me and be
+happy. It is not for you to bear, this trouble."
+
+"But I must bear it," said Marcia, sitting up and trying to stop crying.
+"She was my sister and she did an awful thing. I cannot forget it. How
+could she, how _could_ she do it? How could she leave a man like you
+that--" Marcia stopped, her brown eyes flashing fiercely as she thought of
+Captain Leavenworth's hateful look at her that night in the moonlight. She
+shuddered and hid her face in her hands once more and cried with all the
+fervor of her young and undisciplined soul.
+
+David did not know what to do with a young woman in tears. Had it been
+Kate his alarm would have vied with a delicious sense of his own power to
+comfort, but even the thought of comforting any one but Kate was now a
+bitter thing. Was it always going to be so? Would he always have to start
+and shrink with sudden remembrance of his pain at every turn of his way?
+He drew a deep sigh and looked helplessly at his companion. Then he did a
+hard thing. He tried to justify Kate, just as he had been trying all the
+morning to justify her to himself. The odd thing about it all was that the
+very deepest sting of his sorrow was that Kate could have done this thing!
+His peerless Kate!
+
+"She cared for him," he breathed the words as if they hurt him.
+
+"She should have told you so before then. She should not have let you
+think she cared for you--_ever!_" said Marcia fiercely. Strangely enough
+the plain truth was bitter to the man to hear, although he had been
+feeling it in his soul ever since they had discovered the flight of the
+bride.
+
+"Perhaps there was too much pressure brought to bear upon her," he said
+lamely. "Looking back I can see times when she did not second me with
+regard to hurrying the marriage, so warmly as I could have wished. I laid
+it to her shyness. Yet she seemed happy when we met. Did you--did she--have
+you any idea she had been planning this for long, or was it sudden?"
+
+The words were out now, the thing he longed to know. It had been writing
+its fiery way through his soul. Had she meant to torture him this way all
+along, or was it the yielding to a sudden impulse that perhaps she had
+already repented? He looked at Marcia with piteous, almost pleading eyes,
+and her tortured young soul would have given anything to have been able to
+tell him what he wanted to know. Yet she could not help him. She knew no
+more than he. She steadied her own nerves and tried to tell all she knew
+or surmised, tried her best to reveal Kate in her true character before
+him. Not that she wished to speak ill of her sister, only that she would
+be true and give this lover a chance to escape some of the pain if
+possible, by seeing the real Kate as she was at home without varnish or
+furbelows. Yet she reflected that those who knew Kate's shallowness well,
+still loved her in spite of it, and always bowed to her wishes.
+
+Gradually their talk subsided into deep silence once more, broken only by
+the jog-trot of the horse or the stray note of some bird.
+
+The road wound into the woods with its fragrant scents of hemlock, spruce
+and wintergreen, and out into a broad, hot, sunny way.
+
+The bees hummed in the flowers, and the grasshoppers sang hotly along the
+side of the dusty road. Over the whole earth there seemed to be the sound
+of a soft simmering, as if nature were boiling down her sweets, the better
+to keep them during the winter.
+
+The strain of the day's excitement and hurry and the weariness of sorrow
+were beginning to tell upon the two travellers. The road was heavy with
+dust and the horse plodded monotonously through it. With the drone of the
+insects and the glare of the afternoon sun, it was not strange that little
+by little a great drowsiness came over Marcia and her head began to droop
+like a poor wilted flower until she was fast asleep.
+
+David noticed that she slept, and drew her head against his shoulder that
+she might rest more comfortably. Then he settled back to his own pain, a
+deeper pang coming as he thought how different it would have been if the
+head resting against his shoulder had been golden instead of brown. Then
+soon he too fell asleep, and the old horse, going slow, and yet more
+slowly, finding no urging voice behind her and seeing no need to hurry
+herself, came at last on the way to the shade of an apple tree, and
+halted, finding it a pleasant place to remain and think until the heat of
+the afternoon was passed. Awhile she ate the tender grass that grew
+beneath the generous shade, and nipped daintily at an apple or two that
+hung within tempting reach. Then she too drooped her white lashes, and
+nodded and drooped, and took an afternoon nap.
+
+A farmer, trundling by in his empty hay wagon, found them so, looked
+curiously at them, then drew up his team and came and prodded David in the
+chest with his long hickory stick.
+
+"Wake up, there, stranger, and move on," he called, as he jumped back into
+his wagon and took up the reins. "We don't want no tipsy folks around
+these parts," and with a loud clatter he rode on.
+
+David, whose strong temperance principles had made him somewhat marked in
+his own neighborhood, roused and flushed over the insinuation, and started
+up the lazy horse, which flung out guiltily upon the way as if to make up
+for lost time. The driver, however, was soon lost in his own troubles,
+which returned upon him with redoubled sharpness as new sorrow always does
+after brief sleep.
+
+But Marcia slept on.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Owing to the horse's nap by the roadside, it was quite late in the evening
+when they reached the town and David saw the lights of his own
+neighborhood gleaming in the distance. He was glad it was late, for now
+there would be no one to meet them that night. His friends would think,
+perhaps, that they had changed their plans and stopped over night on the
+way, or met with some detention.
+
+Marcia still slept.
+
+David as he drew near the house began to feel that perhaps he had made a
+mistake in carrying out his marriage just as if nothing had happened and
+everything was all right. It would be too great a strain upon him to live
+there in that house without Kate, and come home every night just as he had
+planned it, and not to find her there to greet him as he had hoped. Oh, if
+he might turn even now and flee from it, out into the wilderness somewhere
+and hide himself from human kind, where no one would know, and no one ever
+ask him about his wife!
+
+He groaned in spirit as the horse drew up to the door, and the heavy head
+of the sweet girl who was his wife reminded him that he could not go away,
+but must stay and face the responsibilities of life which he had taken
+upon himself, and bear the pain that was his. It was not the fault of the
+girl he had married. She sorrowed for him truly, and he felt deeply
+grateful for the great thing she had done to save his pride.
+
+He leaned over and touched her shoulder gently to rouse her, but her sleep
+was deep and healthy, the sleep of exhausted youth. She did not rouse nor
+even open her eyes, but murmured half audibly; "David has come, Kate,
+hurry!"
+
+Half guessing what had passed the night he arrived, David stooped and
+tenderly gathered her up in his arms. He felt a bond of kindliness far
+deeper than brotherly love. It was a bond of common suffering, and by her
+own choice she had made herself his comrade in his trouble. He would at
+least save her what suffering he could.
+
+She did not waken as he carried her into the house, nor when he took her
+upstairs and laid her gently upon the white bed that had been prepared for
+the bridal chamber.
+
+The moonlight stole in at the small-paned windows and fell across the
+floor, showing every object in the room plainly. David lighted a candle
+and set it upon the high mahogany chest of drawers. The light flickered
+and played over the sweet face and Marcia slept on.
+
+David went downstairs and put up the horse, and then returned, but Marcia
+had not stirred. He stood a moment looking at her helplessly. It did not
+seem right to leave her this way, and yet it was a pity to disturb her
+sleep, she seemed so weary. It had been a long ride and the day had been
+filled with unwonted excitement. He felt it himself, and what must it be
+for her? She was a woman.
+
+David had the old-fashioned gallant idea of woman.
+
+Clumsily he untied the gay blue ribbons and pulled the jaunty poke bonnet
+out of her way. The luxuriant hair, unused to the confinement of combs,
+fell rich about her sleep-flushed face. Contentedly she nestled down, the
+bonnet out of her way, her red lips parted the least bit with a half
+smile, the black lashes lying long upon her rosy cheek, one childish hand
+upon which gleamed the new wedding ring--that was not hers,--lying relaxed
+and appealing upon her breast, rising and falling with her breath. A
+lovely bride!
+
+David, stern, true, pained and appreciative, suddenly awakened to what a
+dreadful thing he had done.
+
+Here was this lovely woman, her womanhood not yet unfolded from the bud,
+but lovely in promise even as her sister had been in truth, her charms,
+her dreams, her woman's ways, her love, her very life, taken by him as
+ruthlessly and as thoughtlessly as though she had been but a wax doll, and
+put into a home where she could not possibly be what she ought to be,
+because the place belonged to another. Thrown away upon a man without a
+heart! That was what she was! A sacrifice to his pride! There was no other
+way to put it.
+
+It fairly frightened him to think of the promises he had made. "Love,
+honor, cherish," yes, all those he had promised, and in a way he could
+perform, but not in the sense that the wedding ceremony had meant, not in
+the way in which he would have performed them had the bride been Kate, the
+choice of his love. Oh, why, why had this awful thing come upon him!
+
+And now his conscience told him he had done wrong to take this girl away
+from the possibilities of joy in the life that might have been hers, and
+sacrifice her for the sake of saving his own sufferings, and to keep his
+friends from knowing that the girl he was to marry had jilted him.
+
+As he stood before the lovely, defenceless girl her very beauty and
+innocence arraigned him. He felt that God would hold him accountable for
+the act he had so thoughtlessly committed that day, and a burden of
+responsibility settled upon his weight of sorrow that made him groan
+aloud. For a moment his soul cried out against it in rebellion. Why could
+he not have loved this sweet self-sacrificing girl instead of her fickle
+sister? Why? Why? She might perhaps have loved him in return, but now
+nothing could ever be! Earth was filled with a black sorrow, and life
+henceforth meant renunciation and one long struggle to hide his trouble
+from the world.
+
+But the girl whom he had selfishly drawn into the darkness of his sorrow
+with him, she must not be made to suffer more than he could help. He must
+try to make her happy, and keep her as much as possible from knowing what
+she had missed by coming with him! His lips set in stern resolve, and a
+purpose, half prayer, went up on record before God, that he would save her
+as much as he knew how.
+
+Lying helpless so, she appealed to him. Asking nothing she yet demanded
+all from him in the name of true chivalry. How readily had she given up
+all for him! How sweetly she had said she would fill the place left vacant
+by her sister, just to save him pain and humiliation!
+
+A desire to stoop and kiss the fair face came to him, not for affection's
+sake, but reverently, as if to render to her before God some fitting sign
+that he knew and understood her act of self sacrifice, and would not
+presume upon it.
+
+Slowly, as though he were performing a religious ceremony, a sacred duty
+laid upon him on high, David stooped over her, bringing his face to the
+gentle sleeping one. Her sweet breath fanned his cheek like the almost
+imperceptible fragrance of a bud not fully opened yet to give forth its
+sweetness to the world. His soul, awake and keen through the thoughts that
+had just come to him, gave homage to her sweetness, sadly, wistfully, half
+wishing his spirit free to gather this sweetness for his own.
+
+And so he brought his lips to hers, and kissed her, his bride, yet not his
+bride. Kissed her for the second time. That thought came to him with the
+touch of the warm lips and startled him. Had there been something
+significant in the fact that he had met Marcia first and kissed her
+instead of Kate by mistake?
+
+It seemed as though the sleeping lips clung to his lingeringly, and half
+responded to the kiss, as Marcia in her dreams lived over again the kiss
+she had received by her father's gate in the moonlight. Only the dream
+lover was her own and not another's. David, as he lifted up his head and
+looked at her gravely, saw a half smile illuminating her lips as if the
+sleeping soul within had felt the touch and answered to the call.
+
+With a deep sigh he turned away, blew out the candle, and left her with
+the moonbeams in her chamber. He walked sadly to a rear room of the house
+and lay down upon the bed, his whole soul crying out in agony at his
+miserable state.
+
+
+
+Kate, the careless one, who had made all this heart-break and misery, had
+quarreled with her husband already because he did not further some
+expensive whim of hers. She had told him she was sorry she had not stayed
+where she was and carried on her marriage with David as she had planned to
+do. Now she sat sulkily in her room alone, too angry to sleep; while her
+husband smoked sullenly in the barroom below, and drank frequent glasses
+of brandy to fortify himself against Kate's moods.
+
+Kate was considering whether or not she had been a fool in marrying the
+captain instead of David, though she called herself by a much milder word
+than that. The romance was already worn away. She wished for her trunk and
+her pretty furbelows. Her father's word of reconciliation would doubtless
+come in a few days, also the trunks.
+
+After all there was intense satisfaction to Kate in having broken all
+bounds and done as she pleased. Of course it would have been a bit more
+comfortable if David had not been so absurdly in earnest, and believed in
+her so thoroughly. But it was nice to have some one believe in you no
+matter what you did, and David would always do that. It began to look
+doubtful if the captain would. But David would never marry, she was sure,
+and perhaps, by and by, when everything had been forgotten and forgiven,
+she might establish a pleasant relationship with him again. It would be
+charming to coquet with him. He made love so earnestly, and his great eyes
+were so handsome when he looked at one with his whole soul in them. Yes,
+she certainly must keep in with him, for it would be good to have a friend
+like that when her husband was off at sea with his ship. Now that she was
+a married woman she would be free from all such childish trammels as being
+guarded at home and never going anywhere alone. She could go to New York,
+and she would let David know where she was and he would come up on
+business and perhaps take her to the theatre. To be sure, she had heard
+David express views against theatre-going, and she knew he was as much of
+a church man, almost, as her father, but she was sure she could coax him
+to do anything for her, and she had always wanted to go to the theatre.
+His scruples might be strong, but she knew his love for her, and thought
+it was stronger. She had read in his eyes that it would never fail her.
+Yes, she thought, she would begin at once to make a friend of David. She
+would write him a letter asking forgiveness, and then she would keep him
+under her influence. There was no telling what might happen with her
+husband off at sea so much. It was well to be foresighted, besides, it
+would be wholesome for the captain to know she had another friend. He
+might be less stubborn. What a nuisance that the marriage vows had to be
+taken for life! It would be much nicer if they could be put off as easily
+as they were put on. Rather hard on some women perhaps, but she could keep
+any man as long as she chose, and then--she snapped her pretty thumb and
+finger in the air to express her utter disdain for the man whom she chose
+to cast off.
+
+It seemed that Kate, in running away from her father's house and her
+betrothed bridegroom, and breaking the laws of respectable society, had
+with that act given over all attempt at any principle.
+
+So she set herself down to write her letter, with a pout here and a dimple
+there, and as much pretty gentleness as if she had been talking with her
+own bewitching face and eyes quite near to his. She knew she could bewitch
+him if she chose, and she was in the mood just now to choose very much,
+for she was deeply angry with her husband.
+
+She had ever been utterly heartless when she pleased, knowing that it
+needed but her returning smile, sweet as a May morning, to bring her much
+abused subjects fondly to her feet once more. It did not strike her that
+this time she had sinned not only against her friends, but against heaven,
+and God-given love, and that a time of reckoning must come to her,--had
+come, indeed.
+
+She had never believed they would be angry with her, her father least of
+all. She had no thought they would do anything desperate. She had expected
+the wedding would be put off indefinitely, that the servants would be sent
+out hither and yon in hot haste to unbid the guests, upon some pretext of
+accident or illness, and that it would be left to rest until the village
+had ceased to wonder and her real marriage with Captain Leavenworth could
+be announced.
+
+She had counted upon David to stand up for her. She had not understood how
+her father's righteous soul would be stirred to the depths of shame and
+utter disgrace over her wanton action. Not that she would have been in the
+least deterred from doing as she pleased had she understood, only that she
+counted upon too great power with all of them.
+
+When the letter was written it sounded quite pathetic and penitent,
+putting all the blame of her action upon her husband, and making herself
+out a poor, helpless, sweet thing, bewildered by so much love put upon
+her, and suggesting, just in a hint, that perhaps after all she had made a
+mistake not to have kept David's love instead of the wilder, fiercer one.
+She ended by begging David to be her friend forever, and leaving an
+impression with him, though it was but slight, that already shadows had
+crossed her path that made her feel his friendship might be needed some
+day.
+
+It was a letter calculated to drive such a lover as David had been, half
+mad with anguish, even without the fact of his hasty marriage added to the
+situation.
+
+And in due time, by coach, the letter came to David.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The morning sunbeams fell across the floor when Marcia awoke suddenly to a
+sense of her new surroundings. For a moment she could not think where she
+was nor how she came there. She looked about the unfamiliar walls, covered
+with paper decorated in landscapes--a hill in the distance with a tall
+castle among the trees, a blue lake in the foreground and two maidens
+sitting pensively upon a green bank with their arms about one another.
+Marcia liked it. She felt there was a story in it. She would like to
+imagine about the lives of those two girls when she had more time.
+
+There were no pictures in the room to mar those upon the paper, but the
+walls did not look bare. Everything was new and stiff and needed a woman's
+hand to bring the little homey touches, but the newness was a delight to
+the girl. It was as good as the time when she was a little girl and played
+house with Mary Ann down on the old flat stone in the pasture, with acorns
+for cups and saucers, and bits of broken china carefully treasured upon
+the mossy shelves in among the roots of the old elm tree that arched over
+the stone.
+
+She was stiff from the long ride, but her sleep had wonderfully refreshed
+her, and now she was ready to go to work. She wondered as she rose how she
+got upon that bed, how the blue bonnet got untied and laid upon the chair
+beside her. Surely she could not have done it herself and have no memory
+of it. Had she walked upstairs herself, or did some one carry her? Did
+David perhaps? Good kind David! A bird hopped upon the window seat and
+trilled a song, perked his head knowingly at her and flitted away. Marcia
+went to the window to look after him, and was held by the new sights that
+met her gaze. She could catch glimpses of houses through bowers of vines,
+and smoke rising from chimneys. She wondered who lived near, and if there
+were girls who would prove pleasant companions. Then she suddenly
+remembered that she was a girl no longer and must associate with married
+women hereafter.
+
+But suddenly the clock on the church steeple across the way warned her
+that it was late, and with a sense of deserving reprimand she hurried
+downstairs.
+
+The fire was already lighted and David had brought in fresh water. So much
+his intuition had told him was necessary. He had been brought up by three
+maiden aunts who thought that a man in the kitchen was out of his sphere,
+so the kitchen was an unknown quantity to him.
+
+Marcia entered the room as if she were not quite certain of her welcome.
+She was coming into a kingdom she only half understood.
+
+"Good morning," she said shyly, and a lovely color stole into her cheeks.
+Once more David's conscience smote him as her waking beauty intensified
+the impression made the night before.
+
+"Good morning," he said gravely, studying her face as he might have
+studied some poor waif whom he had unknowingly run over in the night and
+picked up to resuscitate. "Are you rested? You were very tired last
+night."
+
+"What a baby I was!" said Marcia deprecatingly, with a soft little gurgle
+of a laugh like a merry brook. David was amazed to find she had two
+dimples located about as Kate's were, only deeper, and more gentle in
+their expression.
+
+"Did I sleep all the afternoon after we left the canal? And did you have
+hard work to get me into the house and upstairs?"
+
+"You slept most soundly," said David, smiling in spite of his heavy heart.
+"It seemed a pity to waken you, so I did the next best thing and put you
+to bed as well as I knew how."
+
+"It was very good of you," said Marcia, coming over to him with her hands
+clasped earnestly, "and I don't know how to thank you."
+
+There was something quaint and old-fashioned in her way of speaking, and
+it struck David pitifully that she should be thanking her husband, the man
+who had pledged himself to care for her all his life. It seemed that
+everywhere he turned his conscience would be continually reproaching him.
+
+It was a dainty breakfast to which they presently sat down. There was
+plenty of bread and fresh butter just from the hands of the best
+butter-maker in the county; the eggs had been laid the day before, and the
+bacon was browned just right. Marcia well knew how to make coffee, there
+was cream rich and yellow as ever came from the cows at home and there
+were blackberries as large and fine every bit as those Marcia picked but a
+few days before for the purchase of her pink sprigged chintz.
+
+David watched her deft movements and all at once keen smiting conscience
+came to remind him that Marcia was defrauded of all the loving interchange
+of mirth that would have been if Kate had been here. Also, keener still
+the thought that Kate had not wanted it: that she had preferred the love
+of another man to his, and that these joys had not been held in dear
+anticipation with her as they had with him. He had been a fool. All these
+months of waiting for his marriage he had thought that he and Kate held
+feelings in common, joys and hopes and tender thoughts of one another;
+and, behold, he was having these feelings all to himself, fool and blind
+that he was! A bitter sigh came to his lips, and Marcia, eager in the
+excitement of getting her first breakfast upon her own responsibility,
+heard and forgot to smile over the completed work. She could hardly eat
+what she had prepared, her heart felt David's sadness so keenly.
+
+Shyly she poured the amber coffee and passed it to David. She was pleased
+that he drank it eagerly and passed his cup back for more. He ate but
+little, but seemed to approve of all she had done.
+
+After breakfast David went down to the office. He had told Marcia that he
+would step over and tell his aunts of their arrival, and they would
+probably come over in the course of the day to greet her. He would be back
+to dinner at twelve. He suggested that she spend her time in resting, as
+she must be weary yet. Then hesitating, he went out and closed the door
+behind him. He waited again on the door stone outside and opened the door
+to ask:
+
+"You won't be lonesome, will you, child?" He had the feeling of troubled
+responsibility upon him.
+
+"Oh, no!" said Marcia brightly, smiling back. She thought it so kind of
+him to take the trouble to think of her. She was quite anticipating a trip
+of investigation over her new domain, and the pleasure of feeling that she
+was mistress and might do as she pleased. Yet she stood by the window
+after he was gone and watched his easy strides down the street with a
+feeling of mingled pride and disappointment. It was a very nice play she
+was going through, and David was handsome, and her young heart swelled
+with pride to belong to him, but after all there was something left out. A
+great lack, a great unknown longing unsatisfied. What was it? What made
+it? Was it David's sorrow?
+
+She turned with a sigh as he disappeared around a curve in the sidewalk
+and was lost to view. Then casting aside the troubles which were trying to
+settle upon her, she gave herself up to a morning of pure delight.
+
+She flew about the kitchen putting things to rights, washing the delicate
+sprigged china with its lavendar sprays and buff bands, and putting it
+tenderly upon the shelves behind the glass doors; shoving the table back
+against the wall demurely with dropped leaves. It did not take long.
+
+There was no need to worry about the dinner. There was a leg of lamb
+beautifully cooked, half a dozen pies, their flaky crusts bearing witness
+to the culinary skill of the aunts, a fruit cake, a pound cake, a jar of
+delectable cookies and another of fat sugary doughnuts, three loaves of
+bread, and a sheet of puffy rusks with their shining tops dusted with
+sugar. Besides the preserve closet was rich in all kinds of preserves,
+jellies and pickles. No, it would not take long to get dinner.
+
+It was into the great parlor that Marcia peeped first. It had been toward
+that room that her hopes and fears had turned while she washed the dishes.
+
+The Schuylers were one of the few families in those days that possessed a
+musical instrument, and it had been the delight of Marcia's heart. She
+seemed to have a natural talent for music, and many an hour she spent at
+the old spinet drawing tender tones from the yellowed keys. The spinet had
+been in the family for a number of years and very proud had the Schuyler
+girls been of it. Kate could rattle off gay waltzes and merry, rollicking
+tunes that fairly made the feet of the sedate village maidens flutter in
+time to their melody, but Marcia's music had always been more tender and
+spiritual. Dear old hymns, she loved, and some of the old classics.
+"Stupid old things without any tune," Kate called them. But Marcia
+persevered in playing them until she could bring out the beautiful
+passages in a way that at least satisfied herself. Her one great desire
+had been to take lessons of a real musician and be able to play the
+wonderful things that the old masters had composed. It is true that very
+few of these had come in her way. One somewhat mutilated copy of Handel's
+"Creation," a copy of Haydn's "Messiah," and a few fragments of an old
+book of Bach's Fugues and Preludes. Many of these she could not play at
+all, but others she had managed to pick out. A visit from a cousin who
+lived in Boston and told of the concerts given there by the Handel and
+Haydn Society had served to strengthen her deeper interest in music. The
+one question that had been going over in her mind ever since she awoke had
+been whether there was a musical instrument in the house. She felt that if
+there was not she would miss the old spinet in her father's house more
+than any other thing about her childhood's home.
+
+So with fear and trepidation she entered the darkened room, where the
+careful aunts had drawn the thick green shades. The furniture stood about
+in shadowed corners, and every footfall seemed a fearsome thing.
+
+Marcia's bright eyes hurried furtively about, noting the great glass knobs
+that held the lace curtains with heavy silk cords, the round mahogany
+table, with its china vase of "everlastings," the high, stiff-backed
+chairs all decked in elaborate antimacassars of intricate pattern. Then,
+in the furthest corner, shrouded in dark coverings she found what she was
+searching for. With a cry she sprang to it, touched its polished wood with
+gentle fingers, and lovingly felt for the keyboard. It was closed. Marcia
+pushed up the shade to see better, and opened the instrument cautiously.
+
+It was a pianoforte of the latest pattern, and with exclamations of
+delight she sat down and began to strike chords, softly at first, as if
+half afraid, then more boldly. The tone was sweeter than the old spinet,
+or the harpsichord owned by Squire Hartrandt. Marcia marvelled at the
+volume of sound. It filled the room and seemed to echo through the empty
+halls.
+
+She played soft little airs from memory, and her soul was filled with joy.
+Now she knew she would never be lonely in the new life, for she would
+always have this wonderful instrument to flee to when she felt homesick.
+
+Across the hall were two square rooms, the front one furnished as a
+library. Here were rows of books behind glass doors. Marcia looked at them
+with awe. Might she read them all? She resolved to cultivate her mind that
+she might be a fit companion for David. She knew he was wise beyond his
+years for she had heard her father say so. She went nearer and scanned the
+titles, and at once there looked out to her from the rows of bindings a
+few familiar faces of books she had read and re-read. "Thaddeus of
+Warsaw," "The Scottish Chiefs," "Mysteries of Udolpho," "Romance of the
+Forest," "Baker's Livy," "Rollin's History," "Pilgrim's Progress," and a
+whole row of Sir Walter Scott's novels. She caught her breath with
+delight. What pleasure was opening before her! All of Scott! And she had
+read but one!
+
+It was with difficulty she tore herself away from the tempting shelves and
+went on to the rest of the house.
+
+Back of David's library was a sunny sitting room, or breakfast room,--or
+"dining room" as it would be called at the present time. In Marcia's time
+the family ate most of their meals in one end of the large bright kitchen,
+that end furnished with a comfortable lounge, a few bookshelves, a thick
+ingrain carpet, and a blooming geranium in the wide window seat. But there
+was always the other room for company, for "high days and holidays."
+
+Out of this morning room the pantry opened with its spicy odors of
+preserves and fruit cake.
+
+Marcia looked about her well pleased. The house itself was a part of
+David's inheritance, his mother's family homestead. Things were all on a
+grand scale for a bride. Most brides began in a very simple way and
+climbed up year by year. How Kate would have liked it all! David must have
+had in mind her fastidious tastes, and spent a great deal of money in
+trying to please her. That piano must have been very expensive. Once more
+Marcia felt how David had loved Kate and a pang went through her as she
+wondered however he was to live without her. Her young soul had not yet
+awakened to the question of how _she_ was to live _with_ him, while his
+heart went continually mourning for one who was lost to him forever.
+
+The rooms upstairs were all pleasant, spacious, and comfortably furnished.
+There was no suggestion of bareness or anything left unfinished. Much of
+the furniture was old, having belonged to David's mother, and was in a
+state of fine preservation, a possession of which to be justly proud.
+
+There were four rooms besides the one in which Marcia had slept: a front
+and back on the opposite side of the hall, a room just back of her own,
+and one at the end of the hall over the large kitchen.
+
+She entered them all and looked about. The three beside her own in the
+front part of the house were all large and airy, furnished with high
+four-posted bedsteads, and pretty chintz hangings. Each was immaculate in
+its appointments. Cautiously she lifted the latch of the back room. David
+had not slept in any of the others, for the bedcoverings and pillows were
+plump and undisturbed. Ah! It was here in the back room that he had
+carried his heavy heart, as far away from the rest of the house as
+possible!
+
+The bed was rumpled as if some one had thrown himself heavily down without
+stopping to undress. There was water in the washbowl and a towel lay
+carelessly across a chair as if it had been hastily used. There was a
+newspaper on the bureau and a handkerchief on the floor. Marcia looked
+sadly about at these signs of occupancy, her eyes dwelling upon each
+detail. It was here that David had suffered, and her loving heart longed
+to help him in his suffering.
+
+But there was nothing in the room to keep her, and remembering the fire
+she had left upon the hearth, which must be almost spent and need
+replenishing by this time, she turned to go downstairs.
+
+Just at the door something caught her eye under the edge of the chintz
+valence round the bed. It was but the very tip of the corner of an old
+daguerreotype, but for some reason Marcia was moved to stoop and draw it
+from its concealment. Then she saw it was her sister's saucy, pretty face
+that laughed back at her in defiance from the picture.
+
+As if she had touched something red hot Marcia dropped it, and pushed it
+with her foot far back under the bed. Then shutting the door quickly she
+went downstairs. Was it always to be thus? Would Kate ever blight all her
+joy from this time forth?
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+Marcia's cheeks were flushed when David came home to dinner, for at the
+last she had to hurry.
+
+As he stood in the doorway of the wide kitchen and caught the odor of the
+steaming platter of green corn she was putting upon the table, David
+suddenly realized that he had eaten scarcely anything for breakfast.
+
+Also, he felt a certain comfort from the sweet steady look of wistful
+sympathy in Marcia's eyes. Did he fancy it, or was there a new look upon
+her face, a more reserved bearing, less childish, more touched by sad
+knowledge of life and its bitterness? It was mere fancy of course,
+something he had just not noticed. He had seen so little of her before.
+
+In the heart of the maiden there stirred a something which she did not
+quite understand, something brought to life by the sight of her sister's
+daguerreotype lying at the edge of the valence, where it must have fallen
+from David's pocket without his knowledge as he lay asleep. It had seemed
+to put into tangible form the solid wall of fact that hung between her and
+any hope of future happiness as a wife, and for the first time she too
+began to realize what she had sacrificed in thus impetuously throwing her
+young life into the breach that it might be healed. But she was not
+sorry,--not yet, anyway,--only frightened, and filled with dreary
+forebodings.
+
+The meal was a pleasant one, though constrained. David roused himself to
+be cheerful for Marcia's sake, as he would have done with any other
+stranger, and the girl, suddenly grown sensitive, felt it, and appreciated
+it, yet did not understand why it made her unhappy.
+
+She was anxious to please him, and kept asking if the potatoes were
+seasoned right and if his corn were tender, and if he wouldn't have
+another cup of coffee. Her cheeks were quite red with the effort at
+matronly dignity when David was finally through his dinner and gone back
+to the office, and two big tears came and sat in her eyes for a moment,
+but were persuaded with a determined effort to sink back again into those
+unfathomable wells that lie in the depths of a woman's eyes. She longed to
+get out of doors and run wild and free in the old south pasture for
+relief. She did not know how different it all was from the first dinner of
+the ordinary young married couple; so stiff and formal, with no gentle
+touches, no words of love, no glances that told more than words. And yet,
+child as she was, she felt it, a lack somewhere, she knew not what.
+
+But training is a great thing. Marcia had been trained to be on the alert
+for the next duty and to do it before she gave herself time for any of her
+own thoughts. The dinner table was awaiting her attention, and there was
+company coming.
+
+She glanced at the tall clock in the hall and found she had scarcely an
+hour before she might expect David's aunts, for David had brought her word
+that they would come and spend the afternoon and stay to tea.
+
+She shrank from the ordeal and wished David had seen fit to stay and
+introduce her. It would have been a relief to have had him for a shelter.
+Somehow she knew that he would have stayed if it had been Kate, and that
+thought pained her, with a quick sharpness like the sting of an insect.
+She wondered if she were growing selfish, that it should hurt to find
+herself of so little account. And, yet, it was to be expected, and she
+must stop thinking about it. Of course, Kate was the one he had chosen and
+Kate would always be the only one to him.
+
+It did not take her long to reduce the dinner table to order and put all
+things in readiness for tea time; and in doing her work Marcia's thoughts
+flew to pleasanter themes. She wondered what Dolly and Debby, the servants
+at home, would say if they could see her pretty china and the nice
+kitchen. They had always been fond of her, and naturally her new honors
+made her wish to have her old friends see her. What would Mary Ann say?
+What fun it would be to have Mary Ann there sometime. It would be almost
+like the days when they had played house under the old elm on the big flat
+stone, only this would be a real house with real sprigged china instead of
+bits of broken things. Then she fell into a song, one they sang in school,
+
+            "Sister, thou wast mild and lovely,
+               Gentle as the summer breeze,
+             Pleasant as the air of evening
+               When it floats among the trees."
+
+But the first words set her to thinking of her own sister, and how little
+the song applied to her, and she thought with a sigh how much better it
+would have been, how much less bitter, if Kate had been that way and had
+lain down to die and they could have laid her away in the little hilly
+graveyard under the weeping willows, and felt about her as they did about
+the girl for whom that song was written.
+
+The work was done, and Marcia arrayed in one of the simplest of Kate's
+afternoon frocks, when the brass knocker sounded through the house,
+startling her with its unfamiliar sound.
+
+Breathlessly she hurried downstairs. The crucial moment had come when she
+must stand to meet her new relatives alone. With her hand trembling she
+opened the door, but there was only one person standing on the stoop, a
+girl of about her own age, perhaps a few months younger. Her hair was red,
+her face was freckled, and her blue eyes under the red lashes danced with
+repressed mischief. Her dress was plain and she wore a calico sunbonnet of
+chocolate color.
+
+"Let me in quick before Grandma sees me," she demanded unceremoniously,
+entering at once before there was opportunity for invitation. "Grandma
+thinks I've gone to the store, so she won't expect me for a little while.
+I was jest crazy to see how you looked. I've ben watchin' out o' the
+window all the morning, but I couldn't ketch a glimpse of you. When David
+came out this morning I thought you'd sure be at the kitchen door to kiss
+him good-bye, but you wasn't, and I watched every chance I could get, but
+I couldn't see you till you run out in the garden fer corn. Then I saw you
+good, fer I was out hangin' up dish towels. You didn't have a sunbonnet
+on, so I could see real well. And when I saw how young you was I made up
+my mind I'd get acquainted in spite of Grandma. You don't mind my comin'
+over this way without bein' dressed up, do you? There wouldn't be any way
+to get here without Grandma seeing me, you know, if I put on my Sunday
+clo'es."
+
+"I'm glad you came!" said Marcia impulsively, feeling a rush of something
+like tears in her throat at the relief of delay from the aunts. "Come in
+and sit down. Who are you, and why wouldn't your Grandmother like you to
+come?"
+
+The strange girl laughed a mirthless laugh.
+
+"Me? Oh, I'm Mirandy. Nobody ever calls me anything but Mirandy. My pa
+left ma when I was a baby an' never come back, an' ma died, and I live
+with Grandma Heath. An' Grandma's mad 'cause David didn't marry Hannah
+Heath. She wanted him to an' she did everything she could to make him pay
+'tention to Hannah, give her fine silk frocks, two of 'em, and a real pink
+parasol, but David he never seemed to know the parasol was pink at all,
+fer he'd never offer to hold it over Hannah even when Grandma made him
+walk with her home from church ahead of us. So when it come out that David
+was really going to marry, and wouldn't take Hannah, Grandma got as mad as
+could be and said we never any of us should step over his door sill. But
+I've stepped, I have, and Grandma can't help herself."
+
+"And who is Hannah Heath?" questioned the dazed young bride. It appeared
+there was more than a sister to be taken into account.
+
+"Hannah? Oh, Hannah is my cousin, Uncle Jim's oldest daughter, and she's
+getting on toward thirty somewhere. She has whitey-yellow hair and light
+blue eyes and is tall and real pretty. She held her head high fer a good
+many years waitin' fer David, and I guess she feels she made a mistake
+now. I noticed she bowed real sweet to Hermon Worcester last Sunday and
+let him hold her parasol all the way to Grandma's gate. Hannah was mad as
+hops when she heard that you had gold hair and blue eyes, for it did seem
+hard to be beaten by a girl of the same kind? but you haven't, have you?
+Your hair is almost black and your eyes are brownie-brown. You're years
+younger than Hannah, too. My! Won't she be astonished when she sees you!
+But I don't understand how it got around about your having gold hair. It
+was a man that stopped at your father's house once told it----"
+
+"It was my sister!" said Marcia, and then blushed crimson to think how
+near she had come to revealing the truth which must not be known.
+
+"Your sister? Have you got a sister with gold hair?"
+
+"Yes, he must have seen her," said Marcia confusedly. She was not used to
+evasion.
+
+"How funny!" said Miranda. "Well, I'm glad he did, for it made Hannah so
+jealous it was funny. But I guess she'll get a set-back when she sees how
+young you are. You're not as pretty as I thought you would be, but I
+believe I like you better."
+
+Miranda's frank speech reminded Marcia of Mary Ann and made her feel quite
+at home with her curious visitor. She did not mind being told she was not
+up to the mark of beauty. From her point of view she was not nearly so
+pretty as Kate, and her only fear was that her lack of beauty might reveal
+the secret and bring confusion to David. But she need not have feared: no
+one watching the two girls, as they sat in the large sunny room and faced
+each other, but would have smiled to think the homely crude girl could
+suggest that the other calm, cool bud of womanhood was not as near
+perfection of beauty as a bud could be expected to come. There was always
+something child-like about Marcia's face, especially her profile,
+something deep and other-world-like in her eyes, that gave her an
+appearance so distinguished from other girls that the word "pretty" did
+not apply, and surface observers might have passed her by when searching
+for prettiness, but not so those who saw soul beauties.
+
+But Miranda's time was limited, and she wanted to make as much of it as
+possible.
+
+"Say, I heard you making music this morning. Won't you do it for me? I'd
+just love to hear you."
+
+Marcia's face lit up with responsive enthusiasm, and she led the way to
+the darkened parlor and folded back the covers of the precious piano. She
+played some tender little airs she loved as she would have played them for
+Mary Ann, and the two young things stood there together, children in
+thought and feeling, half a generation apart in position, and neither
+recognized the difference.
+
+"My land!" said the visitor, "'f I could play like that I wouldn't care ef
+I had freckles and no father and red hair," and looking up Marcia saw
+tears in the light blue eyes, and knew she had a kindred feeling in her
+heart for Miranda.
+
+They had been talking a minute or two when the knocker suddenly sounded
+through the long hall again making both girls start. Miranda boldly
+tiptoed over to the front window and peeped between the green slats of the
+Venetian blind to see who was at the door, while Marcia started guiltily
+and quickly closed the instrument.
+
+"It's David's aunts," announced Miranda in a stage whisper hurriedly. "I
+might 'a' known they would come this afternoon. Well, I had first try at
+you anyway, and I like you real well. May I come again and hear you play?
+You go quick to the door, and I'll slip into the kitchen till they get in,
+and then I'll go out the kitchen door and round the house out the little
+gate so Grandma won't see me. I must hurry for I ought to have been back
+ten minutes ago."
+
+"But you haven't been to the store," said Marcia in a dismayed whisper.
+
+"Oh, well, that don't matter! I'll tell her they didn't have what she sent
+me for. Good-bye. You better hurry." So saying, she disappeared into the
+kitchen; and Marcia, startled by such easy morality, stood dazed until the
+knocker sounded forth again, this time a little more peremptorily, as the
+elder aunt took her turn at it.
+
+And so at last Marcia was face to face with the Misses Spafford.
+
+They came in, each with her knitting in a black silk bag on her slim arm,
+and greeted the flushed, perturbed Marcia with gentle, righteous, rigid
+inspection. She felt with the first glance that she was being tried in the
+fire, and that it was to be no easy ordeal through which she was to pass.
+They had come determined to sift her to the depths and know at once the
+worst of what their beloved nephew had brought upon himself. If they found
+aught wrong with her they meant to be kindly and loving with her, but they
+meant to take it out of her. This had been the unspoken understanding
+between them as they wended their dignified, determined way to David's
+house that afternoon, and this was what Marcia faced as she opened the
+door for them.
+
+She gasped a little, as any girl overwhelmed thus might have done. She did
+not tilt her chin in defiance as Kate would have done. The thought of
+David came to support her, and she grasped for her own little part and
+tried to play it creditably. She did not know whether the aunts knew of
+her true identity or not, but she was not left long in doubt.
+
+"My dear, we have long desired to know you, of whom we have heard so
+much," recited Miss Amelia, with slightly agitated mien, as she bestowed a
+cool kiss of duty upon Marcia's warm cheek. It chilled the girl, like the
+breath from a funeral flower.
+
+"Yes, it is indeed a pleasure to us to at last look upon our dear nephew's
+wife," said Miss Hortense quite precisely, and laid the sister kiss upon
+the other cheek. In spite of her there flitted through Marcia's brain the
+verse, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the
+other also." Then she was shocked at her own irreverence and tried to put
+away a hysterical desire to laugh.
+
+The aunts, too, were somewhat taken aback. They had not looked for so
+girlish a wife. She was not at all what they had pictured. David had tried
+to describe Kate to them once, and this young, sweet, disarming thing did
+not in the least fit their preconceived ideas of her. What should they do?
+How could they carry on a campaign planned against a certain kind of
+enemy, when lo, as they came upon the field of action the supposed enemy
+had taken another and more bewildering form than the one for whom they had
+prepared. They were for the moment silent, gathering their thoughts, and
+trying to fit their intended tactics to the present situation.
+
+During this operation Marcia helped them to remove their bonnets and silk
+capes and to lay them neatly on the parlor sofa. She gave them chairs,
+suggested palm-leaf fans, and looked about, for the moment forgetting that
+this was not her old home plentifully supplied with those gracious breeze
+wafters.
+
+They watched her graceful movements, those two angular old ladies, and
+marvelled over her roundness and suppleness. They saw with appalled hearts
+what a power youth and beauty might have over a man. Perhaps she might be
+even worse than they had feared, though if you could have heard them talk
+about their nephew's coming bride to their neighbors for months
+beforehand, you would have supposed they knew her to be a model in every
+required direction. But their stately pride required that of them, an
+outward loyalty at least. Now that loyalty was to be tried, and Marcia had
+two old, narrow and well-fortified hearts to conquer ere her way would be
+entirely smooth.
+
+Well might Madam Schuyler have been proud of her pupil as alone and
+unaided she faced the trying situation and mastered it in a sweet and
+unassuming way.
+
+They began their inquisition at once, so soon as they were seated, and the
+preliminary sentences uttered. The gleaming knitting needles seemed to
+Marcia like so many swarming, vindictive bees, menacing her peace of mind.
+
+"You look young, child, to have the care of so large a house as this,"
+said Aunt Amelia, looking at Marcia over her spectacles as if she were
+expected to take the first bite out of her. "It's a great responsibility!"
+she shut her thin lips tightly and shook her head, as if she had said:
+"It's a great _impossibility_."
+
+"Have you ever had the care of a house?" asked Miss Hortense, going in a
+little deeper. "David likes everything nice, you know, he has always been
+used to it."
+
+There was something in the tone, and in the set of the bow on Aunt
+Hortense's purple-trimmed cap that roused the spirit in Marcia.
+
+"I think I rather enjoy housework," she responded coolly. This unexpected
+statement somewhat mollified the aunts. They had heard to the contrary
+from some one who had lived in the same town with the Schuylers. Kate's
+reputation was widely known, as that of a spoiled beauty, who did not care
+to work, and would do whatever she pleased. The aunts had entertained many
+forebodings from the few stray hints an old neighbor of Kate's had dared
+to utter in their hearing.
+
+The talk drifted at once into household matters, as though that were the
+first division of the examination the young bride was expected to undergo.
+Marcia took early opportunity to still further mollify her visitors by her
+warmest praise of the good things with which the pantry and store-closet
+had been filled. The expression that came upon the two old faces was that
+of receiving but what is due. If the praise had not been forthcoming they
+would have marked it down against her, but it counted for very little with
+them, warm as it was.
+
+"Can you make good bread?"
+
+The question was flung out by Aunt Hortense like a challenge, and the very
+set of her nostrils gave Marcia warning. But it was in a relieved voice
+that ended almost in a ripple of laugh that she answered quite assuredly:
+"Oh, yes, indeed. I can make beautiful bread. I just love to make it,
+too!"
+
+"But how do you make it?" quickly questioned Aunt Amelia, like a repeating
+rifle. If the first shot had not struck home, the second was likely to.
+"Do you use hop yeast? Potatoes? I thought so. Don't know how to make
+salt-rising, do you? It's just what might have been expected."
+
+"David has always been used to salt-rising bread," said Aunt Hortense with
+a grim set of her lips as though she were delivering a judgment. "He was
+raised on it."
+
+"If David does not like my bread," said Marcia with a rising color and a
+nervous little laugh, "then I shall try to make some that he does like."
+
+There was an assurance about the "if" that did not please the oracle.
+
+"David was raised on salt-rising bread," said Aunt Hortense again as if
+that settled it. "We can send you down a loaf or two every time we bake
+until you learn how."
+
+"I'm sure it's very kind of you," said Marcia, not at all pleased, "but I
+do not think that will be necessary. David has always seemed to like our
+bread when he visited at home. Indeed he often praised it."
+
+"David would not be impolite," said Aunt Amelia, after a suitable pause in
+which Marcia felt disapprobation in the air. "It would be best for us to
+send it. David's health might suffer if he was not suitably nourished."
+
+Marcia's cheeks grew redder. Bread had been one of her stepmother's strong
+points, well infused into her young pupil. Madam Schuyler had never been
+able to say enough to sufficiently express her scorn of people who made
+salt-rising bread.
+
+"My stepmother made beautiful bread," she said quite childishly; "she did
+not think salt-rising was so healthy as that made from hop yeast. She
+disliked the odor in the house from salt-rising bread."
+
+Now indeed the aunts exchanged glances of "On to the combat." Four red
+spots flamed giddily out in their four sallow cheeks, and eight shining
+knitting needles suddenly became idle. The moment was too momentous to
+work. It was as they feared, even the worst. For, be it known, salt-rising
+bread was one of their most tender points, and for it they would fight to
+the bitter end. They looked at her with four cold, forbidding, steely,
+spectacled eyes, and Marcia felt that their looks said volumes: "And she
+so young too! To be so out of the way!" was what they might have expressed
+to one another. Marcia felt she had been unwise in uttering her honest,
+indignant sentiments concerning salt-rising bread.
+
+The pause was long and impressive, and the bride felt like a naughty
+little four-year-old.
+
+At last Aunt Hortense took up her knitting again with the air that all was
+over and an unrevokable verdict was passed upon the culprit.
+
+"People have never seemed to stay away from our house on that account,"
+she said dryly. "I'm sure I hope it will not be so disagreeable that it
+will affect your coming to see us sometimes with David."
+
+There was an iciness in her manner that seemed to suggest a long line of
+offended family portraits of ancestors frowning down upon her.
+
+Marcia's cheeks flamed crimson and her heart fairly stopped beating.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said quickly, "I did not mean to say anything
+disagreeable. I am sure I shall be glad to come as often as you will let
+me." As she said it Marcia wondered if that were quite true. Would she
+ever be glad to go to the home of those two severe-looking aunts? There
+were three of them. Perhaps the other one would be even more withered and
+severe than these two. A slight shudder passed over Marcia, and a sudden
+realization of a side of married life that had never come into her
+thoughts before. For a moment she longed with all the intensity of a child
+for her father's house and the shelter of his loving protection, amply
+supported by her stepmother's capable, self-sufficient, comforting
+countenance. Her heart sank with the fear that she would never be able to
+do justice to the position of David's wife, and David would be
+disappointed in her and sorry he had accepted her sacrifice. She roused
+herself to do better, and bit her tongue to remind it that it must make no
+more blunders. She praised the garden, the house and the furnishings, in
+voluble, eager, girlish language until the thin lines of lips relaxed and
+the drawn muscles of the aunts' cheeks took on a less severe aspect. They
+liked to be appreciated, and they certainly had taken a great deal of
+pains with the house--for David's sake--not for hers. They did not care to
+have her deluded by the idea that they had done it for her sake. David was
+to them a young god, and with this one supreme idea of his supremacy they
+wished to impress his young wife. It was a foregone conclusion in their
+minds that no mere pretty young girl was capable of appreciating David, as
+could they, who had watched him from babyhood, and pampered and petted and
+been severe with him by turns, until if he had not had the temper of an
+angel he would surely have been spoiled.
+
+"We did our best to make the house just as David would have wished to have
+it," said Aunt Amelia at last, a self-satisfied shadow of what answered
+for a smile with her, passing over her face for a moment.
+
+"We did not at all approve of this big house, nor indeed of David's
+setting up in a separate establishment for himself," said Aunt Hortense,
+taking up her knitting again. "We thought it utterly unnecessary and
+uneconomical, when he might have brought his wife home to us, but he
+seemed to think you would want a house to yourself, so we did the best we
+could."
+
+There was a martyr-like air in Aunt Hortense's words that made Marcia feel
+herself again a criminal, albeit she knew she was suffering vicariously.
+But in her heart she felt a sudden thankfulness that she was spared the
+trial of living daily under the scrutiny of these two, and she blest David
+for his thoughtfulness, even though it had not been meant for her. She
+went into pleased ecstasies once more over the house, and its furnishings,
+and ended by her pleasure over the piano.
+
+There was grim stillness when she touched upon that subject. The aunts did
+not approve of that musical instrument, that was plain. Marcia wondered if
+they always paused so long before speaking when they disapproved, in order
+to show their displeasure. In fact, did they always disapprove of
+everything?
+
+"You will want to be very careful of it," said Aunt Amelia, looking at the
+disputed article over her glasses, "it cost a good deal of money. It was
+the most foolish thing I ever knew David to do, buying that."
+
+"Yes," said Aunt Hortense, "you will not want to use it much, it might get
+scratched. It has a fine polish. I'd keep it closed up only when I had
+company. You ought to be very proud to have a husband who could buy a
+thing like that. There's not many has them. When I was a girl my
+grandfather had a spinet, the only one for miles around, and it was taken
+great care of. The case hadn't a scratch on it."
+
+Marcia had started toward the piano intending to open it and play for her
+new relatives, but she halted midway in the room and came back to her seat
+after that speech, feeling that she must just sit and hold her hands until
+it was time to get supper, while these dreadful aunts picked her to
+pieces, body, soul and spirit.
+
+It was with great relief at last that she heard David's step and knew she
+might leave the room and put the tea things upon the table.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+They got through the supper without any trouble, and the aunts went home
+in the early twilight, each with her bonnet strings tied precisely, her
+lace mitts drawn smoothly over her bony hands, and her little knitting bag
+over her right arm. They walked decorously up the shaded, elm-domed
+street, each mindful of her aristocratic instep, and trying to walk erect
+as in the days when they were gazed upon with admiration, knowing that
+still an air of former greatness hovered about them wherever they went.
+
+They had brightened considerably at the supper table, under the genial
+influence of David's presence. They came as near to worshiping David as
+one can possibly come to worshiping a human being. David, desirous above
+all things of blinding their keen, sure-to-say-"I-told-you-so" old eyes,
+roused to be his former gay self with them, and pleased them so that they
+did not notice how little lover-like reference he made to his bride, who
+was decidedly in the background for the time, the aunts, perhaps
+purposely, desiring to show her a wife's true place,--at least the true
+place of a wife of a David.
+
+They had allowed her to bring their things and help them on with capes and
+bonnets, and, when they were ready to leave, Aunt Amelia put out a
+lifeless hand, that felt in its silk mitt like a dead fish in a net, and
+said to Marcia:
+
+"Our sister Clarinda is desirous of seeing David's wife. She wished us
+most particularly to give you her love and say to you that she wishes you
+to come to her at the earliest possible moment. You know she is lame and
+cannot easily get about."
+
+"Young folks should always be ready to wait upon their elders," said Aunt
+Hortense, grimly. "Come as soon as you can,--that is, if you think you can
+stand the smell of salt-rising."
+
+Marcia's face flushed painfully, and she glanced quickly at David to see
+if he had noticed what his aunt had said, but David was already
+anticipating the moment when he would be free to lay aside his mask and
+bury his face in his hands and his thoughts in sadness.
+
+Marcia's heart sank as she went about clearing off the supper things. Was
+life always to be thus? Would she be forever under the espionage of those
+two grim spectres of women, who seemed, to her girlish imagination, to
+have nothing about them warm or loving or woman-like?
+
+She seemed to herself to be standing outside of a married life and looking
+on at it as one might gaze on a panorama. It was all new and painful, and
+she was one of the central figures expected to act on through all the
+pictures, taking another's place, yet doing it as if it were her own. She
+glanced over at David's pale, grave face, set in its sadness, and a sharp
+pain went through her heart. Would he ever get over it? Would life never
+be more cheerful than it now was?
+
+He spoke to her occasionally, in a pleasant abstracted way, as to one who
+understood him and was kind not to trouble his sadness, and he lighted a
+candle for her when the work was done and said he hoped she would rest
+well, that she must still be weary from the long journey. And so she went
+up to her room again.
+
+She did not go to bed at once, but sat down by the window looking out on
+the moonlit street. There had been some sort of a meeting at the church
+across the way, and the people were filing out and taking their various
+ways home, calling pleasant good nights, and speaking cheerily of the
+morrow. The moon, though beginning to wane, was bright and cast sharp
+shadows. Marcia longed to get out into the night. If she could have got
+downstairs without being heard she would have slipped out into the garden.
+But downstairs she could hear David pacing back and forth like some hurt,
+caged thing. Steadily, dully, he walked from the front hall back into the
+kitchen and back again. There was no possibility of escaping his notice.
+Marcia felt as if she might breathe freer in the open air, so she leaned
+far out of her window and looked up and down the street, and thought.
+Finally,--her heart swelled to bursting, as young hearts with their first
+little troubles will do,--she leaned down her dark head upon the window
+seat and wept and wept, alone.
+
+It was the next morning at breakfast that David told her of the
+festivities that were planned in honor of their home coming. He spoke as
+if they were a great trial through which they both must pass in order to
+have any peace, and expressed his gratitude once more that she had been
+willing to come here with him and pass through it. Marcia had the
+impression, after he was done speaking and had gone away to the office,
+that he felt that she had come here merely for these few days of ceremony
+and after they were passed she was dismissed, her duty done, and she might
+go home. A great lump arose in her throat and she suddenly wished very
+much indeed that it were so. For if it were, how much, how very much she
+would enjoy queening it for a few days--except for David's sadness. But
+already, there had begun to be an element to her in that sadness which in
+spite of herself she resented. It was a heavy burden which she began dimly
+to see would be harder and harder to bear as the days went by. She had not
+yet begun to think of the time before her in years.
+
+They were to go to the aunts' to tea that evening, and after tea a company
+of David's old friends--or rather the old friends of David's aunts--were
+coming in to meet them. This the aunts had planned: but it seemed they had
+not counted her worthy to be told of the plans, and had only divulged them
+to David. Marcia had not thought that a little thing could annoy her so
+much, but she found it vexed her more and more as she thought upon it
+going about her work.
+
+There was not so much to be done in the house that morning after the
+breakfast things were cleared away. Dinners and suppers would not be much
+of a problem for some days to come, for the house was well stocked with
+good things.
+
+The beds done and the rooms left in dainty order with the sweet summer
+breeze blowing the green tassels on the window shades, Marcia went softly
+down like some half guilty creature to the piano. She opened it and was
+forthwith lost in delight of the sounds her own fingers brought forth.
+
+She had been playing perhaps half an hour when she became conscious of
+another presence in the room. She looked up with a start, feeling that
+some one had been there for some time, she could not tell just how long.
+Peering into the shadowy room lighted only from the window behind her, she
+made out a head looking in at the door, the face almost hidden by a
+capacious sunbonnet. She was not long in recognizing her visitor of the
+day before. It was like a sudden dropping from a lofty mountain height
+down into a valley of annoyance to hear Miranda's sharp metallic voice:
+
+"Morning!" she courtesied, coming in as soon as she perceived that she was
+seen. "At it again? I ben listening sometime. It's as pretty as Silas
+Drew's harmonicker when he comes home evenings behind the cows."
+
+Marcia drew her hands sharply from the keys as if she had been struck.
+Somehow Miranda and music were inharmonious. She scarcely knew what to
+say. She felt as if her morning were spoiled. But Miranda was too full of
+her own errand to notice the clouded face and cool welcome. "Say, you
+can't guess how I got over here. I'll tell you. You're going over to the
+Spafford house to-night, ain't you? and there's going to be a lot of folks
+there. Of course we all know all about it. It's been planned for months.
+And my cousin Hannah Heath has an invite. You can't think how fond Miss
+Amelia and Miss Hortense are of her. They tried their level best to make
+David pay attention to her, but it didn't work. Well, she was talking
+about what she'd wear. She's had three new frocks made last week, all
+frilled and fancy. You see she don't want to let folks think she is down
+in the mouth the least bit about David. She'll likely make up to you, to
+your face, a whole lot, and pretend she's the best friend you've got in
+the world. But I've just got this to say, don't you be too sure of her
+friendship. She's smooth as butter, but she can give you a slap in the
+face if you don't serve her purpose. I don't mind telling you for she's
+given me many a one," and the pale eyes snapped in unison with the color
+of her hair. "Well, you see I heard her talking to Grandma, and she said
+she'd give anything to know what you were going to wear to-night."
+
+"How curious!" said Marcia surprised. "I'm sure I do not see why she
+should care!" There was the coolness born of utter indifference in her
+reply which filled the younger girl with admiration. Perhaps too there was
+the least mite of haughtiness in her manner, born of the knowledge that
+she belonged to an old and honored family, and that she had in her
+possession a trunk full of clothes that could vie with any that Hannah
+Heath could display. Miranda wished silently that she could convey that
+cool manner and that wide-eyed indifference to the sight of her cousin
+Hannah.
+
+"H'm!" giggled Miranda. "Well, she does! If you were going to wear blue
+you'd see she'd put on her green. She's got one that'll kill any blue
+that's in the same room with it, no matter if it's on the other side. Its
+just sick'ning to see them together. And she looks real well in it too. So
+when she said she wanted to know so bad, Grandma said she'd send me over
+to know if you'd accept a jar of her fresh pickle-lily, and mebbe I could
+find out about your clothes. The pickle-lily's on the kitchen table. I
+left it when I came through. It's good, but there ain't any love in it."
+And Miranda laughed a hard mirthless laugh, and then settled down to her
+subject again.
+
+"Now, you needn't be a mite afraid to tell me about it. I won't tell it
+straight, you know. I'd just like to see what you are going to wear so I
+could keep her out of her tricks for once. Is your frock blue?"
+
+Now it is true that the trunk upstairs contained a goodly amount of the
+color blue, for Kate Schuyler had been her bonniest in blue, and the
+particular frock which had been made with reference to this very first
+significant gathering was blue. Marcia had accepted the fact as
+unalterable. The garment was made for a purpose, and its mission must be
+fulfilled however much she might wish to wear something else, but suddenly
+as Miranda spoke there came to her mind the thought of rebellion. Why
+should she be bound down to do exactly as Kate would do in her place? If
+she had accepted the sacrifice of living Kate's life for her, she might at
+least have the privilege of living it in the pleasantest possible way, and
+surely the matter of dress was one she might be allowed to settle for
+herself if she was old enough at all to be trusted away from home. Among
+the pretty things that Kate had made was a sweet rose-pink silk tissue.
+Madam Schuyler had frowned upon it as frivolous, and besides she did not
+think it becoming to Kate. She had a fixed theory that people with blue
+eyes and gold hair should never wear pink or red, but Kate as usual had
+her own way, and with her wild rose complexion had succeeded in looking
+like the wild rose itself in spite of blue eyes and golden hair. Marcia
+knew in her heart, in fact she had known from the minute the lovely pink
+thing had come into the house, that it was the very thing to set her off.
+Her dark eyes and hair made a charming contrast with the rose, and her
+complexion was even fresher than Kate's. Her heart grew suddenly eager to
+don this dainty, frilley thing and outshine Hannah Heath beyond any chance
+of further trying. There were other frocks, too, in the trunk. Why should
+she be confined to the stately blue one that had been marked out for this
+occasion? Marcia, with sudden inspiration, answered calmly, just as though
+all these tumultuous possibilities of clothes had not been whirling
+through her brain in that half second's hesitation:
+
+"I have not quite decided what I shall wear. It is not an important
+matter, I'm sure. Let us go and see the piccalilli. I'm very much obliged
+to your grandmother, I'm sure. It was kind of her."
+
+Somewhat awed, Miranda followed her hostess into the kitchen. She could
+not reconcile this girl's face with the stately little airs that she wore,
+but she liked her and forthwith she told her so.
+
+"I like you," she said fervently. "You remind me of one of Grandma's
+sturtions, bright and independent and lively, with a spice and a color to
+'em, and Hannah makes you think of one of them tall spikes of gladiolus
+all fixed up without any smell."
+
+Marcia tried to smile over the doubtful compliment. Somehow there was
+something about Miranda that reminded her of Mary Ann. Poor Mary Ann!
+_Dear_ Mary Ann! For suddenly she realized that everything that reminded
+her of the precious life of her childhood, left behind forever, was dear.
+If she could see Mary Ann at this moment she would throw her arms about
+her neck and call her "Dear Mary Ann," and say, "I love you," to her.
+Perhaps this feeling made her more gentle with the annoying Miranda than
+she might have been.
+
+When Miranda was gone the precious play hour was gone too. Marcia had only
+time to steal hurriedly into the parlor, close the instrument, and then
+fly about getting her dinner ready. But as she worked she had other
+thoughts to occupy her mind. She was becoming adjusted to her new
+environment and she found many unexpected things to make it hard. Here,
+for instance, was Hannah Heath. Why did there have to be a Hannah Heath?
+And what was Hannah Heath to her? Kate might feel jealous, indeed, but not
+she, not the unloved, unreal, wife of David. She should rather pity Hannah
+that David had not loved her instead of Kate, or pity David that he had
+not. But somehow she did not, somehow she could not. Somehow Hannah Heath
+had become a living, breathing enemy to be met and conquered. Marcia felt
+her fighting blood rising, felt the Schuyler in her coming to the front.
+However little there was in her wifehood, its name at least was hers. The
+tale that Miranda had told was enough, if it were true, to put any woman,
+however young she might be, into battle array. Marcia was puzzling her
+mind over the question that has been more or less of a weary burden to
+every woman since the fatal day that Eve made her great mistake.
+
+David was silent and abstracted at the dinner table, and Marcia absorbed
+in her own problems did not feel cut by it. She was trying to determine
+whether to blossom out in pink, or to be crushed and set aside into
+insignificance in blue, or to choose a happy medium and wear neither. She
+ventured a timid little question before David went away again: Did he,
+would he,--that is, was there any thing,--any word he would like to say to
+her? Would she have to do anything to-night?
+
+David looked at her in surprise. Why, no! He knew of nothing. Just go and
+speak pleasantly to every one. He was sure she knew what to do. He had
+always thought her very well behaved. She had manners like any woman. She
+need not feel shy. No one knew of her peculiar position, and he felt
+reasonably sure that the story would not soon get around. Her position
+would be thoroughly established before it did, at least. She need not feel
+uncomfortable. He looked down at her thinking he had said all that could
+be expected of him, but somehow he felt the trouble in the girl's eyes and
+asked her gently if there was anything more.
+
+"No," she said slowly, "unless, perhaps--I don't suppose you know what it
+would be proper for me to wear."
+
+"Oh, that does not matter in the least," he replied promptly. "Anything.
+You always look nice. Why, I'll tell you, wear the frock you had on the
+night I came." Then he suddenly remembered the reason why that was a
+pleasant memory to him, and that it was not for her sake at all, but for
+the sake of one who was lost to him forever. His face contracted with
+sudden pain, and Marcia, cut to the heart, read the meaning, and felt sick
+and sore too.
+
+"Oh, I could not wear that," she said sadly, "it is only chintz. It would
+not be nice enough, but thank you. I shall be all right. Don't trouble
+about me," and she forced a weak smile to light him from the house, and
+shut from his pained eyes the knowledge of how he had hurt her, for with
+those words of his had come the vision of herself that happy night as she
+stood at the gate in the stillness and moonlight looking from the portal
+of her maidenhood into the vista of her womanhood, which had seemed then
+so far away and bright, and was now upon her in sad reality. Oh, if she
+could but have caught that sentence of his about her little chintz frock
+to her heart with the joy of possession, and known that he said it because
+he too had a happy memory about her in it, as she had always felt the
+coming, misty, dream-expected lover would do!
+
+She spread the available frocks out upon the bed after the other things
+were put neatly away in closet and drawer, and sat down to decide the
+matter. David's suggestion while impossible had given her an idea, and she
+proceeded to carry it out. There was a soft sheer white muslin, whereon
+Kate had expended her daintiest embroidering, edged with the finest of
+little lace frills. It was quaint and simple and girlish, the sweetest,
+most simple affair in all of Kate's elaborate wardrobe, and yet, perhaps,
+from an artistic point of view, the most elegant. Marcia soon made up her
+mind.
+
+She dressed herself early, for David had said he would be home by four
+o'clock and they would start as soon after as he could get ready. His
+aunts wished to show her the old garden before dark.
+
+When she came to the arrangement of her hair she paused. Somehow her soul
+rebelled at the style of Kate. It did not suit her face. It did not accord
+with her feeling. It made her seem unlike herself, or unlike the self she
+would ever wish to be. It suited Kate well, but not her. With sudden
+determination she pulled it all down again from the top of her head and
+loosened its rich waves about her face, then loosely twisted it behind,
+low on her neck, falling over her delicate ears, until her head looked
+like that of an old Greek statue. It was not fashion, it was pure instinct
+the child was following out, and there was enough conformity to one of the
+fashionable modes of the day to keep her from looking odd. It was lovely.
+Marcia could not help seeing herself that it was much more becoming than
+the way she had arranged it for her marriage, though then she had had the
+wedding veil to soften the tightly drawn outlines of her head. She put on
+the sheer white embroidered frock then, and as a last touch pinned the bit
+of black velvet about her throat with a single pearl that had been her
+mother's. It was the bit of black velvet she had worn the night David
+came. It gave her pleasure to think that in so far she was conforming to
+his suggestion.
+
+She had just completed her toilet when she heard David's step coming up
+the walk.
+
+David, coming in out of the sunshine and beholding this beautiful girl in
+the coolness and shadow of the hall awaiting him shyly, almost started
+back as he rubbed his eyes and looked at her again. She was beautiful. He
+had to admit it to himself, even in the midst of his sadness, and he
+smiled at her, and felt another pang of condemnation that he had taken
+this beauty from some other man's lot perhaps, and appropriated it to
+shield himself from the world's exclamation about his own lonely life.
+
+"You have done it admirably. I do not see that there is anything left to
+be desired," he said in his pleasant voice that used to make her
+girl-heart flutter with pride that her new brother-to-be was pleased with
+her. It fluttered now, but there was a wider sweep to its wings, and a
+longer flight ahead of the thought.
+
+Quite demurely the young wife accepted her compliment, and then she meekly
+folded her little white muslin cape with its dainty frills about her
+pretty shoulders, drew on the new lace mitts, and tied beneath her chin
+the white strings of a shirred gauze bonnet with tiny rosebuds nestling in
+the ruching of tulle about the face.
+
+Once more the bride walked down the world the observed of all observers,
+the gazed at of the town, only this time it was brick pavement not oaken
+stairs she trod, and most of the eyes that looked upon her were sheltered
+behind green jalousies. None the less, however, was she conscious of them
+as she made her way to the house of solemn feasting with David by her
+side. Her eyes rested upon the ground, or glanced quietly at things in the
+distance, when they were not lifted for a moment in wifely humility to her
+husband's face at some word of his. Just as she imagined a hundred times
+in her girlish thoughts that her sister Kate would do, so did she, and
+after what seemed to her an interminable walk, though in reality it was
+but four village blocks, they arrived at the house of Spafford.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"This is your Aunt Clarinda!"
+
+There was challenge in the severely spoken pronoun Aunt Hortense used. It
+seemed to Marcia that she wished to remind her that all her old life and
+relations were passed away, and she had nothing now but David's,
+especially David's relatives. She shrank from lifting her eyes, expecting
+to find the third aunt, who was older, as much sourer and sharper in
+proportion to the other two, but she controlled herself and lifted her
+flower face to meet a gentle, meek, old face set in soft white frills of a
+cap, with white ribbons flying, and though the old lady leaned upon a
+crutch she managed to give the impression that she had fairly flown in her
+gladness to welcome her new niece. There was the lighting of a repressed
+nature let free in her kind old face as she looked with true pleasure upon
+the lovely young one, and Marcia felt herself folded in truly loving arms
+in an embrace which her own passionate, much repressed, loving nature
+returned with heartiness. At last she had found a friend!
+
+She felt it every time she spoke, more and more. They walked out into the
+garden almost immediately, and Aunt Clarinda insisted upon hobbling along
+by Marcia's side, though her sisters both protested that it would be too
+hard for her that warm afternoon. Every time that Marcia spoke she felt
+the kind old eyes upon her, and she knew that at least one of the aunts
+was satisfied with her as a wife for David, for her eyes would travel from
+David to Marcia and back again to David, and when they met Marcia's there
+was not a shade of disparagement in them.
+
+It was rather a tiresome walk through a tiresome old garden, laid out in
+the ways of the past generation, and bordered with much funereal box. The
+sisters, Amelia and Hortense, took the new member of the family,
+conscientiously, through every path, and faithfully told how each spot was
+associated with some happening in the family history. Occasionally there
+was a solemn pause for the purpose of properly impressing the new member
+of the house, and Amelia wiped her eyes with her carefully folded
+handkerchief. Marcia felt extremely like laughing. She was sure that if
+Kate had been obliged to pass through this ordeal she would have giggled
+out at once and said some shockingly funny thing that would have horrified
+the aunts beyond forgiveness. The thought of this nerved her to keep a
+sober face. She wondered what David thought of it all, but when she looked
+at him she wondered no longer, for David stood as one waiting for a
+certain ceremony to be over, a ceremony which he knew to be inevitable,
+but which was wholly and familiarly uninteresting. He did not even see how
+it must strike the girl who was going through it all for him, for David's
+thoughts were out on the flood-tide of sorrow, drifting against the rocks
+of the might-have-been.
+
+They went in to tea presently, just when the garden was growing loveliest
+with a tinge of the setting sun, and Marcia longed to run up and down the
+little paths like a child and call to them all to catch her if they could.
+The house was dark and stately and gloomy.
+
+"You are coming up to my room for a few minutes after supper," whispered
+Aunt Clarinda encouragingly as they passed into the dark hall. The supper
+table was alight with a fine old silver candelabra whose many wavering
+lights cast a solemn, grotesque shadow on the different faces.
+
+Beside her plate the young bride saw an ostentatious plate of puffy soda
+biscuits, and involuntarily her eyes searched the table for the bread
+plate.
+
+Aunt Clarinda almost immediately pounced upon the bread plate and passed
+it with a smile to Marcia, and as Marcia with an answering smile took a
+generous slice she heard the other two aunts exclaim in chorus, "Oh, don't
+pass her the bread, Clarinda; take it away sister, quick! She does not
+like salt-rising! It is unpleasant to her!"
+
+Then with blazing cheeks the girl protested that she wished to keep the
+bread, that they were mistaken, she had not said it was obnoxious to her,
+but had merely given them her stepmother's opinion when they asked. They
+must excuse her for her seeming rudeness, for she had not intended to hurt
+them. She presumed salt-rising bread was very nice; it looked beautiful.
+This was a long speech for shy Marcia to make before so many strangers,
+but David's wondering, troubled eyes were upon her, questioning what it
+all might mean, and she felt she could do anything to save David from more
+suffering or annoyance of any kind.
+
+David said little. He seemed to perceive that there had been an unpleasant
+prelude to this, and perhaps knew from former experience that the best way
+to do was to change the subject. He launched into a detailed account of
+their wedding journey. Marcia on her part was grateful to him, for when
+she took the first brave bite into the very puffy, very white slice of
+bread she had taken, she perceived that it was much worse than that which
+had been baked for their homecoming, and not only justified all her
+stepmother's execrations, but in addition it was sour. For an instant,
+perceiving down the horoscope of time whole calendars full of such suppers
+with the aunts, and this bread, her soul shuddered and shrank. Could she
+ever learn to like it? Impossible! Could she ever tolerate it? Could she?
+She doubted. Then she swallowed bravely and perceived that the impossible
+had been accomplished once. It could be again, but she must go slowly else
+she might have to eat two slices instead of one. David was kind. He had
+roused himself to help his helper. Perhaps something in her girlish beauty
+and helplessness, helpless here for his sake, appealed to him. At least
+his eyes sought hers often with a tender interest to see if she were
+comfortable, and once, when Aunt Amelia asked if they stopped nowhere for
+rest on their journey, his eyes sought Marcia's with a twinkling reminder
+of their roadside nap, and he answered, "Once, Aunt Amelia. No, it was not
+a regular inn. It was quieter than that. Not many people stopping there."
+
+Marcia's merry laugh almost bubbled forth, but she suppressed it just in
+time, horrified to think what Aunt Hortense would say, but somehow after
+David had said that her heart felt a trifle lighter and she took a big
+bite from the salt-rising and smiled as she swallowed it. There were worse
+things in the world, after all, than salt-rising, and, when one could
+smother it in Aunt Amelia's peach preserves, it was quite bearable.
+
+Aunt Clarinda slipped her off to her own room after supper, and left the
+other two sisters with their beloved idol, David. In their stately parlor
+lighted with many candles in honor of the occasion, they sat and talked in
+low tones with him, their voices suggesting condolence with his misfortune
+of having married out of the family, and disapproval with the married
+state in general. Poor souls! How their hard, loving hearts would have
+been wrung could they but have known the true state of the case! And,
+strange anomaly, how much deeper would have been their antagonism toward
+poor, self-sacrificing, loving Marcia! Just because she had dared to think
+herself fit for David, belonging as she did to her renegade sister Kate.
+But they did not know, and for this fact David was profoundly thankful.
+Those were not the days of rapid transit, of telegraph and telephone, nor
+even of much letter writing, else the story would probably have reached
+the aunts even before the bride and bridegroom arrived at home. As it was,
+David had some hope of keeping the tragedy of his life from the ears of
+his aunts forever. Patiently he answered their questions concerning the
+wedding, questions that were intended to bring out facts showing whether
+David had received his due amount of respect, and whether the family he
+had so greatly honored felt the burden of that honor sufficiently.
+
+Upstairs in a quaint old-fashioned room Aunt Clarinda was taking Marcia's
+face in her two wrinkled hands and looking lovingly into her eyes; then
+she kissed her on each rosy cheek and said:
+
+"Dear child! You look just as I did when I was young. You wouldn't think
+it from me now, would you? But it's true. I might not have grown to be
+such a dried-up old thing if I had had somebody like David. I'm so glad
+you've got David. He'll take good care of you. He's a dear boy. He's
+always been good to me. But you mustn't let the others crush those roses
+out of your cheeks. They crushed mine out. They wouldn't let me have my
+life the way I wanted it, and the pink in my cheeks all went back into my
+heart and burst it a good many years ago. But they can't spoil your life,
+for you've got David and that's worth everything."
+
+Then she kissed her on the lips and cheeks and eyes and let her go. But
+that one moment had given Marcia a glimpse into another life-story and put
+her in touch forever with Aunt Clarinda, setting athrob the chord of
+loving sympathy.
+
+When they came into the parlor the other two aunts looked up with a quick,
+suspicious glance from one to the other and then fastened disapproving
+eyes upon Marcia. They rather resented it that she was so pretty. Hannah
+had been their favorite, and Hannah was beautiful in their eyes. They
+wanted no other to outshine her. Albeit they would be proud enough before
+their neighbors to have it said that their nephew's wife was beautiful.
+
+After a chilling pause in which David was wondering anew at Marcia's
+beauty, Aunt Hortense asked, as though it were an omission from the former
+examination, "Did you ever make a shirt?"
+
+"Oh, plenty of them!" said Marcia, with a merry laugh, so relieved that
+she fairly bubbled. "I think I could make a shirt with my eyes shut."
+
+Aunt Clarinda beamed on her with delight. A shirt was something she had
+never succeeded in making right. It was one of the things which her
+sisters had against her that she could not make good shirts. Any one who
+could not make a shirt was deficient. Clarinda was deficient. She could
+not make a shirt. Meekly had she tried year after year. Humbly had she
+ripped out gusset and seam and band, having put them on upside down or
+inside out. Never could she learn the ins and outs of a shirt. But her old
+heart trembled with delight that the new girl, who was going to take the
+place in her heart of her old dead self and live out all the beautiful
+things which had been lost to her, had mastered this one great
+accomplishment in which she had failed so supremely.
+
+But Aunt Hortense was not pleased. True, it was one of the seven virtues
+in her mind which a young wife should possess, and she had carefully
+instructed Hannah Heath for a number of years back, while Hannah bungled
+out a couple for her father occasionally, but Aunt Hortense had been sure
+that if Hannah ever became David's wife she might still have the honor of
+making most of David's shirts. That had been her happy task ever since
+David had worn a shirt, and she hoped to hold the position of shirt-maker
+to David until she left this mortal clay. Therefore Aunt Hortense was not
+pleased, even though David's wife was not lacking, and, too, even though
+she foreheard herself telling her neighbors next day how many shirts
+David's wife had made.
+
+"Well, David will not need any for some time," she said grimly. "I made
+him a dozen just before he was married."
+
+Marcia reflected that it seemed to be impossible to make any headway into
+the good graces of either Aunt Hortense or Aunt Amelia. Aunt Amelia then
+took her turn at a question.
+
+"Hortense," said she, and there was an ominous inflection in the word as
+if the question were portentous, "have you asked our new niece by what
+name she desires us to call her?"
+
+"I have not," said Miss Hortense solemnly, "but I intend to do so
+immediately," and then both pairs of steely eyes were leveled at the girl.
+Marcia suddenly was face to face with a question she had not considered,
+and David started upright from his position on the hair-cloth sofa. But if
+a thunderbolt had fallen from heaven and rendered him utterly unconscious
+David would not have been more helpless than he was for the time being.
+Marcia saw the mingled pain and perplexity in David's face, and her own
+courage gathered itself to brave it out in some way. The color flew to her
+cheeks, and rose slowly in David's, through heavy veins that swelled in
+his neck till he could feel their pulsation against his stock, but his
+smooth shaven lips were white. He felt that a moment had come which he
+could not bear to face.
+
+Then with a hesitation that was but pardonable, and with a shy sweet look,
+Marcia answered; and though her voice trembled just the least bit, her
+true, dear eyes looked into the battalion of steel ones bravely.
+
+"I would like you to call me Marcia, if you please."
+
+"Marcia!" Miss Hortense snipped the word out as if with scissors of
+surprise.
+
+But there was a distinct relaxation about Miss Amelia's mouth. She heaved
+a relieved sigh. Marcia was so much better than Kate, so much more
+classical, so much more to be compared with Hannah, for instance.
+
+"Well, I'm glad!" she allowed herself to remark. "David has been calling
+you 'Kate' till it made me sick, such a frivolous name and no sense in it
+either. Marcia sounds quite sensible. I suppose Katharine is your middle
+name. Do you spell it with a K or a C?"
+
+But the knocker sounded on the street door and Marcia was spared the
+torture of a reply. She dared not look at David's face, for she knew there
+must be pain and mortification mingling there, and she hoped that the
+trying subject would not come up again for discussion.
+
+The guests began to arrive. Old Mrs. Heath and her daughter-in-law and
+grand-daughter came first.
+
+Hannah's features were handsome and she knew exactly how to manage her
+shapely hands with their long white fingers. The soft delicate
+undersleeves fell away from arms white and well moulded, and she carried
+her height gracefully. Her hair was elaborately stowed upon the top of her
+head in many puffs, ending in little ringlets carelessly and coquettishly
+straying over temple, or ears, or gracefully curved neck. She wore a frock
+of green, and its color sent a pang through the bride's heart to realize
+that perhaps it had been worn with an unkindly purpose. Nevertheless
+Hannah Heath was beautiful and fascinated Marcia. She resolved to try to
+think the best of her, and to make her a friend if possible. Why, after
+all, should she be to blame for wanting David? Was he not a man to be
+admired and desired? It was unwomanly, of course, that she had let it be
+known, but perhaps her relatives were more to blame than herself. At least
+Marcia made up her mind to try and like her.
+
+Hannah's frock was of silk, not a common material in those days, soft and
+shimmery and green enough to take away the heart from anything blue that
+was ever made, but Hannah was stately and her skin as white as the lily
+she resembled, in her bright leaf green.
+
+Hannah chose to be effusive and condescending to the bride, giving the
+impression that she and David had been like brother and sister all their
+lives and that she might have been his choice if she had chosen, but as
+she had not chosen, she was glad that David had found some one wherewith
+to console himself. She did not say all this in so many words, but Marcia
+found that impression left after the evening was over.
+
+With sweet dignity Marcia received her introductions, given in Miss
+Amelia's most commanding tone, "Our niece, Marcia!"
+
+"Marshy! Marshy!" the bride heard old Mrs. Heath murmur to Miss Spafford.
+"Why, I thought 'twas to be Kate!"
+
+"Her name is Marcia," said Miss Amelia in a most satisfied tone; "you must
+have misunderstood."
+
+Marcia caught a look in Miss Heath's eyes, alert, keen, questioning, which
+flashed all over her like something searching and bright but not friendly.
+
+She felt a painful shyness stealing over her and wished that David were by
+her side. She looked across the room at him. His face had recovered its
+usual calmness, though he looked pale. He was talking on his favorite
+theme with old Mr. Heath: the newly invented steam engine and its
+possibilities. He had forgotten everything else for the time, and his face
+lighted with animation as he tried to answer William Heath's arguments
+against it.
+
+"Have you read what the Boston _Courier_ said, David? 'Long in June it was
+I think," Marcia heard Mr. Heath ask. Indeed his voice was so large that
+it filled the room, and for the moment Marcia had been left to herself
+while some new people were being ushered in. "It says, David, that 'the
+project of a railroad from Bawston to Albany is impracticable as everybody
+knows who knows the simplest rule of arithmetic, and the expense would be
+little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts;
+and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows would be as
+useless as a railroad from Bawston to the moon.' There, David, what do ye
+think o' that?" and William Heath slapped David on the knee with his
+broad, fat fist and laughed heartily, as though he had him in a tight
+corner.
+
+Marcia would have given a good deal to slip in beside David on the sofa
+and listen to the discussion. She wanted with all her heart to know how he
+would answer this man who could be so insufferably wise, but there was
+other work for her, and her attention was brought back to her own
+uncomfortable part by Hannah Heath's voice:
+
+"Come right ovah heah, Mistah Skinnah, if you want to meet the bride. You
+must speak verra nice to me or I sha'n't introduce you at all."
+
+A tall lanky man with stiff sandy hair and a rubicund complexion was
+making his way around the room. He had a small mouth puckered a little as
+if he might be going to whistle, and his chin had the look of having been
+pushed back out of the way, a stiff fuzz of sandy whiskers made a hedge
+down either cheek, and but for that he was clean shaven. The skin over his
+high cheek bones was stretched smooth and tight as if it were a trifle too
+close a fit for the genial cushion beneath. He did not look brilliant, and
+he certainly was not handsome, but there was an inoffensive desire to
+please about him. He was introduced as Mr. Lemuel Skinner. He bowed low
+over Marcia's hand, said a few embarrassed, stiff sentences and turned to
+Hannah Heath with relief. It was evident that Hannah was in his eyes a
+great and shining light, to which he fluttered as naturally as does the
+moth to the candle. But Hannah did not scruple to singe his wings whenever
+she chose. Perhaps she knew, no matter how badly he was burned he would
+only flutter back again whenever she scintillated. She had turned her back
+upon him now, and left him to Marcia's tender mercies. Hannah was engaged
+in talking to a younger man. "Harry Temple, from New York," Lemuel
+explained to Marcia.
+
+The young man, Harry Temple, had large lazy eyes and heavy dark hair.
+There was a discontented look in his face, and a looseness about the set
+of his lips that Marcia did not like, although she had to admit that he
+was handsome. Something about him reminded her of Captain Leavenworth, and
+she instinctively shrank from him. But Harry Temple had no mind to talk to
+any one but Marcia that evening, and he presently so managed it that he
+and she were ensconced in a corner of the room away from others. Marcia
+felt perturbed. She did not feel flattered by the man's attentions, and
+she wanted to be at the other end of the room listening to the
+conversation.
+
+She listened as intently as she might between sentences, and her keen ears
+could catch a word or two of what David was saying. After all, it was not
+so much the new railroad project that she cared about, though that was
+strange and interesting enough, but she wanted to watch and listen to
+David.
+
+Harry Temple said a great many pretty things to Marcia. She did not half
+hear some of them at first, but after a time she began to realize that she
+must have made a good impression, and the pretty flush in her cheeks grew
+deeper. She did little talking. Mr. Temple did it all. He told her of New
+York. He asked if she were not dreadfully bored with this little town and
+its doings, and bewailed her lot when he learned that she had not had much
+experience there. Then he asked if she had ever been to New York and began
+to tell of some of its attractions. Among other things he mentioned some
+concerts, and immediately Marcia was all attention. Her dark eyes glowed
+and her speaking face gave eager response to his words. Seeing he had
+interested her at last, he kept on, for he was possessor of a glib tongue,
+and what he did not know he could fabricate without the slightest
+compunction. He had been about the world and gathered up superficial
+knowledge enough to help him do this admirably, therefore he was able to
+use a few musical terms, and to bring before Marcia's vivid imagination
+the scene of the performance of Handel's great "Creation" given in Boston,
+and of certain musical events that were to be attempted soon in New York.
+He admitted that he could play a little upon the harpsichord, and, when he
+learned that Marcia could play also and that she was the possessor of a
+piano, one of the latest improved makes, he managed to invite himself to
+play upon it. Marcia found to her dismay that she actually seemed to have
+invited him to come some afternoon when her husband was away. She had only
+said politely that she would like to hear him play sometime, and expressed
+her great delight in music, and he had done the rest, but in her
+inexperience somehow it had happened and she did not know what to do.
+
+It troubled her a good deal, and she turned again toward the other end of
+the room, where the attention of most of the company was riveted upon the
+group who were discussing the railroad, its pros and cons. David was the
+centre of that group.
+
+"Let us go over and hear what they are saying," she said, turning to her
+companion eagerly.
+
+"Oh, it is all stupid politics and arguments about that ridiculous
+fairy-tale of a railroad scheme. You would not enjoy it," answered the
+young man disappointedly. He saw in Marcia a beautiful young soul, the
+only one who had really attracted him since he had left New York, and he
+wished to become intimate enough with her to enjoy himself.
+
+It mattered not to him that she was married to another man. He felt secure
+in his own attractions. He had ever been able to while away the time with
+whom he chose, why should a simple village maiden resist him? And this was
+an unusual one, the contour of her head was like a Greek statue.
+
+Nevertheless he was obliged to stroll after her. Once she had spoken. She
+had suddenly become aware that they had been in their corner together a
+long time, and that Aunt Amelia's cold eyes were fastened upon her in
+disapproval.
+
+"The farmers would be ruined, man alive!" Mr. Heath was saying. "Why, all
+the horses would have to be killed, because they would be wholly useless
+if this new fandango came in, and then where would be a market for the
+wheat and oats?"
+
+"Yes, an' I've heard some say the hens wouldn't lay, on account of the
+noise," ventured Lemuel Skinner in his high voice. "And think of the fires
+from the sparks of the engine. I tell you it would be dangerous." He
+looked over at Hannah triumphantly, but Hannah was endeavoring to signal
+Harry Temple to her side and did not see nor hear.
+
+"I tell you," put in Mr. Heath's heavy voice again, "I tell you, Dave, it
+can't be done. It's impractical. Why, no car could advance against the
+wind."
+
+"They told Columbus he couldn't sail around the earth, but he did it!"
+
+There was sudden stillness in the room, for it was Marcia's clear, grave
+voice that had answered Mr. Heath's excited tones, and she had not known
+she was going to speak aloud. It came before she realized it. She had been
+used to speak her mind sometimes with her father, but seldom when there
+were others by, and now she was covered with confusion to think what she
+had done. The aunts, Amelia and Hortense, were shocked. It was so
+unladylike. A woman should not speak on such subjects. She should be
+silent and leave such topics to her husband.
+
+"Deah me, she's strong minded, isn't she?" giggled Hannah Heath to Lemuel,
+who had taken the signals to himself and come to her side.
+
+"Quite so, quite so!" murmured Lemuel, his lips looking puffier and more
+cherry-fied than ever and his chin flattened itself back till he looked
+like a frustrated old hen who did not understand the perplexities of life
+and was clucking to find out, after having been startled half out of its
+senses.
+
+But Marcia was not wholly without consolation, for David had flashed a
+look of approval at her and had made room for her to sit down by his side
+on the sofa. It was almost like belonging to him for a minute or two.
+Marcia felt her heart glow with something new and pleasant.
+
+Mr. William Heath drew his heavy grey brows together and looked at her
+grimly over his spectacles, poking his bristly under-lip out in
+astonishment, bewildered that he should have been answered by a gentle,
+pretty woman, all frills and sparkle like his own daughter. He had been
+wont to look upon a woman as something like a kitten,--that is, a young
+woman,--and suddenly the kitten had lifted a velvet paw and struck him
+squarely in the face. He had felt there were claws in the blow, too, for
+there had been a truth behind her words that set the room a mocking him.
+
+"Well, Dave, you've got your wife well trained already!" he laughed,
+concluding it was best to put a smiling front upon the defeat. "She knows
+just when to come in and help when your side's getting weak!"
+
+They served cake and raspberry vinegar then, and a little while after
+everybody went home. It was later than the hours usually kept in the
+village, and the lights in most of the houses were out, or burning dimly
+in upper stories. The voices of the guests sounded subdued in the misty
+waning moonlight air. Marcia could hear Hannah Heath's voice ahead
+giggling affectedly to Harry Temple and Lemuel Skinner, as they walked one
+on either side of her, while her father and mother and grandmother came
+more slowly.
+
+David drew Marcia's hand within his arm and walked with her quietly down
+the street, making their steps hushed instinctively that they might so
+seem more removed from the others. They were both tired with the unusual
+excitement and the strain they had been through, and each was glad of the
+silence of the other.
+
+But when they reached their own doorstep David said: "You spoke well,
+child. You must have thought about these things."
+
+Marcia felt a sob rising in a tide of joy into her throat. Then he was not
+angry with her, and he did not disapprove as the two aunts had done. Aunt
+Clarinda had kissed her good-night and murmured, "You are a bright little
+girl, Marcia, and you will make a good wife for David. You will come soon
+to see me, won't you?" and that had made her glad, but these words of
+David's were so good and so unexpected that Marcia could hardly hide her
+happy tears.
+
+"I was afraid I had been forward," murmured Marcia in the shadow of the
+front stoop.
+
+"Not at all, child, I like to hear a woman speak her mind,--that is,
+allowing she has any mind to speak. That can't be said of all women.
+There's Hannah Heath, for instance. I don't believe she would know a
+railroad project from an essay on ancient art."
+
+After that the house seemed a pleasant place aglow as they entered it, and
+Marcia went up to her rest with a lighter heart.
+
+But the child knew not that she had made a great impression that night
+upon all who saw her as being beautiful and wise.
+
+The aunts would not express it even to each other,--for they felt in duty
+bound to discountenance her boldness in speaking out before the men and
+making herself so prominent, joining in their discussions,--but each in
+spite of her convictions felt a deep satisfaction that their neighbors had
+seen what a beautiful and bright wife David had selected. They even felt
+triumphant over their favorite Hannah, and thought secretly that Marcia
+compared well with her in every way, but they would not have told this
+even to themselves, no, not for worlds.
+
+So the kindly gossipy town slept, and the young bride became a part of its
+daily life.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Life began to take on a more familiar and interesting aspect to Marcia
+after that. She had her daily round of pleasant household duties and she
+enjoyed them.
+
+There were many other gatherings in honor of the bride and groom,
+tea-drinkings and evening calls, and a few called in to a neighbor's house
+to meet them. It was very pleasant to Marcia as she became better
+acquainted with the people and grew to like some of them, only there was
+the constant drawback of feeling that it was all a pain and weariness to
+David.
+
+But Marcia was young, and it was only natural that she should enjoy her
+sudden promotion to the privileges of a matron, and the marked attention
+that was paid her. It was a mercy that her head was not turned, living as
+she did to herself, and with no one in whom she could confide. For David
+had shrunk within himself to such an extent that she did not like to
+trouble him with anything.
+
+It was only two days after the evening at the old Spafford house that
+David came home to tea with ashen face, haggard eyes and white lips. He
+scarcely tasted his supper and said he would go and lie down, that his
+head ached. Marcia heard him sigh deeply as he went upstairs. It was that
+afternoon that the post had brought him Kate's letter.
+
+Sadly Marcia put away the tea things, for she could not eat anything
+either, though it was an unusually inviting meal she had prepared. Slowly
+she went up to her room and sat looking out into the quiet, darkening
+summer night, wondering what additional sorrow had come to David.
+
+David's face looked like death the next morning when he came down. He
+drank a cup of coffee feverishly, then took his hat as if he would go to
+the office, but paused at the door and came back saying he would not go if
+Marcia would not mind taking a message for him. His head felt badly. She
+need only tell the man to go on with things as they had planned and say he
+was detained. Marcia was ready at once to do his bidding with quiet
+sympathy in her manner.
+
+She delivered her message with the frank straightforward look of a school
+girl, mingled with a touch of matronly dignity she was trying to assume,
+which added to her charm; and she smiled her open smile of comradeship,
+such as she would have dispensed about the old red school house at home,
+upon boys and girls alike, leaving the clerk and type-setters in a most
+subjected state, and ready to do anything in the service of their master's
+wife. It is to be feared that they almost envied David. They watched her
+as she moved gracefully down the street, and their eyes had a reverent
+look as they turned away from the window to their work, as though they had
+been looking upon something sacred.
+
+Harry Temple watched her come out of the office.
+
+She impressed him again as something fresh and different from the common
+run of maidens in the village. He lazily stepped from the store where he
+had been lounging and walked down the street to intercept her as she
+crossed and turned the corner.
+
+"Good morning, Mrs. Spafford," he said, with a courtly grace that was
+certainly captivating, "are you going to your home? Then our ways lie
+together. May I walk beside you?"
+
+Marcia smiled and tried to seem gracious, though she would rather have
+been alone just then, for she wanted to enjoy the day and not be bothered
+with talking.
+
+Harry Temple mentioned having a letter from a friend in Boston who had
+lately heard a great chorus rendered. He could not be quite sure of the
+name of the composer because he had read the letter hurriedly and his
+friend was a blind-writer, but that made no difference to Harry. He could
+fill in facts enough about the grandeur of the music from his own
+imagination to make up for the lack of a little matter like the name of a
+composer. He was keen enough to see that Marcia was more interested in
+music than in anything he said, therefore he racked his brains for all the
+music talk he had ever heard, and made up what he did not know, which was
+not hard to do, for Marcia was very ignorant on the subject.
+
+At the door they paused. Marcia was eager to get in. She began to wonder
+how David felt, and she longed to do something for him. Harry Temple
+looked at her admiringly, noted the dainty set of chin, the clear curve of
+cheek, the lovely sweep of eyelashes, and resolved to get better
+acquainted with this woman, so young and so lovely.
+
+"I have not forgotten my promise to play for you," he said lightly,
+watching to see if the flush of rose would steal into her cheek, and that
+deep light into her expressive eyes. "How about this afternoon? Shall you
+be at home and disengaged?"
+
+But welcome did not flash into Marcia's face as he had hoped. Instead a
+troubled look came into her eyes.
+
+"I am afraid it will not be possible this afternoon," said Marcia, the
+trouble in her eyes creeping into her voice. "That is--I expect to be at
+home, but--I am not sure of being disengaged."
+
+"Ah! I see!" he raised his eyebrows archly, looking her meanwhile straight
+in the eyes; "some one else more fortunate than I. Some one else coming?"
+
+Although Marcia did not in the least understand his insinuation, the color
+flowed into her cheeks in a hurry now, for she instinctively felt that
+there was something unpleasant in his tone, something below her standard
+of morals or culture, she did not quite know what. But she felt she must
+protect herself at any cost. She drew up a little mantle of dignity.
+
+"Oh, no," she said quickly, "I'm not expecting any one at all, but Mr.
+Spafford had a severe headache this morning, and I am not sure but the
+sound of the piano would make it worse. I think it would be better for you
+to come another time, although he may be better by that time."
+
+"Oh, I see! Your husband's at home!" said the young man with relief. His
+manner implied that he had a perfect understanding of something that
+Marcia did not mean nor comprehend.
+
+"I understand perfectly," he said, with another meaning smile as though he
+and she had a secret together; "I'll come some other time," and he took
+himself very quickly away, much to Marcia's relief. But the trouble did
+not go out of her eyes as she saw him turn the corner. Instead she went in
+and stood at the dining room window a long time looking out on the Heaths'
+hollyhocks beaming in the sun behind the picket fence, and wondered what
+he could have meant, and why he smiled in that hateful way. She decided
+she did not like him, and she hoped he would never come. She did not think
+she would care to hear him play. There was something about him that
+reminded her of Captain Leavenworth, and now that she saw it in him she
+would dislike to have him about.
+
+With a sigh she turned to the getting of a dinner which she feared would
+not be eaten. Nevertheless, she put more dainty thought in it than usual,
+and when it was done and steaming upon the table she went gently up and
+tapped on David's door. A voice hoarse with emotion and weariness
+answered. Marcia scarcely heard the first time.
+
+"Dinner is ready. Isn't your head any better,--David?" There was caressing
+in his name. It wrung David's heart. Oh, if it were but Kate, his Kate,
+his little bride that were calling him, how his heart would leap with joy!
+How his headache would disappear and he would be with her in an instant.
+
+For Kate's letter had had its desired effect. All her wrongdoings, her
+crowning outrage of his noble intentions, had been forgotten in the one
+little plaintive appeal she had managed to breathe in a minor wail
+throughout that treacherous letter, treacherous alike to her husband and
+to her lover. Just as Kate had always been able to do with every one about
+her, she had blinded him to her faults, and managed to put herself in the
+light of an abused, troubled maiden, who was in a predicament through no
+fault of her own, and sat in sorrow and a baby-innocence that was
+bewilderingly sweet.
+
+There had been times when David's anger had been hot enough to waft away
+this filmy mist of fancies that Kate had woven about herself and let him
+see the true Kate as she really was. At such times David would confess
+that she must be wholly heartless. That bright as she was it was
+impossible for her to have been so easily persuaded into running away with
+a man she did not love. He had never found it so easy to persuade her
+against her will. Did she love him? Had she truly loved him, and was she
+suffering now? His very soul writhed in agony to think of his bride the
+wife of another against her will. If he might but go and rescue her. If he
+might but kill that other man! Then his soul would be confronted with the
+thought of murder. Never before had he felt hate, such hate, for a human
+being. Then again his heart would soften toward him as he felt how the
+other must have loved her, Kate, his little wild rose! and there was a
+fellow feeling between them too, for had she not let him see that she did
+not half care aright for that other one? Then his mind would stop in a
+whirl of mingled feeling and he would pause, and pray for steadiness to
+think and know what was right.
+
+Around and around through this maze of arguing he had gone through the
+long hours of the morning, always coming sharp against the thought that
+there was nothing he could possibly do in the matter but bear it, and that
+Kate, after all, the Kate he loved with his whole soul, had done it and
+must therefore be to blame. Then he would read her letter over, burning
+every word of it upon his brain, until the piteous minor appeal would
+torture him once more and he would begin again to try to get hold of some
+thread of thought that would unravel this snarl and bring peace.
+
+Like a sound from another world came Marcia's sweet voice, its very
+sweetness reminding him of that other lost voice, whose tantalizing music
+floated about his imagination like a string of phantom silver bells that
+all but sounded and then vanished into silence.
+
+And while all this was going on, this spiritual torture, his living,
+suffering, physical self was able to summon its thoughts, to answer gently
+that he did not want any dinner; that his head was no better; that he
+thanked her for her thought of him; and that he would take the tea she
+offered if it was not too much trouble.
+
+Gladly, with hurried breath and fingers that almost trembled, Marcia
+hastened to the kitchen once more and prepared a dainty tray, not even
+glancing at the dinner table all so fine and ready for its guest, and back
+again she went to his door, an eager light in her eyes, as if she had
+obtained audience to a king.
+
+He opened the door this time and took the tray from her with a smile. It
+was a smile of ashen hue, and fell like a pall upon Marcia's soul. It was
+as if she had been permitted for a moment to gaze upon a martyred soul
+upon the rack. Marcia fled from it and went to her own room, where she
+flung herself on her knees beside her bed and buried her face in the
+pillows. There she knelt, unmindful of the dinner waiting downstairs,
+unmindful of the bright day that was droning on its hours. Whether she
+prayed she knew not, whether she was weeping she could not have told. Her
+heart was crying out in one great longing to have this cloud of sorrow
+that had settled upon David lifted.
+
+She might have knelt there until night had there not come the sound of a
+knock upon the front door. It startled her to her feet in an instant, and
+she hastily smoothed her rumpled hair, dashed some water on her eyes, and
+ran down.
+
+It was the clerk from the office with a letter for her. The post chaise
+had brought it that afternoon, and he had thought perhaps she would like
+to have it at once as it was postmarked from her home. Would she tell Mr.
+Spafford when he returned--he seemed to take it for granted that David was
+out of town for the day--that everything had been going on all right at the
+office during his absence and the paper was ready to send to press. He
+took his departure with a series of bows and smiles, and Marcia flew up to
+her room to read her letter. It was in the round unformed hand of Mary
+Ann. Marcia tore it open eagerly. Never had Mary Ann's handwriting looked
+so pleasant as at that moment. A letter in those days was a rarity at all
+times, and this one to Marcia in her distress of mind seemed little short
+of a miracle. It began in Mary Ann's abrupt way, and opened up to her the
+world of home since she had left it. But a few short days had passed,
+scarcely yet numbering into weeks, since she left, yet it seemed half a
+lifetime to the girl promoted so suddenly into womanhood without the
+accompanying joy of love and close companionship that usually makes
+desolation impossible.
+
+
+    "DEAR MARSH,"--the letter ran:--
+
+    "I expect you think queer of me to write you so soon. I ain't much
+    on writing you know, but something happened right after you
+    leaving and has kept right on happening that made me feel I kinder
+    like to tell you. Don't you mind the mistakes I make. I'm thankful
+    to goodness you ain't the school teacher or I'd never write 'slong
+    s' I'm living, but ennyhow I'm going to tell you all about it.
+
+    "The night you went away I was standing down by the gate under the
+    old elm. I had on my best things yet from the wedding, and I hated
+    to go in and have the day over and have to begin putting on my old
+    calico to-morrow morning again, and washing dishes just the same.
+    Seemed as if I couldn't bear to have the world just the same now
+    you was gone away. Well, I heard someone coming down the street,
+    and who do you think it was? Why, Hanford Weston. He came right up
+    to the gate and stopped. I don't know's he ever spoke two words to
+    me in my life except that time he stopped the big boys from
+    snow-balling me and told me to run along quick and git in the
+    school-house while he fit 'em. Well, he stopped and spoke, and he
+    looked so sad, seemed like I knew just what he was feeling sad
+    about, and I told him all about you getting married instead of
+    your sister. He looked at me like he couldn't move for a while and
+    his face was as white as that marble man in the cemetery over
+    Squire Hancock's grave. He grabbed the gate real hard and I
+    thought he was going to fall. He couldn't even move his lips for a
+    while. I felt just awful sorry for him. Something came in my
+    throat like a big stone and my eyes got all blurred with the
+    moonlight. He looked real handsome. I just couldn't help thinking
+    you ought to see him. Bimeby he got his voice back again, and we
+    talked a lot about you. He told me how he used to watch you when
+    you was a little girl wearing pantalettes. You used to sit in the
+    church pew across from his father's and he could just see your big
+    eyes over the top of the door. He says he always thought to
+    himself he would marry you when he grew up. Then when you began to
+    go to school and was so bright he tried hard to study and keep up
+    just to have you think him good enough for you. He owned up he was
+    a bad speller and he'd tried his level best to do better but it
+    didn't seem to come natural, and he thought maybe ef he was a good
+    farmer you wouldn't mind about the spelling. He hired out to his
+    father for the summer and he was trying with all his might to get
+    to be the kind of man t'would suit you, and then when he was
+    plowing and planning all what kind of a house with big columns to
+    the front he would build here comes the coach driving by and _you_
+    in it! He said he thought the sky and fields was all mixed up and
+    his heart was going out of him. He couldn't work any more and he
+    started out after supper to see what it all meant.
+
+    "That wasn't just the exact way he told it, Marsh, it was more
+    like poetry, that kind in our reader about "Lord Ullin's
+    daughter"--you know. We used to recite it on examination
+    exhibition. I didn't know Hanford could talk like that. His words
+    were real pretty, kind of sorrowful you know. And it all come over
+    me that you ought to know about it. You're married of course, and
+    can't help it now, but 'taint every girl that has a boy care for
+    her like that from the time she's a baby with a red hood on, and
+    you ought to know 'bout it, fer it wasn't Hanford's fault he
+    didn't have time to tell you. He's just been living fer you fer a
+    number of years, and its kind of hard on him. 'Course you may not
+    care, being you're married and have a fine house and lots of
+    clo'es of your own and a good time, but it does seem hard for him.
+    It seems as if somebody ought to comfort him. I'd like to try if
+    you don't mind. He does seem to like to talk about you to me, and
+    I feel so sorry for him I guess I could comfort him a little, for
+    it seems as if it would be the nicest thing in the world to have
+    some one like you that way for years, just as they do in books,
+    only every time I think about being a comfort to him I think he
+    belongs to you and it ain't right. So Marsh, you just speak out
+    and say if your willing I should try to comfort him a little and
+    make up to him fer what he lost in you, being as you're married
+    and fixed so nice yourself.
+
+    "Of course I know I aint pretty like you, nor can't hold my head
+    proud and step high as you always did, even when you was little,
+    but I can feel, and perhaps that's something. Anyhow Hanford's
+    been down three times to talk about you to me, and ef you don't
+    mind I'm going to let him come some more. But if you mind the
+    leastest little bit I want you should say so, for things are mixed
+    in this world and I don't want to get to trampling on any other
+    person's feelings, much less you who have always been my best
+    friend and always will be as long as I live I guess. 'Member how
+    we used to play house on the old flat stone in the orchard, and
+    you give me all the prettiest pieces of china with sprigs on 'em?
+    I aint forgot that, and never will. I shall always say you made
+    the prettiest bride I ever saw, no matter how many more I see, and
+    I hope you won't forget me. It's lonesome here without you. If it
+    wasn't for comforting Hanford I shouldn't care much for anything.
+    I can't think of you a grown up woman. Do you feel any different?
+    I spose you wouldn't climb a fence nor run through the pasture lot
+    for anything now. Have you got a lot of new friends? I wish I
+    could see you. And now Marsh, I want you to write right off and
+    tell me what to do about comforting Hanford, and if you've any
+    message to send to him I think it would be real nice. I hope
+    you've got a good husband and are happy.
+
+                       "From your devoted and loving school mate,
+
+                                                "MARY ANN FOTHERGILL."
+
+
+Marcia laid down the letter and buried her face in her hands. To her too
+had come a thrust which must search her life and change it. So while David
+wrestled with his sorrow Marcia entered upon the knowledge of her own
+heart.
+
+There was something in this revelation by Mary Ann of Hanford Weston's
+feelings toward her that touched her immeasurably. Had it all happened
+before she left home, had Hanford come to her and told her of his love,
+she would have turned from him in dismay, almost disgust, and have told
+him that they were both but children, how could they talk of love. She
+could never have loved him. She would have felt it instantly, and her
+mocking laugh might have done a good deal toward saving him from sorrow.
+But now, with miles between them, with the wall of the solemn marriage
+vows to separate them forever, with her own youth locked up as she
+supposed until the day of eternity should perhaps set it free, with no
+hope of any bright dream of life such as girls have, could she turn from
+even a school boy's love without a passing tenderness, such as she would
+never have felt if she had not come away from it all? Told in Mary Ann's
+blunt way, with her crude attempts at pathos, it reached her as it could
+not otherwise. With her own new view of life she could sympathize better
+with another's disappointments. Perhaps her own loneliness gave her pity
+for another. Whatever it was, Marcia's heart suddenly turned toward
+Hanford Weston with a great throb of gratitude. She felt that she had been
+loved, even though it had been impossible for that love to be returned,
+and that whatever happened she would not go unloved down to the end of her
+days. Suddenly, out of the midst of the perplexity of her thoughts, there
+formed a distinct knowledge of what was lacking in her life, a lack she
+had never felt before, and probably would not have felt now had she not
+thus suddenly stepped into a place much beyond her years. It seemed to the
+girl as she sat in the great chintz chair and read and re-read that
+letter, as if she lived years that afternoon, and all her life was to be
+changed henceforth. It was not that she was sorry that she could not go
+back, and live out her girlhood and have it crowned with Hanford Weston's
+love. Not at all. She knew, as well now as she ever had known, that he
+could never be anything to her, but she knew also, or thought she knew,
+that he could have given her something, in his clumsy way, that now she
+could never have from any man, seeing she was David's and David could not
+love her that way, of course.
+
+Having come to this conclusion, she arose and wrote a letter giving and
+bequeathing to Mary Ann Fothergill all right, title, and claim to the
+affections of Hanford Weston, past, present, and future--sending him a
+message calculated to smooth his ruffled feelings, with her pretty thanks
+for his youthful adoration; comfort his sorrow with the thought that it
+must have been a hallucination, that some day he would find his true ideal
+which he had only thought he had found in her; and send him on his way
+rejoicing with her blessings and good wishes for a happy life. As for Mary
+Ann, for once she received her meed of Marcia's love, for homesick Marcia
+felt more tenderness for her than she had ever been able to feel before;
+and Marcia's loving messages set Mary Ann in a flutter of delight, as she
+laid her plans for comforting Hanford Weston.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+David slowly recovered his poise. Faced by that terrible, impenetrable
+wall of impossibility he stood helpless, his misery eating in upon his
+soul, but there still remained the fact that there was nothing, absolutely
+nothing, which he could possibly do. At times the truth rose to the
+surface, the wretched truth, that Kate was at fault, that having done the
+deed she should abide by it, and not try to keep a hold upon him, but it
+was not often he was able to think in this way. Most of the time he
+mourned over and for the lovely girl he had lost.
+
+As for Marcia, she came and went unobtrusively, making quiet comfort for
+David which he scarcely noticed. At times he roused himself to be polite
+to her, and made a labored effort to do something to amuse her, just as if
+she had been visiting him as a favor and he felt in duty bound to make the
+time pass pleasantly, but she troubled him so little with herself, that
+nearly always he forgot her. Whenever there was any public function to
+which they were bidden he always told her apologetically, as though it
+must be as much of a bore to her as to him, and he regretted that it was
+necessary to go in order to carry out their mutual agreement. Marcia,
+hailing with delight every chance to go out in search of something which
+would keep her from thinking the new thoughts which had come to her,
+demurely covered her pleasure and dressed herself dutifully in the robes
+made for her sister, hating them secretly the while, and was always ready
+when he came for her. David had nothing to complain of in his wife, so far
+as outward duty was concerned, but he was too busy with his own heart's
+bitterness to even recognize it.
+
+One afternoon, of a day when David had gone out of town not expecting to
+return until late in the evening, there came a knock at the door.
+
+There was something womanish in the knock, Marcia thought, as she hastened
+to answer it, and she wondered, hurriedly smoothing her shining hair, if
+it could be the aunts come to make their fortnightly-afternoon penance
+visit. She gave a hasty glance into the parlor hoping all was right, and
+was relieved to make sure she had closed the piano. The aunts would
+consider it a great breach of housewifely decorum to allow a moment's dust
+to settle upon its sacred keys.
+
+But it was not the aunts who stood upon the stoop, smiling and bowing with
+a handsome assurance of his own welcome. It was Harry Temple.
+
+Marcia was not glad to see him. A sudden feeling of unreasoning alarm took
+possession of her.
+
+"You're all alone this time, sweet lady, aren't you?" he asked with easy
+nonchalance, as he lounged into the hall without waiting her bidding.
+
+"Sir!" said Marcia, half frightened, half wondering.
+
+But he smiled reassuringly down upon her and took the door knob in his own
+hands to close the door.
+
+"Your good man is out this time, isn't he?" he smiled again most
+delightfully. His face was very handsome when he smiled. He knew this fact
+well.
+
+Marcia did not smile. Why did he speak as if he knew where David was, and
+seemed to be pleased that he was away?
+
+"My husband is not in at present," she said guardedly, her innocent eyes
+searching his face, "did you wish to see him?"
+
+She was beautiful as she stood there in the wide hall, with only the light
+from the high transom over the door, shedding an afternoon glow through
+its pleated Swiss oval. She looked more sweet and little-girlish than
+ever, and he felt a strong desire to take her in his arms and tell her so,
+only he feared, from something he saw in those wide, sweet eyes, that she
+might take alarm and run away too soon, so he only smiled and said that
+his business with her husband could wait until another time, and meantime
+he had called to fulfil his promise to play for her.
+
+She took him into the darkened parlor, gave him the stiffest and
+stateliest hair-cloth chair; but he walked straight over to the
+instrument, and with not at all the reverence she liked to treat it, flung
+back the coverings, threw the lid open, and sat down.
+
+He had white fingers, and he ran them over the keys with an air of being
+at home among them, light little airs dripping from his touch like dew
+from a glistening grass blade. Marcia felt there were butterflies in the
+air, and buzzing bees, and fairy flowers dancing on the slightest of
+stems, with a sky so blue it seemed to be filled with the sound of lily
+bells. The music he played was of the nature of what would be styled
+to-day "popular," for this man was master of nothing but having a good
+time. Quick music with a jingle he played, that to the puritanic-bred girl
+suggested nothing but a heart bubbling over with gladness, but he meant it
+should make her heart flutter and her foot beat time to the tripping
+measure. In his world feet were attuned to gay music. But Marcia stood
+with quiet dignity a little away from the instrument, her lips parted, her
+eyes bright with the pleasure of the melody, her hands clasped, and her
+breath coming quickly. She was all absorbed with the music. All
+unknowingly Marcia had placed herself where the light from the window fell
+full across her face, and every flitting expression as she followed the
+undulant sounds was visible. The young man gazed, almost as much pleased
+with the lovely face as Marcia was with the music.
+
+At last he drew a chair quite near his own seat.
+
+"Come and sit down," he said, "and I will sing to you. You did not know I
+could sing, too, did you? Oh, I can. But you must sit down for I couldn't
+sing right when you are standing."
+
+He ended with his fascinating smile, and Marcia shyly sat down, though she
+drew the chair a bit back from where he had placed it and sat up quite
+straight and stiff with her shoulders erect and her head up. She had
+forgotten her distrust of the man in what seemed to her his wonderful
+music. It was all new and strange to her, and she could not know how
+little there really was to it. She had decided as he played that she liked
+the kind best that made her think of the birds and the sunny sky, rather
+than the wild whirlly kind that seemed all a mad scramble. She meant to
+ask him to play over again what he played at the beginning, but he struck
+into a Scotch love ballad. The melody intoxicated her fancy, and her face
+shone with pleasure. She had not noticed the words particularly, save that
+they were of love, and she thought with pain of David and Kate, and how
+the pleading tenderness might have been his heart calling to hers not to
+forget his love for her. But Harry Temple mistook her expression for one
+of interest in himself. With his eyes still upon hers, as a cat might
+mesmerize a bird, he changed into a minor wail of heart-broken love, whose
+sadness brought great tears to Marcia's eyes, and deep color to her
+already burning cheeks, while the music throbbed out her own half-realized
+loneliness and sorrow. It was as if the sounds painted for her a picture
+of what she had missed out of love, and set her sorrow flowing tangibly.
+
+The last note died away in an impressive diminuendo, and the young man
+turned toward her. His eyes were languishing, his voice gentle,
+persuasive, as though it had but been the song come a little nearer.
+
+"And that is the way I feel toward you, dear," he said, and reached out
+his white hands to where hers lay forgotten in her lap.
+
+But his hands had scarcely touched hers, before Marcia sprang back, in her
+haste knocking over the chair.
+
+Erect, her hands snatched behind her, frightened, alert, she stood a
+moment bewildered, all her fears to the front.
+
+Ah! but he was used to shy maidens. He was not to be baffled thus. A
+little coaxing, a little gentle persuasion, a little boldness--that was all
+he needed. He had conquered hearts before, why should he not this
+unsophisticated one?
+
+"Don't be afraid, dear; there is no one about. And surely there is no harm
+in telling you I love you, and letting you comfort my poor broken heart to
+think that I have found you too late--"
+
+He had arisen and with a passionate gesture put his arms about Marcia and
+before she could know what was coming had pressed a kiss upon her lips.
+
+But she was aroused now. Every angry force within her was fully awake.
+Every sense of right and justice inherited and taught came flocking
+forward. Horror unspeakable filled her, and wrath, that such a dreadful
+thing should come to her. There was no time to think. She brought her two
+strong supple hands up and beat him in the face, mouth, cheeks, and eyes,
+with all her might, until he turned blinded; and then she struggled away
+crying, "You are a wicked man!" and fled from the room.
+
+Out through the hall she sped to the kitchen, and flinging wide the door
+before her, the nearest one at hand, she fairly flew down the garden walk,
+past the nodding dahlias, past the basking pumpkins, past the whispering
+corn, down through the berry bushes, at the lower end of the lot, and
+behind the currant bushes. She crouched a moment looking back to see if
+she were pursued. Then imagining she heard a noise from the open door, she
+scrambled over the low back fence, the high comb with which her hair was
+fastened falling out unheeded behind her, and all her dark waves of hair
+coming about her shoulders in wild disarray.
+
+She was in a field of wheat now, and the tall shocks were like waves all
+about her, thick and close, kissing her as she passed with their bended
+stalks. Ahead of her it looked like an endless sea to cross before she
+could reach another fence, and a bare field, and then another fence and
+the woods. She knew not that in her wake she left a track as clear as if
+she had set up signals all along the way. She felt that the kind wheat
+would flow back like real waves and hide the way she had passed over. She
+only sped on, to the woods. In all the wide world there seemed no refuge
+but the woods. The woods were home to her. She loved the tall shadows, the
+whispering music in the upper branches, the quiet places underneath, the
+hushed silence like a city of refuge with cool wings whereunder to hide.
+And to it, as her only friend, she was hastening. She went to the woods as
+she would have flown to the minister's wife at home, if she only had been
+near, and buried her face in her lap and sobbed out her horror and shame.
+Breathless she sped, without looking once behind her, now over the next
+fence and still another. They were nothing to her. She forgot that she was
+wearing Kate's special sprigged muslin, and that it might tear on the
+rough fences. She forgot that she was a matron and must not run wild
+through strange fields. She forgot that some one might be watching her.
+She forgot everything save that she must get away and hide her poor shamed
+face.
+
+At last she reached the shelter of the woods, and, with one wild furtive
+look behind her to assure herself that she was not pursued, she flung
+herself into the lap of mother earth, and buried her face in the soft moss
+at the foot of a tree. There she sobbed out her horror and sorrow and
+loneliness, sobbed until it seemed to her that her heart had gone out with
+great shudders. Sobbed and sobbed and sobbed! For a time she could not
+even think clearly. Her brain was confused with the magnitude of what had
+come to her. She tried to go over the whole happening that afternoon and
+see if she might have prevented anything. She blamed herself most
+unmercifully for listening to the foolish music and, too, after her own
+suspicions had been aroused, though how could she dream any man in his
+senses would do a thing like that! Not even Captain Leavenworth would
+stoop to that, she thought. Poor child! She knew so little of the world,
+and her world had been kept so sweet and pure and free from contamination.
+She turned cold at the thought of her father's anger if he should hear
+about this strange young man. She felt sure he would blame her for
+allowing it. He had tried to teach his girls that they must exercise
+judgment and discretion, and surely, surely, she must have failed in both
+or this would not have happened. Oh, why had not the aunts come that
+afternoon! Why had they not arrived before this man came! And yet, oh,
+horror! if they had come after he was there! How disgusting he seemed to
+her with his smirky smile, and slim white fingers! How utterly unfit
+beside David did he seem to breathe the same air even. David, her
+David--no, Kate's David! Oh, pity! What a pain the world was!
+
+There was nowhere to turn that she might find a trace of comfort. For what
+would David say, and how could she ever tell him? Would he find it out if
+she did not? What would he think of her? Would he blame her? Oh, the agony
+of it all! What would the aunts think of her! Ah! that was worse than all,
+for even now she could see the tilt of Aunt Hortense's head, and the purse
+of Aunt Amelia's lips. How dreadful if they should have to know of it.
+They would not believe her, unless perhaps Aunt Clarinda might. She did
+not look wise, but she seemed kind and loving. If it had not been for the
+other two she might have fled to Aunt Clarinda. Oh, if she might but flee
+home to her father's house! How could she ever go back to David's house!
+How could she ever play on that dreadful piano again? She would always see
+that hateful, smiling face sitting there and think how he had looked at
+her. Then she shuddered and sobbed harder than ever. And mother earth,
+true to all her children, received the poor child with open arms. There
+she lay upon the resinous pine needles, at the foot of the tall trees, and
+the trees looked down tenderly upon her and consulted in whispers with
+their heads bent together. The winds blew sweetness from the buckwheat
+fields in the valley about her, murmuring delicious music in the air above
+her, and even the birds hushed their loud voices and peeped curiously at
+the tired, sorrowful creature of another kind that had come among them.
+
+Marcia's overwrought nerves were having their revenge. Tears had their way
+until she was worn out, and then the angel of sleep came down upon her.
+There upon the pine-needle bed, with tear-wet cheeks she lay, and slept
+like a tired child come home to its mother from the tumult of the world.
+
+Harry Temple, recovering from his rebuff, and left alone in the parlor,
+looked about him with surprise. Never before in all his short and
+brilliant career as a heart breaker had he met with the like, and this
+from a mere child! He could not believe his senses! She must have been in
+play. He would sit still and presently she would come back with eyes full
+of mischief and beg his pardon. But even as he sat down to wait her
+coming, something told him he was mistaken and that she would not come.
+There had been something beside mischief in the smart raps whose tingle
+even now his cheeks and lips felt. The house, too, had grown strangely
+hushed as though no one else besides himself were in it. She must have
+gone out. Perhaps she had been really frightened and would tell somebody!
+How awkward if she should presently return with one of those grim aunts,
+or that solemn puritan-like husband of hers. Perhaps he had better decamp
+while the coast was still clear. She did not seem to be returning and
+there was no telling what the little fool might do.
+
+With a deliberation which suddenly became feverish in his haste to be
+away, he compelled himself to walk slowly, nonchalantly out through the
+hall. Still as a thief he opened and closed the front door and got himself
+down the front steps, but not so still but that a quick ear caught the
+sound of the latch as it flew back into place, and the scrape of a boot on
+the path; and not so invisibly nor so quickly but that a pair of keen eyes
+saw him.
+
+When Harry Temple had made his way toward the Spafford house that
+afternoon, with his dauntless front and conceited smile, Miranda had been
+sent out to pick raspberries along the fence that separated the Heath
+garden from the Spafford garden.
+
+Harry Temple was too new in the town not to excite comment among the young
+girls wherever he might go, and Miranda was always having her eye out for
+anything new. Not for herself! Bless you! no! Miranda never expected
+anything from a young man for herself, but she was keenly interested in
+what befell other girls.
+
+So Miranda, crouched behind the berry bushes, watched Harry Temple saunter
+down the street and saw with surprise that he stopped at the house of her
+new admiration. Now, although Marcia was a married woman, Miranda felt
+pleased that she should have the attention of others, and a feeling of
+pride in her idol, and of triumph over her cousin Hannah that he had not
+stopped to see her, swelled in her brown calico breast.
+
+She managed to bring her picking as near to the region of the Spafford
+parlor windows as possible, and much did her ravished ear delight itself
+in the music that tinkled through the green shaded window, for Miranda had
+tastes that were greatly appealed to by the gay dance music. She fancied
+that her idol was the player. But then she heard a man's voice, and her
+picking stopped short insomuch that her grandmother's strident tones
+mingled with the liquid tenor of Mr. Temple, calling to Miranda to "be
+spry there or the sun'll catch you 'fore you get a quart." All at once the
+music ceased, and then in a minute or two Miranda heard the Spafford
+kitchen door thrown violently open and saw Marcia rush forth.
+
+She gazed in astonishment, too surprised to call out to her, or to
+remember to keep on picking for a moment. She watched her as she fairly
+flew down between the rows of currant bushes, saw the comb fly from her
+hair, saw the glow of excitement on her cheek, and the fire in her eye,
+saw her mount the first fence. Then suddenly a feeling of protection arose
+within her, and, with a hasty glance toward her grandmother's window to
+satisfy herself that no one else saw the flying figure, she fell to
+picking with all her might, but what went into her pail, whether
+raspberries or green leaves or briars, she did not know. Her eyes were on
+the flying figure through the wheat, and she progressed in her picking
+very fast toward the lower end of the lot where nothing but runty old sour
+berries ever grew, if any at all. Once hidden behind the tall corn that
+grew between her and her grandmother's vigilant gaze, she hastened to the
+end of the lot and watched Marcia; watched her as she climbed the fences,
+held her breath at the daring leaps from the top rails, expecting to see
+the delicate muslin catch on the rough fence and send the flying figure to
+the ground senseless perhaps. It was like a theatre to Miranda, this
+watching the beautiful girl in her flight, the long dark hair in the wind,
+the graceful untrammeled bounds. Miranda watched with unveiled admiration
+until the dark of the green-blue wood had swallowed her up, then slowly
+her eyes traveled back over the path which Marcia had taken, back through
+the meadow and the wheat, to the kitchen door left standing wide. Slowly,
+painfully, Miranda set herself to understand it. Something had happened!
+That was flight with fear behind it, fear that left everything else
+forgotten. What had happened?
+
+Miranda was wiser in her generation than Marcia. She began to put two and
+two together. Her brows darkened, and a look of cunning came into her
+honest blue eyes. Stealthily she crept with cat-like quickness along the
+fence near to the front, and there she stood like a red-haired Nemesis in
+a sunbonnet, with irate red face, confronting the unsuspecting man as he
+sauntered forth from the unwelcoming roof where he had whiled away a
+mistaken hour.
+
+"What you ben sayin' to her?"
+
+It was as if a serpent had stung him, so unexpected, so direct. He jumped
+aside and turned deadly pale. She knew her chance arrow had struck the
+truth. But he recovered himself almost immediately when he saw what a
+harmless looking creature had attacked him.
+
+"Why, my dear girl," he said patronizingly, "you quite startled me! I'm
+sure you must have made some mistake!"
+
+"I ain't your girl, thank goodness!" snapped Miranda, "and I guess by your
+looks there ain't anybody 'dear' to you but yourself. But I ain't made a
+mistake. It's you I was asking. _What you bin in there for?_" There was a
+blaze of defiance in Miranda's eyes, and her stubby forefinger pointed at
+him like a shotgun. Before her the bold black eyes quailed for an instant.
+The young man's hand sought his pocket, brought out a piece of money and
+extended it.
+
+"Look here, my friend," he said trying another line, "you take this and
+say nothing more about it. That's a good girl. No harm's been done."
+
+Miranda looked him in the face with noble scorn, and with a sudden motion
+of her brown hand sent the coin flying on the stone pavement.
+
+"I tell you I'm not your friend, and I don't want your money. I wouldn't
+trust its goodness any more than your face. As fer keepin' still I'll do
+as I see fit about it. I intend to know what this means, and if you've
+made _her_ any trouble you'd better leave this town, for I'll make it too
+unpleasant fer you to stay here!"
+
+With a stealthy glance about him, cautious, concerned, the young man
+suddenly hurried down the street. He wanted no more parley with this
+loud-voiced avenging maiden. His fear came back upon him in double force,
+and he was seen to glance at his watch and quicken his pace almost to a
+run as though a forgotten engagement had suddenly come to mind. Miranda,
+scowling, stood and watched him disappear around the corner, then she
+turned back and began to pick raspberries with a diligence that would have
+astonished her grandmother had she not been for the last hour engaged with
+a calling neighbor in the room at the other side of the house, where they
+were overhauling the character of a fellow church member.
+
+Miranda picked on, and thought on, and could not make up her mind what she
+ought to do. From time to time she glanced anxiously toward the woods, and
+then at the lowering sun in the West, and half meditated going after
+Marcia, but a wholesome fear of her grandmother held her hesitating.
+
+At length she heard a firm step coming down the street. Could it be? Yes,
+it was David Spafford. How was it he happened to come home so soon?
+Miranda had heard in a round-about-way, as neighbors hear and know these
+things, that David had taken the stage that morning, presumably on
+business to New York, and was hardly expected to return for several days.
+She had wondered if Marcia would stay all night alone in the house or if
+she would go to the aunts. But now here was David!
+
+Miranda looked again over the wheat, half expecting to see the flying
+figure returning in haste, but the parted wheat waved on and sang its song
+of the harvest, unmindful and alone, with only a fluttering butterfly to
+give life to the landscape. A little rusty-throated cricket piped a
+doleful sentence now and then between the silences.
+
+David Spafford let himself in at his own door, and went in search of
+Marcia.
+
+He wanted to find Marcia for a purpose. The business which had taken him
+away in the morning, and which he had hardly expected to accomplish before
+late that night, had been partly transacted at a little tavern where the
+coach horses had been changed that morning, and where he had met most
+unexpectedly the two men whom he had been going to see, who were coming
+straight to his town. So he turned him back with them and came home, and
+they were at this minute attending to some other business in the town,
+while he had come home to announce to Marcia that they would take supper
+with him and perhaps spend the night.
+
+Marcia was nowhere to be found. He went upstairs and timidly knocked at
+her door, but no answer came. Then he thought she might be asleep and
+knocked louder, but only the humming-bird in the honeysuckle outside her
+window sent back a little humming answer through the latch-hole. Finally
+he ventured to open the door and peep in, but he saw that quiet loneliness
+reigned there.
+
+He went downstairs again and searched in the pantry and kitchen and then
+stood still. The back door was stretched open as though it had been thrown
+back in haste. He followed its suggestion and went out, looking down the
+little brick path that led to the garden. Ah! what was that? Something
+gleamed in the sun with a spot of blue behind it. The bit of blue ribbon
+she had worn at her throat, with a tiny gold brooch unclasped sticking in.
+
+Miranda caught sight of him coming, and crouched behind the currants.
+
+David came on searching the path on every side. A bit of a branch had been
+torn from a succulent, tender plant that leaned over the path and was
+lying in the way. It seemed another blaze along the trail. Further down
+where the bushes almost met a single fragment of a thread waved on a thorn
+as though it had snatched for more in the passing and had caught only
+this. David hardly knew whether he was following these little things or
+not, but at any rate they were apparently not leading him anywhere for he
+stopped abruptly in front of the fence and looked both ways behind the
+bushes that grew along in front of it. Then he turned to go back again.
+Miranda held her breath. Something touched David's foot in turning, and,
+looking down, he saw Marcia's large shell comb lying there in the grass.
+Curiously he picked it up and examined it. It was like finding fragments
+of a wreck along the sand.
+
+All at once Miranda arose from her hiding place and confronted him
+timidly. She was not the same Miranda who came down upon Harry Temple,
+however.
+
+"She ain't in the house," she said hoarsely. "She's gone over there!"
+
+David Spafford turned surprised.
+
+"Is that you, Miranda? Oh, thank you! Where do you say she has gone?
+Where?"
+
+"Through there, don't you see?" and again the stubby forefinger pointed to
+the rift in the wheat.
+
+David gazed stupidly at the path in the wheat, but gradually it began to
+dawn upon him that there was a distinct line through it where some one
+must have gone.
+
+"Yes, I see," he said thinking aloud, "but why should she have gone there?
+There is nothing over there."
+
+"She went on further, she went to the woods," said Miranda, looking
+fearfully around lest even now her grandmother might be upon her, "and she
+was scared, I guess. She looked it. Her hair all come tumblin' down when
+she clum the fence, an' she just went flyin' over like some bird, didn't
+care a feather if she did fall, an' she never oncet looked behind her till
+she come to the woods."
+
+David's bewilderment was growing uncomfortable. There was a shade of alarm
+in his face and of the embarrassment one feels when a neighbor divulges
+news about a member of one's own household.
+
+"Why, surely, Miranda, you must be mistaken. Maybe it was some one else
+you saw. I do not think Mrs. Spafford would be likely to run over there
+that way, and what in the world would she have to be frightened at?"
+
+"No, I ain't mistaken," said Miranda half sullenly, nettled at his
+unbelief. "It was her all right. She came flyin' out the kitchen door when
+I was picking raspberries, and down that path to the fence, and never
+stopped fer fence ner wheat, ner medder lot, but went into them woods
+there, right up to the left of them tall pines, and she,--she looked plum
+scared to death 's if a whole circus menagerie was after her, lions and
+'nelefunts an' all. An' I guess she had plenty to be scared at ef I ain't
+mistaken. That dandy Temple feller went there to call on her, an' I heard
+him tinklin' that music box, and its my opinion he needs a wallupin'! You
+better go after her! It's gettin' late and you'll have hard times finding
+her in the dark. Just you foller her path in the wheat, and then make fer
+them pines. I'd a gone after her myself only grandma'd make sech a fuss,
+and hev to know it all. You needn't be afraid o' me. I'll keep still."
+
+By this time David was thoroughly alive to the situation and much alarmed.
+He mounted the fence with alacrity, gave one glance with "thank you" at
+Miranda, and disappeared through the wheat, Miranda watched him till she
+was sure he was making for the right spot, then with a sigh of relief she
+hastened into the house with her now brimming pail of berries.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XV
+
+
+As David made his way with rapid strides through the rippling wheat, he
+experienced a series of sensations. For the first time since his wedding
+day he was aroused to entirely forget himself and his pain. What did it
+mean? Marcia frightened! What at? Harry Temple at their house! What did he
+know of Harry Temple? Nothing beyond the mere fact that Hannah Heath had
+introduced him and that he was doing business in the town. But why had Mr.
+Temple visited the house? He could have no possible business with himself,
+David was sure; moreover he now remembered having seen the young man
+standing near the stable that morning when he took his seat in the coach,
+and knew that he must have heard his remark that he would not return till
+the late coach that night, or possibly not till the next day. He
+remembered as he said it that he had unconsciously studied Mr. Temple's
+face and noted its weak points. Did the young man then have a purpose in
+coming to the house during his absence? A great anger rose within him at
+the thought.
+
+There was one strange thing about David's thoughts. For the first time he
+looked at himself in the light of Marcia's natural protector--her husband.
+He suddenly saw a duty from himself to her, aside from the mere feeding
+and clothing her. He felt a personal responsibility, and an actual
+interest in her. Out of the whole world, now, he was the only one she
+could look to for help.
+
+It gave him a feeling of possession that was new, and almost seemed
+pleasant. He forgot entirely the errand that had made him come to search
+for Marcia in the first place, and the two men who were probably at that
+moment preparing to go to his house according to their invitation. He
+forgot everything but Marcia, and strode into the purply-blue shadows of
+the wood and stopped to listen.
+
+The hush there seemed intense. There were no echoes lingering of flying
+feet down that pine-padded pathway of the aisle of the woods. It was long
+since he had had time to wander in the woods, and he wondered at their
+silence. So much whispering above, the sky so far away, the breeze so
+quiet, the bird notes so subdued, it seemed almost uncanny. He had not
+remembered that it was thus in the woods. It struck him in passing that
+here would be a good place to bring his pain some day when he had time to
+face it again, and wished to be alone with it.
+
+He took his hat in his hand and stepped firmly into the vast solemnity as
+if he had entered a great church when the service was going on, on an
+errand of life and death that gave excuse for profaning the holy silence.
+He went a few paces and stopped again, listening. Was that a long-drawn
+sighing breath he heard, or only the wind soughing through the waving
+tassels overhead? He summoned his voice to call. It seemed a great effort,
+and sounded weak and feeble under the grandeur of the vaulted green dome.
+"Marcia!" he called,--and "Marcia!" realizing as he did so that it was the
+first time he had called her by her name, or sought after her in any way.
+He had always said "you" to her, or "child," or spoken of her in company
+as "Mrs. Spafford," a strange and far-off mythical person whose very
+intangibility had separated her from himself immeasurably.
+
+He went further into the forest, called again, and yet again, and stood to
+listen. All was still about him, but in the far distance he heard the
+faint report of a gun. With a new thought of danger coming to mind he
+hurried further into the shadows. The gun sounded again more clearly. He
+shuddered involuntarily and looked about in all directions, hoping to see
+the gleam of her gown. It was not likely there were any wild beasts about
+these parts, so near the town and yet, they had been seen occasionally,--a
+stray fox, or even a bear,--and the sun was certainly very low. He glanced
+back, and the low line of the horizon gleamed the gold of intensified
+shining that is the sun's farewell for the night. The gun again! Stray
+shots had been known to kill people wandering in the forest. He was
+growing nervous as a woman now, and went this way and that calling, but
+still no answer came. He began to think he was not near the clump of pines
+of which Miranda spoke, and went a little to the right and then turned to
+look back to where he had entered the wood, and there, almost at his feet,
+she lay!
+
+She slept as soundly as if she had been lying on a couch of velvet, one
+round white arm under her cheek. Her face was flushed with weeping, and
+her lashes still wet. Her tender, sensitive mouth still quivered slightly
+as she gave a long-drawn breath with a catch in it that seemed like a sob,
+and all her lovely dark hair floated about her as if it were spread upon a
+wave that upheld her. She was beautiful indeed as she lay there sleeping,
+and the man, thus suddenly come upon her, anxious and troubled and every
+nerve quivering, stopped, awed with the beauty of her as if she had been
+some heavenly being suddenly confronting him. He stepped softly to her
+side and bending down observed her, first anxiously, to make sure she was
+alive and safe, then searchingly, as though he would know every detail of
+the picture there before him because it was his, and he not only had a
+right but a duty to possess it, and to care for it.
+
+She might have been a statue or a painting as he looked upon her and noted
+the lovely curve of her flushed cheek, but when his eyes reached the firm
+little brown hand and the slender finger on which gleamed the wedding ring
+that was not really hers, something pathetic in the tear-wet lashes, and
+the whole sorrowful, beautiful figure, touched him with a great
+tenderness, and he stooped down gently and put his arm about her.
+
+"Marcia,--child!" he said in a low, almost crooning voice, as one might
+wake a baby from its sleep, "Marcia, open your eyes, child, and tell me if
+you are all right."
+
+At first she only stirred uneasily and slept on, the sleep of utter
+exhaustion; but he raised her, and, sitting down beside her, put her head
+upon his shoulder, speaking gently. Then Marcia opened her eyes
+bewildered, and with a start, sprang back and looked at David, as though
+she would be sure it was he and not that other dreadful man from whom she
+had fled.
+
+"Why, child! What's the matter?" said David, brushing her hair back from
+her face. Bewildered still, Marcia scarcely knew him, his voice was so
+strangely sweet and sympathetic. The tears were coming back, but she could
+not stop them. She made one effort to control herself and speak, but her
+lips quivered a moment, and then the flood-gates opened again, and she
+covered her face with her hands and shook with sobs. How could she tell
+David what a dreadful thing had happened, now, when he was kinder to her
+than he had ever thought of being before! He would grow grave and stern
+when she had told him, and she could not bear that. He would likely blame
+her too, and how could she endure more?
+
+But he drew her to him again and laid her head against his coat, trying to
+smooth her hair with unaccustomed passes of his hand. By and by the tears
+subsided and she could control herself again. She hushed her sobs and drew
+back a little from the comforting rough coat where she had lain.
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I could not help it, David,"--she faltered, trying to
+smile like a bit of rainbow through the rain.
+
+"I know you couldn't, child." His answer was wonderfully kind and his eyes
+smiled at her as they had never done before. Her heart gave a leap of
+astonishment and fluttered with gladness over it. It was so good to have
+David care. She had not known how much she wanted him to speak to her as
+if he saw her and thought a little about her.
+
+"And now what was it? Remember I do not know. Tell me quick, for it is
+growing late and damp, and you will take cold out here in the woods with
+that thin frock on. You are chilly already."
+
+"I better go at once," she said reservedly, willing to put off the telling
+as long as possible, peradventure to avoid it altogether.
+
+"No, child," he said firmly drawing her back again beside him, "you must
+rest a minute yet before taking that long walk. You are weary and excited,
+and besides it will do you good to tell me. What made you run off up here?
+Are you homesick?"
+
+He scanned her face anxiously. He began to fear with sudden compunction
+that the sacrifice he had accepted so easily had been too much for the
+victim, and it suddenly began to be a great comfort to him to have Marcia
+with him, to help him hide his sorrow from the world. He did not know
+before that he cared.
+
+"I was frightened," she said, with drooping lashes. She was trying to keep
+her lips and fingers from trembling, for she feared greatly to tell him
+all. But though the woods were growing dusky he saw the fluttering little
+fingers and gathered them firmly in his own.
+
+"Now, child," he said in that tone that even his aunts obeyed, "tell me
+all. What frightened you, and why did you come up here away from everybody
+instead of calling for help?"
+
+Brought to bay she lifted her beautiful eyes to his face and told him
+briefly the story, beginning with the night when she had first met Harry
+Temple. She said as little about music as possible, because she feared
+that the mention of the piano might be painful to David, but she made the
+whole matter quite plain in a few words, so that David could readily fill
+in between the lines.
+
+"Scoundrel!" he murmured clenching his fists, "he ought to be strung up!"
+Then quite gently again, "Poor child! How frightened you must have been!
+You did right to run away, but it was a dangerous thing to run out here!
+Why, he might have followed you!"
+
+"Oh!" said Marcia, turning pale, "I never thought of that. I only wanted
+to get away from everybody. It seemed so dreadful I did not want anybody
+to know. I did not want you to know. I wanted to run away and hide, and
+never come back!" She covered her face with her hands and shuddered. David
+thought the tears were coming back again.
+
+"Child, child!" he said gently, "you must not talk that way. What would I
+do if you did that?" and he laid his hand softly upon the bowed head.
+
+It was the first time that anything like a personal talk had passed
+between them, and Marcia felt a thrill of delight at his words. It was
+like heavenly comfort to her wounded spirit.
+
+She stole a shy look at him under her lashes, and wished she dared say
+something, but no words came. They sat for a moment in silence, each
+feeling a sort of comforting sense of the other's presence, and each
+clasping the hand of the other with clinging pressure, yet neither fully
+aware of the fact.
+
+The last rays of the sun which had been lying for a while at their feet
+upon the pine needles suddenly slipped away unperceived, and behold! the
+world was in gloom, and the place where the two sat was almost utterly
+dark. David became aware of it first, and with sudden remembrance of his
+expected guests he started in dismay.
+
+"Child!" said he,--but he did not let go of her hand, nor forget to put the
+tenderness in his voice, "the sun has gone down, and here have I been
+forgetting what I came to tell you in the astonishment over what you had
+to tell me. We must hurry and get back. We have guests to-night to supper,
+two gentlemen, very distinguished in their lines of work. We have business
+together, and I must make haste. I doubt not they are at the house
+already, and what they think of me I cannot tell; let us hurry as fast as
+possible."
+
+"Oh, David!" she said in dismay. "And you had to come out here after me,
+and have stayed so long! What a foolish girl I have been and what a mess I
+have made! They will perhaps be angry and go away, and I will be to blame.
+I am afraid you can never forgive me."
+
+"Don't worry, child," he said pleasantly. "It couldn't be helped, you
+know, and is in no wise your fault. I am only sorry that these two
+gentlemen will delay me in the pleasure of hunting up that scoundrel of a
+Temple and suggesting that he leave town by the early morning stage. I
+should like to give him what Miranda suggested, a good 'wallupin',' but
+perhaps that would be undignified."
+
+He laughed as he said it, a hearty laugh with a ring to it like his old
+self. Marcia felt happy at the sound. How wonderful it would be if he
+would be like that to her all the time! Her heart swelled with the great
+thought of it.
+
+He helped her to her feet and taking her hand led her out to the open
+field where they could walk faster. As he walked he told her about Miranda
+waiting for him behind the currant bushes. They laughed together and made
+the way seem short.
+
+It was quite dark now, with the faded moon trembling feebly in the West as
+though it meant to retire early, and wished they would hurry home while
+she held her light for them. David had drawn Marcia's arm within his, and
+then, noticing that her dress was thin, he pulled off his coat and put it
+firmly about her despite her protest that she did not need it, and so,
+warmed, comforted, and cheered Marcia's feet hurried back over the path
+she had taken in such sorrow and fright a few hours before.
+
+When they could see the lights of the village twinkling close below them
+David began to tell her about the two men who were to be their guests, if
+they were still waiting, and so interesting was his brief story of each
+that Marcia hardly knew they were at home before David was helping her
+over their own back fence.
+
+"Oh, David! There seems to be a light in the kitchen! Do you suppose they
+have gone in and are getting their own supper? What shall I do with my
+hair? I cannot go in with it this way. How did that light get there?"
+
+"Here!" said David, fumbling in his pocket, "will this help you?" and he
+brought out the shell comb he had picked up in the garden.
+
+By the light of the feeble old moon David watched her coil the long wavy
+hair and stood to pass his criticism upon the effect before they should go
+in. They were just back of the tall sunflowers, and talked in whispers. It
+was all so cheery, and comradey, and merry, that Marcia hated to go in and
+have it over, for she could not feel that this sweet evening hour could
+last. Then they took hold of hands and swiftly, cautiously, stole up to
+the kitchen window and looked in. The door still stood open as both had
+left it that afternoon, and there seemed to be no one in the kitchen. A
+candle was burning on the high little shelf over the table, and the tea
+kettle was singing on the crane by the hearth, but the room was without
+occupant. Cautiously, looking questioningly at one another, they stole
+into the kitchen, each dreading lest the aunts had come by chance and
+discovered their lapse. There was a light in the front part of the house
+and they could hear voices, two men were earnestly discussing politics.
+They listened longer, but no other presence was revealed.
+
+David in pantomime outlined the course of action, and Marcia,
+understanding perfectly flew up the back stairs as noiselessly as a mouse,
+to make her toilet after her nap in the woods, while David with much show
+and to-do of opening and shutting the wide-open kitchen door walked
+obviously into the kitchen and hurried through to greet his guests
+wondering,--not suspecting in the least,--what good angel had been there to
+let them in.
+
+Good fortune had favored Miranda. The neighbor had stayed longer than
+usual, perhaps in hopes of an invitation to stay to tea and share in the
+gingerbread she could smell being taken from the oven by Hannah, who
+occasionally varied her occupations by a turn at the culinary art. Hannah
+could make delicious gingerbread. Her grandmother had taught her when she
+was but a child.
+
+Miranda stole into the kitchen when Hannah's back was turned and picked
+over her berries so fast that when Hannah came into the pantry to set her
+gingerbread to cool Miranda had nearly all her berries in the big yellow
+bowl ready to wash, and Hannah might conjecture if she pleased that
+Miranda had been some time picking them over. It is not stated just how
+thoroughly those berries were picked over. But Miranda cared little for
+that. Her mind was upon other things. The pantry window overlooked the
+hills and the woods. She could see if David and Marcia were coming back
+soon. She wanted to watch her play till the close, and had no fancy for
+having the curtain fall in the middle of the most exciting act, the rescue
+of the princess. But the talk in the sitting room went on and on. By and
+by Hannah Heath washed her hands, untied her apron, and taking her
+sunbonnet slipped over to Ann Bertram's for a pattern of her new sleeve.
+Miranda took the opportunity to be off again.
+
+Swiftly down behind the currants she ran, and standing on the fence behind
+the corn she looked off across the wheat, but no sign of anybody yet
+coming out of the woods was granted her. She stood so a long time. It was
+growing dusk. She wondered if Harry Temple had shut the front door when he
+went out. But then David went in that way, and he would have closed it, of
+course. Still, he went away in a hurry, maybe it would be as well to go
+and look. She did not wish to be caught by her grandmother, so she stole
+along like a cat close to the dark berry bushes, and the gathering dusk
+hid her well. She thought she could see from the front of the fence
+whether the door looked as if it were closed. But there were people coming
+up the street. She would wait till they had passed before she looked over
+the fence.
+
+They were two men coming, slowly, and in earnest conversation upon some
+deeply interesting theme. Each carried a heavy carpet-bag, and they walked
+wearily, as if their business were nearly over for the day and they were
+coming to a place of rest.
+
+"This must be the house, I think," said one. "He said it was exactly
+opposite the Seceder church. That's the church, I believe. I was here once
+before."
+
+"There doesn't seem to be a light in the house," said the other, looking
+up to the windows over the street. "Are you sure? Brother Spafford said he
+was coming directly home to let his wife know of our arrival."
+
+"A little strange there's no light yet, for it is quite dark now, but I'm
+sure this must be the house. Maybe they are all in the kitchen and not
+expecting us quite so soon. Let's try anyhow," said the other, setting
+down his carpet-bag on the stoop and lifting the big brass knocker.
+
+Miranda stood still debating but a moment. The situation was made plain to
+her in an instant. Not for nothing had she stood at Grandma Heath's elbow
+for years watching the movements of her neighbors and interpreting exactly
+what they meant. Miranda's wits were sharpened for situations of all
+kinds. Miranda was ready and loyal to those she adored. Without further
+ado she hastened to a sheltered spot she knew and climbed the picket fence
+which separated the Heath garden from the Spafford side yard. Before the
+brass knocker had sounded through the empty house the second time Miranda
+had crossed the side porch, thrown her sunbonnet upon a chair in the dark
+kitchen, and was hastening with noisy, encouraging steps to the front
+door.
+
+She flung it wide open, saying in a breezy voice, "Just wait till I get a
+light, won't you, the wind blew the candle out."
+
+There wasn't a particle of wind about that soft September night, but that
+made little difference to Miranda. She was part of a play and she was
+acting her best. If her impromptu part was a little irregular, it was at
+least well meant, boldly and bravely presented.
+
+Miranda found a candle on the shelf and, stooping to the smouldering fire
+upon the hearth, blew and coaxed it into flame enough to light it.
+
+"This is Mr. Spafford's home, is it not?" questioned the old gentleman
+whom Miranda had heard speak first on the sidewalk.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed," said the girl glibly. "Jest come in and set down. Here,
+let me take your hats. Jest put your bags right there on the floor."
+
+"You are-- Are you--Mrs. Spafford?" hesitated the courtly old gentleman.
+
+"Oh, landy sakes, no, I ain't her," laughed Miranda well pleased. "Mis'
+Spafford had jest stepped out a bit when her husband come home, an' he's
+gone after her. You see she didn't expect her husband home till late
+to-night. But you set down. They'll be home real soon now. They'd oughter
+ben here before this. I 'spose she'd gone on further'n she thought she'd
+go when she stepped out."
+
+"It's all right," said the other gentleman, "no harm done, I'm sure. I
+hope we shan't inconvenience Mrs. Spafford any coming so unexpectedly."
+
+"No, indeedy!" said quick-witted Miranda. "You can't ketch Mis' Spafford
+unprepared if you come in the middle o' the night. She's allus ready fer
+comp'ny." Miranda's eyes shone. She felt she was getting on finely doing
+the honors.
+
+"Well, that's very nice. I'm sure it makes one feel at home. I wonder now
+if she would mind if we were to go right up to our room and wash our
+hands. I feel so travel-stained. I'd like to be more presentable before we
+meet her," said the first gentleman, who looked very weary.
+
+But Miranda was not dashed.
+
+"Why, that's all right. 'Course you ken go right up. Jest you set in the
+keepin' room a minnit while I run up'n be sure the water pitcher's filled.
+I ain't quite sure 'bout it. I won't be long."
+
+Miranda seated them in the parlor with great gusto and hastened up the
+back stairs to investigate. She was not at all sure which room would be
+called the guest room and whether the two strangers would have a room
+apiece or occupy the same together. At least it would be safe to show them
+one till the mistress of the house returned. She peeped into Marcia's
+room, and knew it instinctively before she caught sight of a cameo brooch
+on the pin cushion, and a rose colored ribbon neatly folded lying on the
+foot of the bed where it had been forgotten. That question settled, she
+thought any other room would do, and chose the large front room across the
+hall with its high four-poster and the little ball fringe on the valance
+and canopy. Having lighted the candle which stood in a tall glass
+candlestick on the high chest of drawers, she hurried down to bid her
+guests come up.
+
+Then she hastened back into the kitchen and went to work with swift
+skilful fingers. Her breath came quickly and her cheeks grew red with the
+excitement of it all. It was like playing fairy. She would get supper for
+them and have everything all ready when the mistress came, so that there
+would be no bad breaks. She raked the fire and filled the tea kettle,
+swinging it from the crane. Then she searched where she thought such
+things should be and found a table cloth and set the table. Her hands
+trembled as she put out the sprigged china that was kept in the corner
+cupboard. Perhaps this was wrong, and she would be blamed for it, but at
+least it was what she would have done, she thought, if she were mistress
+of this house and had two nice gentlemen come to stay to tea. It was not
+often that Grandmother Heath allowed her to handle her sprigged china, to
+be sure, so Miranda felt the joy and daring of it all the more. Once a
+delicate cup slipped and rolled over on the table and almost reached the
+edge. A little more and it would have rolled off to the floor and been
+shivered into a dozen fragments, but Miranda spread her apron in front and
+caught it fairly as it started and then hugged it in fear and delight for
+a moment as she might have done a baby that had been in danger. It was a
+great pleasure to her to set that table. In the first place she was not
+doing it to order but because she wanted to please and surprise some one
+whom she adored, and in the second place it was an adventure. Miranda had
+longed for an adventure all her life and now she thought it had come to
+her.
+
+When the table was set it looked very pretty. She slipped into the pantry
+and searched out the stores. It was not hard to find all that was needed;
+cold ham, cheese, pickles, seed cakes, gingerbread, fruit cake, preserves
+and jelly, bread and raised biscuit, then she went down cellar and found
+the milk and cream and butter. She had just finished the table and set out
+the tea pot and caddy of tea when she heard the two gentlemen coming down
+the stairs. They went into the parlor and sat down, remarking that their
+friend had a pleasant home, and then Miranda heard them plunge into a
+political discussion again and she felt that they were safe for a while.
+She stole out into the dewy dark to see if there were yet signs of the
+home-comers. A screech owl hooted across the night. She stood a while by
+the back fence looking out across the dark sea of whispering wheat. By and
+by she thought she heard subdued voices above the soft swish of the
+parting wheat, and by the light of the stars she saw them coming. Quick as
+a wink she slid over the fence into the Heath back-yard and crouched in
+her old place behind the currant bushes. So she saw them come up together,
+saw David help Marcia over the fence and watched them till they had passed
+up the walk to the light of the kitchen door. Then swiftly she turned and
+glided to her own home, well knowing the reckoning that would be in store
+for her for this daring bit of recreation. There was about her, however,
+an air of triumphant joy as she entered.
+
+"Where have you ben to, Miranda Griscom, and what on airth you ben up to
+now?" was the greeting she received as she lifted the latch of the old
+green kitchen door of her grandmother's house.
+
+Miranda knew that the worst was to come now, for her grandmother never
+mentioned the name of Griscom unless she meant business. It was a hated
+name to her because of the man who had broken the heart of her daughter.
+Grandma Heath always felt that Miranda was an out and out Griscom with not
+a streak of Heath about her. The Griscoms all had red hair. But Miranda
+lifted her chin high and felt like a princess in disguise.
+
+"Ben huntin' hen's eggs down in the grass," she said, taking the first
+excuse that came into her head. "Is it time to get supper?"
+
+"Hen's eggs! This time o' night an' dark as pitch. Miranda Griscom, you
+ken go up to your room an' not come down tell I call you!"
+
+It was a dire punishment, or would have been if Miranda had not had her
+head full of other things, for the neighbor had been asked to tea and
+there would have been much to hear at the table. Besides, it was apparent
+that her disgrace was to be made public. However, Miranda did not care.
+She hastened to her little attic window, which looked down, as good
+fortune would have it, upon the dining-room windows of the Spafford house.
+With joy Miranda observed that no one had thought to draw down the shades
+and she might sit and watch the supper served over the way,--the supper she
+had prepared,--and might think how delectable the doughnuts were, and let
+her mouth water over the currant jelly and the quince preserves and
+pretend she was a guest, and forget the supper downstairs she was missing.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+David made what apology he could for his absence on the arrival of his
+guests, and pondered in his heart who it could have been that they
+referred to as "the maid," until he suddenly remembered Miranda, and
+inwardly blessed her for her kindliness. It was more than he would have
+expected from any member of the Heath household. Miranda's honest face
+among the currant bushes when she had said, "You needn't be afraid of me,
+I'll keep still," came to mind. Miranda had evidently scented out the true
+state of the case and filled in the breach, taking care not to divulge a
+word. He blest her kindly heart and resolved to show his gratitude to her
+in some way. Could poor Miranda, sitting supperless in the dark, have but
+known his thought, her lonely heart would have fluttered happily. But she
+did not, and virtue had to bring its own reward in a sense of duty done.
+Then, too, there was a spice of adventure to Miranda's monotonous life in
+what she had done, and she was not altogether sad as she sat and let her
+imagination revel in what the Spaffords had said and thought, when they
+found the house lighted and supper ready. It was better than playing house
+down behind the barn when she was a little girl.
+
+Marcia was the most astonished when she slipped down from her hurried
+toilet and found the table decked out in all the house afforded, fairly
+groaning under its weight of pickles, preserves, doughnuts, and pie. In
+fact, everything that Miranda had found she had put upon that table, and
+it is safe to say that the result was not quite as it would have been had
+the preparation of the supper been left to Marcia.
+
+She stood before it and looked, and could not keep from laughing softly to
+herself at the array of little dishes of things. Marcia thought at first
+that one of the aunts must be here, in the parlor, probably entertaining
+the guests, and that the supper was a reproof to her for being away when
+she should have been at home attending to her duties, but still she was
+puzzled. It scarcely seemed like the aunts to set a table in such a
+peculiar manner. The best china was set out, it is true, but so many
+little bits of things were in separate dishes. There was half a mould of
+currant jelly in a large china plate, there was a fresh mould of quince
+jelly quivering on a common dish. All over the table in every available
+inch there was something. It would not do to call the guests out to a
+table like that. What would David say? And yet, if one of the aunts had
+set it and was going to stay to tea, would she be hurt? She tiptoed to the
+door and listened, but heard no sound save of men's voices. If an aunt had
+been here she was surely gone now and would be none the wiser if a few
+dishes were removed.
+
+With swift fingers Marcia weeded out the things, and set straight those
+that were to remain, and then made the tea. She was so quick about it
+David had scarcely time to begin to worry because supper was not announced
+before she stood in the parlor door, shy and sweet, with a brilliant color
+in her cheeks. His little comrade, David felt her to be, and again it
+struck him that she was beautiful as he arose to introduce her to the
+guests. He saw their open admiration as they greeted her, and he found
+himself wondering what they would have thought of Kate, wild-rose Kate
+with her graceful witching ways. A tinge of sadness came into his face,
+but something suggested to him the thought that Marcia was even more
+beautiful than Kate, more like a half-blown bud of a thing. He wondered
+that he had never noticed before how her eyes shone. He gave her a
+pleasant smile as they passed into the hall, which set the color flaming
+in her cheeks again. David seemed different somehow, and that lonely,
+set-apart feeling that she had had ever since she came here to live was
+gone. David was there and he understood, at least a little bit, and they
+had something,--just something, even though it was but a few minutes in a
+lonely woods and some gentle words of his,--to call their very own
+together. At least that experience did not belong to Kate, never had been
+hers, and could not have been borrowed from her. Marcia sighed a happy
+sigh as she took her seat at the table.
+
+The talk ran upon Andrew Jackson, and some utterances of his in his last
+message to Congress. The elder of the two gentlemen expressed grave fears
+that a mistake had been made in policy and that the country would suffer.
+
+Governor Clinton was mentioned and his policy discussed. But all this talk
+was familiar to Marcia. Her father had been interested in public affairs
+always, and she had been brought up to listen to discussions deep and
+long, and to think about such things for herself. When she was quite a
+little girl her father had made her read the paper aloud to him, from one
+end to the other, as he lay back in his big chair with his eyes closed and
+his shaggy brows drawn thoughtfully into a frown. Sometimes as she read he
+would burst forth with a tirade against this or that man or set of men who
+were in opposition to his own pronounced views, and he would pour out a
+lengthy reply to little Marcia as she sat patient, waiting for a chance to
+go on with her reading. As she grew older she became proud of the
+distinction of being her father's _confidante_ politically, and she was
+able to talk on such matters as intelligently and as well if not better
+than most of the men who came to the house. It was a position which no one
+disputed with her. Kate had been much too full of her own plans and Madam
+Schuyler too busy with household affairs to bother with politics and
+newspapers, so Marcia had always been the one called upon to read when her
+father's eyes were tired. As a consequence she was far beyond other girls
+of her age in knowledge on public affairs. Well she knew what Andrew
+Jackson thought about the tariff, and about the system of canals, and
+about improvements in general. She knew which men in Congress were opposed
+to and which in favor of certain bills. All through the struggle for
+improvements in New York state she had been an eager observer. The
+minutest detail of the Erie canal project had interested her, and she was
+never without her own little private opinion in the matter, which,
+however, seldom found voice except in her eager eyes, whose listening
+lights would have been an inspiration to the most eloquent speaker.
+
+Therefore, Marcia as she sat behind her sprigged china teacups and
+demurely poured tea, was taking in all that had been said, and she drew
+her breath quickly in a way she had when she was deeply excited, as at
+last the conversation neared the one great subject of interest which to
+her seemed of most importance in the country at the present day, the
+project of a railroad run by steam.
+
+Nothing was too great for Marcia to believe. Her father had been inclined
+to be conservative in great improvements. He had favored the Erie canal,
+though had feared it would be impossible to carry so great a project
+through, and Marcia in her girlish mind had rejoiced with a joy that to
+her was unspeakable when it had been completed and news had come that many
+packets were travelling day and night upon the wonderful new water way.
+There had been a kind of triumph in her heart to think that men who could
+study out these big schemes and plan it all, had been able against so
+great odds to carry out their project and prove to all unbelievers that it
+was not only possible but practicable.
+
+Marcia's brain was throbbing with the desire for progress. If she were a
+man with money and influence she felt she would so much like to go out
+into the world and make stupid people do the things for the country that
+ought to be done. Progress had been the keynote of her upbringing, and she
+was teeming with energy which she had no hope could ever be used to help
+along that for which she felt her ambitions rising. She wanted to see the
+world alive, and busy, the great cities connected with one another. She
+longed to have free access to cities, to great libraries, to pictures, to
+wonderful music. She longed to meet great men and women, the men and women
+who were making the history of the world, writing, speaking, and doing
+things that were moulding public opinion. Reforms of all sorts were what
+helped along and made possible her desires. Why did not the people want a
+steam railroad? Why were they so ready to say it could never succeed, that
+it would be an impossibility; that the roads could not be made strong
+enough to bear so great weights and so constant wear and tear? Why did
+they interpose objections to every suggestion made by inventors and
+thinking men? Why did even her dear father who was so far in advance of
+his times in many ways, why did even he too shake his head and say that he
+feared it would never be in this country, at least not in his day, that it
+was impracticable?
+
+The talk was very interesting to Marcia. She ate bits of her biscuit
+without knowing, and she left her tea untasted till it was cold. The
+younger of the two guests was talking. His name was Jervis. Marcia thought
+she had heard the name somewhere, but had not yet placed him in her mind:
+
+"Yes," said he, with an eager look on his face, "it is coming, it is
+coming sooner than they think. Oliver Evans said, you know, that good
+roads were all we could expect one generation to do. The next must make
+canals, the next might build a railroad which should run by horse power,
+and perhaps the next would run a railroad by steam. But we shall not have
+to wait so long. We shall have steam moving railway carriages before
+another year."
+
+"What!" said David, "you don't mean it! Have you really any foundation for
+such a statement?" He leaned forward, his eyes shining and his whole
+attitude one of deep interest. Marcia watched him, and a great pride began
+to glow within her that she belonged to him. She looked at the other men.
+Their eyes were fixed upon David with heightening pleasure and pride.
+
+The older man watched the little tableau a moment and then he explained:
+
+"The Mohawk and Hudson Company have just made an engagement with Mr.
+Jervis as chief engineer of their road. He expects to run that road by
+steam!"
+
+He finished his fruit cake and preserves under the spell of astonishment
+he had cast upon his host and hostess.
+
+David and Marcia turned simultaneously toward Mr. Jervis for a
+confirmation of this statement. Mr. Jervis smiled in affirmation.
+
+"But will it not be like all the rest, no funds?" asked David a trifle
+sadly. "It may be years even yet before it is really started."
+
+But Mr. Jervis' face was reassuring.
+
+"The contract is let for the grading. In fact work has already begun. I
+expect to begin laying the track by next Spring, perhaps sooner. As soon
+as the track is laid we shall show them."
+
+David's eyes shone and he reached out and grasped the hand of the man who
+had the will and apparently the means of accomplishing this great thing
+for the country.
+
+"It will make a wonderful change in the whole land," said David musingly.
+He had forgotten to eat. His face was aglow and a side of his nature which
+Marcia did not know was uppermost. Marcia saw the man, the thinker, the
+writer, the former of public opinion, the idealist. Heretofore David had
+been to her in the light of her sister's lover, a young man of promise,
+but that was all. Now she saw something more earnest, and at once it was
+revealed to her what a man he was, a man like her father. David's eyes
+were suddenly drawn to meet hers. He looked on Marcia and seemed to be
+sharing his thought with her, and smiled a smile of comradeship. He felt
+all at once that she could and would understand his feelings about this
+great new enterprise, and would be glad too. It pleased him to feel this.
+It took a little of his loneliness away. Kate would never have been
+interested in these things. He had never expected such sympathy from her.
+She had been something beautiful and apart from his world, and as such he
+had adored her. But it was pleasant to have some one who could understand
+and feel as he did. Just then he was not thinking of his lost Kate. So he
+smiled and Marcia felt the glow of warmth from his look and returned it,
+and the two visitors knew that they were among friends who understood and
+sympathized.
+
+"Yes, it will make a change," said the older man. "I hope I may live to
+see at least a part of it."
+
+"If you succeed there will be many others to follow. The land will soon be
+a network of railroads," went on David, still musing.
+
+"We shall succeed!" said Mr. Jervis, closing his lips firmly in a way that
+made one sure he knew whereof he spoke.
+
+"And now tell me about it," said David, with his most engaging smile, as a
+child will ask to have a story. David could be most fascinating when he
+felt he was in a sympathetic company. At other times he was wont to be
+grave, almost to severity. But those who knew him best and had seen him
+thus melted into child-like enthusiasm, felt his lovableness as the others
+never dreamed.
+
+The table talk launched into a description of the proposed road, the road
+bed, the manner of laying the rails, their thickness and width, and the
+way of bolting them down to the heavy timbers that lay underneath. It was
+all intensely fascinating to Marcia. Mr. Jervis took knives and forks to
+illustrate and then showed by plates and spoons how they were fastened
+down.
+
+David asked a question now and then, took out his note book and wrote down
+some things. The two guests were eager and plain in their answers. They
+wanted David to write it up. They wanted the information to be accurate
+and full.
+
+"The other day I saw a question in a Baltimore paper, sent in by a
+subscriber, 'What is a railroad?'" said the old gentleman, "and the
+editor's reply was, 'Can any of our readers answer this question and tell
+us what is a railroad?'"
+
+There was a hearty laugh over the unenlightened unbelievers who seemed to
+be only too willing to remain in ignorance of the march of improvement.
+
+David finally laid down his note book, feeling that he had gained all the
+information he needed at present. "I have much faith in you and your
+skill, but I do not quite see how you are going to overcome all the
+obstacles. How, for instance, are you going to overcome the inequalities
+in the road? Our country is not a flat even one like those abroad where
+the railroad has been tried. There are sharp grades, and many curves will
+be necessary," said he.
+
+Mr. Jervis had shoved his chair back from the table, but now he drew it up
+again sharply and began to move the dishes back from his place, a look of
+eagerness gleaming in his face.
+
+Once again the dishes and cups were brought into requisition as the
+engineer showed a crude model, in china and cutlery, of an engine he
+proposed to have constructed, illustrating his own idea about a truck for
+the forward wheels which should move separately from the back wheels and
+enable the engine to conform to curves more readily.
+
+Marcia sat with glowing cheeks watching the outline of history that was to
+be, not knowing that the little model before her, made from her own
+teacups and saucers, was to be the model for all the coming engines of the
+many railroads of the future.
+
+Finally the chairs were pushed back, and yet the talk went on. Marcia
+slipped silently about conveying the dishes away. And still the guests sat
+talking. She could hear all they said even when she was in the kitchen
+washing the china, for she did it very softly and never a clink hid a
+word. They talked of Governor Clinton again and of his attitude toward the
+railroad. They spoke of Thurlow Weed and a number of others whose names
+were familiar to Marcia in the papers she had read to her father. They
+told how lately on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad Peter Cooper had
+experimented with a little locomotive, and had beaten a gray horse
+attached to another car.
+
+Marcia smiled brightly as she listened, and laid the delicate china teapot
+down with care lest she should lose a word. But ever with her interest in
+the march of civilization, there were other thoughts mingling. Thoughts of
+David and of how he would be connected with it all. He would write it up
+and be identified with it. He was brave enough to face any new movement.
+
+David's paper was a temperance paper. There were not many temperance
+papers in those days. David was brave. He had already faced a number of
+unpleasant circumstances in consequence. He was not afraid of sneers or
+sarcasms, nor of being called a fanatic. He had taken such a stand that
+even those who were opposed had to respect him. Marcia felt the joy of a
+great pride in David to-night.
+
+She sang a happy little song at the bottom of her heart as she worked. The
+new railroad was an assured thing, and David was her comrade, that was the
+song, and the refrain was, "David, David, David!"
+
+Later, after the guests had talked themselves out and taken their candles
+to their rooms, David with another comrade's smile, and a look in his eyes
+that saw visions of the country's future, and for this one night at least
+promised not to dream of the past, bade her good night.
+
+She went up to her white chamber and lay down upon the pillow, whose case
+was fragrant of lavendar blossoms, dreaming with a smile of to-morrow. She
+thought she was riding in a strange new railroad train with David's arm
+about her and Harry Temple running along at his very best pace to try to
+catch them, but he could not.
+
+Miranda, at her supperless window, watched the evening hours and thought
+many thoughts. She wondered why they stayed in the dining room so late,
+and why they did not go into the parlor and make Marcia play the "music
+box" as she called it; and why there was a light so long in that back
+chamber over the kitchen. Could it be they had put one of the guests
+there? Surely not. Perhaps that was David's study. Perhaps he was writing.
+Ah! She had guessed aright. David was sitting up to write while the
+inspiration was upon him.
+
+But Miranda slept and ceased to wonder long before David's light was
+extinguished, and when he finally lay down it was with a body healthily
+weary, and a mind for the time free from any intruding thought of himself
+and his troubles.
+
+He had written a most captivating article that would appear in his paper
+in a few days, and which must convince many doubters that a railroad was
+at last an established fact among them.
+
+There were one or two points which he must ask the skilled engineer in the
+morning, but as he reviewed what he had written he felt a sense of deep
+satisfaction, and a true delight in his work. His soul thrilled with the
+power of his gift. He loved it, exulted in it. It was pleasant to feel
+that delight in his work once more. He had thought since his marriage that
+it was gone forever, but perhaps by and by it would return to console him,
+and he would be able to do greater things in the world because of his
+suffering.
+
+Just as he dropped to sleep there came a thought of Marcia, pleasantly, as
+one remembers a flower. He felt that there was a comfort about Marcia, a
+something helpful in her smile. There was more to her than he had
+supposed. She was not merely a child. How her face had glowed as the men
+talked of the projected railroad, and almost she seemed to understand as
+they described the proposed engine with its movable trucks. She would be a
+companion who would be interested in his pursuits. He had hoped to teach
+Kate to understand his life work and perhaps help him some, but Kate was
+by nature a butterfly, a bird of gay colors, always on the wing. He would
+not have wanted her to be troubled with deep thoughts. Marcia seemed to
+enjoy such things. What if he should take pains to teach her, read with
+her, help cultivate her mind? It would at least be an occupation for
+leisure hours, something to interest him and keep away the awful pall of
+sadness.
+
+How sweet she had looked as she lay asleep in the woods with the tears on
+her cheek like the dew-drops upon a rose petal! She was a dear little girl
+and he must take care of her and protect her. That scoundrel Temple! What
+were such men made for? He must settle him to-morrow.
+
+And so he fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Harry Temple sat in his office the next morning with his feet upon the
+table and his wooden armed chair tilted back against the wall.
+
+He had letters to write, a number of them, that should go out with the
+afternoon coach, to reach the night packet. There were at least three men
+he ought to go and see at once if he would do the best for his employers,
+and the office he sat in was by no means in the best of order. But his
+feet were elevated comfortably on the table and he was deep in the pages
+of a story of the French Court, its loves and hates and intrigues.
+
+It was therefore with annoyance that he looked up at the opening of the
+office door.
+
+But the frown changed to apprehension, as he saw who was his visitor. He
+brought the chair legs suddenly to the floor and his own legs followed
+them swiftly. David Spafford was not a man before whom another would sit
+with his feet on a table, even to transact business.
+
+There was a look of startled enquiry on Harry Temple's face. For an
+instant his self-complacency was shaken. He hesitated, wondering what tack
+to take. Perhaps after all his alarm was unnecessary. Marcia likely had
+been too frightened to tell of what had occurred. He noticed the broad
+shoulder, the lean, active body, the keen eye, and the grave poise of his
+visitor, and thought he would hardly care to fight a duel with that man.
+It was natural for him to think at once of a duel on account of the French
+court life from which his mind had just emerged. A flash of wonder passed
+through his mind whether it would be swords or pistols, and then he set
+himself to face the other man.
+
+David Spafford stood for a full minute and looked into the face of the man
+he had come to shame. He looked at him with a calm eye and brow, but with
+a growing contempt that did not need words to express it. Harry Temple
+felt the color rise in his cheek, and his soul quaked for an instant. Then
+his habitual conceit arose and he tried to parry with his eye that keen
+piercing gaze of the other. It must have lasted a full minute, though it
+seemed to Mr. Temple it was five at the least. He made an attempt to offer
+his visitor a chair, but it was not noticed. David Spafford looked his man
+through and through, and knew him for exactly what he was. At last he
+spoke, quietly, in a tone that was too courteous to be contemptuous, but
+it humiliated the listener more even than contempt:
+
+"It would be well for you to leave town at once."
+
+That was all. The listener felt that it was a command. His wrath arose
+hotly, and beat itself against the calm exterior of his visitor's gaze in
+a look that was brazen enough to have faced a whole town of accusers.
+Harry Temple could look innocent and handsome when he chose.
+
+"I do not understand you, sir!" he said. "That is a most extraordinary
+statement!"
+
+"It would be well for you to leave town at once."
+
+This time the command was imperative. Harry's eyes blazed.
+
+"Why?" He asked it with that impertinent tilt to his chin which usually
+angered his opponent in any argument. Once he could break that steady,
+iron, self-control he felt he would have the best of things. He could
+easily persuade David Spafford that everything was all right if he could
+get him off his guard and make him angry. An angry man could do little but
+bluster.
+
+"You understand very well," replied David, his voice still, steady and his
+gaze not swerving.
+
+"Indeed! Well, this is most extraordinary," said Harry, losing control of
+himself again. "Of what do you accuse me, may I enquire?"
+
+"Of nothing that your own heart does not accuse you," said David. And
+somehow there was more than human indignation in the gaze now: there was
+pity, a sense of shame for another soul who could lower himself to do
+unseemly things. Before that look the blood crept into Harry's cheek
+again. An uncomfortable sensation entirely new was stealing over him. A
+sense of sin--no, not that exactly,--a sense that he had made a mistake,
+perhaps. He never was very hard upon himself even when the evidence was
+clear against him. It angered him to feel humiliated. What a fuss to make
+about a little thing! What a tiresome old cad to care about a little
+flirtation with his wife! He wished he had let the pretty baby alone
+entirely. She was of no finer stuff than many another who had accepted his
+advances with pleasure. He stiffened his neck and replied with much
+haughtiness:
+
+"My heart accuses me of nothing, sir. I assure you I consider your words
+an insult! I demand satisfaction for your insulting language, sir!" Harry
+Temple had never fought a duel, and had never been present when others
+fought, but that was the language in which a challenge was usually
+delivered in French novels.
+
+"It is not a matter for discussion!" said David Spafford, utterly ignoring
+the other's blustering words. "I am fully informed as to all that occurred
+yesterday afternoon, and I tell you once more, it would be well for you to
+leave town at once. I have nothing further to say."
+
+David turned and walked toward the door, and Harry stood, ignored, angry,
+crestfallen, and watched him until he reached the door.
+
+"You would better ask your informant further of her part in the matter!"
+he hissed, suddenly, an open sneer in his voice and a covert implication
+of deep meaning.
+
+David turned, his face flashing with righteous indignation. The man who
+was withered by the scorn of that glance wished heartily that he had not
+uttered the false sentence. He felt the smallness of his own soul, during
+the instant of silence in which his visitor stood looking at him.
+
+Then David spoke deliberately:
+
+"I knew you were a knave," said he, "but I did not suppose you were also a
+coward. A man who is not a coward will not try to put the blame upon a
+woman, especially upon an innocent one. You, sir, will leave town this
+evening. Any business further than you can settle between this and that I
+will see properly attended to. I warn you, sir, it will be unwise for you
+to remain longer than till the evening coach."
+
+Perfectly courteous were David's tones, keen command was in his eye and
+determination in every line of his face. Harry could not recover himself
+to reply, could not master his frenzy of anger and humiliation to face the
+righteous look of his accuser. Before he realized it, David was gone.
+
+He stood by the window and watched him go down the street with rapid, firm
+tread and upright bearing. Every line in that erect form spoke of
+determination. The conviction grew within him that the last words of his
+visitor were true, and that it would be wise for him to leave town. He
+rebelled at the idea. He did not wish to leave, for business matters were
+in such shape, or rather in such chaos, that it would be extremely awkward
+for him to meet his employers and explain his desertion at that time.
+Moreover there were several homes in the town open to him whenever he
+chose, where were many attractions. It was a lazy pleasant life he had
+been leading here, fully trusted, and wholly disloyal to the trust,
+troubled by no uneasy overseers, not even his own conscience, dined and
+smiled upon with lovely languishing eyes. He did not care to go, even
+though he had decried the town as dull and monotonous.
+
+But, on the other hand, things had occurred--not the unfortunate little
+mistake of yesterday, of course, but others, more serious things--that he
+would hardly care to have brought to the light of day, especially through
+the keen sarcastic columns of David Spafford's paper. He had seen other
+sinners brought to a bloodless retribution in those columns by dauntless
+weapons of sarcasm and wit which in David Spafford's hands could be made
+to do valiant work. He did not care to be humiliated in that way. He could
+not brazen it out. He was convinced that the man meant what he said, and
+from what he knew of his influence he felt that he would leave no stone
+unturned till he had made the place too hot to hold him. Only Harry Temple
+himself knew how easy that would be to do, for no one else knew how many
+"mistakes" (?) Harry had made, and he, unfortunately for himself, did not
+know how many of them were not known, by any who could harm him.
+
+He stood a long time clinking some sixpences and shillings together in his
+pocket, and scowling down the street after David had disappeared from
+sight.
+
+"Blame that little pink-cheeked, baby-eyed fool!" he said at last, turning
+on his heel with a sigh. "I might have known she was too goody-goody. Such
+people ought to die young before they grow up to make fools of other
+people. Bah! Think of a wife like that with no spirit of her own. A baby!
+Merely a baby!"
+
+Nevertheless, in his secret heart, he knew he honored Marcia and felt a
+true shame that she had looked into his tarnished soul.
+
+Then he looked round about upon his papers that represented a whole week's
+hard work and maybe more before they were cleared away, and reflected how
+much easier after all it would be to get up a good excuse and go away,
+leaving all this to some poor drudge who should be sent here in his place.
+He looked around again and his eyes lighted upon his book. He remembered
+the exciting crisis in which he had left the heroine and down he sat to
+his story again. At least there was nothing demanding attention this
+moment. He need not decide what he would do. If he went there were few
+preparations to make. He would toss some things into his carpet-bag and
+pretend to have been summoned to see a sick and dying relative, a
+long-lost brother or something. It would be easy to invent one when the
+time came. Then he could leave directions for the rest of his things to be
+packed if he did not return, and get rid of the trouble of it all. As for
+the letters, if he was going what use to bother with them? Let them wait
+till his successor should come. It mattered little to him whether his
+employers suffered for his negligence or not so long as he finished his
+story. Besides, it would not do to let that cad think he had frightened
+him. He would pretend he was not going, at least during his hours of
+grace. So he picked up his book and went on reading.
+
+At noon he sauntered back to his boarding house as usual for his dinner,
+having professed an unusually busy morning to those who came in to the
+office on business and made appointments with them for the next day. This
+had brought him much satisfaction as the morning wore away and he was left
+free to his book, and so before dinner he had come to within a very few
+pages of the end.
+
+After a leisurely dinner he sauntered back to the office again, rejoicing
+in the fact that circumstances had so arranged themselves that he had
+passed David Spafford in front of the newspaper office and given him a
+most elaborate and friendly bow in the presence of four or five
+bystanders. David's look in return had meant volumes, and decided Harry
+Temple to do as he had been ordered, not, of course, because he had been
+ordered to do so, but because it would be an easier thing to do. In fact
+he made up his mind that he was weary of this part of the country. He went
+back to his book.
+
+About the middle of the afternoon he finished the last pages. He rose up
+with alacrity then and began to think what he should do. He glanced around
+the room, sought out a few papers, took some daguerreotypes of girls from
+a drawer of his desk, gave a farewell glance around the dismal little room
+that had seen so much shirking for the past few months, and then went out
+and locked the door.
+
+He paused at the corner. Which way should he go? He did not care to go
+back to the office, for his book was done, and he scarcely needed to go to
+his room at his boarding place yet either, for the afternoon was but half
+over and he wished his departure to appear to be entirely unpremeditated.
+A daring thought came into his head. He would walk past David Spafford's
+house. He would let Marcia see him if possible. He would show them that he
+was not afraid in the least. He even meditated going in and explaining to
+Marcia that she had made a great mistake, that he had been merely admiring
+her, and that there was no harm in anything he had said or done yesterday,
+that he was exceedingly grieved and mortified that she should have
+mistaken his meaning for an insult, and so on and so on. He knew well how
+to make such honeyed talk when he chose, but the audacity of the thing was
+a trifle too much for even his bold nature, so he satisfied himself by
+strolling in a leisurely manner by the house.
+
+When he was directly opposite to it he raised his eyes casually and bowed
+and smiled with his most graceful air. True, he did not see any one, for
+Marcia had caught sight of him as she was coming out upon the stoop and
+had fled into her own room with the door buttoned, she was watching unseen
+from behind the folds of her curtain, but he made the bow as complete as
+though a whole family had been greeting him from the windows. Marcia, poor
+child, thought he must see her, and she felt frozen to the spot, and
+stared wildly through the little fold of her curtain with trembling hands
+and weak knees till he was passed. Well pleased at himself the young man
+walked on, knowing that at least three prominent citizens had seen him bow
+and smile, and that they would be witnesses, against anything David might
+say to the contrary, that he was on friendly terms with Mrs. Spafford.
+
+Hannah Heath was sitting on the front stoop with her knitting. She often
+sat there dressed daintily of an afternoon. Her hands were white and
+looked well against the blue yarn she was knitting. Besides there was
+something domestic and sentimental in a stocking. It gave a cosy, homey,
+air to a woman, Hannah considered. So she sat and knitted and smiled at
+whomsoever passed by, luring many in to sit and talk with her, so that the
+stockings never grew rapidly, but always kept at about the same stage. If
+it had been Miranda, Grandmother Heath would have made some sharp remarks
+about the length of time it took to finish that blue stocking, but as it
+was Hannah it was all right.
+
+Hannah sat upon the stoop and knitted as Harry Temple came by. Now, Hannah
+was not so great a favorite with Harry as Harry was with Hannah. She was
+of the kind who was conquered too easily, and he did not consider it worth
+his while to waste time upon her simperings usually. But this afternoon
+was different. He had nowhere to go for a little while, and Hannah's
+appearance on the stoop was opportune and gave him an idea. He would
+lounge there with her. Perchance fortune would favor him again and David
+Spafford would pass by and see him. There would be one more opportunity to
+stare insolently at him and defy him, before he bent his neck to obey.
+David had given him the day in which to do what he would, and he would
+make no move until the time was over and the coach he had named departed,
+but he knew that then he would bring down retribution. In just what form
+that retribution would come he was not quite certain, but he knew it would
+be severe.
+
+So when Hannah smiled upon him, Harry Temple stepped daintily across the
+mud in the road, and came and sat down beside her. He toyed with her
+knitting, caught one of her plump white hands, the one on the side away
+from the street, and held it, while Hannah pretended not to notice, and
+drooped her long eyelashes in a telling way. Hannah knew how. She had been
+at it a good many years.
+
+So he sat, toward five o'clock, when David came by, and bowed gravely to
+Hannah, but seemed not to see Harry. Harry let his eyes follow the tall
+figure in an insolent stare.
+
+"What a dough-faced cad that man is!" he said lazily, "no wonder his
+little pink-cheeked wife seeks other society. Handsome baby, though, isn't
+she?"
+
+Hannah pricked up her ears. Her loss of David was too recent not to cause
+her extreme jealousy of his pretty young wife. Already she fairly hated
+her. Her upbringing in the atmosphere of Grandmother Heath's sarcastic,
+ill-natured gossip had prepared her to be quick to see meaning in any
+insinuation.
+
+She looked at him keenly, archly for a moment, then replied with drooping
+gaze and coquettish manner:
+
+"You should not blame any one for enjoying your company."
+
+Hannah stole sly glances to see how he took this, but Harry was an old
+hand and proof against such scrutiny. He only shrugged his shoulder
+carelessly, as though he dropped all blame like a garment that he had no
+need for.
+
+"And what's the matter with David?" asked Hannah, watching David as he
+mounted his own steps, and thinking how often she had watched that tall
+form go down the street, and thought of him as destined to belong to her.
+The mortification that he had chosen some one else was not yet forgotten.
+It amounted almost to a desire for revenge.
+
+Harry lingered longer than he intended. Hannah begged him to remain to
+supper, but he declined, and when she pressed him to do so he looked
+troubled and said he was expecting a letter and must hurry back to see if
+it came in the afternoon coach. He told her that a dear friend, a beloved
+cousin, was lying very ill, and he might be summoned at any moment to his
+bedside, and Hannah said some comforting little things in a caressing
+voice, and hoped he would find the letter saying the cousin was better.
+Then he hurried away.
+
+It was easy at his boarding house to say he had been called away, and he
+rushed up to his room and threw some necessaries into his carpet-bag,
+scattering things around the room and helping out the impression that he
+was called away in a great hurry. When he was ready he looked at his
+watch. It was growing late. The evening coach left in half an hour. He
+knew its route well. It started at the village inn, and went down the old
+turnpike, stopping here and there to pick up passengers. There was always
+a convocation when it started. Perhaps David Spafford would be there and
+witness his obedience to the command given him. He set his lips and made
+up his mind to escape that at least. He would cheat his adversary of that
+satisfaction.
+
+It would involve a sacrifice. He would have to go without his supper, and
+he could smell the frying bacon coming up the stairs. But it would help
+the illusion and he could perhaps get something on the way when the coach
+stopped to change horses.
+
+He rushed downstairs and told his landlady that he must start at once, as
+he must see a man before the coach went, and she, poor lady, had no chance
+to suggest that he leave her a little deposit on the sum of his board
+which he already owed her. There was perhaps some method in his hurry for
+that reason also. It always bothered him to pay his bills, he had so many
+other ways of spending his money.
+
+So he hurried away and caught a ride in a farm wagon going toward the
+Cross Roads. When it turned off he walked a little way until another wagon
+came along; finally crossed several fields at a breathless pace and caught
+the coach just as it was leaving the Cross Roads, which was the last
+stopping place anywhere near the village. He climbed up beside the driver,
+still in a breathless condition, and detailed to him how he had received
+word, just before the coach started, by a messenger who came
+across-country on horseback, that his cousin was dying.
+
+After he had answered the driver's minutest questions, he sat back and
+reflected upon his course with satisfaction. He was off, and he had not
+been seen nor questioned by a single citizen, and by to-morrow night his
+story as he had told it to the driver would be fully known and circulated
+through the place he had just left. The stage driver was one of the best
+means of advertisement. It was well to give him full particulars.
+
+The driver after he had satisfied his curiosity about the young man by his
+side, and his reasons for leaving town so hastily, began to wax eloquent
+upon the one theme which now occupied his spare moments and his fluent
+tongue, the subject of a projected railroad. Whether some of the
+sentiments he uttered were his own, or whether he had but borrowed from
+others, they were at least uttered with force and apparent conviction, and
+many a traveller sat and listened as they were retailed and viewed the
+subject from the standpoint of the loud-mouthed coachman.
+
+A little later Tony Weller, called by some one "the best beloved of all
+coachmen," uttered much the same sentiments in the following words:
+
+"I consider that the railroad is unconstitutional and an invader o'
+privileges. As to the comfort, as an old coachman I may say it,--vere's the
+comfort o' sittin' in a harm-chair a lookin' at brick walls, and heaps o'
+mud, never comin' to a public 'ouse, never seein' a glass o' ale, never
+goin' through a pike, never meetin' a change o' no kind (hosses or
+otherwise), but always comin' to a place, ven you comes to vun at all, the
+werry picter o' the last.
+
+"As to the honor an' dignity o' travellin' vere can that be without a
+coachman, and vat's the rail, to sich coachmen as is sometimes forced to
+go by it, but an outrage and an hinsult? As to the ingen, a nasty,
+wheezin', gaspin', puffin', bustin' monster always out o' breath, with a
+shiny green and gold back like an onpleasant beetle; as to the ingen as is
+always a pourin' out red 'ot coals at night an' black smoke in the day,
+the sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is ven there's somethin' in
+the vay, it sets up that 'ere frightful scream vich seems to say, 'Now
+'ere's two 'undred an' forty passengers in the werry greatest extremity o'
+danger, an' 'ere's their two 'undred an' forty screams in vun!'"
+
+But such sentiments as these troubled Harry Temple not one whit. He cared
+not whether the present century had a railroad or whether it travelled by
+foot. He would not lift a white finger to help it along or hinder. As the
+talk went on he was considering how and where he might get his supper.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The weather turned suddenly cold and raw that Fall, and almost in one day,
+the trees that had been green, or yellowing in the sunshine, put on their
+autumn garments of defeat, flaunted them for a brief hour, and dropped
+them early in despair. The pleasant woods, to which Marcia had fled in her
+dismay, became a mass of finely penciled branches against a wintry sky,
+save for the one group of tall pines that hung out heavy above the rest,
+and seemed to defy even snowy blasts.
+
+Marcia could see those pines from her kitchen window, and sometimes as she
+worked, if her heart was heavy, she would look out and away to them, and
+think of the day she laid her head down beneath them to sob out her
+trouble, and awoke to find comfort. Somehow the memory of that little talk
+that she and David had then grew into vast proportions in her mind, and
+she loved to cherish it.
+
+There had come letters from home. Her stepmother had written, a stiff, not
+unloving letter, full of injunctions to be sure to remember this, and not
+do that, and on no account to let any relative or neighbor persuade her
+out of the ways in which she had been brought up. She was attempting to do
+as many mothers do, when they see the faults in the child they have
+brought up, try to bring them up over again. At some of the sentences a
+wild homesickness took possession of her. Some little homely phrase about
+one of the servants, or the mention of a pet hen or cow, would bring the
+longing tears to her eyes, and she would feel that she must throw away
+this new life and run back to the old one.
+
+School was begun at home. Mary Ann and Hanford would be taking the long
+walk back and forth together twice a day to the old school-house. She half
+envied them their happy, care-free life. She liked to think of the shy
+courting that she had often seen between scholars in the upper classes.
+Her imagination pleased itself sometimes when she was going to sleep,
+trying to picture out the school goings and home comings, and their sober
+talk. Not that she ever looked back to Hanford Weston with regret, not
+she. She knew always that he was not for her, and perhaps, even so early
+as that in her new life, if the choice had been given her whether she
+would go back to her girlhood again and be as she was before Kate had run
+away, or whether she would choose to stay here in the new life with David,
+it is likely she would have chosen to stay.
+
+There were occasional letters from Squire Schuyler. He wrote of politics,
+and sent many messages to his son-in-law which Marcia handed over to David
+at the tea table to read, and which always seemed to soften David and
+bring a sweet sadness into his eyes. He loved and respected his
+father-in-law. It was as if he were bound to him by the love of some one
+who had died. Marcia thought of that every time she handed David a letter,
+and sat and watched him read it.
+
+Sometimes little Harriet or the boys printed out a few words about the
+family cat, or the neighbors' children, and Marcia laughed and cried over
+the poor little attempts at letters and longed to have the eager childish
+faces of the writers to kiss.
+
+But in all of them there was never a mention of the bright, beautiful,
+selfish girl around whom the old home life used to centre and who seemed
+now, judging from the home letters, to be worse than dead to them all. But
+since the afternoon upon the hill a new and pleasant intercourse had
+sprung up between David and Marcia. True it was confined mainly to
+discussions of the new railroad, the possibilities of its success, and the
+construction of engines, tracks, etc. David was constantly writing up the
+subject for his paper, and he fell into the habit of reading his articles
+aloud to Marcia when they were finished. She would listen with breathless
+admiration, sometimes combating a point ably, with the old vim she had
+used in her discussion over the newspaper with her father, but mainly
+agreeing with every word he wrote, and always eager to understand it down
+to the minutest detail.
+
+He always seemed pleased at her praise, and wrote on while she put away
+the tea-things with a contented expression as though he had passed a high
+critic, and need not fear any other. Once he looked up with a quizzical
+expression and made a jocose remark about "our article," taking her into a
+sort of partnership with him in it, which set her heart to beating
+happily, until it seemed as if she were really in some part at least
+growing into his life.
+
+But after all their companionship was a shy, distant one, more like that
+of a brother and sister who had been separated all their lives and were
+just beginning to get acquainted, and ever there was a settled sadness
+about the lines of David's mouth and eyes. They sat around one table now,
+the evenings when they were at home, for there were still occasional
+tea-drinkings at their friends' houses; and there was one night a week
+held religiously for a formal supper with the aunts, which David kindly
+acquiesced in--more for the sake of his Aunt Clarinda than the
+others,--whenever he was not detained by actual business. Then, too, there
+was the weekly prayer meeting held at "early candle light" in the dim old
+shadowed church. They always walked down the twilighted streets together,
+and it seemed to Marcia there was a sweet solemnity about that walk. They
+never said much to each other on the way. David seemed preoccupied with
+holy thoughts, and Marcia walked softly beside him as if he had been the
+minister, looking at him proudly and reverently now and then. David was
+often called upon to pray in meeting and Marcia loved to listen to his
+words. He seemed to be more intimate with God than the others, who were
+mostly old men and prayed with long, rolling, solemn sentences that put
+the whole community down into the dust and ashes before their Creator.
+
+Marcia rather enjoyed the hour spent in the sombreness of the church, with
+the flickering candle light making grotesque forms of shadows on the wall
+and among the tall pews. The old minister reminded her of the one she had
+left at home, though he was more learned and scholarly, and when he had
+read the Scripture passages he would take his spectacles off and lay them
+across the great Bible where the candle light played at glances with the
+steel bows, and say: "Let us pray!" Then would come that soft stir and
+hush as the people took the attitude of prayer. Marcia sometimes joined in
+the prayer in her heart, uttering shy little petitions that were vague and
+indefinite, and had to do mostly with the days when she was troubled and
+homesick, and felt that David belonged wholly to Kate. Always her clear
+voice joined in the slow hymns that quavered out now and again, lined out
+to the worshippers.
+
+Marcia and David went out from that meeting down the street to their home
+with the hush upon them that must have been upon the Israelites of old
+after they had been to the solemn congregation.
+
+But once David had come in earlier than usual and had caught Marcia
+reading the Scottish Chiefs, and while she started guiltily to be found
+thus employed he smiled indulgently. After supper he said: "Get your book,
+child, and sit down. I have some writing to do, and after it is done I
+will read it to you." So after that, more and more often, it was a book
+that Marcia held in her hands in the long evenings when they sat together,
+instead of some useful employment, and so her education progressed. Thus
+she read Epictetus, Rasselas, The Deserted Village, The Vicar of
+Wakefield, Paradise Lost, the Mysteries of the Human Heart, Marshall's
+Life of Columbus, The Spy, The Pioneers, and The Last of the Mohicans.
+
+She had been asked to sing in the village choir. David sang a sweet high
+tenor there, and Marcia's voice was clear and strong as a blackbird's,
+with the plaintive sweetness of the wood-robin's.
+
+Hannah Heath was in the choir also, and jealously watched her every move,
+but of this Marcia was unaware until informed of it by Miranda. With her
+inherited sweetness of nature she scarcely credited it, until one Sunday,
+a few weeks after the departure of Harry Temple, Hannah leaned forward
+from her seat among the altos and whispered quite distinctly, so that
+those around could hear--it was just before the service--"I've just had a
+letter from your friend Mr. Temple. I thought you might like to know that
+his cousin got well and he has gone back to New York. He won't be
+returning here this year. On some accounts he thought it was better not."
+
+It was all said pointedly, with double emphasis upon the "your friend,"
+and "some accounts." Marcia felt her cheeks glow, much to her vexation,
+and tried to control her whisper to seem kindly as she answered
+indifferently enough.
+
+"Oh, indeed! But you must have made a mistake. Mr. Temple is a very slight
+acquaintance of mine. I have met him only a few times, and I know nothing
+about his cousin. I was not aware even that he had gone away."
+
+Hannah raised her speaking eyebrows and replied, quite loud now, for the
+choir leader had stood up already with his tuning-fork in hand, and one
+could hear it faintly twang:
+
+"Indeed!"--using Marcia's own word--and quite coldly, "I should have thought
+differently from what Harry himself told me," and there was that in her
+tone which deepened the color in Marcia's cheeks and caused it to stay
+there during the entire morning service as she sat puzzling over what
+Hannah could have meant. It rankled in her mind during the whole day. She
+longed to ask David about it, but could not get up the courage.
+
+She could not bear to revive the memory of what seemed to be her shame. It
+was at the minister's donation party that Hannah planted another thorn in
+her heart,--Hannah, in a green plaid silk with delicate undersleeves of
+lace, and a tiny black velvet jacket.
+
+She selected a time when Lemuel was near, and when Aunt Amelia and Aunt
+Hortense, who believed that all the young men in town were hovering about
+David's wife, sat one on either side of Marcia, as if to guard her for
+their beloved nephew--who was discussing politics with Mr. Heath--and who
+never seemed to notice, so blind he was in his trust of her.
+
+So Hannah paused and posed before the three ladies, and with Lemuel
+smiling just at her elbow, began in her affected way:
+
+"I've had another letter from New York, from your friend Mr. Temple," she
+said it with the slightest possible glance over her shoulder to get the
+effect of her words upon the faithful Lemuel, "and he tells me he has met
+a sister of yours. By the way, she told him that David used to be very
+fond of her before she was married. I suppose she'll be coming to visit
+you now she's so near as New York."
+
+Two pairs of suspicious steely eyes flew like stinging insects to gaze
+upon her, one on either side, and Marcia's heart stood still for just one
+instant, but she felt that here was her trying time, and if she would help
+David and do the work for which she had become his wife, she must protect
+him now from any suspicions or disagreeable tongues. By very force of will
+she controlled the trembling of her lips.
+
+"My sister will not likely visit us this winter, I think," she replied as
+coolly as if she had had a letter to that effect that morning, and then
+she deliberately looked at Lemuel Skinner and asked if he had heard of the
+offer of prizes of four thousand dollars in cash that the Baltimore and
+Ohio railroad had just made for the most approved engine delivered for
+trial before June first, 1831, not to exceed three and a half tons in
+weight and capable of drawing, day by day, fifteen tons inclusive of
+weight of wagons, fifteen miles per hour. Lemuel looked at her blankly and
+said he had not heard of it. He was engaged in thinking over what Hannah
+had said about a letter from Harry Temple. He cared nothing about
+railroads.
+
+"The second prize is thirty-five hundred dollars," stated Marcia eagerly,
+as though it were of the utmost importance to her.
+
+"Are you thinking of trying for one of the prizes?" sneered Hannah,
+piercing her with her eyes, and now indeed the ready color flowed into
+Marcia's face. Her ruse had been detected.
+
+"If I were a man and understood machinery I believe I would. What a grand
+thing it would be to be able to invent a thing like an engine that would
+be of so much use to the world," she answered bravely.
+
+"They are most dangerous machines," said Aunt Amelia disapprovingly. "No
+right-minded Christian who wishes to live out the life his Creator has
+given him would ever ride behind one. I have heard that boilers always
+explode."
+
+"They are most unnecessary!" said Aunt Hortense severely, as if that
+settled the question for all time and all railroad corporations.
+
+But Marcia was glad for once of their disapproval and entered most
+heartily into a discussion of the pros and cons of engines and steam,
+quoting largely from David's last article for the paper on the subject,
+until Hannah and Lemuel moved slowly away. The discussion served to keep
+the aunts from inquiring further that evening about the sister in New
+York.
+
+Marcia begged them to go with her into the kitchen and see the store of
+good things that had been brought to the minister's house by his loving
+parishioners. Bags of flour and meal, pumpkins, corn in the ear, eggs, and
+nice little pats of butter. A great wooden tub of doughnuts, baskets of
+apples and quinces, pounds of sugar and tea, barrels of potatoes, whole
+hams, a side of pork, a quarter of beef, hanks of yarn, and strings of
+onions. It was a goodly array. Marcia felt that the minister must be
+beloved by his people. She watched him and his wife as they greeted their
+people, and wished she knew them better, and might come and see them
+sometimes, and perhaps eventually feel as much at home with them as with
+her own dear minister.
+
+She avoided Hannah during the remainder of the evening. When the evening
+was over and she went upstairs to get her wraps from the high four-poster
+bedstead, she had almost forgotten Hannah and her ill-natured, prying
+remarks. But Hannah had not forgotten her. She came forth from behind the
+bed curtains where she had been searching for a lost glove, and remarked
+that she should think Marcia would be lonely this first winter away from
+home and want her sister with her a while.
+
+But the presence of Hannah always seemed a mental stimulus to the spirit
+of Marcia.
+
+"Oh, I'm not in the least lonely," she laughed merrily. "I have a great
+many interesting things to do, and I love music and books."
+
+"Oh, yes, I forgot you are very fond of music. Harry Temple told me about
+it," said Hannah. Again there was that disagreeable hint of something more
+behind her words, that aggravated Marcia almost beyond control. For an
+instant a cutting reply was upon her lips and her eyes flashed fire; then
+it came to her how futile it would be, and she caught the words in time
+and walked swiftly down the stairs. David watching her come down saw the
+admiring glances of all who stood in the hall below, and took her under
+his protection with a measure of pride in her youth and beauty that he did
+not himself at all realize. All the way home he talked with her about the
+new theory of railroad construction, quite contented in her companionship,
+while she, poor child, much perturbed in spirit, wondered how he would
+feel if he knew what Hannah had said.
+
+David fell into a deep study with a book and his papers about him, after
+they had reached home. Marcia went up to her quiet, lonely chamber, put
+her face in the pillow and thought and wept and prayed. When at last she
+lay down to rest she did not know anything she could do but just to go on
+living day by day and helping David all she could. At most there was
+nothing to fear for herself, save a kind of shame that she had not been
+the first sister chosen, and she found to her surprise that that was
+growing to be deeper than she had supposed.
+
+She wished as she fell asleep that her girl-dreams might have been left to
+develop and bloom like other girls', and that she might have had a real
+lover,--like David in every way, yet of course not David because he was
+Kate's. But a real lover who would meet her as David had done that night
+when he thought she was Kate, and speak to her tenderly.
+
+One afternoon David, being wearied with an unusual round of taxing cares,
+came home to rest and study up some question in his library.
+
+Finding the front door fastened, and remembering that he had left his key
+in his other pocket, he came around to the back door, and much preoccupied
+with thought went through the kitchen and nearly to the hall before the
+unusual sounds of melody penetrated to his ears. He stopped for an instant
+amazed, forgetting the piano, then comprehending he wondered who was
+playing. Perhaps some visitor was in the parlor. He would listen and find
+out. He was weary and dusty with the soil of the office upon his hands and
+clothes. He did not care to meet a visitor, so under cover of the music he
+slipped into the door of his library across the hall from the parlor and
+dropped into his great arm-chair.
+
+Softly and tenderly stole the music through the open door, all about him,
+like the gentle dropping of some tender psalms or comforting chapter in
+the Bible to an aching heart. It touched his brow like a soft soothing
+hand, and seemed to know and recognize all the agonies his heart had been
+passing through, and all the weariness his body felt.
+
+He put his head back and let it float over him and rest him. Tinkling
+brooks and gentle zephyrs, waving of forest trees, and twitterings of
+birds, calm lazy clouds floating by, a sweetness in the atmosphere, bells
+far away, lowing herds, music of the angels high in heaven, the soothing
+strain from each extracted and brought to heal his broken heart. It fell
+like dew upon his spirit. Then, like a fresh breeze with zest and life
+borne on, came a new strain, grand and fine and high, calling him to
+better things. He did not know it was a strain of Handel's music grown
+immortal, but his spirit recognized the higher call, commanding him to
+follow, and straightway he felt strengthened to go onward in the course he
+had been pursuing. Old troubles seemed to grow less, anguish fell away
+from him. He took new lease of life. Nothing seemed impossible.
+
+Then she played by ear one or two of the old tunes they sang in church,
+touching the notes tenderly and almost making them speak the words. It
+seemed a benediction. Suddenly the playing ceased and Marcia remembered it
+was nearly supper time.
+
+He met her in the doorway with a new look in his eyes, a look of high
+purpose and exultation. He smiled upon her and said: "That was good,
+child. I did not know you could do it. You must give it to us often."
+Marcia felt a glow of pleasure in his kindliness, albeit she felt that the
+look in his eyes set him apart and above her, and made her feel the child
+she was. She hurried out to get the supper between pleasure and a nameless
+unrest. She was glad of this much, but she wanted more, a something to
+meet her soul and satisfy.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The world had not gone well with Mistress Kate Leavenworth, and she was
+ill-pleased. She had not succeeded in turning her father's heart toward
+herself as she had confidently expected to do when she ran away with her
+sea captain. She had written a gay letter home, taking for granted, in a
+pretty way, the forgiveness she did not think it necessary to ask, but
+there had come in return a brief harsh statement from her father that she
+was no longer his daughter and must cease from further communication with
+the family in any way; that she should never enter his house again and not
+a penny of his money should ever pass to her. He also informed her plainly
+that the trousseau made for her had been given to her sister who was now
+the wife of the man she had not seen fit to marry.
+
+Over this letter Mistress Kate at first stormed, then wept, and finally
+sat down to frame epistle after epistle in petulant, penitent language.
+These epistles following each other by daily mail coaches still brought
+nothing further from her irate parent, and my lady was at last forced to
+face the fact that she must bear the penalty of her own misdeeds; a lesson
+she should have learned much earlier in life.
+
+The young captain, who had always made it appear that he had plenty of
+money, had spent his salary, and most of his mother's fortune, which had
+been left in his keeping as administrator of his father's estate; so he
+had really very little to offer the spoiled and petted beauty, who simply
+would not settle down to the inevitable and accept the fate she had
+brought upon herself and others. Day after day she fretted and blamed her
+husband until he heartily wished her back from whence he had taken her;
+wished her back with her straitlaced lover from whom he had stolen her;
+wished her anywhere save where she was. Her brightness and beauty seemed
+all gone: she was a sulky child insisting upon the moon or nothing. She
+waited to go to New York and be established in a fine house with plenty of
+servants and a carriage and horses, and the young captain had not the
+wherewithal to furnish these accessories to an elegant and luxurious life.
+
+He had loved her so far as his shallow nature could love, and perhaps she
+had returned it in the beginning. He wanted to spend his furlough in quiet
+places where he might have a honeymoon of his ideal, bantering Kate's
+sparkling sentences, looking into her beautiful eyes, touching her rosy
+lips with his own as often as he chose. But Mistress Kate had lost her
+sparkle. She would not be kissed until she had gained her point, her
+lovely eyes were full of disfiguring tears and angry flashes, and her
+speech scintillated with cutting sarcasms, which were none the less hard
+to bear that they pressed home some disagreeable truths to the easy,
+careless spendthrift. The rose had lost its dew and was making its thorns
+felt.
+
+And so they quarreled through their honeymoon, and Captain Leavenworth was
+not sorry when a hasty and unexpected end came to his furlough and he was
+ordered off with his ship for an indefinite length of time.
+
+Even then Kate thought to get her will before he left, and held on her
+sullen ways and her angry, blameful talk until the last minute, so that he
+hurried away without even one good-bye kiss, and with her angry sentences
+sounding in his ears.
+
+True, he repented somewhat on board the ship and sent her back more money
+than she could reasonably have expected under the circumstances, but he
+sent it without one word of gentleness, and Kate's heart was hard toward
+her husband.
+
+Then with bitterness and anguish,--that was new and fairly astonishing that
+it had come to her who had always had her way,--she sat down to think of
+the man she had jilted. He would have been kind to her. He would have
+given her all she asked and more. He would even have moved his business to
+New York to please her, she felt sure. Why had she been so foolish! And
+then, like many another sinner who is made at last to see the error of his
+ways, she cast hard thoughts at a Fate which had allowed her to make so
+great a mistake, and pitied her poor little self out of all recognition of
+the character she had formed.
+
+But she took her money and went to New York, for she felt that there only
+could she be at all happy, and have some little taste of the delights of
+true living.
+
+She took up her abode with an ancient relative of her own mother's, who
+lived in a quiet respectable part of the city, and who was glad to piece
+out her small annuity with the modest sum that Kate agreed to pay for her
+board.
+
+It was not long before Mistress Kate, with her beautiful face, and the
+pretty clothes which she took care to provide at once for herself,
+spending lavishly out of the diminishing sum her husband had sent her, and
+thinking not of the morrow, nor the day when the board bills would be due,
+became well known. The musty little parlor of the ancient relative was
+daily filled with visitors, and every evening Kate held court, with the
+old aunt nodding in her chair by the fireside.
+
+Neither did the poor old lady have a very easy time of it, in spite of the
+promise of weekly pay. Kate laughed at the old furniture and the old ways.
+She demanded new things, and got them, too, until the old lady saw little
+hope of any help from the board money when Kate was constantly saying: "I
+saw this in a shop down town, auntie, and as I knew you needed it I just
+bought it. My board this week will just pay for it." As always, Kate
+ruled. The little parlor took on an air of brightness, and Kate became
+popular. A few women of fashion took her up, and Kate launched herself
+upon a gay life, her one object to have as good a time as possible,
+regardless of what her husband or any one else might think.
+
+When Kate had been in New York about two months it happened one day that
+she went out to drive with one of her new acquaintances, a young married
+woman of about her own age, who had been given all in a worldly way that
+had been denied to Kate.
+
+They made some calls in Brooklyn, and returned on the ferry-boat, carriage
+and all, just as the sun was setting.
+
+The view was marvellous. The water a flood of pink and green and gold; the
+sails of the vessels along the shore lit up resplendently; the buildings
+of the city beyond sent back occasional flashes of reflected light from
+window glass or church spire. It was a picture worth looking upon, and
+Kate's companion was absorbed in it.
+
+Not so Kate. She loved display above all things. She sat up statelily,
+aware that she looked well in her new frock with the fine lace collar she
+had extravagantly purchased the day before, and her leghorn bonnet with
+its real ostrich feather, which was becoming in the extreme. She enjoyed
+sitting back of the colored coachman, her elegant friend by her side, and
+being admired by the two ladies and the little girl who sat in the ladies'
+cabin and occasionally peeped curiously at her from the window. She drew
+herself up haughtily and let her soul "delight itself in fatness"--borrowed
+fatness, perhaps, but still, the long desired. She told herself she had a
+right to it, for was she not a Schuyler? That name was respected
+everywhere.
+
+She bore a grudge at a man and woman who stood by the railing absorbed in
+watching the sunset haze that lay over the river showing the white sails
+in gleams like flashes of white birds here and there.
+
+A young man well set up, and fashionably attired, sauntered up to the
+carriage. He spoke to Kate's friend, and was introduced. Kate felt in her
+heart it was because of her presence there he came. His bold black eyes
+told her as much and she was flattered.
+
+They fell to talking.
+
+"You say you spent the summer near Albany, Mr. Temple," said Kate
+presently, "I wonder if you happen to know any of my friends. Did you meet
+a Mr. Spafford? David Spafford?"
+
+"Of course I did, knew him well," said the young man with guarded tone.
+But a quick flash of dislike, and perhaps fear had crossed his face at the
+name. Kate was keen. She analyzed that look. She parted her charming red
+lips and showed her sharp little teeth like the treacherous pearls in a
+white kitten's pink mouth.
+
+"He was once a lover of mine," said Kate carelessly, wrinkling her piquant
+little nose as if the idea were comical, and laughing out a sweet ripple
+of mirth that would have cut David to the heart.
+
+"Indeed!" said the ever ready Harry, "and I do not wonder. Is not every
+one that at once they see you, Madam Leavenworth? How kind of your husband
+to stay away at sea for so long a time and give us other poor fellows a
+chance to say pleasant things."
+
+Then Kate pouted her pretty lips in a way she had and tapped the delighted
+Harry with her carriage parasol across the fingers of his hand that had
+taken familiar hold of the carriage beside her arm.
+
+"Oh, you naughty man!" she exclaimed prettily. "How dare you! Yes, David
+Spafford and I were quite good friends. I almost gave in at one time and
+became Mrs. Spafford, but he was too good for me!"
+
+She uttered this truth in a mocking tone, and Harry saw her lead and
+hastened to follow. Here was a possible chance for revenge. He was ready
+for any. He studied the lady before him keenly. Of what did that face
+remind him? Had he ever seen her before?
+
+"I should judge him a little straitlaced for your merry ways," he
+responded gallantly, "but he's like all the rest, fickle, you know. He's
+married. Have you heard?"
+
+Kate's face darkened with something hard and cruel, but her voice was soft
+as a cat's purr:
+
+"Yes," she sighed, "I know. He married my sister. Poor child! I am sorry
+for her. I think he did it out of revenge, and she was too young to know
+her own mind. But they, poor things, will have to bear the consequences of
+what they have done. Isn't it a pity that that has to be, Mr. Temple? It
+is dreadful to have the innocent suffer. I have been greatly anxious about
+my sister." She lifted her large eyes swimming in tears, and he did not
+perceive the insincerity in her purring voice just then. He was thanking
+his lucky stars that he had been saved from any remarks about young Mrs.
+Spafford, whom her sister seemed to love so deeply. It had been on the tip
+of his tongue to suggest that she might be able to lead her husband a gay
+little dance if she chose. How lucky he had not spoken! He tried to say
+some pleasant comforting nothings, and found it delightful to see her face
+clear into smiles and her blue eyes look into his so confidingly. By the
+time the boat touched the New York side the two felt well acquainted, and
+Harry Temple had promised to call soon, which promise he lost no time in
+keeping.
+
+Kate's heart had grown bitter against the young sister who had dared to
+take her place, and against the lover who had so easily solaced himself.
+She could not understand it.
+
+She resolved to learn all that Mr. Temple knew about David, and to find
+out if possible whether he were happy. It was Kate's nature not to be able
+to give up anything even though she did not want it. She desired the
+life-long devotion of every man who came near her, and have it she would
+or punish him.
+
+Harry Temple, meanwhile, was reflecting upon his chance meeting that
+afternoon and wondering if in some way he might not yet have revenge upon
+the man who had humbled him. Possibly this woman could help him.
+
+After some thought he sat down and penned a letter to Hannah Heath,
+begemming it here and there with devoted sentences which caused that young
+woman's eyes to sparkle and a smile of anticipation to wreathe her lips.
+When she heard of the handsome sister in New York, and of her former
+relations with David Spafford, her eyes narrowed speculatively, and her
+fair brow drew into puzzled frowns. Harry Temple had drawn a word picture
+of Mrs. Leavenworth. Harry should have been a novelist. If he had not been
+too lazy he would have been a success. Gold hair! Ah! Hannah had heard of
+gold hair before, and in connection with David's promised wife. Here was a
+mystery and Hannah resolved to look into it. It would at least be
+interesting to note the effect of her knowledge upon the young bride next
+door. She would try it.
+
+Meantime, the acquaintance of Harry Temple and Kate Leavenworth had
+progressed rapidly. The second sight of the lady proved more interesting
+than the first, for now her beautiful gold hair added to the charm of her
+handsome face. Harry ever delighted in beauty of whatever type, and a
+blonde was more fascinating to him than a brunette. Kate had dressed
+herself bewitchingly, and her manner was charming. She knew how to assume
+pretty child-like airs, but she was not afraid to look him boldly in the
+eyes, and the light in her own seemed to challenge him. Here was a
+delightful new study. A woman fresh from the country, having all the charm
+of innocence, almost as child-like as her sister, yet with none of her
+prudishness. Kate's eyes held latent wickedness in them, or he was much
+mistaken. She did not droop her lids and blush when he looked boldly and
+admiringly into her face, but stared him back, smilingly, merrily,
+daringly, as though she would go quite as far as he would. Moreover, with
+her he was sure he need feel none of the compunctions he might have felt
+with her younger sister who was so obviously innocent, for whether Kate's
+boldness was from lack of knowledge, or from lack of innocence, she was
+quite able to protect herself, that was plain.
+
+So Harry settled into his chair with a smile of pleasant anticipation upon
+his face. He not only had the prospect before him of a possible ally in
+revenge against David Spafford, but he had the promise of a most unusually
+delightful flirtation with a woman who was worthy of his best efforts in
+that line.
+
+Almost at once it began, with pleasant banter, adorned with personal
+compliments.
+
+"Lovelier than I thought, my lady," said Harry, bowing low over the hand
+she gave him, in a courtly manner he had acquired, perhaps from the
+old-world novels he had read, and he brushed her pink finger tips with his
+lips in a way that signified he was her abject slave.
+
+Kate blushed and smiled, greatly pleased, for though she had held her own
+little court in the village where she was brought up, and queened it over
+the young men who had flocked about her willingly, she had not been used
+to the fulsome flattery that breathed from Harry Temple in every word and
+glance.
+
+He looked at her keenly as he stood back a moment, to see if she were in
+any wise offended with his salutation, and saw as he expected that she was
+pleased and flattered. Her cheeks had grown rosier, and her eyes sparkled
+with pleasure as she responded with a pretty, gracious speech.
+
+Then they sat down and faced one another. A good woman would have called
+his look impudent--insulting. Kate returned it with a look that did not
+shrink, nor waver, but fearlessly, recklessly accepted the challenge.
+Playing with fire, were these two, and with no care for the fearful
+results which might follow. Both knew it was dangerous, and liked it the
+better for that. There was a long silence. The game was opening on a wider
+scale than either had ever played before.
+
+"Do you believe in affinities?" asked the devil, through the man's voice.
+
+The woman colored and showed she understood his deeper meaning. Her eyes
+drooped for just the shade of an instant, and then she looked up and faced
+him saucily, provokingly:
+
+"Why?"
+
+He admired her with his gaze, and waited, lazily watching the color play
+in her cheeks.
+
+"Do you need to ask why?" he said at last, looking at her significantly.
+"I knew that you were my affinity the moment I laid my eyes upon you, and
+I hoped you felt the same. But perhaps I was mistaken." He searched her
+face.
+
+She kept her eyes upon his, returning their full gaze, as if to hold it
+from going too deep into her soul.
+
+"I did not say you were mistaken, did I?" said the rosy lips coquettishly,
+and Kate drooped her long lashes till they fell in becoming sweeps over
+her burning cheeks.
+
+Something in the curve of cheek and chin, and sweep of dark lash over
+velvet skin, reminded him of her sister. It was so she had sat, though
+utterly unconscious, while he had been singing, when there had come over
+him that overwhelming desire to kiss her. If he should kiss this fair lady
+would she slap him in the face and run into the garden? He thought not.
+Still, she was brought up by the same father and mother in all likelihood,
+and it was well to go slow. He reached forward, drawing his chair a little
+nearer to her, and then boldly took one of her small unresisting hands,
+gently, that he might not frighten her, and smoothed it thoughtfully
+between his own. He held it in a close grasp and looked into her face
+again, she meanwhile watching her hand amusedly, as though it were
+something apart from herself, a sort of distant possession, for which she
+was in no wise responsible.
+
+"I feel that you belong to me," he said boldly looking into her eyes with
+a languishing gaze. "I have known it from the first moment."
+
+Kate let her hand lie in his as if she liked it, but she said:
+
+"And what makes you think that, most audacious sir? Did you not know that
+I am married?" Then she swept her gaze up provokingly at him again and
+smiled, showing her dainty, treacherous, little teeth. She was so
+bewitchingly pretty and tempting then that he had a mind to kiss her on
+the spot, but a thought came to him that he would rather lead her further
+first. He was succeeding well. She had no mind to be afraid. She did her
+part admirably.
+
+"That makes no difference," said he smiling. "That another man has secured
+you first, and has the right to provide for you, and be near you, is my
+misfortune of course, but it makes no difference, you are mine? By all the
+power of love you are mine. Can any other man keep my soul from yours, can
+he keep my eyes from looking into yours, or my thoughts from hovering over
+you, or--" he hesitated and looked at her keenly, while she furtively
+watched him, holding her breath and half inviting him--"or my lips from
+drinking life from yours?" He stooped quickly and pressed his lips upon
+hers.
+
+Kate gave a quick little gasp like a sob and drew back. The aunt nodding
+over her Bible in the next room had not heard,--she was very deaf,--but for
+an instant the young woman felt that all the shades of her worthy
+patriarchal ancestors were hurrying around and away from her in horror.
+She had come of too good Puritan stock not to know that she was treading
+in the path of unrighteousness. Nevertheless it was a broad path, and
+easy. It tempted her. It was exciting. It lured her with promise of
+satisfying some of her untamed longings and impulses.
+
+She did not look offended. She only drew back to get breath and consider.
+The wild beating of her heart, the tumult of her cheeks and eyes were all
+a part of a new emotion. Her vanity was excited, and she thrilled with a
+wild pleasure. As a duck will take to swimming so she took to the new
+game, with wonderful facility.
+
+"But I didn't say you might," she cried with a bewildering smile.
+
+"I beg your pardon, fair lady, may I have another?"
+
+His bold, bad face was near her own, so that she did not see the evil
+triumph that lurked there. She had come to the turning of another way in
+her life, and just here she might have drawn back if she would. Half she
+knew this, yet she toyed with the opportunity, and it was gone. The new
+way seemed so alluring.
+
+"You will first have to prove your right!" she said decidedly, with that
+pretty commanding air that had conquered so many times.
+
+And in like manner on they went through the evening, frittering the time
+away at playing with edged tools.
+
+A friendship so begun--if so unworthy an intimacy may be called by that
+sweet name--boded no good to either of the two, and that evening marked a
+decided turn for the worse in Kate Leavenworth's career.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XX
+
+
+David had found it necessary to take a journey which might keep him away
+for several weeks.
+
+He told Marcia in the evening when he came home from the office. He told
+her as he would have told his clerk. It meant nothing to him but an
+annoyance that he had to start out in the early winter, leave his business
+in other's hands for an indefinite period, and go among strangers. He did
+not see the whitening of Marcia's lips, nor the quick little movement of
+her hand to her heart. Even Marcia herself did not realize all that it
+meant to her. She felt as if a sudden shock had almost knocked her off her
+feet. This quiet life in the big house, with only David at intervals to
+watch and speak to occasionally, and no one to open her true heart to, had
+been lonely; and many a time when she was alone at night she had wept
+bitter tears upon her pillow,--why she did not quite know. But now when she
+knew that it was to cease, and David was going away from her for a long
+time, perhaps weeks, her heart suddenly tightened and she knew how sweet
+it had been growing. Almost the tears came to her eyes, but she made a
+quick errand to the hearth for the teapot, busying herself there till they
+were under control again. When she returned to her place at the table she
+was able to ask David some commonplace question about the journey which
+kept her true feeling quite hidden from him.
+
+He was to start the next evening if possible. It appeared that there was
+something important about railroading coming up in Congress. It was
+necessary that he should be present to hear the debate, and also that he
+should see and interview influential men. It meant much to the success of
+the great new enterprises that were just in their infancy that he should
+go and find out all about them and write them up as only he whose heart
+was in it could do. He was pleased to have been selected for this; he was
+lifted for the time above himself and his life troubles, and given to feel
+that he had a work in the world that was worth while, a high calling, a
+chance to give a push to the unrolling of the secret possibilities of the
+universe and help them on their way.
+
+Marcia understood it all, and was proud and glad for him, but her own
+heart which beat in such perfect sympathy with the work felt lonely and
+left out. If only she could have helped too!
+
+There was no time for David to take Marcia to her home to stay during his
+absence. He spoke of it regretfully just as he was about to leave, and
+asked if she would like him to get some one to escort her by coach to her
+father's house until he could come for her; but she held back the tears by
+main force and shook her head. She had canvassed that question in the
+still hours of the night. She had met in imagination the home village with
+its kindly and unkindly curiosity, she had seen their hands lifted in
+suspicion; heard their covert whispers as to why her husband did not come
+with her; why he had left her so soon after the honeymoon; why--a hundred
+things. She had even thought of Aunt Polly and her acrid tongue and made
+up her mind that whatever happened she did not want to go home to stay.
+
+The only other alternative was to go to the aunts. David expected it, and
+the aunts spoke of it as if nothing else were possible. Marcia would have
+preferred to remain alone in her own house, with her beloved piano, but
+David would not consent, and the aunts were scandalized at the suggestion.
+So to the aunts went Marcia, and they took her in with a hope in their
+hearts that she might get the same good from the visit that the sluggard
+in the Bible is bidden to find.
+
+"We must do our duty by her for David's sake," said Aunt Hortense, with
+pursed lips and capable, folded hands that seemed fairly to ache to get at
+the work of reconstructing the new niece.
+
+"Yes, it is our opportunity," said Aunt Amelia with a snap as though she
+thoroughly enjoyed the prospect. "Poor David!" and so they sat and laid
+out their plans for their sweet young victim, who all unknowingly was
+coming to one of those tests in her life whereby we are tried for greater
+things and made perfect in patience and sweetness.
+
+It began with the first breakfast--the night before she had been company,
+at supper--but when the morning came they felt she must be counted one of
+the family. They examined her thoroughly on what she had been taught with
+regard to housekeeping. They made her tell her recipes for pickling and
+preserving. They put her through a catechism of culinary lore, and always
+after her most animated account of the careful way in which she had been
+trained in this or that housewifely art she looked up with wistful eyes
+that longed to please, only to be met by the hard set lips and steely
+glances of the two mentors who regretted that she should not have been
+taught their way which was so much better.
+
+Aunt Hortense even went so far once as to suggest that Marcia write to her
+stepmother and tell her how much better it was to salt the water in which
+potatoes were to be boiled before putting them in, and was much offended
+by the clear girlish laugh that bubbled up involuntarily at the thought of
+teaching her stepmother anything about cooking.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, instantly sobering as she saw the grim look of the
+aunt, and felt frightened at what she had done. "I did not mean to laugh,
+indeed I did not; but it seemed so funny to think of my telling mother how
+to do anything."
+
+"People are never too old to learn," remarked Aunt Hortense with offended
+mien, "and one ought never to be too proud when there is a better way."
+
+"But mother thinks there is no better way I am sure. She says that it
+makes potatoes soggy to boil them in salt. All that grows below the ground
+should be salted after it is cooked and all that grows above the ground
+should be cooked in salted water, is her rule."
+
+"I am surprised that your stepmother should uphold any such superstitious
+ideas," said Aunt Amelia with a self-satisfied expression.
+
+"One should never be too proud to learn something better," Aunt Hortense
+said grimly, and Marcia retreated in dire consternation at the thought of
+what might follow if these three notable housekeeping gentlewomen should
+come together. Somehow she felt a wicked little triumph in the thought
+that it would be hard to down her stepmother.
+
+Marcia was given a few light duties ostensibly to "make her feel at home,"
+but in reality, she knew, because the aunts felt she needed their
+instruction. She was asked if she would like to wash the china and glass;
+and regularly after each meal a small wooden tub and a mop were brought in
+with hot water and soap, and she was expected to handle the costly
+heirlooms under the careful scrutiny of their worshipping owners, who
+evidently watched each process with strained nerves lest any bit of
+treasured pottery should be cracked or broken. It was a trying ordeal.
+
+The girl would have been no girl if she had not chafed under this
+treatment. To hold her temper steady and sweet under it was almost more
+than she could bear.
+
+There were long afternoons when it was decreed that they should knit.
+
+Marcia had been used to take long walks at home, over the smooth crust of
+the snow, going to her beloved woods, where she delighted to wander among
+the bare and creaking trees; fancying them whispering sadly to one another
+of the summer that was gone and the leaves they had borne now dead. But it
+would be a dreadful thing in the aunts' opinion for a woman, and
+especially a young one, to take a long walk in the woods alone, in winter
+too, and with no object whatever in view but a walk! What a waste of time!
+
+There were two places of refuge for Marcia during the weeks that followed.
+There was home. How sweet that word sounded to her! How she longed to go
+back there, with David coming home to his quiet meals three times a day,
+and with her own time to herself to do as she pleased. With housewifely
+zeal that was commendable in the eyes of the aunts, Marcia insisted upon
+going down to her own house every morning to see that all was right,
+guiltily knowing that in her heart she meant to hurry to her beloved books
+and piano. To be sure it was cold and cheerless in the empty house. She
+dared not make up fires and leave them, and she dared not stay too long
+lest the aunts would feel hurt at her absence, but she longed with an
+inexpressible longing to be back there by herself, away from that terrible
+supervision and able to live her own glad little life and think her own
+thoughts untrammeled by primness.
+
+Sometimes she would curl up in David's big arm-chair and have a good cry,
+after which she would take a book and read until the creeping chills down
+her spine warned her she must stop. Even then she would run up and down
+the hall or take a broom and sweep vigorously to warm herself and then go
+to the cold keys and play a sad little tune. All her tunes seemed sad like
+a wail while David was gone.
+
+The other place of refuge was Aunt Clarinda's room. Thither she would
+betake herself after supper, to the delight of the old lady. Then the
+other two occupants of the house were left to themselves and might unbend
+from their rigid surveillance for a little while. Marcia often wondered if
+they ever did unbend.
+
+There was a large padded rocking chair in Aunt Clarinda's room and Marcia
+would laughingly take the little old lady in her arms and place her
+comfortably in it, after a pleasant struggle on Miss Clarinda's part to
+put her guest into it. They had this same little play every evening, and
+it seemed to please the old lady mightily. Then when she was conquered she
+always sat meekly laughing, a fine pink color in her soft peachy cheek,
+the candle light from the high shelf making flickering sparkles in her old
+eyes that always seemed young; and she would say: "That's just as David
+used to do."
+
+Then Marcia drew up the little mahogany stool covered with the worsted dog
+which Aunt Clarinda had worked when she was ten years old, and snuggling
+down at the old lady's feet exclaimed delightedly: "Tell me about it!" and
+they settled down to solid comfort.
+
+There came a letter from David after he had been gone a little over a
+week. Marcia had not expected to hear from him. He had said nothing about
+writing, and their relations were scarcely such as to make it necessary.
+Letters were an expensive luxury in those days. But when the letter was
+handed to her, Marcia's heart went pounding against her breast, the color
+flew into her cheeks, and she sped away home on feet swift as the wings of
+a bird. The postmaster's daughter looked after her, and remarked to her
+father: "My, but don't she think a lot of him!"
+
+Straight to the cold, lonely house she flew, and sitting down in his big
+chair read it.
+
+It was a pleasant letter, beginning formally: "My dear Marcia," and asking
+after her health. It brought back a little of the unacquaintedness she had
+felt when he was at home, and which had been swept away in part by her
+knowledge of his childhood. But it went on quite happily telling all about
+his journey and describing minutely the places he had passed through and
+the people he had met on the way; detailing every little incident as only
+a born writer and observer could do, until she felt as if he were talking
+to her. He told her of the men whom he had met who were interested in the
+new project. He told of new plans and described minutely his visit to the
+foundry at West Point and the machinery he had seen. Marcia read it all
+breathlessly, in search of something, she knew not what, that was not
+there. When she had finished and found it not, there was a sense of
+aloofness, a sad little disappointment which welled up in her throat. She
+sat back to think about it. He was having a good time, and he was not
+lonely. He had no longing to be back in the house and everything running
+as before he had gone. He was out in the big glorious world having to do
+with progress, and coming in contact with men who were making history. Of
+course he did not dream how lonely she was here, and how she longed, if
+for nothing else, just to be back here alone and do as she pleased, and
+not to be watched over. If only she might steal Aunt Clarinda and bring
+her back to live here with her while David was away! But that was not to
+be thought of, of course. By and by she mustered courage to be glad of her
+letter, and to read it over once more.
+
+That night she read the letter to Aunt Clarinda and together they
+discussed the great inventions, and the changes that were coming to pass
+in the land. Aunt Clarinda was just a little beyond her depth in such a
+conversation, but Marcia did most of the talking, and the dear old lady
+made an excellent listener, with a pat here, and a "Dearie me! Now you
+don't say so!" there, and a "Bless the boy! What great things he does
+expect. And I hope he won't be disappointed."
+
+That letter lasted them for many a day until another came, this time from
+Washington, with many descriptions of public men and public doings, and a
+word picture of the place which made it appear much like any other place
+after all if it was the capitol of the country. And once there was a
+sentence which Marcia treasured. It was, "I wish you could be here and see
+everything. You would enjoy it I know."
+
+There came another letter later beginning, "My dear little girl." There
+was nothing else in it to make Marcia's heart throb, it was all about his
+work, but Marcia carried it many days in her bosom. It gave her a thrill
+of delight to think of those words at the beginning. Of course it meant no
+more than that he thought of her as a girl, his little sister that was to
+have been, but there was a kind of ownership in the words that was sweet
+to Marcia's lonely heart. It had come to her that she was always looking
+for something that would make her feel that she belonged to David.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+When David had been in New York about three weeks, he happened one day to
+pass the house where Kate Leavenworth was living.
+
+Kate was standing listlessly by the window looking into the street. She
+was cross and felt a great depression settling over her. The flirtation
+with Harry Temple had begun to pall upon her. She wanted new worlds to
+conquer. She was restless and feverish. There was not excitement enough in
+the life she was living. She would like to meet more people, senators and
+statesmen--and to have plenty of money to dress as became her beauty, and
+be admired publicly. She half wished for the return of her husband, and
+meditated making up with him for the sake of going to Washington to have a
+good time in society there. What was the use of running away with a naval
+officer if one could not have the benefit of it? She had been a fool. Here
+she was almost to the last penny, and so many things she wanted. No word
+had come from her husband since he sent her the money at sailing. She felt
+a bitter resentment toward him for urging her to marry him. If she had
+only gone on and married David she would be living a life of ease
+now--plenty of money--nothing to do but what she pleased and no anxiety
+whatever, for David would have done just what she wanted.
+
+Then suddenly she looked up and David passed before her!
+
+He was walking with a tall splendid-looking man, with whom he was engaged
+in most earnest conversation, and his look was grave and deeply absorbed.
+He did not know of Kate's presence in New York, and passed the house in
+utter unconsciousness of the eyes watching him.
+
+Kate's lips grew white, and her limbs seemed suddenly weak, but she
+strained her face against the window to watch the retreating figure of the
+man who had almost been her husband. How well she knew the familiar
+outline. How fine and handsome he appeared now! Why had she not thought so
+before? Were her eyes blind, or had she been under some strange
+enchantment? Why had she not known that her happiness lay in the way that
+had been marked out for her? Well, at least she knew it now.
+
+She sat all day by that window and watched. She professed to have no
+appetite when pressed to come to the table, though she permitted herself
+to languidly consume the bountiful tray of good things that was brought
+her, but her eyes were on the street. She was watching to see if David
+would pass that way again. But though she watched until the sun went down
+and dusk sifted through the streets, she saw no sign nor heard the sound
+of his footsteps. Then she hastened up to her room, which faced upon the
+street also, and there, wrapped in blankets she sat in the cold frosty
+air, waiting and listening. And while she watched she was thinking bitter
+feverish thoughts. She heard Harry Temple knock and knew that he was told
+that she was not feeling well and had retired early. She watched him pause
+on the stoop thoughtfully as if considering what to do with the time thus
+unexpectedly thrown upon his hands, then saw him saunter up the street
+unconcernedly, and she wondered idly where he would go, and what he would
+do.
+
+It grew late, even for New York. One by one the lights in the houses along
+the street went out, and all was quiet. She drew back from the window at
+last, weary with excitement and thinking, and lay down on the bed, but she
+could not sleep. The window was open and her ears were on the alert, and
+by and by there came the distant echo of feet ringing on the pavement.
+Some one was coming. She sprang up. She felt sure he was coming. Yes,
+there were two men. They were coming back together. She could hear their
+voices. She fancied she heard David's long before it was possible to
+distinguish any words. She leaned far out of her upper window till she
+could discern dim forms under the starlight, and then just as they were
+under the window she distinctly heard David say:
+
+"There is no doubt but we shall win. The right is on our side, and it is
+the march of progress. Some of the best men in Congress are with us, and
+now that we are to have your influence I do not feel afraid of the issue."
+
+They had passed by rapidly, like men who had been on a long day's jaunt of
+some kind and were hastening home to rest. There was little in the
+sentence that Kate could understand. She had no more idea whether the
+subject of their discourse was railroads or the last hay crop. The
+sentence meant to her but one thing. It showed that David companioned with
+the great men of the land, and his position would have given her a
+standing that would have been above the one she now occupied. Tears of
+defeat ran down her cheeks. She had made a bad mistake and she saw no way
+to rectify it. If her husband should die,--and it might be, for the sea was
+often treacherous--of course there were all sorts of possibilities,--but
+even then there was Marcia! She set her sharp little teeth into her red
+lips till the blood came. She could not get over her anger at Marcia. It
+would not have been so bad if David had remained her lone lorn lover,
+ready to fly to her if others failed. Her self-love was wounded sorely,
+and she, poor silly soul, mistook it for love of David. She began to fancy
+that after all she had loved him, and that Fate had somehow played her a
+mad trick and tied her to a husband she had not wanted.
+
+Then out of the watchings of the day and the fancies of the night, there
+grew a thought--and the thought widened into a plan. She thought of her
+intimacy with Harry and her new found power. Might she perhaps exercise it
+over others as well as Harry Temple? Might she possibly lead back this man
+who had once been her lover, to bow at her feet again and worship her? If
+that might be she could bear all the rest. She began to long with intense
+craving to see David grovel at her feet, to hear him plead for a kiss from
+her, and tell her once more how beautiful she was, and how she fulfilled
+all his soul's ideals. She sat by the open window yet with the icy air of
+the night blowing upon her, but her cheeks burned red in the darkness, and
+her eyes glowed like coals of fire from the tawny framing of her fallen
+hair. The blankets slipped away from her throat and still she heeded not
+the cold, but sat with hot clenched hands planning with the devil's own
+strategy her shameless scheme.
+
+By and by she lighted a candle and drew her writing materials toward her
+to write, but it was long she sat and thought before she finally wrote the
+hastily scrawled note, signed and sealed it, and blowing out her candle
+lay down to sleep.
+
+The letter was addressed to David, and it ran thus:
+
+
+    "DEAR DAVID:"
+
+    "I have just heard that you are in New York. I am in great
+    distress and do not know where to turn for help. For the sake of
+    what we have been to each other in the past will you come to me?
+
+                                          "Hastily, your loving KATE."
+
+
+She did not know where David was but she felt reasonably sure she could
+find out his address in the morning. There was a small boy living next
+door who was capable of ferreting out almost anything for money. Kate had
+employed him more than once as an amateur detective in cases of minor
+importance. So, with a bit of silver and her letter she made her way to
+his familiar haunts and explained most carefully that the letter was to be
+delivered to no one but the man to whom it was addressed, naming several
+stopping places where he might be likely to be found, and hinting that
+there was more silver to be forthcoming when he should bring her an answer
+to the note. With a minute description of David the keen-eyed urchin set
+out, while Kate betook herself to her room to dress for David's coming.
+She felt sure he would be found, and confident that he would come at once.
+
+The icy wind of the night before blowing on her exposed throat and chest
+had given her a severe cold, but she paid no heed to that. Her eyes and
+cheeks were shining with fever. She knew she was entering upon a dangerous
+and unholy way. The excitement of it stimulated her. She felt she did not
+care for anything, right or wrong, sin or sorrow, only to win. She wanted
+to see David at her feet again. It was the only thing that would satisfy
+this insatiable longing in her, this wounded pride of self.
+
+When she was dressed she stood before the mirror and surveyed herself. She
+knew she was beautiful, and she defied the glass to tell her anything
+else. She raised her chin in haughty challenge to the unseen David to
+resist her charms. She would bring him low before her. She would make him
+forget Marcia, and his home and his staid Puritan notions, and all else he
+held dear but herself. He should bend and kiss her hand as Harry had done,
+only more warmly, for instinctively she felt that his had been the purer
+life and therefore his surrender would mean more. He should do whatever
+she chose. And her eyes glowed with an unhallowed light.
+
+She had chosen to array herself regally, in velvet, but in black, without
+a touch of color or of white. From her rich frock her slender throat rose
+daintily, like a stem upon which nodded the tempting flower of her face.
+No enameled complexion could have been more striking in its vivid reds and
+whites, and her mass of gold hair made her seem more lovely than she
+really was, for in her face was love of self, alluring, but heartless and
+cruel.
+
+The boy found David, as Kate had thought he would, in one of the quieter
+hostelries where men of letters were wont to stop when in New York, and
+David read the letter and came at once. She had known that he would do
+that, too. His heart beat wildly, to the exclusion of all other thoughts
+save that she was in trouble, his love, his dear one. He forgot Marcia,
+and the young naval officer, and everything but her trouble, and before he
+had reached her house the sorrow had grown in his imagination into some
+great danger to protect her from which he was hastening.
+
+She received him alone in the room where Harry Temple had first called,
+and a moment later Harry himself came to knock and enquire for the health
+of Mistress Leavenworth, and was told she was very much engaged at present
+with a gentleman and could not see any one, whereupon Harry scowled, and
+set himself at a suitable distance from the house to watch who should come
+out.
+
+David's face was white as death as he entered, his eyes shining like dark
+jewels blazing at her as if he would absorb the vision for the lonely
+future. She stood and posed,--not by any means the picture of broken sorrow
+he had expected to find from her note,--and let the sense of her beauty
+reach him. There she stood with the look on her face he had pictured to
+himself many a time when he had thought of her as his wife. It was a look
+of love unutterable, bewildering, alluring, compelling. It was so he had
+thought she would meet him when he came home to her from his daily
+business cares. And now she was there, looking that way, and he stood
+here, so near her, and yet a great gulf fixed! It was heaven and hell met
+together, and he had no power to change either.
+
+He did not come over to her and bow low to kiss the white hand as Harry
+had done,--as she had thought she could compel him to do. He only stood and
+looked at her with the pain of an anguish beyond her comprehension, until
+the look would have burned through to her heart--if she had had a heart.
+
+"You are in trouble," he spoke hoarsely, as if murmuring an excuse for
+having come.
+
+She melted at once into the loveliest sorrow, her mobile features taking
+on a wan cast only enlivened by the glow of her cheeks.
+
+"Sit down," she said, "you were so good to come to me, and so soon--" and
+her voice was like lily-bells in a quiet church-yard among the
+head-stones. She placed him a chair.
+
+"Yes, I am in trouble. But that is a slight thing compared to my
+unhappiness. I think I am the most miserable creature that breathes upon
+this earth."
+
+And with that she dropped into a low chair and hid her glowing face in a
+dainty, lace bordered kerchief that suppressed a well-timed sob.
+
+Kate had wisely calculated how she could reach David's heart. If she had
+looked up then and seen his white, drawn look, and the tense grasp of his
+hands that only the greatest self-control kept quiet on his knee, perhaps
+even her mercilessness would have been softened. But she did not look, and
+she felt her part was well taken. She sobbed quietly, and waited, and his
+hoarse voice asked once more, as gently as a woman's through his pain:
+
+"Will you tell me what it is and how I can help you?" He longed to take
+her in his arms like a little child and comfort her, but he might not. She
+was another's. And perhaps that other had been cruel to her! His clenched
+fists showed how terrible was the thought. But still the bowed figure in
+its piteous black sobbed and did not reply anything except, "Oh, I am so
+unhappy! I cannot bear it any longer."
+
+"Is--your--your--husband unkind to you?" The words tore themselves from his
+tense lips as though they were beyond his control.
+
+"Oh, no,--not exactly unkind--that is--he was not very nice before he went
+away," wailed out a sad voice from behind the linen cambric and lace, "and
+he went away without a kind word, and left me hardly any money--and he
+hasn't sent me any word since--and fa-father won't have anything to do with
+me any more--but--but--it's not that I mind, David. I don't think about those
+things at all. I'm so unhappy about you. I feel you do not forgive me, and
+I cannot stand it any longer. I have made a fearful mistake, and you are
+angry with me--I think about it at night"--the voice was growing lower now,
+and the sentences broken by sobs that told better than words what distress
+the sufferer would convey.
+
+"I have been so wicked--and you were so good and kind--and now you will
+never forgive me--I think it will kill me to keep on thinking about it--"
+her voice trailed off in tears again.
+
+David white with anguish sprang to his feet.
+
+"Oh, Kate," he cried, "my darling! Don't talk that way. You know I forgive
+you. Look up and tell me you know I forgive you."
+
+Almost she smiled her triumph beneath her sobs in the little lace border,
+but she looked up with real tears on her face. Even her tears obeyed her
+will. She was a good actress, also she knew her power over David.
+
+"Oh, David," she cried, standing up and clasping her hands beseechingly,
+"can it be true? Do you really forgive me? Tell me again."
+
+She came and stood temptingly near to the stern, suffering man wild with
+the tumult that raged within him. Her golden head was near his shoulder
+where it had rested more than once in time gone by. He looked down at her
+from his suffering height his arms folded tightly and said, as though
+taking oath before a court of justice:
+
+"I do."
+
+She looked up with her pleading blue eyes, like two jewels of light now,
+questioning whether she might yet go one step further. Her breath came
+quick and soft, he fancied it touched his cheek, though she was not tall
+enough for that. She lifted her tear-wet face like a flower after a storm,
+and pleaded with her eyes once more, saying in a whisper very soft and
+sweet:
+
+"If you really forgive me, then kiss me, just once, so I may remember it
+always."
+
+It was more than he could bear. He caught her to himself and pressed his
+lips upon hers in one frenzied kiss of torture. It was as if wrung from
+him against his will. Then suddenly it came upon him what he had done, as
+he held her in his arms, and he put her from him gently, as a mother might
+put away the precious child she was sacrificing tenderly, agonizingly, but
+finally. He put her from him thus and stood a moment looking at her, while
+she almost sparkled her pleasure at him through the tears. She felt that
+she had won.
+
+But gradually the silence grew ominous. She perceived he was not smiling.
+His mien was like one who looks into an open grave, and gazes for the last
+time at all that remains of one who is dear. He did not seem like one who
+had yielded a moral point and was ready now to serve her as she would. She
+grew uneasy under his gaze. She moved forward and put out her hands
+inviting, yielding, as only such a woman could do, and the spell which
+bound him seemed to be broken. He fumbled for a moment in his waistcoat
+pocket and brought out a large roll of bills which he laid upon the table,
+and taking up his hat turned toward the door. A cold wave of weakness
+seemed to pass over her, stung here and there by mortal pride that was in
+fear of being wounded beyond recovery.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked weakly, and her voice sounded to her from
+miles away, and strange.
+
+He turned and looked at her again and she knew the look meant farewell. He
+did not speak. Her whole being rose for one more mighty effort.
+
+"You are not going to leave me--now?" There was angelic sweetness in the
+voice, pleading, reproachful, piteous.
+
+"I must!" he said, and his voice sounded harsh. "I have just done that for
+which, were I your husband, I would feel like killing any other man. I
+must protect you against yourself,--against myself. You must be kept pure
+before God if it kills us both. I would gladly die if that could help you,
+but I am not even free to do that, for I belong to another."
+
+Then he turned and was gone.
+
+Kate's hands fell to her sides, and seemed stiff and lifeless. The bright
+color faded from her cheeks, and a cold frenzy of horror took possession
+of her. "Pure before God!" She shuddered at the name, and crimson shame
+rolled over forehead and cheek. She sank in a little heap on the floor
+with her face buried in the chair beside which she had been standing, and
+the waters of humiliation rolled wave on wave above her. She had failed,
+and for one brief moment she was seeing her own sinful heart as it was.
+
+But the devil was there also. He whispered to her now the last sentence
+that David had spoken: "I belong to another!"
+
+Up to that moment Marcia had been a very negative factor in the affair to
+Kate's mind. She had been annoyed and angry at her as one whose ignorance
+and impertinence had brought her into an affair where she did not belong,
+but now she suddenly faced the fact that Marcia must be reckoned with.
+Marcia the child, who had for years been her slave and done her bidding,
+had arisen in her way, and she hated her with a sudden vindictive hate
+that would have killed without flinching if the opportunity had presented
+at that moment. Kate had no idea how utterly uncontrolled was her whole
+nature. She was at the mercy of any passing passion. Hate and revenge took
+possession of her now. With flashing eyes she rose to her feet, brushing
+her tumbled hair back and wiping away angry tears. She was too much
+agitated to notice that some one had knocked at the front door and been
+admitted, and when Harry Temple walked into the room he found her standing
+so with hands clenched together, and tears flowing down her cheeks
+unchecked.
+
+Now a woman in tears, when the tears were not caused by his own actions,
+was Harry's opportunity. He had ways of comforting which were as
+unscrupulous as they generally proved effective, and so with affectionate
+tenderness he took Kate's hand and held it impressively, calling her
+"dear." He spoke soothing words, smoothed her hair, and kissed her flushed
+cheeks and eyes. It was all very pleasant to Kate's hurt pride. She let
+Harry comfort her, and pet her a while, and at last he said:
+
+"Now tell me all about it, dear. I saw Lord Spafford trail dejectedly away
+from here looking like death, and I come here and find my lady in a fine
+fury. What has happened? If I mistake not the insufferable cad has got
+badly hurt, but it seems to have ruffled the lady also."
+
+This helped. It was something to feel that David was suffering. She wanted
+him to suffer. He had brought shame and humiliation upon her. She never
+realized that the thing that shamed her was that he thought her better
+than she was.
+
+"He is offensively good. I _hate_ him!" she remarked as a kitten might who
+had got hurt at playing with a mouse in a trap.
+
+The man's face grew bland with satisfaction.
+
+"Not so good, my lady, but that he has been making love to you, if I
+mistake not, and he with a wife at home." The words were said quietly, but
+there was more of a question in them than the tone conveyed. The man
+wished to have evidence against his enemy.
+
+Kate colored uneasily and drooped her lashes.
+
+Harry studied her face keenly, and then went on cautiously:
+
+"If his wife were not your sister I should say that one might punish him
+well through her."
+
+Kate cast him a hard, scrutinizing look.
+
+"You have some score against him yourself," she said with conviction.
+
+"Perhaps I have, my lady. Perhaps I too hate him. He is offensively good,
+you know."
+
+There was silence in the room for a full minute while the devil worked in
+both hearts.
+
+"What did you mean by saying one might punish him through his wife? He
+does not love his wife."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"Perhaps he loves some one else, my lady."
+
+"He does." She said it proudly.
+
+"Perhaps he loves you, my lady." He said it softly like the suggestion
+from another world. The lady was silent, but he needed no other answer.
+
+"Then indeed, the way would be even clearer,--were not his wife your
+sister."
+
+Kate looked at him, a half knowledge of his meaning beginning to dawn in
+her eyes.
+
+"How?" she asked laconically.
+
+"In case his wife should leave him do you think my lord would hold his
+head so high?"
+
+Kate still looked puzzled.
+
+"If some one else should win her affection, and should persuade her to
+leave a husband who did not love her, and who was bestowing his heart"--he
+hesitated an instant and his eye traveled significantly to the roll of
+bills still lying where David had left them--"and his gifts," he hazarded,
+"upon another woman----"
+
+Kate grasped the thought at once and an evil glint of eagerness showed in
+her eyes. She could see what an advantage it would be to herself to have
+Marcia removed from the situation. It would break one more cord of honor
+that bound David to a code which was hateful to her now, because its
+existence shamed her. Nevertheless, unscrupulous as she was she could not
+see how this was a possibility.
+
+"But she is offensively good too," she said as if answering her own
+thoughts.
+
+"All goodness has its weak spot," sneered the man. "If I mistake not you
+have found my lord's. It is possible I might find his wife's."
+
+The two pairs of eyes met then, filled with evil light. It was as if for
+an instant they were permitted to look into the pit, and see the
+possibilities of wickedness, and exult in it. The lurid glare of their
+thoughts played in their faces. All the passion of hate and revenge rushed
+upon Kate in a frenzy. With all her heart she wished this might be. She
+looked her co-operation in the plan even before her hard voice answered:
+
+"You need not stop because she is my sister."
+
+He felt he had her permission, and he permitted himself a glance of
+admiration for the depths to which she could go without being daunted.
+Here was evil courage worthy of his teaching. She seemed to him beautiful
+enough and daring enough for Satan himself to admire.
+
+"And may I have the pleasure of knowing that I would by so doing serve my
+lady in some wise?"
+
+She drooped her shameless eyes and murmured guardedly, "Perhaps." Then she
+swept him a coquettish glance that meant they understood one another.
+
+"Then I shall feel well rewarded," he said gallantly, and bowing with more
+than his ordinary flattery of look bade her good day and went out.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+David stumbled blindly out the door and down the street. His one thought
+was to get to his room at the tavern and shut the door. He had an
+important appointment that morning, but it passed completely from his
+mind. He met one or two men whom he knew, but he did not see them, and
+passed them swiftly without a glance of recognition. They said one to
+another, "How absorbed he is in the great themes of the world!" but David
+passed on in his pain and misery and humiliation and never knew they were
+near him.
+
+He went to the room that had been his since he had reached New York, and
+fastening the door against all intrusion fell upon his knees beside the
+bed, and let the flood-tide of his sorrow roll over him. Not even when
+Kate had played him false on his wedding morning had he felt the pain that
+now cut into his very soul. For now there was mingled with it the agony of
+consciousness of sin. He had sinned against heaven, against honor and
+love, and all that was pure and good. He was just like any bad man. He had
+yielded to sudden temptation and taken another man's wife in his arms and
+kissed her! That the woman had been his by first right, and that he loved
+her: that she had invited the kiss, indeed pleaded for it, his sensitive
+conscience told him in no wise lessened the offense. He had also caused
+her whom he loved to sin. He was a man and knew the world. He should have
+shielded her against herself. And yet as he went over and over the whole
+painful scene through which he had just passed his soul cried out in agony
+and he felt his weakness more and more. He had failed, failed most
+miserably. Acted like any coward!
+
+The humiliation of it was unspeakable. Could any sorrow be like unto his?
+Like a knife flashing through the gloom of his own shame would come the
+echo of her words as she pleaded with him to kiss her. It was a kiss of
+forgiveness she had wanted, and she had put her heart into her eyes and
+begged as for her very life. How could he have refused? Then he would
+parley with himself for a long time trying to prove to himself that the
+kiss and the embrace were justified, that he had done no wrong in God's
+sight. And ever after this round of confused arguing he would end with the
+terrible conviction that he had sinned.
+
+Sometimes Marcia's sweet face and troubled eyes would appear to him as he
+wrestled all alone, and seemed to be longing to help him, and again would
+come the piercing thought that he had harmed this gentle girl also. He had
+tangled her into his own spoiled web of life, and been disloyal to her.
+She was pure and true and good. She had given up every thing to help him
+and he had utterly forgotten her. He had promised to love, cherish, and
+protect her! That was another sin. He could not love and cherish her when
+his whole heart was another's. Then he thought of Kate's husband, that
+treacherous man who had stolen his bride and now gone away and left her
+sorrowing--left her without money, penniless in a strange city. Why had he
+not been more calm and questioned her before he came away. Perhaps she was
+in great need. It comforted him to think he had left her all the money he
+had with him. There was enough to keep her from want for a while. And yet,
+perhaps he had been wrong to give it to her. He had no right to give it!
+
+He groaned aloud at the thought of his helplessness to help her
+helplessness. Was there not some way he could find out and help her
+without doing wrong?
+
+Over and over he went through the whole dreadful day, until his brain was
+weary and his heart failed him. The heavens seemed brass and no answer
+came to his cry,--the appeal of a broken soul. It seemed that he could not
+get up from his knees, could not go out into the world again and face
+life. He had been tried and had failed, and yet though he knew his sin he
+felt an intolerable longing to commit it over again. He was frightened at
+his own weakness, and with renewed vigor he began to pray for help. It was
+like the prayer of Jacob of old, the crying out of a soul that would not
+be denied. All day long the struggle continued, and far into the night. At
+last a great peace began to settle upon David's soul. Things that had been
+confused by his passionate longings grew clear as day. Self dropped away,
+and sin, conquered, slunk out of sight. Right and Wrong were once more
+clearly defined in his mind. However wrong it might or might not be he was
+here in this situation. He had married Marcia and promised to be true to
+her. He was doubly cut off from Kate by her own act and by his. That was
+his punishment,--and hers. He must not seek to lessen it even for her, for
+it was God-sent. Henceforth his path and hers must be apart. If she were
+to be helped in any way from whatsoever trouble was hers, it was not
+permitted him to be the instrument. He had shown his unfitness for it in
+his interview that morning, even if in the eyes of the world it could have
+been at all. It was his duty to cut himself off from her forever. He must
+not even think of her any more. He must be as true and good to Marcia as
+was possible. He must do no more wrong. He must grow strong and suffer.
+
+The peace that came with conviction brought sleep to his weary mind and
+body.
+
+When he awoke it was almost noon. He remembered the missed appointment of
+the day before, and the journey to Washington which he had planned for
+that day. With a start of horror he looked at his watch and found he had
+but a few hours in which to try to make up for the remissness of yesterday
+before the evening coach left for Philadelphia. It was as if some guardian
+angel had met his first waking thoughts with business that could not be
+delayed and so kept him from going over the painful events of the day
+before. He arose and hastened out into the world once more.
+
+Late in the afternoon he found the man he was to have met the day before,
+and succeeded in convincing him that he ought to help the new enterprise.
+He was standing on the corner saying the last few words as the two
+separated, when Kate drove by in a friend's carriage, surrounded by
+parcels. She had been on a shopping tour spending the money that David had
+given her, for silks and laces and jewelry, and now she was returning in
+high glee with her booty. The carriage passed quite near to David who
+stood with his back to the street, and she could see his animated face as
+he smiled at the other man, a fine looking man who looked as if he might
+be some one of note. The momentary glance did not show the haggard look of
+David's face nor the lines that his vigil of the night before had traced
+under his eyes, and Kate was angered to see him so unconcerned and
+forgetful of his pain of yesterday. Her face darkened with spite, and she
+resolved to make him suffer yet, and to the utmost, for the sin of
+forgetting her.
+
+But David was in the way of duty, and he did not see her, for his guardian
+angel was hovering close at hand.
+
+
+
+As the Fall wore on and the winter set in Harry's letters became less
+frequent and less intimate. Hannah was troubled, and after consultation
+with her grandmother, to which Miranda listened at the latch hole, duly
+reporting quotations to her adored Mrs. Spafford, Hannah decided upon an
+immediate trip to the metropolis.
+
+"Hannah's gone to New York to find out what's become of that nimshi Harry
+Temple. She thought she had him fast, an' she's been holdin' him over poor
+Lemuel Skinner's head like thet there sword hangin' by a hair I heard the
+minister tell about last Sunday, till Lemuel, he don't know but every
+minute's gone'll be his last. You mark my words, she'll hev to take poor
+Lem after all, an' be glad she's got him, too,--and she's none too good for
+him neither. He's ben faithful to her ever since she wore pantalets, an'
+she's ben keepin' him off'n on an' hopin' an' tryin' fer somebody bigger.
+It would jes' serve her right ef she'd get that fool of a Harry Temple,
+but she won't. He's too sharp for that ef he _is_ a fool. He don't want to
+tie himself up to no woman's aprun strings. He rather dandle about after
+'em all an' say pretty things, an' keep his earnin's fer himself."
+
+Hannah reached New York the week after David left for Washington. She
+wrote beforehand to Harry to let him know she was coming, and made plain
+that she expected his attentions exclusively while there, and he smiled
+blandly as he read the letter and read her intentions between the lines.
+He told Kate a good deal about her that evening when he went to call, told
+her how he had heard she was an old flame of David's, and Kate's jealousy
+was immediately aroused. She wished to meet Hannah Heath. There was a sort
+of triumph in the thought that she had scorned and flung aside the man
+whom this woman had "set her cap" for, even though another woman was now
+in the place that neither had. Hannah went to visit a cousin in New York
+who lived in a quiet part of the city and did not go out much, but for
+reasons best known to themselves, both Kate Leavenworth and Harry Temple
+elected to see a good deal of her while she was in the city. Harry was
+pleasant and attentive, but not more to one woman than to the other.
+Hannah, watching him jealously, decided that at least Kate was not her
+rival in his affections, and so Hannah and Kate became quite friendly.
+Kate had a way of making much of her women friends when she chose, and she
+happened to choose in this case, for it occurred to her it would be well
+to have a friend in the town where lived her sister and her former lover.
+There might be reasons why, sometime. She opened her heart of hearts to
+Hannah, and Hannah, quite discreetly, and without wasting much of her
+scanty store of love, entered, and the friendship was sealed. They had not
+known each other many days before Kate had confided to Hannah the story of
+her own marriage and her sister's, embellished of course as she chose.
+Hannah, astonished, puzzled, wondering, curious, at the tragedy that had
+been enacted at her very home door, became more friendly than ever and
+hated more cordially than ever the young and innocent wife who had stepped
+into the vacant place and so made her own hopes and ambitions impossible.
+She felt that she would like to put down the pert young thing for daring
+to be there, and to be pretty, and now she felt she had the secret which
+would help her to do so.
+
+As the visit went on and it became apparent to Hannah Heath that she was
+not the one woman in all the world to Harry Temple, she hinted to Kate
+that it was likely she would be married soon. She even went so far as to
+say that she had come away from home to decide the matter, and that she
+had but to say the word and the ceremony would come off. Kate questioned
+eagerly, and seeing her opportunity asked if she might come to the
+wedding. Hannah, flattered, and seeing a grand opportunity for a wholesale
+triumph and revenge, assented with pleasure. Afterward as Hannah had hoped
+and intended, Kate carried the news of the impending decision and probable
+wedding to the ears of Harry Temple.
+
+But Hannah's hint had no further effect upon the redoubtable Harry. Two
+days later he appeared, smiling, congratulatory, deploring the fact that
+she would be lost in a certain sense to his friendship, although he hoped
+always to be looked upon as a little more than a friend.
+
+Hannah covered her mortification under a calm and condescending exterior.
+She blushed appropriately, said some sentimental things about hoping their
+friendship would not be affected by the change, told him how much she had
+enjoyed their correspondence, but gave him to understand that it had been
+mere friendship of course from her point of view, and Harry indulgently
+allowed her to think that he had hoped for more and was grieved but
+consolable over the outcome.
+
+They waxed a trifle sentimental at the parting, but when Harry was gone,
+Hannah wrote a most touching letter to Lemuel Skinner which raised him to
+the seventh heaven of delight, causing him to feel that he was treading
+upon air as he walked the prosaic streets of his native town where he had
+been going about during Hannah's absence like a lost spirit without a
+guiding star.
+
+
+    "DEAR LEMUEL:" she wrote:--
+
+    "I am coming home. I wonder if you will be glad?
+
+
+(Artful Hannah, as if she did not know!)
+
+
+    "It is very delightful in New York and I have been having a gay
+    time since I came, and everybody has been most pleasant, but--
+
+      "'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
+      Still, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
+      A charm from the skies seems to hallow it there,
+      Which, go through the world, you'll not meet with elsewhere.
+                          Home, home, sweet home!
+                        There's no place like home.
+
+    "That is a new song, Lemuel, that everybody here is singing. It is
+    written by a young American named John Howard Payne who is in
+    London now acting in a great playhouse. Everybody is wild over
+    this song. I'll sing it for you when I come home.
+
+    "I shall be at home in time for singing school next week, Lemuel.
+    I wonder if you'll come to see me at once and welcome me. You
+    cannot think how glad I shall be to get home again. It seems as
+    though I had been gone a year at least. Hoping to see you soon, I
+    remain
+
+                                     "Always your sincere friend,
+
+                                                       "HANNAH HEATH."
+
+
+And thus did Hannah make smooth her path before her, and very soon after
+inditing this epistle she bade good-bye to New York and took her way home
+resolved to waste no further time in chasing will-o-the-wisps.
+
+When Lemuel received that letter he took a good look at himself in the
+glass. More than seven years had he served for Hannah, and little hope had
+he had of a final reward. He was older by ten years than she, and already
+his face began to show it. He examined himself critically, and was pleased
+to find with that light of hope in his eyes he was not so bad looking as
+he feared. He betook himself to the village tailor forthwith and ordered a
+new suit of clothes, though his Sunday best was by no means shiny yet. He
+realized that if he did not win now he never would, and he resolved to do
+his best.
+
+On the way home, during all the joltings of the coach over rough roads
+Hannah Heath was planning two campaigns, one of love with Lemuel, and one
+of hate with Marcia Spafford. She was possessed of knowledge which she
+felt would help her in the latter, and often she smiled vindictively as
+she laid her neat plans for the destruction of the bride's complacency.
+
+That night the fire in the Heath parlor burned high and glowed, and the
+candles in their silver holders flickered across fair Hannah's face as she
+dimpled and smiled and coquetted with poor Lemuel. But Lemuel needed no
+pity. He was not afraid of Hannah. Not for nothing had he served his seven
+years, and he understood every fancy and foible of her shallow nature. He
+knew his time had come at last, and he was getting what he had wanted
+long, for Lemuel had admired and loved Hannah in spite of the dance she
+had led him, and in spite of the other lovers she had allowed to come
+between them.
+
+Hannah had not been at home many days before she called upon Marcia.
+
+Marcia had just seated herself at the piano when Hannah appeared to her
+from the hall, coming in unannounced through the kitchen door according to
+old neighborly fashion.
+
+Marcia was vexed. She arose from the instrument and led the way to the
+little morning room which was sunny and cosy, and bare of music or books.
+She did not like to visit with Hannah in the parlor. Somehow her presence
+reminded her of the evil face of Harry Temple as he had stooped to kiss
+her.
+
+"You know how to play, too, don't you?" said Hannah as they sat down.
+"Your sister plays beautifully. Do you know the new song, 'Home, Sweet
+Home?' She plays it with so much feeling and sings it so that one would
+think her heart was breaking for her home. You must have been a united
+family." Hannah said it with sharp scrutiny in voice and eyes.
+
+"Sit down, Miss Heath," said Marcia coolly, lowering the yellow shades
+that her visitor's eyes might not be troubled by a broad sunbeam. "Did you
+have a pleasant time in New York?"
+
+Hannah could not be sure whether or not the question was an evasion. The
+utterly child-like manner of Marcia disarmed suspicion.
+
+"Oh, delightful, of course. Could any one have anything else in New York?"
+
+Hannah laughed disagreeably. She realized the limitations of life in a
+town.
+
+"I suppose," said Marcia, her eyes shining with the thought, "that you saw
+all the wonderful things of the city. I should enjoy being in New York a
+little while. I have heard of so many new things. Were there any ships in
+the harbor? I have always wanted to go over a great ship. Did you have
+opportunity of seeing one?"
+
+"Oh, dear me. No!" said Hannah. "I shouldn't have cared in the least for
+that. I'm sure I don't know whether there were any ships in or not. I
+suppose there were. I saw a lot of sails on the water, but I did not ask
+about them. I'm not interested in dirty boats. I liked visiting the shops
+best. Your sister took me about everywhere. She is a most charming
+creature. You must miss her greatly. You were a sly little thing to cut
+her out."
+
+Marcia's face flamed crimson with anger and amazement. Hannah's dart had
+hit the mark, and she was watching keenly to see her victim quiver.
+
+"I do not understand you," said Marcia with girlish dignity.
+
+"Oh, now don't pretend to misunderstand. I've heard all about it from
+headquarters," she said it archly, laughing. "But then I don't blame you.
+David was worth it." Hannah ended with a sigh. If she had ever cared for
+any one besides herself that one was David Spafford.
+
+"I do not understand you," said Marcia again, drawing herself up with all
+the Schuyler haughtiness she could master, till she quite resembled her
+father.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Spafford," said the visitor, looking straight into her face and
+watching every expression as a cat would watch a mouse, "you don't mean to
+tell me your sister was not at one time very intimate with your husband."
+
+"Mr. Spafford has been intimate in our family for a number of years," said
+Marcia proudly, her fighting fire up, "but as for my having 'cut my sister
+out' as you call it, you have certainly been misinformed. Excuse me, I
+think I will close the kitchen door. It seems to blow in here and make a
+draft."
+
+Marcia left the room with her head up and her fine color well under
+control, and when she came back her head was still up and a distant
+expression was in her face. Somehow Hannah felt she had not gained much
+after all. But Marcia, after Hannah's departure, went up to her cold room
+and wept bitter tears on her pillow alone.
+
+                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
+       MARCIA PASSED FROM THE OLD STONE CHURCH WITH THE TWO AUNTS.]
+
+                        Copyright by C. Klackner
+       MARCIA PASSED FROM THE OLD STONE CHURCH WITH THE TWO AUNTS.
+
+
+After that first visit Hannah never found the kitchen door unlocked when
+she came to make a morning call, but she improved every little opportunity
+to torment her gentle victim. She had had a letter from Kate and had
+Marcia heard? How often did Kate write her? Did Marcia know how fond Harry
+Temple was of Kate? And where was Kate's husband? Would he likely be
+ordered home soon? These little annoyances were almost unbearable
+sometimes and Marcia had much ado to keep her sweetness of outward
+demeanor.
+
+People looked upon Lemuel with new respect. He had finally won where they
+had considered him a fool for years for hanging on. The added respect
+brought added self-respect. He took on new manliness. Grandmother Heath
+felt that he really was not so bad after all, and perhaps Hannah might as
+well have taken him at first. Altogether the Heath family were well
+pleased, and preparations began at once for a wedding in the near future.
+
+And still David lingered, held here and there by a call from first one man
+and then another, and by important doings in Congress. He seemed to be
+rarely fitted for the work.
+
+Once he was called back to New York for a day or two, and Harry Temple
+happened to see him as he arrived. That night he wrote to Hannah a
+friendly letter--Harry was by no means through with Hannah yet--and casually
+remarked that he saw David Spafford was in New York again. He supposed now
+that Mrs. Leavenworth's evenings would be fully occupied and society would
+see little of her while he remained.
+
+The day after Hannah received that letter was Sunday.
+
+The weeks had gone by rapidly since David left his home, and now the
+spring was coming on. The grass was already green as summer and the willow
+tree by the graveyard gate was tender and green like a spring-plume. All
+the foliage was out and fluttering its new leaves in the sunshine as
+Marcia passed from the old stone church with the two aunts and opened her
+little green sunshade. Her motion made David's last letter rustle in her
+bosom. It thrilled her with pleasure that not even the presence of Hannah
+Heath behind her could cloud.
+
+However prim and fault-finding the two aunts might be in the seclusion of
+their own home, in public no two could have appeared more adoring than
+Amelia and Hortense Spafford. They hovered near Marcia and delighted to
+show how very close and intimate was the relationship between themselves
+and their new and beautiful niece, of whom in their secret hearts they
+were prouder than they would have cared to tell. In their best black silks
+and their fine lace shawls they walked beside her and talked almost
+eagerly, if those two stately beings could have anything to do with a
+quality so frivolous as eagerness. They wished it understood that David's
+wife was worthy of appreciation and they were more conscious than she of
+the many glances of admiration in her direction.
+
+Hannah Heath encountered some of those admiring glances and saw jealously
+for whom they were meant. She hastened to lean forward and greet Marcia,
+her spiteful tongue all ready for a stab.
+
+"Good morning, Mrs. Spafford. Is that husband of yours not home yet?
+Really! Why, he's quite deserted you. I call that hard for the first year,
+and your honeymoon scarcely over yet."
+
+"He's been called back to New York again," said Marcia annoyed over the
+spiteful little sentences. "He says he may be at home soon, but he cannot
+be sure. His business is rather uncertain."
+
+"New York!" said Hannah, and her voice was annoyingly loud. "What! Not
+again! There must be some great attraction there," and then with a meaning
+glance, "I suppose your sister is still there!"
+
+Marcia felt her face crimsoning, and the tears starting from angry eyes.
+She felt a sudden impulse to slap Hannah. What if she should! What would
+the aunts say? The thought of the tumult she might make roused her sense
+of humor and a laugh bubbled up instead of the tears, and Hannah,
+watching, cat-like, could only see eyes dancing with fun though the cheeks
+were charmingly red. By Hannah's expression Marcia knew she was baffled,
+but Marcia could not get away from the disagreeable suggestion that had
+been made.
+
+Yes, David was in New York, and Kate was there. Not for an instant did she
+doubt her husband's nobleness. She knew David would be good and true. She
+knew little of the world's wickedness, and never thought of any blame, as
+other women might, in such a suggestion. But a great jealousy sprang into
+being that she never dreamed existed. Kate was there, and he would perhaps
+see her, and all his old love and disappointment would be brought to mind
+again. Had she, Marcia, been hoping he would forget it? Had she been
+claiming something of him in her heart for herself? She could not tell.
+She did not know what all this tumult of feeling meant. She longed to get
+away and think it over, but the solemn Sunday must be observed. She must
+fold away her church things, put on another frock and come down to the
+oppressive Sunday dinner, hear Deacon Brown's rheumatism discussed, or
+listen to a long comparison of the morning's sermon with one preached
+twenty years ago by the minister, now long dead upon the same text. It was
+all very hard to keep her mind upon, with these other thoughts rushing
+pell-mell through her brain; and when Aunt Amelia asked her to pass the
+butter, she handed the sugar-bowl instead. Miss Amelia looked as shocked
+as if she had broken the great-grandmother's china teapot.
+
+Aunt Clarinda claimed her after dinner and carried her off to her room to
+talk about David, so that Marcia had no chance to think even then. Miss
+Clarinda looked into the sweet shadowed eyes and wondered why the girl
+looked so sad. She thought it was because David stayed away so long, and
+so she kept her with her all the rest of the day.
+
+When Marcia went to her room that night she threw herself on her knees
+beside the bed and tried to pray. She felt more lonely and heartsick than
+she ever felt before in her life. She did not know what the great hunger
+in her heart meant. It was terrible to think David had loved Kate. Kate
+never loved him in return in the right way. Marcia felt very sure of that.
+She wished she might have had the chance in Kate's place, and then all of
+a sudden the revelation came to her. She loved David herself with a great
+overwhelming love. Not just a love that could come and keep house for him
+and save him from the criticisms and comments of others; but with a love
+that demanded to be loved in return; a love that was mindful of every dear
+lineament of his countenance. The knowledge thrilled through her with a
+great sweetness. She did not seem to care for anything else just now, only
+to know that she loved David. David could never love her of course, not in
+that way, but she would love him. She would try to shut out the thought of
+Kate from him forever.
+
+And so, dreaming, hovering on the edge of all that was bitter and all that
+was sweet, she fell asleep with David's letter clasped close over her
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Marcia had gone down to her own house the next morning very early. She had
+hoped for a letter but none had come. Her soul was in torment between her
+attempt to keep out of her mind the hateful things Hannah Heath had said,
+and reproaching herself for what seemed to her her unseemly feeling toward
+David, who loved another and could never love her. It was not a part of
+her life-dream to love one who belonged to another. Yet her heart was his
+and she was beginning to know that everything belonging to him was dear to
+her. She went and sat in his place at the table, she touched with
+tenderness the books upon his desk that he had used before he went away,
+she went up to his room and laid her lips for one precious daring instant
+upon his pillow, and then drew back with wildly beating heart ashamed of
+her emotion. She knelt beside his bed and prayed: "Oh, God, I love him, I
+love him! I cannot help it!" as if she would apologize for herself, and
+then she hugged the thought of her love to herself, feeling its sweet pain
+drift through her like some delicious agony. Her love had come through
+sorrow to her, and was not as she would have had it could she have chosen.
+It brought no ray of happy hope for the future, save just the happiness of
+loving in secret, and of doing for the object loved, with no thought of a
+returned affection.
+
+Then she went slowly down the stairs, trying to think how it would seem
+when David came back. He had been so long gone that it seemed as if
+perhaps he might never return. She felt that it had been no part of the
+spirit of her contract with David that she should render to him this wild
+sweet love that he had expected Kate to give. He had not wanted it. He had
+only wanted a wife in name.
+
+Then the color would sweep over her face in a crimson drift and leave it
+painfully white, and she would glide to the piano like a ghost of her
+former self and play some sad sweet strain, and sometimes sing.
+
+She had no heart for her dear old woods in these days. She had tried it
+one day in spring; slipped over the back fence and away through the
+ploughed field where the sea of silver oats had surged, and up to the
+hillside and the woods; but she was so reminded of David that it only
+brought heart aches and tears. She wondered if it was because she was
+getting old that the hillside did not seem so joyous now, and she did not
+care to look up into the sky just for the pure joy of sky and air and
+clouds, nor to listen to the branches whisper to the robins nesting. She
+stooped and picked a great handful of spring beauties, but they did not
+seem to give her pleasure, and by and by she dropped them from listless
+fingers and walked sedately down to the house once more.
+
+On this morning she did not even care to play. She went into the parlor
+and touched a few notes, but her heart was heavy and sad. Life was growing
+too complex.
+
+Last week there had come a letter from Harry Temple. It had startled her
+when it arrived. She feared it was some ill-news about David, coming as it
+did from New York and being written in a strange hand.
+
+It had been a plea for forgiveness, representing that the writer had
+experienced nothing but deep repentance and sorrow since the time he had
+seen her last. He set forth his case in a masterly way, with little
+touching facts of his childhood, and lonely upbringing, with no mother to
+guide. He told her that her noble action toward him had but made him
+revere her the more, and that, in short, she had made a new creature of
+him by refusing to return his kiss that day, and leaving him alone with so
+severe a rebuke. He felt that if all women were so good and true men would
+be a different race, and now he looked up to her as one might look up to
+an angel, and he felt he could never be happy again on this earth until he
+had her written word of forgiveness. With that he felt he could live a new
+life, and she must rest assured that he would never offer other than
+reverence to any woman again. He further added that his action had not
+intended any insult to her, that he was merely expressing his natural
+admiration for a spirit so good and true, and that his soul was innocent
+of any intention of evil. With sophistry in the use of which he was an
+adept, he closed his epistle, fully clearing himself, and assuring her
+that he could have made her understand it that day if she had not left so
+suddenly, and he had not been almost immediately called away to the dying
+bed of his dear cousin. This contradictory letter had troubled Marcia
+greatly. She was keen enough to see that his logic was at fault, and that
+the two pages of his letter did not hang together, but one thing was
+plain, that he wished her forgiveness. The Bible said that one must
+forgive, and surely it was right to let him know that she did, though when
+she thought of the fright he had given her it was hard to do. Still, it
+was right, and if he was so unhappy, perhaps she had better let him know.
+She would rather have waited until David returned to consult him in the
+matter, but the letter seemed so insistent that she had finally written a
+stiff little note, in formal language, "Mrs. Spafford sends herewith her
+full and free forgiveness to Mr. Harry Temple, and promises to think no
+more of the matter."
+
+She would have liked to consult some one. She almost thought of taking
+Aunt Clarinda into her confidence, but decided that she might not
+understand. So she finally sent off the brief missive, and let her
+troubled thoughts wander after it more than once.
+
+She was standing by the window looking out into the yard perplexing
+herself over this again when there came a loud knocking at the front door.
+She started, half frightened, for the knock sounded through the empty
+house so insistently. It seemed like trouble coming. She felt nervous as
+she went down the hall.
+
+It was only a little urchin, barefoot, and tow-headed. He had ridden an
+old mare to the door, and left her nosing at the dusty grass. He brought
+her a letter. Again her heart fluttered excitedly. Who could be writing to
+her? It was not David. Why did the handwriting look familiar? It could not
+be from any one at home. Father? Mother? No, it was no one she knew. She
+tore it open, and the boy jumped on his horse and was off down the street
+before she realized that he was gone.
+
+
+    "DEAR MADAM:" the letter read,
+
+    "I bring you news of your husband, and having met with an accident
+    I am unable to come further. You will find me at the Green Tavern
+    two miles out on the corduroy road. As the business is private,
+    please come alone.
+
+                                                        "A MESSENGER."
+
+
+Marcia trembled so that she sat down on the stairs. A sudden weakness went
+over her like a wave, and the hall grew dark around her as though she were
+going to faint. But she did not. She was strong and well and had never
+fainted in her life. She rallied in a moment and tried to think. Something
+had happened to David. Something dreadful, perhaps, and she must go at
+once and find out. Still it must be something mysterious, for the man had
+said it was private. Of course that meant David would not want it known.
+David had intended that the man would come to her and tell her by herself.
+She must go. There was nothing else to be done. She must go at once and
+get rid of this awful suspense. It was a good day for the message to have
+come, for she had brought her lunch expecting to do some spring cleaning.
+David had been expected home soon, and she liked to make a bustle of
+preparation as if he might come in any day, for it kept up her good cheer.
+
+Having resolved to go she got up at once, closed the doors and windows,
+put on her bonnet and went out down the street toward the old corduroy
+road. It frightened her to think what might be at the end of her journey.
+Possibly David himself, hurt or dying, and he had sent for her in this way
+that she might break the news gently to his aunts. As she walked along she
+conjured various forms of trouble that might have come to him. Now and
+then she would try to take a cheerful view, saying to herself that David
+might have needed more important papers, papers which he would not like
+everyone to know about, and had sent by special messenger to her to get
+them. Then her face would brighten and her step grow more brisk. But
+always would come the dull thud of possibility of something more serious.
+Her heart beat so fast sometimes that she was forced to lessen her speed
+to get her breath, for though she was going through town, and must
+necessarily walk somewhat soberly lest she call attention to herself, she
+found that her nerves and imagination were fairly running ahead, and
+waiting impatiently for her feet to catch up at every turning place.
+
+At last she came to the corduroy road--a long stretch of winding way
+overlaid with logs which made an unpleasant path. Most of the way was
+swampy, and bordered in some places by thick, dark woods. Marcia sped on
+from log to log, with a nervous feeling that she must step on each one or
+her errand would not be successful. She was not afraid of the loneliness,
+only of what might be coming at the end of her journey.
+
+But suddenly, in the densest part of the wood, she became conscious of
+footsteps echoing hers, and a chill laid hold upon her. She turned her
+head and there, wildly gesticulating and running after her, was Miranda!
+
+Annoyed, and impatient to be on her way, and wondering what to do with
+Miranda, or what she could possibly want, Marcia stopped to wait for her.
+
+"I thought--as you was goin' 'long my way"--puffed Miranda, "I'd jes' step
+along beside you. You don't mind, do you?"
+
+Marcia looked troubled. If she should say she did then Miranda would think
+it queer and perhaps suspect something.
+
+She tried to smile and ask how far Miranda was going.
+
+"Oh, I'm goin' to hunt fer wild strawberries," said the girl nonchalantly
+clattering a big tin pail.
+
+"Isn't it early yet for strawberries?" questioned Marcia.
+
+"Well, mebbe, an' then ag'in mebbe 'tain't. I know a place I'm goin' to
+look anyway. Are you goin' 's fur 's the Green Tavern?"
+
+Miranda's bright eyes looked her through and through, and Marcia's
+truthful ones could not evade. Suddenly as she looked into the girl's
+homely face, filled with a kind of blind adoration, her heart yearned for
+counsel in this trying situation. She was reminded of Miranda's
+helpfulness the time she ran away to the woods, and the care with which
+she had guarded the whole matter so that no one ever heard of it. An
+impulse came to her to confide in Miranda. She was a girl of sharp common
+sense, and would perhaps be able to help with her advice. At least she
+could get comfort from merely telling her trouble and anxiety.
+
+"Miranda," she said, "can you keep a secret?"
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"Well, I'm going to tell you something, just because I am so troubled and
+I feel as if it would do me good to tell it." She smiled and Miranda
+answered the smile with much satisfaction and no surprise. Miranda had
+come for this, though she did not expect her way to be so easy.
+
+"I'll be mum as an oyster," said Miranda. "You jest tell me anything you
+please. You needn't be afraid Hannah Heath'll know a grain about it.
+She'n' I are two people. I know when to shut up."
+
+"Well, Miranda, I'm in great perplexity and anxiety. I've just had a note
+from a messenger my husband has sent asking me to come out to that Green
+Tavern you were talking about. He was sent to me with some message and has
+had an accident so he couldn't come. It kind of frightened me to think
+what might be the matter. I'm glad you are going this way because it keeps
+me from thinking about it. Are we nearly there? I never went out this road
+so far before."
+
+"It ain't fur," said Miranda as if that were a minor matter. "I'll go
+right along in with you, then you needn't feel lonely. I guess likely it's
+business. Don't you worry." The tone was reassuring, but Marcia's face
+looked troubled.
+
+"No, I guess that won't do, Miranda, for the note says it is a private
+matter and I must come alone. You know Mr. Spafford has matters to write
+about that are very important, railroads, and such things, and sometimes
+he doesn't care to have any one get hold of his ideas before they appear
+in the paper. His enemies might use them to stop the plans of the great
+improvements he is writing about."
+
+"Let me see that note!" demanded Miranda. "Got it with you?" Marcia
+hesitated. Perhaps she ought not to show it, and yet there was nothing in
+the note but what she had already told the girl, and she felt sure she
+would not breathe a word to a living soul after her promise. She handed
+Miranda the letter, and they stopped a moment while she slowly spelled it
+out. Miranda was no scholar. Marcia watched her face eagerly, as if to
+gather a ray of hope from it, but she was puzzled by Miranda's look. A
+kind of satisfaction had overspread her homely countenance.
+
+"Should you think from that that David was hurt--or ill--or--or--killed--or
+anything?" She asked the question as if Miranda were a wizard, and hung
+anxiously upon her answer.
+
+"Naw, I don't reckon so!" said Miranda. "Don't you worry. David's all
+right somehow. I'll take care o' you. You go 'long up and see what's the
+business, an' I'll wait here out o' sight o' the tavern. Likely's not he
+might take a notion not to tell you ef he see me come along with you. You
+jest go ahead, and I'll be on hand when you get through. If you need me
+fer anything you jest holler out 'Randy!' good and loud an' I'll hear you.
+Guess I'll set on this log. The tavern's jest round that bend in the road.
+Naw, you needn't thank me. This is a real pretty mornin' to set an' rest.
+Good-bye."
+
+Marcia hurried on, glancing back happily at her protector in a calico
+sunbonnet seated stolidly on a log with her tin pail beside her.
+
+Poor stupid Miranda! Of course she could not understand what a comfort it
+was to have confided her trouble. Marcia went up to the tavern with almost
+a smile on her face, though her heart began to beat wildly as a slatternly
+girl led her into a big room at the right of the hall.
+
+As Marcia disappeared behind the bend in the road, Miranda stealthily
+stole along the edge of the woods, till she stood hidden behind a clump of
+alders where she could peer out and watch Marcia until she reached the
+tavern and passed safely by the row of lounging, smoking men, and on into
+the doorway. Then Miranda waited just an instant to look in all
+directions, and sped across the road, mounting the fence and on through
+two meadows, and the barnyard to the kitchen door of the tavern.
+
+"Mornin'! Mis' Green," she said to the slovenly looking woman who sat by
+the table peeling potatoes. "Mind givin' me a drink o' water? I'm terrible
+thirsty, and seemed like I couldn't find the spring. Didn't thare used to
+be a spring 'tween here'n town?"
+
+"Goodness sakes! Randy! Where'd you come from? Water! Jes' help yourself.
+There's the bucket jes' from the spring five minutes since, an' there's
+the gourd hanging up on the wall. I can't get up, I'm that busy. Twelve to
+dinner to-day, an' only me to do the cookin'. 'Melia she's got to be
+upstairs helpin' at the bar."
+
+"Who all you got here?" questioned Miranda as she took a draught from the
+old gourd.
+
+"Well, got a gentleman from New York fur one. He's real pretty. Quite a
+beau. His clo'es are that nice you'd think he was goin' to court. He's
+that particular 'bout his eatin' I feel flustered. Nothin' would do but he
+hed to hev a downstairs room. He said he didn't like goin' upstairs. He
+don't look sickly, neither."
+
+"Mebbe he's had a accident an' lamed himself," suggested Miranda
+cunningly. "Heard o' any accidents? How'd he come? Coach or horseback?"
+
+"Coach," said Mrs. Green. "Why do you ask? Got any friends in New York?"
+
+"Not many," responded Miranda importantly, "but my cousin Hannah Heath
+has. You know she's ben up there for a spell visitin' an' they say there
+was lots of gentlemen in love with her. There's one in particular used to
+come round a good deal. It might be him come round to see ef it's true
+Hannah's goin' to get married to Lem Skinner. Know what this fellow's name
+is?"
+
+"You don't say! Well now it might be. No, I don't rightly remember his
+name. Seems though it was something like Church er Chapel. 'Melia could
+tell ye, but she's busy."
+
+"Where's he at? Mebbe I could get a glimpse o' him. I'd jest like to know
+ef he was comin' to bother our Hannah."
+
+"Well now. Mebbe you could get a sight o' him. There's a cupboard between
+his room an' the room back. It has a door both sides. Mebbe ef you was to
+slip in there you might see him through the latch hole. I ain't usin' that
+back room fer anythin' but a store-room this spring, so look out you don't
+stumble over nothin' when you go in fer it's dark as a pocket. You go
+right 'long in. I reckon you'll find the way. Yes, it's on the right hand
+side o' the hall. I've got to set here an' finish these potatoes er
+dinner'll be late. I'd like to know real well ef he's one o' Hannah
+Heath's beaux."
+
+Miranda needed no second bidding. She slipped through the hall and store
+room, and in a moment stood before the door of the closet. Softly she
+opened it, and stepped in, lifting her feet cautiously, for the closet
+floor seemed full of old boots and shoes.
+
+It was dark in there, very dark, and only one slat of light stabbed the
+blackness coming through the irregular shape of the latch hole. She could
+hear voices in low tones speaking on the other side of the door. Gradually
+her eyes grew accustomed to the light and one by one objects came out of
+the shadows and looked at her. A white pitcher with a broken nose, a row
+of bottles, a bunch of seed corn with the husks braided together and hung
+on a nail, an old coat on another nail.
+
+Down on her knees beside the crack of light went Miranda. First her eye
+and then her ear were applied to the small aperture. She could see nothing
+but a table directly in front of the door about a foot away on which were
+quills, paper, and a large horn inkstand filled with ink. Some one
+evidently had been writing, for a page was half done, and the pen was laid
+down beside a word.
+
+The limits of the latch hole made it impossible for Miranda to make out
+any more. She applied her ear and could hear a man's voice talking in low
+insinuating tones, but she could make little of what was said. It drove
+her fairly frantic to think that she was losing time. Miranda had no mind
+to be balked in her purpose. She meant to find out who was in that room
+and what was going on. She felt a righteous interest in it.
+
+Her eyes could see quite plainly now in the dark closet. There was a big
+button on the door. She no sooner discovered it than she put up her hand
+and tried to turn it. It was tight and made a slight squeak in turning.
+She stopped but the noise seemed to have no effect upon the evenly
+modulated tones inside. Cautiously she moved the button again, holding the
+latch firmly in her other hand lest the door should suddenly fly open. It
+was an exciting moment when at last the button was turned entirely away
+from the door frame and the lifted latch swung free in Miranda's hand. The
+door opened outward. If it were allowed to go it would probably strike
+against the table. Miranda only allowed it to open a crack. She could hear
+words now, and the voice reminded her of something unpleasant. The least
+little bit more she dared open the door, and she could see, as she had
+expected, Marcia's bonnet and shoulder cape as she sat at the other side
+of the room. This then was the room of the messenger who had sent for Mrs.
+Spafford so peremptorily. The next thing was to discover the identity of
+the messenger. Miranda had suspicions.
+
+The night before she had seen a man lurking near the Spafford house when
+she went out in the garden to feed the chickens. She had watched him from
+behind the lilac bush, and when he had finally gone away she had followed
+him some distance until he turned into the old corduroy road and was lost
+in the gathering dusk. The man she had seen before, and had reason to
+suspect. It was not for nothing that she had braved her grandmother and
+gone hunting wild strawberries out of season.
+
+With the caution of a creature of the forest Miranda opened the door an
+inch further, and applied her eye to the latch hole again. The man's head
+was in full range of her eye then, and her suspicion proved true.
+
+When Marcia entered the big room and the heavy oak door closed behind her
+her heart seemed almost choking her, but she tried with all her might to
+be calm. She was to know the worst now.
+
+On the other side of the room in a large arm-chair, with his feet extended
+on another and covered by a travelling shawl, reclined a man. Marcia went
+toward him eagerly, and then stopped:
+
+"Mr. Temple!" There was horror, fear, reproach in the way she spoke it.
+
+"I know you are astonished, Mrs. Spafford, that the messenger should be
+one so unworthy, and let me say at the beginning that I am more thankful
+than I can express that your letter of forgiveness reached me before I was
+obliged to start on my sorrowful commission. I beg you will sit down and
+be as comfortable as you can while I explain further. Pardon my not
+rising. I have met with a bad sprain caused by falling from my horse on
+the way, and was barely able to reach this stopping place. My ankle is
+swollen so badly that I cannot step upon my foot."
+
+Marcia, with white face, moved to the chair he indicated near him, and sat
+down. The one thought his speech had conveyed to her had come through
+those words "my sorrowful commission." She felt the need of sitting down,
+for her limbs would no longer bear her up, and she felt she must
+immediately know what was the matter.
+
+"Mrs. Spafford, may I ask you once more to speak your forgiveness? Before
+I begin to tell you what I have come for, I long to hear you say the words
+'I forgive you.' Will you give me your hand and say them?"
+
+"Mr. Temple, I beg you will tell me what is the matter. Do not think any
+further about that other matter. I meant what I said in the note. Tell me
+quick! Is my husband--has anything happened to Mr. Spafford? Is he ill? Is
+he hurt?"
+
+"My poor child! How can I bear to tell you? It seems terrible to put your
+love and trust upon another human being and then suddenly find---- But wait.
+Let me tell the story in my own way. No, your husband is not hurt,
+physically. Illness, and death even, are not the worst things that can
+happen to a mortal soul. It seems to me cruel, as I see you sit there so
+young and tender and beautiful, that I should have to hurt you by what I
+have to say. I come from the purest of motives to tell you a sad truth
+about one who should be nearest and dearest to you of all the earth. I beg
+you will look upon me kindly and believe that it hurts me to have to tell
+you these things. Before I begin I pray you will tell me that you forgive
+me for all I have to say. Put your hand in mine and say so."
+
+Marcia had listened to this torrent of words unable to stop them, a
+choking sensation in her throat, fear gripping her heart. Some terrible
+thing had happened. Her senses refused to name the possibility. Would he
+never tell? What ailed the man that he wanted her hand in forgiveness? Of
+course she forgave him. She could not speak, and he kept urging.
+
+"I cannot talk until I have your hand as a pledge that you will forgive me
+and think not unkindly of me for what I am about to tell you."
+
+He must have seen how powerfully he wrought upon her, for he continued
+until wild with frantic fear she stumbled toward him and laid her hand in
+his. He grasped it and thanked her profusely. He looked at the little cold
+hand in his own, and his lying tongue went on:
+
+"Mrs. Spafford, you are good and true. You have saved me from a life of
+uselessness, and your example and high noble character have given me new
+inspiration. It seems a poor gratitude that would turn and stab you to the
+heart. Ah! I cannot do it, and yet I must."
+
+This was torture indeed! Marcia drew her hand sharply away and held it to
+her heart. She felt her brain reeling with the strain. Harry Temple saw he
+must go on at once or he would lose what he had gained. He had meant to
+keep that little hand and touch it gently with a comforting pressure as
+his story went on, but it would not do to frighten her or she might take
+sudden alarm.
+
+"Sit down," he begged, reaching out and drawing a chair near to his own,
+but she stepped back and dropped into the one which she had first taken.
+
+"You know your husband has been in New York?" he began. She nodded. She
+could not speak.
+
+"Did you never suspect why he is there and why he stays so long?" A cold
+vise gripped Marcia's heart, but though she turned white she said nothing,
+only looked steadily into the false eyes that glowed and burned at her
+like two hateful coals of fire that would scorch her soul and David's to a
+horrid death.
+
+"Poor child, you cannot answer. You have trusted perfectly. You thought he
+was there on business connected with his writing, but did it never occur
+to you what a very long time he has been away and that--that there might be
+some other reason also which he has not told? But you must know it now, my
+child. I am sorry to say it, but he has been keeping it from you, and
+those who love you think you ought to know. Let me explain. Very soon
+after he reached New York he met a lady whom he used to know and admire.
+She is a very beautiful woman, and though she is married is still much
+sought after. Your husband, like the rest of her admirers, soon lost his
+heart completely, and his head. Strange that he could so easily forget the
+pearl of women he had left behind! He went to see her. He showed his
+affection for her in every possible way. He gave her large sums of money.
+In fact, to make a long story short, he is lingering in New York just to
+be near her. I hesitate to speak the whole truth, but he has surely done
+that which you cannot forgive. You with your lofty ideas--Mrs. Spafford--he
+has cut himself off from any right to your respect or love.
+
+"And now I am here to-day to offer to do all in my power to help you. From
+what I know of your husband's movements, he is likely to return to you
+soon. You cannot meet him knowing that the lips that will salute you have
+been pressed upon the lips of another woman, and that woman _your own
+sister_, dear Mrs. Spafford!
+
+"Ah! Now you understand, poor child. Your lips quiver! You have reason to
+understand. I know, I know you cannot think what to do. Let me think for
+you." His eyes were glowing and his face animated. He was using all his
+persuasive power, and her gaze was fixed upon him as though he had
+mesmerized her. She could not resist the flood-tide of his eloquence. She
+could only look on and seem to be gradually turning to stone--frozen with
+horror.
+
+He felt he had almost won, and with demoniacal skill he phrased his
+sentences.
+
+"I am here for that purpose. I am here to help you and for no other
+reason. In the stable are horses harnessed and a comfortable carriage. My
+advice to you is to fly from here as fast as these fleet horses can carry
+you. Where you go is for you to say. I should advise going to your
+father's house. That I am sure is what will please him best. He is your
+natural refuge at such a time as this. If, however, you shrink from
+appearing before the eyes of the village gossips in your native town, I
+will take you to the home of a dear old friend of mine, hidden among the
+quiet hills, where you will be cared for most royally and tenderly for my
+sake, and where you can work out your life problem in the way that seems
+best to you. It is there that I am planning to take you to-night. We can
+easily reach there before evening if we start at once."
+
+Marcia started to her feet in horror.
+
+"What do you mean?" she stammered in a choking voice. "I could never go
+anywhere with you Mr. Temple. You are a bad man! You have been telling me
+lies! I do not believe one word of what you have said. My husband is noble
+and good. If he did any of those things you say he did he had a reason for
+it. I shall never distrust him."
+
+Marcia's head was up grandly now and her voice had come back. She looked
+the man in the eye until he quailed, but still he sought to hold his power
+over her.
+
+"You poor child!" and his voice was gentleness and forbearance itself. "I
+do not wonder in your first horror and surprise that you feel as you do. I
+anticipated this. Sit down and calm yourself and let me tell you more
+about it. I can prove everything that I have said. I have letters here----"
+and he swept his hand toward a pile of letters lying on the table; Miranda
+in the closet marked well the position of those letters. "All that I have
+said is only too true, I am sorry to say, and you must listen to me----"
+
+Marcia interrupted him, her eyes blazing, her face excited: "Mr. Temple, I
+shall not listen to another word you say. You are a wicked man and I was
+wrong to come here at all. You deceived me or I should not have come. I
+must go home at once." With that she started toward the door.
+
+Harry Temple flung aside the shawl that covered his sometime sprained
+ankle and arose quickly, placing himself before her, forgetful of his
+invalid role:
+
+"Not so fast, my pretty lady," he said, grasping her wrists fiercely in
+both his hands. "You need not think to escape so easily. You shall not
+leave this room except in my company. Do you not know that you are in my
+power? You have spent nearly an hour alone in my bedchamber, and what will
+your precious husband have to do with you after this is known?"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Miranda's time had come. She had seen it coming and was prepared.
+
+With a movement like a flash she pushed open the closet door, seized the
+pot of ink from the table, and before the two excited occupants of the
+room had time to even hear her or realize that she was near, she hurled
+the ink pot full into the insolent face of Harry Temple. The inkstand
+itself was a light affair of horn and inflicted only a slight wound, but
+the ink came into his eyes in a deluge blinding him completely, as Miranda
+had meant it should do. She had seen no other weapon of defense at hand.
+
+Harry Temple dropped Marcia's wrists and groaned in pain, staggering back
+against the wall and sinking to the floor. But Miranda would not stay to
+see the effect of her punishment. She seized the frightened Marcia,
+dragged her toward the cupboard door, sweeping as she passed the pile of
+letters, finished and unfinished, into her apron, and closed the cupboard
+doors carefully behind her. Then she guided Marcia through the dark mazes
+of the store room to the hall, and pushing her toward the front door,
+whispered: "Go quick 'fore he gets his eyes open. I've got to go this way.
+Run down the road fast as you can an' I'll be at the meetin' place first.
+Hurry, quick!"
+
+Marcia went with feet that shook so that every step seemed like to slip,
+but with beating heart she finally traversed the length of the piazza with
+a show of dignity, passed the loungers, and was out in the road. Then
+indeed she took courage and fairly flew.
+
+Miranda, breathless, but triumphant, went back into the kitchen: "I guess
+'tain't him after all," she said to the interested woman who was putting
+on the potatoes to boil. "He's real interesting to look at though. I'd
+like to stop and watch him longer but I must be goin'. I come out to hunt
+fer"--Miranda hesitated for a suitable object before this country-bred
+woman who well knew that strawberries were not ripe yet--"wintergreens fer
+Grandma," she added cheerfully, not quite sure whether they grew around
+these parts, "and I must be in a hurry. Good-bye! Thank you fer the
+drink."
+
+Miranda whizzed out of the door breezily, calling a good morning to one of
+the hostlers as she passed the barnyard, and was off through the meadows
+and over the fence like a bird, the package of letters rustling loud in
+her bosom where she had tucked them before she entered the kitchen.
+
+Neither of the two girls spoke for some minutes after they met, but
+continued their rapid gait, until the end of the corduroy road was in
+sight and they felt comparatively safe.
+
+"Wal, that feller certainly ought to be strung up an' walluped, now, fer
+sure," remarked Miranda, "an I'd like to help at the wallupin'."
+
+Marcia's overstrung nerves suddenly dissolved into hysterical laughter.
+The contrast from the tragic to the ridiculous was too much for her. She
+laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, and then she cried in
+earnest. Miranda stopped and put her arms about her as gently as a mother
+might have done, and smoothed her hair back from the hot cheek, speaking
+tenderly:
+
+"There now, you poor pretty little flower. Jest you cry 's hard 's you
+want to. I know how good it makes you feel to cry. I've done it many a
+time up garret where nobody couldn't hear me. That old Satan, he won't
+trouble you fer a good long spell again. When he gets his evil eyes open,
+if he ever does, he'll be glad to get out o' these parts or I miss my
+guess. Now don't you worry no more. He can't hurt you one mite. An' don't
+you think a thing about what he said. He's a great big liar, that's what
+he is."
+
+"Miranda, you saved me. Yes, you did. I never can thank you enough. If you
+hadn't come and helped me something awful might have happened!" Marcia
+shuddered and began to sob convulsively again.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Miranda, pleased. "I didn't do a thing worth mentioning.
+Now you jest wipe your eyes and chirk up. We've got to go through town an'
+you don't want folks to wonder what's up."
+
+Miranda led Marcia up to the spring whose location had been known to her
+all the time of course, and Marcia bathed her eyes and was soon looking
+more like herself, though there was a nervous tremor to her lips now and
+then. But her companion talked gaily, and tried to keep her mind from
+going over the events of the morning.
+
+When they reached the village Miranda suggested they go home by the back
+street, slipping through a field of spring wheat and climbing the garden
+fence. She had a mind to keep out of her grandmother's sight for a while
+longer.
+
+"I might's well be hung for a sheep's a lamb," she remarked, as she slid
+in at Marcia's kitchen door in the shadow of the morning-glory vines. "I'm
+goin' to stay here a spell an' get you some dinner while you go upstairs
+an' lie down. You don't need to go back to your aunt's till near night,
+an' you can wait till dusk an' I'll go with you. Then you needn't be out
+alone at all. I know how you feel, but I don't believe you need worry.
+He'll be done with you now forever, er I'll miss my guess. Now you go lie
+down till I make a cup o' tea."
+
+Marcia was glad to be alone, and soon fell asleep, worn out with the
+excitement, her brain too weary to go over the awful occurrences of the
+morning. That would come later. Now her body demanded rest.
+
+Miranda, coming upstairs with the tea, tiptoed in and looked at her,--one
+round arm thrown over her head, and her smooth peachy cheek resting
+against it. Miranda, homely, and with no hope of ever attaining any of the
+beautiful things of life, loved unselfishly this girl who had what she had
+not, and longed with all her heart to comfort and protect the sweet young
+thing who seemed so ill-prepared to protect herself. She stooped over the
+sleeper for one yearning moment, and touched her hair lightly with her
+lips. She felt a great desire to kiss the soft round cheek, but was afraid
+of wakening her. Then she took the cup of tea and tiptoed out again, her
+eyes shining with satisfaction. She had a self-imposed task before her,
+and was well pleased that Marcia slept, for it gave her plenty of
+opportunity to carry out her plans.
+
+She went quickly to David's library, opened drawers and doors in the desk
+until she found writing materials, and sat down to work. She had a letter
+to write, and a letter, to Miranda, was the achievement of a lifetime. She
+did not much expect to ever have to write another. She plunged into her
+subject at once.
+
+
+    "DEAR MR. DAVID:" (she was afraid that sounded a little stiff, but
+    she felt it was almost too familiar to say "David" as he was
+    always called.)
+
+    "I ain't much on letters, but this one has got to be writ.
+    Something happened and somebody's got to tell you about it. I'm
+    most sure she wont, and nobody else knows cept me.
+
+    "Last night 'bout dark I went out to feed the chickens, an' I see
+    that nimshi Harry Temple skulkin round your house. It was all dark
+    there, an he walked in the side gate and tried to peek in the
+    winders, only the shades was down an he couldn't see a thing. I
+    thought he was up to some mischief so I followed him down the
+    street a piece till he turned down the old corduroy road. It was
+    dark by then an I come home, but I was on the watchout this
+    morning, and after Mis' Spafford come down to the house I heard a
+    horse gallopin by an I looked out an saw a boy get off an take a
+    letter to the door an ride away, an pretty soon all in a hurry
+    your wife come out tyin her bonnet and hurryin along lookin
+    scared. I grabbed my sunbonnet an clipped after her, but she went
+    so fast I didn't get up to her till she got on the old corduroy
+    road. She was awful scared lookin an she didn't want me much I
+    see, but pretty soon she up an told me she had a note sayin there
+    was a messenger with news from you out to the old Green Tavern. He
+    had a accident an couldn't come no further. He wanted her to come
+    alone cause the business was private, so I stayed down by the turn
+    of the road till she got in an then I went cross lots an round to
+    the kitchen an called on Mis' Green a spell. She was tellin me
+    about her boarders an I told her I thought mebbe one of em was a
+    friend o' Hannah Heath's so she said I might peek through the key
+    hole of the cubberd an see. She was busy so I went alone.
+
+    "Well sir, I jest wish you'd been there. That lying nimshi was
+    jest goin on the sweetest, as respectful an nice a thankin your
+    wife fer comin, an excusin himself fer sendin fer her, and sayin
+    he couldn't bear to tell her what he'd come fer, an pretty soon
+    when she was scared 's death he up an told her a awful fib bout
+    you an a woman called Kate, whoever she is, an he jest poured the
+    words out fast so she couldn't speak, an he said things about you
+    he shouldn't uv, an you could see he was makin it up as he went
+    along, an he said he had proof. So he pointed at a pile of letters
+    on the table an I eyed em good through the hole in the door.
+    Pretty soon he ups and perposes that he carry her off in a
+    carriage he has all ready, and takes her to a friend of his, so
+    she wont be here when you come home, cause you're so bad, and she
+    gets up looking like she wanted to scream only she didn't dare,
+    and she says he dont tell the truth, it wasn't so any of it, and
+    if it was it was all right anyway, that you had some reason, an
+    she wouldn't go a step with him anywhere. An then he forgets all
+    about the lame ankle he had kept covered up on a chair pertendin
+    it was hurt fallin off his horse when the coach brought him all
+    the way fer I asked Mis' Green--and he ketches her by the wrists,
+    and he says she can't go without him, and she needn't be in such a
+    hurry fer you wouldn't have no more to do with her anyway after
+    her being shut up there with him so long, an then she looked jest
+    like she was going to faint, an I bust out through the door an
+    ketched up the ink pot, it want heavy enough to kill him, an I
+    slung it at him, an the ink went square in his eyes, an we slipped
+    through the closet an got away quick fore anybody knew a thing.
+
+    "I brought all the letters along so here they be. I havn't read a
+    one, cause I thought mebbe you'd ruther not. She aint seen em
+    neither. She dont know I've got em. I hid em in my dress. She's
+    all wore out with cryin and hurryin, and being scared, so she's
+    upstairs now asleep, an she dont know I'm writing. I'm goin to
+    send this off fore she knows, fer I think she wouldn't tell you
+    fear of worryin you. I'll look after her es well's I can till you
+    get back, but I think that feller ought to be strung up. But
+    you'll know what to do, so no more at present from your obedient
+    servent,
+
+                                                    "MIRANDA GRISCOM."
+
+
+Having at last succeeded in sealing her packet to her satisfaction and the
+diminishing of the stick of sealing wax she had found in the drawer,
+Miranda slid out the front door, and by a detour went to David Spafford's
+office.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Clark," she said to the clerk importantly. "Grandma
+sends her respecks and wants to know ef you'd be so kind as to back this
+letter fer her to Mr. David Spafford. She's writin' to him on business an'
+she don't rightly know his street an' number in New York."
+
+Mr. Clark willingly wrote the address, and Miranda took it to the post
+office, and sped back to Marcia, happy in the accomplishment of her
+purpose.
+
+
+
+In the same mail bag that brought Miranda's package came a letter from
+Aunt Clarinda. David's face lit up with a pleased smile. Her letters were
+so infrequent that they were a rare pleasure. He put aside the thick
+package written in his clerk's hand. It was doubtless some business papers
+and could wait.
+
+Aunt Clarinda wrote in a fine old script that in spite of her eighty years
+was clear and legible. She told about the beauty of the weather, and how
+Amelia and Hortense were almost done with the house cleaning, and how
+Marcia had been going to their house every day putting it in order. Then
+she added a paragraph which David, knowing the old lady well, understood
+to be the _raison d'etre_ of the whole letter:
+
+"I think your wife misses you very much, Davie, she looks sort of peeked
+and sad. It is hard on her being separated from you so long this first
+year. Men don't think of those things, but it is lonely for a young thing
+like her here with three old women, and you know Hortense and Amelia never
+try to make it lively for anybody. I have been watching her, and I think
+if I were you I would let the business finish itself up as soon as
+possible and hurry back to put a bit of cheer into that child. She's
+whiter than she ought to be."
+
+David read it over three times in astonishment with growing, mingled
+feelings which he could not quite analyze.
+
+Poor Aunt Clarinda! Of course she did not understand the situation, and
+equally of course she was mistaken. Marcia was not sighing for him, though
+it might be dull for her at the old house. He ought to have thought of
+that; and a great burden suddenly settled down upon him. He was not doing
+right by Marcia. It could not be himself of course that Marcia was
+missing, if indeed Aunt Clarinda was right and she was worried about
+anything. Perhaps something had occurred to trouble her. Could that snake
+of a Temple have turned up again? No, he felt reasonably sure he would
+have heard of that, besides he saw him not long ago on the street at a
+distance. Could it be some boy-lover at home whose memory came to trouble
+her? Or had she discovered what a sacrifice she had made of her young
+life? Whatever it was, it was careless and cruel in him to have left her
+alone with his aunts all this time. He was a selfish man, he told himself,
+to have accepted her quiet little sacrifice of all for him. He read the
+letter over again, and suddenly there came to him a wish that Marcia _was_
+missing him. It seemed a pleasant thought to have her care. He had been
+trying to train himself to the fact that no one would ever care for him
+again, but now it seemed dear and desirable that his sweet young companion
+should like to have him back. He had a vision of home as it had been, so
+pleasant and restful, always the food that he liked, always the thought
+for his wishes, and he felt condemned. He had not noticed or cared. Had
+she thought him ungrateful?
+
+He read the letter over again, noting every mention of his wife in the
+account of the daily living at home. He was searching for some clue that
+would give him more information about her. And when he reached the last
+paragraph about missing him, a little tingle of pleasure shot through him
+at the thought. He did not understand it. After all she was his, and if it
+was possible he must help to make up to her for what she had lost in
+giving herself to him. If the thought of doing so brought a sense of
+satisfaction to him that was unexpected, he was not to blame in any wise.
+
+Since his interview with Kate, and the terrible night of agony through
+which he had passed, David had plunged into his business with all his
+might. Whenever a thought of Kate came he banished it if possible, and if
+it would not go he got out his writing materials and went to work at an
+article, to absorb his mind. He had several times arisen in the night to
+write because he could not sleep, and must think.
+
+When he was obliged to be in New York he had steadily kept away from the
+house where Kate lived, and never walked through the streets without
+occupying his mind as fully as possible so that he should not chance to
+see her. In this way his sorrow was growing old without having been worn
+out, and he was really regaining a large amount of his former happiness
+and interest in life. Not so often now did the vision of Kate come to
+trouble him. He thought she was still his one ideal of womanly beauty and
+grace and perfection of course, and always would be, but she was not for
+him to think upon any more. A strong true man he was growing, out of his
+sorrow. And now when the thought of Marcia came to him with a certain
+sweetness he could be glad that it was so, and not resent it. Of course no
+one could ever take the place of Kate, that was impossible.
+
+So reflecting, with a pleasant smile upon his face, he opened Miranda's
+epistle.
+
+Puzzled and surprised he began to read the strange chirography, and as he
+read his face darkened and he drew his brows in a heavy frown. "The
+scoundrel!" he muttered as he turned the sheet. Then as he went on his
+look grew anxious. He scanned the page quickly as if he would gather the
+meaning from the crooked ill-spelled words without taking them one by one.
+But he had to go slowly, for Miranda had not written with as much
+plainness as haste. He fairly held his breath when he thought of the
+gentle girl in the hands of the unscrupulous man of the world. A terrible
+fear gripped his heart, Marcia, little Marcia, so sweet and pure and good.
+A vision of her face as she lay asleep in the woods came between him and
+the paper. Why had he left her unprotected all these months? Fool that he
+was! She was worth more than all the railroads put together. As if his own
+life was in the balance, he read on, growing sick with horror. Poor child!
+what had she thought? And how had his own sin and weakness been found out,
+or was it merely Harry Temple's wicked heart that had evolved these
+stories? The letter smote him with terrible accusation, and all at once it
+was fearful to him to think that Marcia had heard such things about him.
+When he came to her trust in him he groaned aloud and buried his face in
+the letter, and then raised it quickly to read to the end.
+
+When he had finished he rose with sudden determination to pack his
+carpet-bag and go home at once. Marcia needed him, and he felt a strong
+desire to be near her, to see her and know she was safe. It was
+overwhelming. He had not known he could ever feel strongly again. He must
+confess his own weakness of course, and he would. She should know all and
+know that she might trust his after all.
+
+But the motion of rising had sent the other papers to the floor, and in
+falling the bundle of letters that Miranda had enclosed, scattered about
+him. He stooped to pick them up and saw his own name written in Kate's
+handwriting. Old association held him, and wondering, fearful, not wholly
+glad to see it, he picked up the letter. It was an epistle of Kate's,
+written in intimate style to Harry Temple and speaking of himself in terms
+of the utmost contempt. She even stooped to detail to Harry an account of
+her own triumph on that miserable morning when he had taken her in his
+arms and kissed her. There were expressions in the letter that showed her
+own wicked heart, as nothing else could ever have done, to David. As he
+read, his soul growing sick within him,--read one letter after another, and
+saw how she had plotted with this bad man to wreck the life of her young
+sister for her own triumph and revenge,--the beautiful woman whom he had
+loved, and whom he had thought beautiful within as well as without,
+crumbled into dust before him. When he looked up at last with white face
+and firmly set lips, he found that his soul was free forever from the
+fetters that had bound him to her.
+
+He went to the fireplace and laid the pile of letters among the embers,
+blowing them into a blaze, and watched them until they were eaten up by
+the fire and nothing remained but dead grey ashes. The thought came to him
+that that was like his old love. It was burnt out. There had not been the
+right kind of fuel to feed it. Kate was worthless, but his own self was
+alive, and please God he would yet see better days. He would go home at
+once to the child wife who needed him, and whom now he might love as she
+should be loved. The thought became wondrously sweet to him as he rapidly
+threw the things into his travelling bag and went about arrangements for
+his trip home. He determined that if he ever came to New York again Marcia
+should come with him.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Marcia hurried down to her own house early one morning. The phantoms of
+her experiences in the old Green Tavern were pursuing her.
+
+Once there she could do nothing but go over and over the dreadful things
+that Harry Temple had said. In vain did she try to work. She went into the
+library and took up a book, but her mind would wander to David.
+
+She sat down at the piano and played a few tender chords and sang an old
+Italian song which somebody had left at their house several years before:
+
+                "Dearest, believe,
+                   When e'er we part:
+                 Lonely I grieve,
+                   In my sad heart:--"
+
+With a sob her head dropped upon her hands in one sad little crash of
+wailing tones, while the sound died away in reverberation after
+reverberation of the strings till Marcia felt as if a sea of sound were
+about her in soft ebbing, flowing waves.
+
+The sound covered the lifting of the side door latch and the quiet step of
+a foot. Marcia was absorbed in her own thoughts. Her smothered sobs were
+mingling with the dying sounds of the music, still audible to her fine
+ear.
+
+David had come by instinct to his own home first. He felt that Marcia
+would be there, and now that he was come and the morning sun flooded
+everything and made home look so good he felt that he must find her first
+of all before his relationship with home had been re-established. He
+passed through kitchen, dining room and hall, and by the closed parlor
+door. He never thought of her being in there with the door closed. He
+glanced into the library and saw the book lying in his chair as she had
+left it, and it gave a touch of her presence which pleased him. He went
+softly toward the stairs thinking to find her. He had stopped at a shop
+the last thing and bought a beautiful creamy shawl of China crepe heavily
+embroidered, and finished with long silken fringe. He had taken it from
+his carpet-bag and was carrying it in its rice paper wrappings lest it
+should be crushed. He was pleased as a child at the present he had brought
+her, and felt strangely shy about giving it to her.
+
+Just then there came a sound from the parlor, sweet and tender and
+plaintive. Marcia had conquered her sobs and was singing again with her
+whole soul, singing as if she were singing to David. The words drew him
+strangely, wonderingly toward the parlor door, yet so softly that he heard
+every syllable.
+
+                "Dearest, believe,
+                   When e'er we part:
+                 Lonely I grieve,
+                   In my sad heart:--
+                 Thy faithful slave,
+                   Languishing sighs,
+                 Haste then and save--"
+
+Here the words trailed away again into a half sob, and the melody
+continued in broken, halting chords that flickered out and faded into the
+shadows of the room.
+
+David's heart was pierced with a belief that Aunt Clarinda was right and
+something was the matter with Marcia. A great trouble and tenderness, and
+almost jealousy, leaped up in his heart which were incomprehensible to
+him. Who was Marcia singing this song for? That it was a true cry from a
+lonely soul he could but believe. Was she feeling her prison-bars here in
+the lonely old house with only a forlorn man whose life and love had been
+thrown away upon another? Poor child! Poor child! If he might but save her
+from suffering, cover her with his own tenderness and make her content
+with that. Would it be possible if he devoted himself to it to make her
+forget the one for whom she was sighing; to bring peace and a certain sort
+of sweet forgetfulness and interest in other things into her life? He
+wanted to make a new life for her, his little girl whom he had so
+unthinkingly torn from the home nest and her future, and compelled to take
+up his barren way with him. He would make it up to her if such a thing
+were possible. Then he opened the door.
+
+In the soft green light of the noonday coming through the shades Marcia's
+color did not show as it flew into her cheeks. Her hands grew weak and
+dropped upon the keys with a soft little tinkle of surprise and joy. She
+sprang up and came a step toward him, then clasped her hands against her
+breast and stopped shyly. David coming into the room, questioning,
+wondering, anxious, stopped midway too, and for an instant they looked
+upon one another. David saw a new look in the girl's face. She seemed
+older, much older than when he had left her. The sweet round cheeks were
+thinner, her mouth drooped sadly, pathetically. For an instant he longed
+to take her in his arms and kiss her. The longing startled him. So many
+months he had thought of only Kate in that way, and then had tried to
+teach himself never to think of Kate or any woman as one to be caressed by
+him, that it shocked him. He felt that he had been disloyal to himself, to
+honor,--to Kate--no--not to Kate, he had no call to be loyal to her. She had
+not been loyal to him ever. Perhaps rather he would have put it loyalty to
+Love for Love's sake, love that is worthy to be crowned by a woman's love.
+
+With all these mingling feelings David was embarrassed. He came toward her
+slowly, trying to be natural, trying to get back his former way with her.
+He put out his hand stiffly to shake hands as he had done when he left,
+and timidly she put hers into it, yet as their fingers closed there leaped
+from one to the other a thrill of sweetness, that neither guessed the
+other knew and each put by in memory for closer inspection as to what it
+could mean. Their hands clung together longer than either had meant, and
+there was something pleasant to each in the fact that they were together
+again. David thought it was just because it was home, rest, and peace, and
+a relief from his anxiety about Marcia now that he saw she was all right.
+Marcia knew it was better to have David standing there with his strong
+fingers about her trembling ones, than to have anything else in the world.
+But she would not have told him so.
+
+"That was a sweet song you were singing," said David. "I hope you were
+singing it for me, and that it was true! I am glad I am come home, and you
+must sing it again for me soon."
+
+It was not in the least what he intended to say, and the words tumbled
+themselves out so tumultuously that he was almost ashamed and wondered if
+Marcia would think he had lost his mind in New York. Marcia, dear child,
+treasured them every word and hugged them to her heart, and carried them
+in her prayers.
+
+They went out together and got dinner as if they had been two children,
+with a wild excited kind of glee; and they tried to get back their natural
+ways of doing and saying things, but they could not.
+
+Instead they were forever blundering and halting in what they said; coming
+face to face and almost running over one another as they tried to help
+each other; laughing and blushing and blundering again.
+
+When they each tried to reach for the tea kettle to fill the coffee pot
+and their fingers touched, each drew back and pretended not to notice, but
+yet had felt the contact sweet.
+
+They were lingering over the dinner when Hannah Heath came to the door.
+David had been telling of some of his adventures in detail and was
+enjoying the play of expression on Marcia's face as she listened eagerly
+to every word. They had pushed their chairs back a little and were sitting
+there talking,--or rather David was talking, Marcia listening. Hannah stood
+for one jealous instant and saw it all. This was what she had dreamed for
+her own long years back, she and David. She had questioned much just what
+feeling there might be between him and Marcia, and now more than ever she
+desired to bring him face to face with Kate and read for herself what the
+truth had been. She hated Marcia for that look of intense delight and
+sympathy upon her face; hated her that she had the right to sit there and
+hear what David had to say--some stupid stuff about railroads. She did not
+see that she herself would have made an ill companion for a man like
+David.
+
+As yet neither Marcia nor David had touched upon the subjects which had
+troubled them. They did not realize it, but they were so suddenly happy in
+each other's company they had forgotten for the moment. The pleasant
+converse was broken up at once. Marcia's face hardened into something like
+alarm as she saw who stood in the doorway.
+
+"Why, David, have you got home at last?" said Hannah. "I did not know it."
+That was an untruth. She had watched him from behind Grandmother Heath's
+rose bush. "Where did you come from last? New York? Oh, then you saw Mrs.
+Leavenworth. How is she? I fell in love with her when I was there."
+
+Now David had never fully taken in Kate's married name. He knew it of
+course, but in his present state of happiness at getting home, and his
+absorption in the work he had been doing, the name "Mrs. Leavenworth"
+conveyed nothing whatever to David's mind. He looked blankly at Hannah and
+replied indifferently enough with a cool air. "No, Miss Hannah, I had no
+time for social life. I was busy every minute I was away."
+
+David never expected Hannah to say anything worth listening to, and he was
+so full of his subject that he had not noticed that she made no reply.
+
+Hannah watched him curiously as he talked, his remarks after all were
+directed more to Marcia than to her, and when he paused she said with a
+contemptuous sneer in her voice, "I never could understand, David, how you
+who seem to have so much sense in other things will take up with such
+fanciful, impractical dreams as this railroad. Lemuel says it'll never
+run."
+
+Hannah quoted her lover with a proud bridling of her head as if the matter
+were settled once and for all. It was the first time she had allowed the
+world to see that she acknowledged her relation to Lemuel. She was not
+averse to having David understand that she felt there were other men in
+the world besides himself. But David turned merry eyes on her.
+
+"Lemuel says?" he repeated, and he made a sudden movement with his arm
+which sent a knife and spoon from the table in a clatter upon the floor.
+
+"And how much does Lemuel know about the matter?"
+
+"Lemuel has good practical common sense," said Hannah, vexed, "and he
+knows what is possible and what is not. He does not need to travel all
+over the country on a wild goose chase to learn that."
+
+Now that she had accepted him Hannah did not intend to allow Lemuel to be
+discounted.
+
+"He has not long to wait to be convinced," said David thoughtfully and
+unaware of her tart tone. "Before the year is out it will be a settled
+fact that every one can see."
+
+"Well, it's beyond comprehension what you care, anyway," said Hannah
+contemptuously. "Did you really spend all your time in New York on such
+things? It seems incredible. There certainly must have been other
+attractions?"
+
+There was insinuation in Hannah's voice though it was smooth as butter,
+but David had had long years of experience in hearing Hannah Heath's sharp
+tongue. He minded it no more than he would have minded the buzzing of a
+fly. Marcia's color rose, however. She made a hasty errand to the pantry
+to put away the bread, and her eyes flashed at Hannah through the close
+drawn pantry door. But Hannah did not give up so easily.
+
+"It is strange you did not stay with Mrs. Leavenworth," she said. "She
+told me you were one of her dearest friends, and you used to be quite fond
+of one another."
+
+Then it suddenly dawned upon David who Mrs. Leavenworth was, and a
+sternness overspread his face.
+
+"Mrs. Leavenworth, did you say? Ah! I did not understand. I saw her but
+once and that for only a few minutes soon after I first arrived. I did not
+see her again." His voice was cool and steady. Marcia coming from the
+pantry with set face, ready for defence if there was any she could give,
+marvelled at his coolness. Her heart was gripped with fear, and yet
+leaping with joy at David's words. He had not seen Kate but once. He had
+known she was there and yet had kept away. Hannah's insinuations were
+false. Mr. Temple's words were untrue. She had known it all the time, yet
+what sorrow they had given her!
+
+"By the way, Marcia," said David, turning toward her with a smile that
+seemed to erase the sternness in his voice but a moment before. "Did you
+not write me some news? Miss Hannah, you are to be congratulated I
+believe. Lemuel is a good man. I wish you much happiness."
+
+And thus did David, with a pleasant speech, turn aside Hannah Heath's
+dart. Yet while she went from the house with a smile and a sound of
+pleasant wishes in her ears, she carried with her a bitter heart and a
+revengeful one.
+
+David was suddenly brought face to face with the thing he had to tell
+Marcia. He sat watching her as she went back and forth from pantry to
+kitchen, and at last he came and stood beside her and took her hands in
+his looking down earnestly into her face. It seemed terrible to him to
+tell this thing to the innocent girl, now, just when he was growing
+anxious to win her confidence, but it must be told, and better now than
+later lest he might be tempted not to tell it at all.
+
+"Marcia!" He said the name tenderly, with an inflection he had never used
+before. It was not lover-like, nor passionate, but it reached her heart
+and drew her eyes to his and the color to her cheeks. She thought how
+different his clasp was from Harry Temple's hateful touch. She looked up
+at him trustingly, and waited.
+
+"You heard what I said to Hannah Heath just now, about--your----" He paused,
+dissatisfied--"about Mrs. Leavenworth"--it was as if he would set the
+subject of his words far from them. Marcia's heart beat wildly,
+remembering all that she had been told, yet she looked bravely, trustingly
+into his eyes.
+
+"It was true what I told her. I met Mrs. Leavenworth but once while I was
+away. It was in her own home and she sent for me saying she was in
+trouble. She told me that she was in terrible anxiety lest I would not
+forgive her. She begged me to say that I forgave her, and when I told her
+I did she asked me to kiss her once to prove it. I was utterly overcome
+and did so, but the moment my lips touched hers I knew that I was doing
+wrong and I put her from me. She begged me to remain, and I now know that
+she was utterly false from the first. It was but a part she was playing
+when she touched my heart until I yielded and sinned. I have only learned
+that recently, within a few days, and from words written by her own hand
+to another. I will tell you about it all sometime. But I want to confess
+to you this wrong I have done, and to let you know that I went away from
+her that day and have never seen her since. She had said she was without
+money, and I left her all I had with me. I know now that that too was
+unwise,--perhaps wrong. I feel that all this was a sin against you. I would
+like you to forgive me if you can, and I want you to know that this other
+woman who was the cause of our coming together, and yet has separated us
+ever since we have been together, is no longer anything to me. Even if she
+and I were both free as we were when we first met, we could never be
+anything but strangers. Can you forgive me now, Marcia, and can you ever
+trust me after what I have told you?"
+
+Marcia looked into his eyes, and loved him but the more for his
+confession. She felt she could forgive him anything, and her whole soul in
+her countenance answered with her voice, as she said: "I can." It made
+David think of their wedding day, and suddenly it came over him with a
+thrill that this sweet womanly woman belonged to him. He marvelled at her
+sweet forgiveness. The joy of it surprised him beyond measure.
+
+"You have had some sad experiences yourself. Will you tell me now all
+about it?" He asked the question wistfully still holding her hands in a
+firm close grasp, and she let them lie nestling there feeling safe as
+birds in the nest.
+
+"Why, how did you know?" questioned Marcia, her whole face flooded with
+rosy light for joy at his kind ways and relief that she did not have to
+open the story.
+
+"Oh, a little bird, or a guardian angel whispered the tale," he said
+pleasantly. "Come into the room where we can be sure no Hannah Heaths will
+trouble us," and he drew her into the library and seated her beside him on
+the sofa.
+
+"But, indeed, Marcia," and his face sobered, "it is no light matter to me,
+what has happened to you. I have been in an agony all the way home lest I
+might not find you safe and well after having escaped so terrible a
+danger."
+
+He drew the whole story from her bit by bit, tenderly questioning her, his
+face blazing with righteous wrath, and darkening with his wider knowledge
+as she told on to the end, and showed him plainly the black heart of the
+villain who had dared so diabolical a conspiracy; and the inhumanity of
+the woman who had helped in the intrigue against her own sister,--nay even
+instigated it. His feelings were too deep for utterance. He was shaken to
+the depths. His new comprehension of Kate's character was confirmed at the
+worst. Marcia could only guess his deep feelings from his shaken
+countenance and the earnest way in which he folded his hands over hers and
+said in low tones filled with emotion: "We should be deeply thankful to
+God for saving you, and I must be very careful of you after this. That
+villain shall be searched out and punished if it takes a lifetime, and
+Miranda,--what shall we do for Miranda? Perhaps we can induce her
+grandmother to let us have her sometime to help take care of us. We seem
+to be unable to get on without her. We'll see what we can do sometime in
+return for the great service she has rendered."
+
+But the old clock striking in the hall suddenly reminded David that he
+should go at once to the office, so he hurried away and Marcia set about
+her work with energy, a happy song of praise in her heart.
+
+There was much to be done. David had said he would scarcely have time to
+go over to his aunts that night, so she had decided to invite them to tea.
+She would far rather have had David to herself this first evening, but it
+would please them to come, especially Aunt Clarinda. There was not much
+time to prepare supper to be sure, but she would stir up a gingerbread,
+make some puffy cream biscuits, and there was lovely white honey and fresh
+eggs and peach preserves.
+
+So she ran to Deacon Appleby's to get some cream for her biscuits and to
+ask Tommy Appleby to harness David's horse and drive over for Aunt
+Clarinda. Then she hurried down to the aunts to give her invitation.
+
+Aunt Clarinda sat down in her calico-covered rocking chair, wiped her dear
+old eyes and her glasses, and said, over and over again: "Dear child!
+Bless her! Bless her!"
+
+It was a happy gathering that evening. David was as pleased as they could
+have desired, and looked about upon the group in the dining-room with
+genuine boyish pleasure. It did his heart good to see Aunt Clarinda there.
+It had never occurred to him before that she could come. He turned to
+Marcia with a light in his eyes that fully repaid her for the little
+trouble she had had in carrying out her plan. He began to feel that home
+meant something even though he had lost the home of his long dreams and
+ideals.
+
+He talked a great deal about his trip, and in between the sentences, he
+caught himself watching Marcia, noting the curve of her round chin, the
+dimple in her left cheek when she smiled, the way her hair waved off from
+her forehead, the pink curves of her well-shaped ears. He found a distinct
+pleasure in noting these things and he wondered at himself. It was as if
+he had suddenly been placed before some great painting and become
+possessed of the knowledge wherewith to appreciate art to its fullest. It
+was as if he had heard a marvellous piece of music and had the eyes and
+ears of his understanding opened to take in the gracious melodies and
+majestic harmonies.
+
+Aunt Clarinda watched his eyes, and Aunt Clarinda was satisfied. Aunt
+Hortense watched his eyes, jealously and sighed. Aunt Amelia watched his
+eyes and set her lips and feared to herself. "He will spoil her if he does
+like that. She will think she can walk right over him." But Aunt Clarinda
+knew better. She recognized the eternal right of love.
+
+They took the three old ladies home in the rising of an early moon, Marcia
+walking demurely on the sidewalk with Aunt Amelia, while David drove the
+chaise with Aunt Clarinda and Aunt Hortense.
+
+As he gently lifted Aunt Clarinda down and helped her to her room David
+felt her old hands tremble and press his arm, and when he had reached her
+door he stooped and kissed her.
+
+"Davie," she said in the voice that used to comfort his little childish
+troubles, or tell him of some nice surprise she had for him, "Davie, she's
+a dear child! She's just as good as gold. She's the princess I used to put
+in all your fairy-tales. David, she's just the right one for you!" and
+David answered earnestly, solemnly, as if he were discovering a truth
+which surprised him but yet was not unwelcome. "I believe she is, Aunt
+Clarinda."
+
+They drove to the barn and Marcia sat in the chaise in the sweet
+hay-scented darkness while David put up the horse by the cobwebby light of
+the lantern; then they walked quietly back to the house. David had drawn
+Marcia's hand through his arm and it rested softly on his coat sleeve. She
+was silently happy, she knew not why, afraid to think of it lest to-morrow
+would show her there was nothing out of the ordinary monotony to be happy
+about.
+
+David was silent, wondering at himself. What was this that had come to
+him? A new pleasure in life. A little trembling rill of joy bubbling up in
+his heart; a rift in the dark clouds of fate; a show of sunshine where he
+had expected never to see the light again. Why was it so pleasant to have
+that little hand resting upon his arm? Was it really pleasant or was it
+only a part of the restfulness of getting home again away from strange
+faces and uncomfortable beds, and poor tables?
+
+They let themselves into the house as if they were walking into a new
+world together and both were glad to be there again. When she got up to
+her room Marcia went and stood before the glass and looked at herself by
+the flickering flame of the candle. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks
+burned red in the centre like two soft deep roses. She felt she hardly
+knew herself. She tried to be critical. Was this person she was examining
+a pretty person? Would she be called so in comparison with Kate and Hannah
+Heath? Would a man,--would David,--if his heart were not filled,--think so?
+She decided not. She felt she was too immature. There was too much shyness
+in her glance, too much babyishness about her mouth. No, David could never
+have thought her beautiful, even if he had seen her before he knew Kate.
+But perhaps, if Kate had been married first and away and then he had come
+to their home, perhaps if he knew no one else well enough to love,--could
+he have cared for her?
+
+Oh, it was a dreadful, beautiful thought. It thrilled through and through
+her till she hid her face from her own gaze. She suddenly kissed the hand
+that had rested on his sleeve, and then reproached herself for it. She
+loved him, but was it right to do so?
+
+As for David, he was sitting on the side of his bed with his chin in his
+hands examining himself.
+
+He had supposed that with the reading of those letters which had come to
+him but two short days before all possibility of love and happiness had
+died, but lo! he found himself thrilling with pleasure over the look in a
+girl's soft eyes, and the touch of her hand. And that girl was his wife.
+It was enough to keep him awake to try to understand himself.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Hannah Heath's wedding day dawned bright enough for a less calculating
+bride.
+
+David did not get home until half past three. He had been obliged to drive
+out to the starting place of the new railroad, near Albany, where it was
+important that he get a few points correctly. On the morrow was to be the
+initial trip, by the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, of the first train drawn
+by a steam engine in the state of New York.
+
+His article about it, bargained for by a New York paper, must be on its
+way by special post as soon after the starting of the train as possible.
+He must have all items accurate; technicalities of preparation;
+description of engine and coaches; details of arrangements, etc.; before
+he added the final paragraphs describing the actual start of the train.
+His article was practically done now, save for these few items. He had
+started early that morning on his long drive, and, being detained longer
+than he had expected, arrived at home with barely time to put himself into
+wedding garments, and hasten in at the last moment with Marcia who stood
+quietly waiting for him in the front hall. They were the last guests to
+arrive. It was time for the ceremony, but the bride, true to her nature to
+the last, still kept Lemuel waiting; and Lemuel, true to the end, stood
+smiling and patient awaiting her pleasure.
+
+David and Marcia entered the wide parlor and shook hands here and there
+with those assembled, though for the most part a hushed air pervaded the
+room, as it always does when something is about to happen.
+
+Soon after their arrival some one in purple silk came down the stairs and
+seated herself in a vacant chair close to where the bride was to stand.
+She had gold hair and eyes like forget-me-nots. She was directly opposite
+to David and Marcia. David was engrossed in a whispered conversation with
+Mr. Brentwood about the events of the morrow, and did not notice her
+entrance, though she paused in the doorway and searched him directly from
+amongst the company before she took her seat. Marcia, who was talking with
+Rose Brentwood, caught the vision of purple and gold and turned to face
+for one brief instant the scornful, half-merry glance of her sister. The
+blood in her face fled back to her heart and left it white.
+
+Then Marcia summoned all her courage and braced herself to face what was
+to come. She forced herself to smile in answer to Rose Brentwood's
+question. But all the while she was trying to understand what it was in
+her sister's look that had hurt her so. It was not the anger,--for that she
+was prepared. It was not the scorn, for she had often faced that. Was it
+the almost merriment? Yes, there was the sting. She had felt it so keenly
+when as a little girl Kate had taken to making fun of some whim of hers.
+She could not see why Kate should find cause for fun just now. It was as
+if she by her look ignored Marcia's relation to David in scornful laugh
+and appropriated him herself. Marcia's inmost soul rebelled. The color
+came back as if by force of her will. She would show Kate,--or she would
+show David at least,--that she could bear all things for him. She would
+play well her part of wife this day. The happy two months that had passed
+since David came back from New York had made her almost feel as if she was
+really his and he hers. For this hour she would forget that it was
+otherwise. She would look at him and speak to him as if he had been her
+husband for years, as if there were the truest understanding between
+them,--as indeed, of a certain wistful, pleasant sort there was. She would
+not let the dreadful thought of Kate cloud her face for others to see.
+Bravely she faced the company, but her heart under Kate's blue frock sent
+up a swift and pleading prayer demanding of a higher Power something she
+knew she had not in herself, and must therefore find in Him who had
+created her. It was the most trustful, and needy prayer that Marcia ever
+uttered and yet there were no words, not even the closing of an eyelid.
+Only her heart took the attitude of prayer.
+
+The door upstairs opened in a business-like way, and Hannah's composed
+voice was heard giving a direction. Hannah's silken tread began to be
+audible. Miranda told Marcia afterward that she kept her standing at the
+window for an hour beforehand to see when David arrived, and when they
+started over to the house. Hannah kept herself posted on what was going on
+in the room below as well as if she were down there. She knew where David
+and Marcia stood, and told Kate exactly where to go. It was like Hannah
+that in the moment of her sacrifice of the long cherished hopes of her
+life she should have planned a dramatic revenge to help carry her through.
+
+The bride's rustle became at last so audible that even David and Mr.
+Brentwood heard and turned from their absorbing conversation to the
+business in hand.
+
+Hannah was in the doorway when David looked up, very cold and beautiful in
+her bridal array despite the years she had waited, and almost at once
+David saw the vision in purple and gold like a saucy pansy, standing near
+her.
+
+Kate's eyes were fixed upon him with their most bewitching, dancing smile
+of recognition, like a naughty little child who had been in hiding for a
+time and now peeps out laughing over the discomfiture of its elders. So
+Kate encountered the steadfast gaze of David's astonished eyes.
+
+But there was no light of love in those eyes as she had expected to see.
+Instead there grew in his face such a blaze of righteous indignation as
+the lord of the wedding feast might have turned upon the person who came
+in without a wedding garment. In spite of herself Kate was disconcerted.
+She was astonished. She felt that David was challenging her presence
+there. It seemed to her he was looking through her, searching her, judging
+her, sentencing her, and casting her out, and presently his eyes wandered
+beyond her through the open hall door and out into God's green world; and
+when they came back and next rested upon her his look had frozen into the
+glance of a stranger.
+
+Angry, ashamed, baffled, she bit her lips in vexation, but tried to keep
+the merry smile. In her heart she hated him, and vowed to make him bow
+before her smiles once more.
+
+David did not see the bride at all to notice her, but the bride, unlike
+the one of the psalmist's vision whose eyes were upon "her dear
+bridegroom's face," was looking straight across the room with evident
+intent to observe David.
+
+The ceremony proceeded, and Hannah went through her part correctly and
+calmly, aware that she was giving herself to Lemuel Skinner irrevocably,
+yet perfectly aware also of the discomfiture of the sweet-faced girl-wife
+who sat across the room bravely watching the ceremony with white cheeks
+and eyes that shone like righteous lights.
+
+Marcia did not look at David. She was with him in heart, suffering with
+him, feeling for him, quivering in every nerve for what he might be
+enduring. She had no need to look. Her part was to ignore, and help to
+cover.
+
+They went through it all well. Not once did Aunt Amelia or Aunt Hortense
+notice anything strange in the demeanor of their nephew or his wife. Aunt
+Clarinda was not there. She was not fond of Hannah.
+
+As soon as the service was over and the relatives had broken the solemn
+hush by kissing the bride, David turned and spoke to Rose Brentwood,
+making some smiling remark about the occasion. Rose Brentwood was looking
+her very prettiest in a rose-sprigged delaine and her wavy dark hair in a
+beaded net tied round with a rose-colored lute-string ribbon.
+
+Kate flushed angrily at this. If it had been Marcia to whom he had spoken
+she would have judged he did it out of pique, but a pretty stranger coming
+upon the scene at this critical moment was trying. And then, too, David's
+manner was so indifferent, so utterly natural. He did not seem in the
+least troubled by the sight of herself.
+
+David and Marcia did not go up to speak to the bride at once. David
+stepped back into the deep window seat to talk with Mr. Brentwood, and
+seemed to be in no hurry to follow the procession who were filing past the
+calm bride to congratulate her. Marcia remained quietly talking to Rose
+Brentwood.
+
+At last David turned toward his wife with a smile as though he had known
+she was there all the time, and had felt her sympathy. Her heart leaped up
+with new strength at that look, and her husband's firm touch as he drew
+her hand within his arm to lead her over to the bride gave her courage.
+She felt that she could face the battle, and with a bright smile that lit
+up her whole lovely face she marched bravely to the front to do or to die.
+
+"I had about given up expecting any congratulations from you," said Hannah
+sharply as they came near. It was quite evident she had been watching for
+them.
+
+"I wish you much joy, Mrs. Skinner," said David mechanically, scarcely
+feeling that she would have it for he knew her unhappy, dissatisfied
+nature.
+
+"Yes," said Marcia, "I wish you may be happy,--as happy as I am!"
+
+It was an impetuous, childish thing to say, and Marcia scarcely realized
+what words she meant to speak until they were out, and then she blushed
+rosy red. Was she happy? Why was she happy? Yes, even in the present
+trying circumstances she suddenly felt a great deep happiness bubbling up
+in her heart. Was it David's look and his strong arm under her hand?
+
+Hannah darted a look at her. She was stung by the words. But did the
+girl-bride before her mean to flaunt her own triumphs in her face? Did she
+fully understand? Or was she trying to act a part and make them believe
+she was happy? Hannah was baffled once more as she had been before with
+Marcia.
+
+Kate turned upon Marcia for one piercing instant again, that look of
+understanding, mocking merriment, which cut through the soul of her
+sister.
+
+But did Marcia imagine it, or was it true that at her words to Hannah,
+David's arm had pressed hers closer as they stood there in the crowd? The
+thought thrilled through her and gave her greater strength.
+
+Hannah turned toward Kate.
+
+"David," she said, as she had always called him, and it is possible that
+she enjoyed the triumph of this touch of intimacy before her guest, "you
+knew my friend Mrs. Leavenworth!"
+
+David bowed gravely, but did not attempt to put out his hand to take the
+one which Kate offered in greeting. Instead he laid it over Marcia's
+little trembling one on his arm as if to steady it.
+
+"We have met before," said David briefly in an impenetrable tone, and
+turning passed out of the room to make way for the Brentwoods who were
+behind him.
+
+Hannah scarcely treated the Brentwoods with decency, so vexed was she with
+the way things were turning out. To think that David should so completely
+baffle her. She turned an annoyed look at Kate, who flashed her blue eyes
+contemptuously as if to blame Hannah.
+
+Soon the whole little gathering were in the dining-room and wide hall
+being served with Grandmother Heath's fried chicken and currant jelly,
+delicate soda biscuits, and fruit cake baked months before and left to
+ripen.
+
+The ordeal through which they were passing made David and Marcia feel, as
+they sat down, that they would not be able to swallow a mouthful, but
+strangely enough they found themselves eating with relish, each to
+encourage the other perhaps, but almost enjoying it, and feeling that they
+had not yet met more than they would be able to withstand.
+
+Kate was seated on the other side of the dining-room, by Hannah, and she
+watched the two incessantly with that half merry contemptuous look, toying
+with her own food, and apparently waiting for their acting to cease and
+David to put on his true character. She never doubted for an instant that
+they were acting.
+
+The wedding supper was over at last. The guests crowded out to the front
+stoop to bid good-bye to the happy bridegroom and cross-looking bride, who
+seemed as if she left the gala scene reluctantly.
+
+Marcia, for the instant, was separated from David, who stepped down upon
+the grass and stood to one side to let the bridal party pass. The minister
+was at the other side. Marcia had slipped into the shelter of Aunt
+Amelia's black silk presence and wished she might run out the back door
+and away home.
+
+Suddenly a shimmer of gold with the sunlight through it caught her gaze,
+and a glimpse of sheeny purple. There, close behind David, standing upon
+the top step, quite unseen by him, stood her sister Kate.
+
+Marcia's heart gave a quick thump and seemed to stop, then went painfully
+laboring on. She stood quite still watching for the moment to come when
+David would turn around and see Kate that she might look into his face and
+read there what was written.
+
+Hannah had been put carefully into the carriage by the adoring Lemuel,
+with many a pat, and a shaking of cushions, and an adjustment of curtains
+to suit her whim. It pleased Hannah, now in her last lingering moment of
+freedom, to be exacting and show others what a slave her husband was.
+
+They all stood for an instant looking after the carriage, but Marcia
+watched David. Then, just as the carriage wound around the curve in the
+road and was lost from view, she saw him turn, and at once knew she must
+not see his face as he looked at Kate. Closing her eyes like a flash she
+turned and fled upstairs to get her shawl and bonnet. There she took
+refuge behind the great white curtains, and hid her face for several
+minutes, praying wildly, she hardly knew what, thankful she had been kept
+from the sight which yet she had longed to behold.
+
+As David turned to go up the steps and search for Marcia he was confronted
+by Kate's beautiful, smiling face, radiant as it used to be when it had
+first charmed him. He exulted, as he looked into it, that it did not any
+longer charm.
+
+"David, you don't seem a bit glad to see me," blamed Kate sweetly in her
+pretty, childish tones, looking into his face with those blue eyes so like
+to liquid skies. Almost there was a hint of tears in them. He had been
+wont to kiss them when she looked like that. Now he felt only disgust as
+some of the flippant sentences in her letters to Harry Temple came to his
+mind.
+
+His face was stern and unrecognizing.
+
+"David, you are angry with me yet! You said you would forgive!" The gentle
+reproach minimized the crime, and enlarged the punishment. It was Kate's
+way. The pretty pout on the rosy lips was the same as it used to be when
+she chided him for some trifling forgetfulness of her wishes.
+
+The other guests had all gone into the house now. David made no response,
+but, nothing daunted, Kate spoke again.
+
+"I have something very important to consult you about. I came here on
+purpose. Can you give me some time to-morrow morning?"
+
+She wrinkled her pretty face into a thousand dimples and looked her most
+bewitching like a naughty child who knew she was loved in spite of
+anything, and coquettishly putting her head on one side, added, in the
+tone she used of old to cajole him:
+
+"You know you never could refuse me anything, David."
+
+David did not smile. He did not answer the look. With a voice that
+recognized her only as a stranger he said gravely:
+
+"I have an important engagement to-morrow morning."
+
+"But you will put off the engagement." She said it confidently.
+
+"It is impossible!" said David decidedly. "I am starting quite early to
+drive over to Albany. I am under obligation to be present at the starting
+of the new steam railroad."
+
+"Oh, how nice!" said Kate, clapping her hands childishly, "I have wanted
+to be there, and now you will take me. Then I--we--can talk on the way. How
+like old times that will be!" She flashed him a smile of molten sunshine,
+alluring and transforming.
+
+"That, too, is impossible, Mrs. Leavenworth. My wife accompanies me!" he
+answered her promptly and clearly and with a curt bow left her and went
+into the house.
+
+Kate Leavenworth was angry, and for Kate to be angry, meant to visit it
+upon some one, the offender if possible, if not the nearest to the
+offender. She had failed utterly in her attempt to win back the friendship
+of her former lover. She had hoped to enjoy his attention to a certain
+extent and bathe her sad (?) heart in the wistful glances of the man she
+had jilted; and incidentally perhaps be invited to spend a little time in
+his house, by which she would contrive to have a good many of her own
+ways. A rich brother-in-law who adored one was not a bad thing to have,
+especially when his wife was one's own little sister whom one had always
+dominated. She was tired of New York and at this season of the year the
+country was much preferable. She could thus contrive to hoard her small
+income, and save for the next winter, as well as secure a possible
+entrance finally into her father's good graces again through the
+forgiveness of David and Marcia. But she had failed. Could it be that he
+cared for Marcia! That child! Scout the idea! She would discover at once.
+
+Hurriedly she searched through the rooms downstairs and then went
+stealthily upstairs. Instinctively she went to the room where Marcia had
+hidden herself.
+
+Marcia, with that strong upward breath of prayer had grown steady again.
+She was standing with her back to the door looking out of the window
+toward her own home when Kate entered the room. Without turning about she
+felt Kate's presence and knew that it was she. The moment had come. She
+turned around, her face calm and sweet, with two red spots upon her
+cheeks, and her bonnet,--Kate's bonnet and shawl, Kate's fine lace shawl
+sent from Paris--grasped in her hands.
+
+They faced each other, the sisters, and much was understood between them
+in a flash without a word spoken. Marcia suddenly saw herself standing
+there in Kate's rightful place, Kate's things in her hands, Kate's
+garments upon her body, Kate's husband held by her. It was as if Kate
+charged her with all these things, as she looked her through and over,
+from her slipper tips to the ruffle around the neck. And oh, the scorn
+that flamed from Kate's eyes playing over her, and scorching her cheeks
+into crimson, and burning her lips dry and stiff! And yet when Kate's eyes
+reached her face and charged her with the supreme offense of taking David
+from her, Marcia's eyes looked bravely back, and were not burned by the
+fire, and she felt that her soul was not even scorched by it. Something
+about the thought of David like an angelic presence seemed to save her.
+
+The silence between them was so intense that nothing else could be heard
+by the two. The voices below were drowned by it, the footstep on the stair
+was as if it were not.
+
+At last Kate spoke, angered still more by her sister's soft eyes which
+gazed steadily back and did not droop before her own flashing onslaught.
+Her voice was cold and cruel. There was nothing sisterly in it, nothing to
+remind either that the other had ever been beloved.
+
+"Fool!" hissed Kate. "Silly fool! Did you think you could steal a husband
+as you stole your clothes? Did you suppose marrying David would make him
+yours, as putting on my clothes seemed to make them yours? Well I can tell
+you he will never be a husband to you. He doesn't love you and he never
+can. He will always love me. He's as much mine as if I had married him, in
+spite of all your attempts to take him. Oh, you needn't put up your baby
+mouth and pucker it as if you were going to cry. Cry away. It won't do any
+good. You can't make a man yours, any more than you can make somebody's
+clothes yours. They don't fit you any more than he does. You look horrid
+in blue, and you know it, in spite of all your prinking around and
+pretending. I'd be ashamed to be tricked out that way and know that every
+dud I had was made for somebody else. As for going around and pretending
+you have a husband--it's a lie. You know he's nothing to you. You know he
+never told you he cared for you. I tell you he's mine, and he always will
+be."
+
+"Kate, you're married!" cried Marcia in shocked tones. "How can you talk
+like that?"
+
+"Married! Nonsense! What difference does that make? It's hearts that
+count, not marriages. Has your marriage made you a wife? Answer me that!
+Has it? Does David love you? Does he ever kiss you? Yet he came to see me
+in New York this winter, and took me in his arms and kissed me. He gave me
+money too. See this brooch?"--she exhibited a jeweled pin--"that was bought
+with his money. You see he loves me still. I could bring him to my feet
+with a word to-day. He would kiss me if I asked him. He is weak as water
+in my hands."
+
+Marcia's cheeks burned with shame and anger. Almost she felt at the limit
+of her strength. For the first time in her life she felt like
+striking,--striking her own sister. Horrified over her feelings, and the
+rage which was tearing her soul, she looked up, and there stood David in
+the doorway, like some tall avenging angel!
+
+Kate had her back that way and did not see at once, but Marcia's eyes
+rested on him hungrily, pleadingly, and his answered hers. From her sudden
+calmness Kate saw there was some one near, and turning, looked at David.
+But he did not glance her way. How much or how little he had heard of
+Kate's tirade, which in her passion had been keyed in a high voice, he
+never let them know and neither dared to ask him, lest perhaps he had not
+heard anything. There was a light of steel in his eyes toward everything
+but Marcia, and his tone had in it kindness and a recognition of mutual
+understanding as he said:
+
+"If you are ready we had better go now, dear, had we not?"
+
+Oh how gladly Marcia followed her husband down the stairs and out the
+door! She scarcely knew how she went through the formalities of getting
+away. It seemed as she looked back upon them that David had sheltered her
+from it all, and said everything needful for her, and all she had done was
+to smile an assent. He talked calmly to her all the way home; told her Mr.
+Brentwood's opinion about the change in the commerce of the country the
+new railroad was going to make; told her though he must have known she
+could not listen. Perhaps both were conscious of the bedroom window over
+the way and a pair of blue eyes that might be watching them as they passed
+into the house. David took hold of her arm and helped her up the steps of
+their own home as if she had been some great lady. Marcia wondered if Kate
+saw that. In her heart she blessed David for this outward sign of their
+relationship. It gave her shame a little cover at least. She glanced up
+toward the next house as she passed in and felt sure she saw a glimmer of
+purple move away from the window. Then David shut the door behind them and
+led her gently in.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+He made her go into the parlor and sit down and she was all unnerved by
+his gentle ways. The tears would come in spite of her. He took his own
+fine wedding handkerchief and wiped them softly off her hot cheeks. He
+untied the bonnet that was not hers, and flung it far into a corner in the
+room. Marcia thought he put force into the fling. Then he unfolded the
+shawl from her shoulders and threw that into another corner. Kate's
+beautiful thread lace shawl. Marcia felt a hysterical desire to laugh, but
+David's voice was steady and quiet when he spoke as one might speak to a
+little child in trouble.
+
+"There now, dear," he said. He had never called her dear before. "There,
+that was an ordeal, and I'm glad, it's over. It will never trouble us that
+way again. Let us put it aside and never think about it any more. We have
+our own lives to live. I want you to go with me to-morrow morning to see
+the train start if you feel able. We must start early and you must take a
+good rest. Would you like to go?"
+
+Marcia's face like a radiant rainbow answered for her as she smiled behind
+her tears, and all the while he talked David's hand, as tender as a
+woman's, was passing back and forth on Marcia's hot forehead and smoothing
+the hair. He talked on quietly to soothe her, and give her a chance to
+regain her composure, speaking of a few necessary arrangements for the
+morning's ride. Then he said, still in his quiet voice: "Now dear, I want
+you to go to bed, for we must start rather early, but first do you think
+you could sing me that little song you were singing the day I came home?
+Don't if you feel too tired, you know."
+
+Then Marcia, an eager light in her eyes, sprang up and went to the piano,
+and began to play softly and sing the tender words she had sung once
+before when he was listening and she knew it not.
+
+                "Dearest, believe,
+                   When e'er we part:
+                 Lonely I grieve,
+                   In my sad heart:--"
+
+Kate, standing within the chintz curtains across the yard shedding angry
+tears upon her purple silk, heard presently the sweet tones of the piano,
+which might have been hers; heard her sister's voice singing, and began to
+understand that she must bear the punishment of her own rash deeds.
+
+The room had grown from a purple dusk into quiet darkness while Marcia was
+singing, for the sun was almost down when they walked home. When the song
+was finished David stood half wistfully looking at Marcia for a moment.
+Her eyes shone to his through the dusk like two bright stars. He hesitated
+as though he wanted to say something more, and then thought better of it.
+At last he stooped and lifted her hand from the keys and led her toward
+the door.
+
+"You must go to sleep at once," he said gently. "You'll need all the rest
+you can get." He lighted a candle for her and said good-night with his
+eyes as well as his lips. Marcia felt that she was moving up the stairs
+under a spell of some gentle loving power that surrounded her and would
+always guard her.
+
+And it was about this time that Miranda, having been sent over to take a
+forgotten piece of bride's cake to Marcia, and having heard the piano, and
+stolen discreetly to the parlor window for a moment, returned and detailed
+for the delectation of that most unhappy guest Mrs. Leavenworth why she
+could not get in and would have to take it over in the morning:
+
+"The window was open in the parlor and they were in there, them two, but
+they was so plum took up with their two selves, as they always are, that
+there wasn't no use knockin' fer they'd never hev heard."
+
+Miranda enjoyed making those remarks to the guest. Some keen instinct
+always told her where best to strike her blows.
+
+When Marcia had reached the top stair she looked down and there was David
+smiling up to her.
+
+"Marcia," said he in a tone that seemed half ashamed and half amused,
+"have you, any--that is--things--that you had before--all your own I mean?"
+With quick intuition Marcia understood and her own sweet shame about her
+clothes that were not her own came back upon her with double force. She
+suddenly saw herself again standing before the censure of her sister. She
+wondered if David had heard. If not, how then did he know? Oh, the shame
+of it!
+
+She sat down weakly upon the stair.
+
+"Yes," said she, trying to think. "Some old things, and one frock."
+
+"Wear it then to-morrow, dear," said David, in a compelling voice and with
+the sweet smile that took the hurt out of his most severe words.
+
+Marcia smiled. "It is very plain," she said, "only chintz, pink and white.
+I made it myself."
+
+"Charming!" said David. "Wear it, dear. Marcia, one thing more. Don't wear
+any more things that don't belong to you. Not a Dud. Promise me? Can you
+get along without it?"
+
+"Why, I guess so," said Marcia laughing joyfully. "I'll try to manage. But
+I haven't any bonnet. Nothing but a pink sunbonnet."
+
+"All right, wear that," said David.
+
+"It will look a little queer, won't it?" said Marcia doubtfully, and yet
+as if the idea expressed a certain freedom which was grateful to her.
+
+"Never mind," said David. "Wear it. Don't wear any more of those other
+things. Pack them all up and send them where they belong, just as quick as
+we get home."
+
+There was something masterful and delightful in David's voice, and Marcia
+with a happy laugh took her candle and got up saying, with a ring of joy
+in her voice: "All right!" She went to her room with David's second
+good-night ringing in her ears and her heart so light she wanted to sing.
+
+Not at once did Marcia go to her bed. She set her candle upon the bureau
+and began to search wildly in a little old hair-cloth trunk, her own
+special old trunk that had contained her treasures and which had been sent
+her after she left home. She had scarcely looked into it since she came to
+the new home. It seemed as if her girlhood were shut up in it. Now she
+pulled it out from the closet.
+
+What a flood of memories rushed over her as she opened it! There were
+relics of her school days, and of her little childhood. But she had no
+time for them now. She was in search of something. She touched them
+tenderly, but laid them all out one after another upon the floor until
+down in the lower corner she found a roll of soft white cloth. It
+contained a number of white garments, half a dozen perhaps in all,
+finished, and several others cut out barely begun. They were her own work,
+every stitch, the first begun when she was quite a little girl, and her
+stepmother started to teach her to sew. What pride she had taken in them!
+How pleased she had been when allowed to put real tucks in some of them!
+She had thought as she sewed upon them at different times that they were
+to be a part of her own wedding trousseau. And then her wedding had come
+upon her unawares, with the trousseau ready-made, and everything belonged
+to some one else. She had folded her own poor little garments away and
+thought never to take them out again, for they seemed to belong to her
+dead self.
+
+But now that dead self had suddenly come to life again. These hated things
+that she had worn for a year that were not hers were to be put away, and,
+pretty as they were, many of them, she regretted not a thread of them.
+
+She laid the white garments out upon a chair and decided that she would
+put on what she needed of them on the morrow, even though they were
+rumpled with long lying away. She even searched out an old pair of her own
+stockings and laid them on a chair with the other things. They were neatly
+darned as all things had always been under her stepmother's supervision.
+Further search brought a pair of partly worn prunella slippers to light,
+with narrow ankle ribbons.
+
+Then Marcia took down the pink sprigged chintz that she had made a year
+ago and laid it near the other things, with a bit of black velvet and the
+quaint old brooch. She felt a little dubious about appearing on such a
+great occasion, almost in Albany, in a chintz dress and with no wrap.
+Stay! There was the white crepe shawl, all her own, that David had brought
+her. She had not felt like wearing it to Hannah Heath's wedding, it seemed
+too precious to take near an unloving person like Hannah. Before that she
+had never felt an occasion great enough. Now she drew it forth
+breathlessly. A white crepe shawl and a pink calico sunbonnet! Marcia
+laughed softly. But then, what matter! David had said wear it.
+
+All things were ready for the morrow now. There were even her white lace
+mitts that Aunt Polly in an unusual fit of benevolence had given her.
+
+Then, as if to make the change complete, she searched out an old night
+robe, plain but smooth and clean and arrayed herself in it, and so,
+thankful, happy, she lay down as she had been bidden and fell asleep.
+
+David in the room below pondered, strange to say, the subject of dress.
+There was some pride beneath it all, of course; there always is behind the
+great problem of dress. It was the rejected bonnet lying in the corner
+with its blue ribbons limp and its blue flowers crushed that made that
+subject paramount among so many others he might have chosen for his
+night's meditation.
+
+He was going over to close the parlor window, when he saw the thing lying
+innocent and discarded in the corner. Though it bore an injured look, it
+yet held enough of its original aristocratic style to cause him to stop
+and think.
+
+It was all well enough to suggest that Marcia wear a pink sunbonnet. It
+sounded deliciously picturesque. She looked lovely in pink and a sunbonnet
+was pretty and sensible on any one; but the morrow was a great day. David
+would be seen of many and his wife would come under strict scrutiny.
+Moreover it was possible that Kate might be upon the scene to jeer at her
+sister in a sunbonnet. In fact, when he considered it he would not like to
+take his wife to Albany in a sunbonnet. It behoved him to consider. The
+outrageous words which he had heard Mistress Leavenworth speak to his wife
+still burned in his brain like needles of torture: revelation of the true
+character of the woman he had once longed to call his own.
+
+But that bonnet! He stood and examined it. What was a bonnet like? The
+proper kind of a bonnet for a woman in his wife's position to wear. He had
+never noticed a woman's bonnet before except as he had absent-mindedly
+observed them in front of him in meeting. Now he brought his mind to bear
+upon that bonnet. It seemed to be made up of three component parts--a
+foundation: a girdle apparently to bind together and tie on the head; and
+a decoration. Straw, silk and some kind of unreal flowers. Was that all?
+He stooped down and picked the thing up with the tips of his fingers, held
+it at arms length as though it were contaminating, and examined the
+inside. Ah! There was another element in its construction, a sort of frill
+of something thin,--hardly lace,--more like the foam of a cloud. He touched
+the tulle clumsily with his thumb and finger and then he dropped the
+bonnet back into the corner again. He thought he understood well enough to
+know one again. He stood pondering a moment, and looked at his watch.
+
+Yes, it was still early enough to try at least, though of course the shop
+would be closed. But the village milliner lived behind her little store.
+It would be easy enough to rouse her, and he had known her all his life.
+He took his hat as eagerly as he had done when as a boy Aunt Clarinda had
+given him a penny to buy a top and permission to go to the corner and buy
+it before Aunt Amelia woke up from her nap. He went quietly out of the
+door, fastening it behind him and walked rapidly down the street.
+
+Yes, the milliner's shop was closed, but a light in the side windows
+shining through the veiling hop-vines guided him, and he was presently
+tapping at Miss Mitchell's side door. She opened the door cautiously and
+peeped over her glasses at him, and then a bright smile overspread her
+face. Who in the whole village did not welcome David whenever he chanced
+to come? Miss Mitchell was resting from her labors and reading the village
+paper. She had finished the column of gossip and was quite ready for a
+visitor.
+
+"Come right in, David," she said heartily, for she had known him all the
+years, "it does a body good to see you though your visits are as few and
+far between as angels' visits. I'm right glad to see you! Sit down." But
+David was too eager about his business.
+
+"I haven't any time to sit down to-night, Miss Susan," he said eagerly,
+"I've come to buy a bonnet. Have you got one? I hope it isn't too late
+because I want it very early in the morning."
+
+"A bonnet! Bless me! For yourself?" said Miss Mitchell from mere force of
+commercial habit. But neither of them saw the joke, so intent upon
+business were they. "For my wife, Miss Mitchell. You see she is going with
+me over to Albany to-morrow morning and we start quite early. We are going
+to see the new railroad train start, you know, and she seems to think she
+hasn't a bonnet that's suitable."
+
+"Going to see a steam engine start, are you! Well, take care, David, you
+don't get too near. They do say they're terrible dangerous things, and fer
+my part I can't see what good they'll be, fer nobody'll ever be willin' to
+ride behind 'em, but I'd like to see it start well enough. And that sweet
+little wife of yours thinks she ain't got a good enough bonnet. Land
+sakes! What is the matter with her Dunstable straw, and what's become of
+that one trimmed with blue lutestrings, and where's the shirred silk one
+she wore last Sunday? They're every one fine bonnets and ought to last her
+a good many years yet if she cares fer 'em. The mice haven't got into the
+house and et them, hev they?"
+
+"No, Miss Susan, those bonnets are all whole yet I believe, but they don't
+seem to be just the suitable thing. In fact, I don't think they're
+over-becoming to her, do you? You see they're mostly blue----"
+
+"That's so!" said Miss Mitchell. "I think myself she'd look better in
+pink. How'd you like white? I've got a pretty thing that I made fer Hannah
+Heath an' when it was done Hannah thought it was too plain and wouldn't
+have it. I sent for the flowers to New York and they cost a high price.
+Wait! I will show it to you."
+
+She took a candle and he followed her to the dark front room ghostly with
+bonnets in various stages of perfection.
+
+It was a pretty thing. Its foundation was of fine Milan braid, creamy
+white and smooth and even. He knew at a glance it belonged to the higher
+order of things, and was superior to most of the bonnets produced in the
+village.
+
+It was trimmed with plain white taffeta ribbon, soft and silky. That was
+all on the outside. Around the face was a soft ruching of tulle, and
+clambering among it a vine of delicate green leaves that looked as if they
+were just plucked from a wild rose bank. David was delighted. Somehow the
+bonnet looked like Marcia. He paid the price at once, declining to look at
+anything else. It was enough that he liked it and that Hannah Heath had
+not. He had never admired Hannah's taste. He carried it home in triumph,
+letting himself softly into the house, lighted three candles, took the
+bonnet out and hung it upon a chair. Then he walked around it surveying it
+critically, first from this side, then from that. It pleased him
+exceedingly. He half wished Marcia would hear him and come down. He wanted
+to see it on her, but concluded that he was growing boyish and had better
+get himself under control.
+
+The bonnet approved, he walked back and forth through the kitchen and
+dining-room thinking. He compelled himself to go over the events of the
+afternoon and analyze most carefully his own innermost feelings. In fact,
+after doing that he began further back and tried to find out how he felt
+toward Marcia. What was this something that had been growing in him
+unaware through the months; that had made his homecoming so sweet, and had
+brightened every succeeding day; and had made this meeting with Kate a
+mere commonplace? What was this precious thing that nestled in his heart?
+Might he, had he a right to call it love? Surely! Now all at once his
+pulses thrilled with gladness. He loved her! It was good to love her! She
+was the most precious being on earth to him. What was Kate in comparison
+with her? Kate who had shown herself cold and cruel and unloving in every
+way?
+
+His anger flamed anew as he thought of those cutting sentences he had
+overheard, taunting her own sister about the clothes she wore. Boasting
+that he still belonged to her! She, a married woman! A woman who had of
+her own free will left him at the last moment and gone away with another!
+His whole nature recoiled against her. She had sinned against her
+womanhood, and might no longer demand from man the homage that a true
+woman had a right to claim.
+
+Poor little bruised flower! His heart went out to Marcia. He could not
+bear to think of her having to stand and listen to that heartless tirade.
+And he had been the cause of all this. He had allowed her to take a
+position which threw her open to Kate's vile taunts.
+
+Up and down he paced till the torrent of his anger spent itself, and he
+was able to think more calmly. Then he went back in his thoughts to the
+time when he had first met Kate and she had bewitched him. He could see
+now the heartlessness of her. He had met her first at the house of a
+friend where he was visiting, partly on pleasure, partly on business. She
+had devoted herself to him during the time of her stay in a most charming
+way, though now he recalled that she had also been equally devoted to the
+son of the house whom he was visiting. When she went home she had asked
+him to come and call, for her home was but seven miles away. He had been
+so charmed with her that he had accepted the invitation, and, rashly he
+now saw, had engaged himself to her, after having known her in all face to
+face but a few days. To be sure he had known of her father for years, and
+he took a good deal for granted on account of her fine family. They had
+corresponded after their engagement which had lasted for nearly a year,
+and in that time David had seen her but twice, for a day or two at a time,
+and each time he had thought her grown more lovely. Her letters had been
+marvels of modesty, and shy admiration. It was easy for Kate to maintain
+her character upon paper, though she had had little trouble in making
+people love her under any circumstances. Now as he looked back he could
+recall many instances when she had shown a cruel, heartless nature.
+
+Then, all at once, with a throb of joy, it came to him to be thankful to
+God for the experience through which he had passed. After all it had not
+been taken from him to love with a love enduring, for though Kate had been
+snatched from him just at the moment of his possession, Marcia had been
+given him. Fool that he was! He had been blind to his own salvation.
+Suppose he had been allowed to go on and marry Kate! Suppose he had had
+her character revealed to him suddenly as those letters of hers to Harry
+Temple had revealed it--as it surely would have been revealed in time, for
+such things cannot be hid,--and she had been his _wife!_ He shuddered. How
+he would have loathed her! How he loathed her now!
+
+Strangely enough the realization of that fact gave him joy. He sprang up
+and waved his hands about in silent delight. He felt as if he must shout
+for gladness. Then he gravely knelt beside his chair and uttered an
+audible thanksgiving for his escape and the joy he had been given. Nothing
+else seemed fitting expression of his feelings.
+
+There was one other question to consider--Marcia's feelings. She had always
+been kind and gentle and loving to him, just as a sister might have been.
+She was exceedingly young yet. Did she know, could she understand what it
+meant to be loved the way he was sure he could love a woman? And would she
+ever be able to love him in that way? She was so silent and shy he hardly
+knew whether she cared for him or not. But there was one thought that gave
+him unbounded joy and that was that she was his wife. At least no one else
+could take her from him. He had felt condemned that he had married her
+when his heart was heavy lest she would lose the joy of life, but all that
+was changed now. Unless she loved some one else surely such love as his
+could compel hers and finally make her as happy as a woman could be made.
+
+A twinge of misgiving crossed his mind as he admitted the possibility that
+Marcia might love some one else. True, he knew of no one, and she was so
+young it was scarcely likely she had left any one back in her girlhood to
+whom her heart had turned when she was out of his sight. Still there were
+instances of strong union of hearts of those who had loved from early
+childhood. It might be that Marcia's sometime-sadness was over a companion
+of her girlhood.
+
+A great longing took possession of him to rush up and waken her and find
+out if she could ever care for him. He scarcely knew himself. This was not
+his dignified contained self that he had lived with for twenty-seven
+years.
+
+It was very late before he finally went upstairs. He walked softly lest he
+disturb Marcia. He paused before her door listening to see if she was
+asleep, but there was only the sound of the katydids in the branches
+outside her window, and the distant tree-toads singing a fugue in an
+orchard not far away. He tiptoed to his room but he did not light his
+candle, therefore there was no light in the back room of the Spafford
+house that night for any watching eyes to ponder over. He threw himself
+upon the bed. He was weary in body yet his soul seemed buoyant as a bird
+in the morning air. The moon was casting long bars of silver across the
+rag carpet and white counterpane. It was almost full moon. Yes, to-morrow
+it would be entirely full. It was full moon the night he had met Marcia
+down by the gate, and kissed her. It was the first time he had thought of
+that kiss with anything but pain. It used to hurt him that he had made the
+mistake and taken her for Kate. It had seemed like an ill-omen of what was
+to come. But now, it thrilled him with a great new joy. After all he had
+given the kiss to the right one. It was Marcia to whom his soul bowed in
+the homage that a man may give to a woman. Did his good angel guide him to
+her that night? And how was it he had not seen the sweetness of Marcia
+sooner? How had he lived with her nearly a year, and watched her dainty
+ways, and loving ministry and not known that his heart was hers? How was
+it he had grieved so long over Kate, and now since he had seen her once
+more, not a regret was in his heart that she was not his; but a beautiful
+revelation of his own love to Marcia had been wrought in him? How came it?
+
+And the importunate little songsters in the night answered him a thousand
+times: "Kate-did-it! Kate-she-did it! Yes she did! I say she did. Kate did
+it!"
+
+Had angel voices reached him through his dreams, and suddenly given him
+the revelation which the little insects had voiced in their ridiculous
+colloquy? It was Kate herself who had shown him how he loved Marcia.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Slowly the moon rode over the house, and down toward its way in the West,
+and after its vanishing chariot the night stretched wistful arms. Softly
+the grey in the East tinged into violet and glowed into rose and gold. The
+birds woke up and told one another that the first of August was come and
+life was good.
+
+The breath that came in the early dawn savored of new-mown hay, and the
+bird songs thrilled Marcia as if it were the day of her dreams.
+
+She forgot all her troubles; forgot even her wayward sister next door; and
+rose with the song of the birds in her heart. This was to be a great day.
+No matter what happened she had now this day to date from. David had asked
+her to go somewhere just because he wanted her to. She knew it from the
+look in his eyes when he told her, and she knew it because he might have
+asked a dozen men to go with him. There was no reason why he need have
+taken her to-day, for it was distinctly an affair for men, this great
+wonder of machinery. It was a privilege for a woman to go. She felt it.
+She understood the honor.
+
+With fingers trembling from joy she dressed. Not the sight of her pink
+calico sunbonnet lying on the chair, nor the thought of wearing it upon so
+grand an occasion, could spoil the pleasure of the day. Among so large a
+company her bonnet would hardly be noticed. If David was satisfied why
+what difference did it make? She was glad it would be early when they
+drove by the aunts, else they might be scandalized. But never mind! Trill!
+She hummed a merry little tune which melted into the melody of the song
+she had sung last night.
+
+Then she smiled at herself in the glass. She was fastening the brooch in
+the bit of velvet round her neck, and she thought of the day a year ago
+when she had fastened that brooch. She had wondered then how she would
+feel if the next day was to be her own wedding day. Now as she smiled back
+at herself in the glass all at once she thought it seemed as if this was
+her wedding day. Somehow last night had seemed to realize her dreams. A
+wonderful joy had descended upon her heart. Maybe she was foolish, but was
+she not going to ride with David? She did not long for the green fields
+and a chance to run wild through the wood now. This was better than those
+childish pleasures. This was real happiness. And to think it should have
+come through David!
+
+She hurried with the arrangement of her hair until her fingers trembled
+with excitement. She wanted to get downstairs and see if it were all
+really true or if she were dreaming it. Would David look at her as he had
+done last night? Would he speak that precious word "dear" to her again
+to-day? Would he take her by the hand and lead her sometimes, or was that
+a special gentleness because he knew she had suffered from her sister's
+words? She clasped her hands with a quick, convulsive gesture over her
+heart and looking back to the sweet face in the glass, said softly, "Oh, I
+love him, love him! And it cannot be wrong, for Kate is married."
+
+But though she was up early David had been down before her. The fire was
+ready lighted and the kettle singing over it on the crane. He had even
+pulled out the table and put up the leaf, and made some attempt to put the
+dishes upon it for breakfast. He was sitting by the hearth impatient for
+her coming, with a bandbox by his side.
+
+It was like another sunrise to watch their eyes light up as they saw one
+another. Their glances rushed together as though they had been a long time
+withholden from each other, and a rosy glow came over Marcia's face that
+made her long to hide it for a moment from view. Then she knew in her
+heart that her dream was not all a dream. David was the same. It had
+lasted, whatever this wonderful thing was that bound them together. She
+stood still in her happy bewilderment, looking at him, and he, enjoying
+the radiant morning vision of her, stood too.
+
+David found that longing to take her in his arms overcoming him again. He
+had made strict account with himself and was resolved to be careful and
+not frighten her. He must be sure it would not be unpleasant to her before
+he let her know his great deep love. He must be careful. He must not take
+advantage of the fact that she was his and could not run away from him. If
+she dreaded his attentions, neither could she any more say no.
+
+And so their two looks met, and longed to come closer, but were held back,
+and a lovely shyness crept over Marcia's sweet face. Then David bethought
+himself of his bandbox.
+
+He took up the box and untied it with unaccustomed fingers, fumbling among
+the tissue paper for the handle end of the thing. Where did they take hold
+of bonnets anyway? He had no trouble with it the night before, but then he
+was not thinking about it. Now he was half afraid she might not like it.
+He remembered that Hannah Heath had pronounced against it. It suddenly
+seemed impossible that he should have bought a bonnet that a pretty woman
+had said was not right. There must be something wrong with it after all.
+
+Marcia stood wondering.
+
+"I thought maybe this would do instead of the sunbonnet," he said at last,
+getting out the bonnet by one string and holding it dangling before him.
+
+Marcia caught it with deft careful hands and an exclamation of delight. He
+watched her anxiously. It had all the requisite number of materials,--one,
+two, three, four,--like the despised bonnet he threw on the floor--straw,
+silk, lace and flowers. Would she like it? Her face showed that she did.
+Her cheeks flushed with pleasure, and her eyes danced with joy. Marcia's
+face always showed it when she liked anything. There was nothing half-way
+about her.
+
+"Oh, it is beautiful!" she said delightedly. "It is so sweet and white and
+cool with that green vine. Oh, I am glad, glad, glad! I shall never wear
+that old blue bonnet again." She went over to the glass and put it on. The
+soft ruching settled about her brown hair, and made a lovely setting for
+her face. The green vine twined and peeped in and out under the round brim
+and the ribbon sat in a prim bow beneath her pretty chin.
+
+She gave one comprehensive glance at herself in the glass and then turned
+to David. In that glance was revealed to her just how much she had dreaded
+wearing her pink sunbonnet, and just how relieved she was to have a
+substitute.
+
+Her look was shy and sweet as she said with eyes that dared and then
+drooped timidly:
+
+"You--are--very--good to me!"
+
+Almost he forgot his vow of carefulness at that, but remembered when he
+had got half across the room toward her, and answered earnestly:
+
+"Dear, _you_ have been very good to _me_."
+
+Marcia's eyes suddenly sobered and half the glow faded from her face. Was
+it then only gratitude? She took off the bonnet and touched the bows with
+wistful tenderness as she laid it by till after breakfast. He watched her
+and misinterpreted the look. Was she then disappointed in the bonnet? Was
+it not right after all? Had Hannah known better than he? He hesitated and
+then asked her:
+
+"Is there---- Is it---- That is--perhaps you would rather take it back and and
+choose another. You know how to choose one better than I. There were
+others I think. In fact, I forgot to look at any but this because I liked
+it, but I'm only a man----" he finished helplessly.
+
+"No! No! No!" said Marcia, her eyes sparkling emphatically again. "There
+couldn't be a better one. This is just exactly what I like. I do not want
+anything else. And I--like it all the better because you selected it," she
+added daringly, suddenly lifting her face to his with a spice of her own
+childish freedom.
+
+His eyes admired her.
+
+"She told me Hannah Heath thought it too plain," he added honestly.
+
+"Then I'm sure I like it all the better for that," said Marcia so
+emphatically that they both laughed.
+
+It all at once became necessary to hurry, for the old clock in the hall
+clanged out the hour and David became aware that haste was imperative.
+
+Early as Marcia had come down, David had been up long before her, his
+heart too light to sleep. In a dream, or perchance on the borders of the
+morning, an idea had come to him. He told Marcia that he must go out now
+to see about the horse, but he also made a hurried visit to the home of
+his office clerk and another to the aunts, and when he returned with the
+horse he had left things in such train that if he did not return that
+evening he would not be greatly missed. But he said nothing to Marcia
+about it. He laughed to himself as he thought of the sleepy look on his
+clerk's face, and the offended dignity expressed in the ruffle of Aunt
+Hortense's night cap all awry as she had peered over the balusters to
+receive his unprecedentedly early visit. The aunts were early risers. They
+prided themselves upon it. It hurt their dignity and their pride to have
+anything short of sudden serious illness, or death, or a fire cause others
+to arise before them. Therefore they did not receive the message that
+David was meditating another trip away from the village for a few days
+with good grace. Aunt Hortense asked Aunt Amelia if she had ever feared
+that Marcia would have a bad effect upon David by making him frivolous.
+Perhaps he would lose interest in his business with all his careering
+around the country. Aunt Amelia agreed that Marcia must be to blame in
+some way, and then discovering they had a whole hour before their usual
+rising time, the two good ladies settled themselves with indignant
+composure to their interrupted repose.
+
+Breakfast was ready when David returned. Marcia supposed he had only been
+to harness the horse. She glanced out happily through the window to where
+the horse stood tied to the post in front of the house. She felt like
+waving her hand to him, and he turned and seemed to see her; rolling the
+whites of his eyes around, and tossing his head as if in greeting.
+
+Marcia would scarcely have eaten anything in her excitement if David had
+not urged her to do so. She hurried with her clearing away, and then flew
+upstairs to arrange her bonnet before the glass and don the lovely folds
+of the creamy crepe shawl, folding it demurely around her shoulders and
+knotting it in front. She put on her mitts, took her handkerchief folded
+primly, and came down ready.
+
+But David no longer seemed in such haste. He made a great fuss fastening
+up everything. She wondered at his unusual care, for she thought
+everything quite safe for the day.
+
+She raised one shade toward the Heath house. It was the first time she had
+permitted herself this morning to think of Kate. Was she there yet?
+Probably, for no coach had left since last night, and unless she had gone
+by private conveyance there would have been no way to go. She looked up to
+the front corner guest room where the windows were open and the white
+muslin curtains swayed in the morning breeze. No one seemed to be moving
+about in the room. Perhaps Kate was not awake. Just then she caught the
+flutter of a blue muslin down on the front stoop. Kate was up, early as it
+was, and was coming out. A sudden misgiving seized Marcia's heart, as when
+a little child, she had seen her sister coming to eat up the piece of cake
+or sweetmeat that had been given to her. Many a time had that happened.
+Now, she felt that in some mysterious way Kate would contrive to take from
+her her new-found joy.
+
+She could not resist her,--David could not resist her,--no one could ever
+resist Kate. Her face turned white and her hand began to tremble so that
+she dropped the curtain she had been holding up.
+
+Just then came David's clear voice, louder than would have been necessary,
+and pitched as if he were calling to some one upstairs, though he knew she
+was just inside the parlor where she had gone to make sure of the window
+fastening.
+
+"Come, dear! Aren't you ready? It is more than time we started."
+
+There was a glad ring in David's voice that somehow belied the somewhat
+exacting words he had spoken, and Marcia's heart leaped up to meet him.
+
+"Yes, I'm all ready, dear!" she called back with a hysterical little
+laugh. Of course Kate could not hear so far, but it gave her satisfaction
+to say it. The final word was unpremeditated. It bubbled up out of the
+depths of her heart and made the red rush back into her cheeks when she
+realized what she had said. It was the first time she had ever used a term
+of endearment toward David. She wondered if he noticed it and if he would
+think her very--bold,--queer,--immodest, to use it. She looked shyly up at
+him, enquiring with her eyes, as she came out to him on the front stoop,
+and he looked down with such a smile she felt as if it were a caress. And
+yet neither was quite conscious of this little real by-play they were
+enacting for the benefit of the audience of one in blue muslin over the
+way. How much she heard, or how little they could not tell, but it gave
+satisfaction to go through with it inasmuch as it was real, and not acting
+at all.
+
+David fastened the door and then helped Marcia into the carriage. They
+were both laughing happily like two children starting upon a picnic.
+Marcia was serenely conscious of her new bonnet, and it was pleasant to
+have David tuck the linen lap robe over her chintz frock so carefully. She
+was certain Kate could not identify it now at that distance, thanks to the
+lap robe and her crepe shawl. At least Kate could not see any of her own
+trousseau on her sister now.
+
+Kate was sitting on the little white seat in the shelter of the
+honeysuckle vine facing them on the stoop of the Heath house. It was
+impossible for them to know whether she was watching them or not. They did
+not look up to see. She was talking with Mr. Heath who, in his milking
+garb, was putting to rights some shrubs and plants near the walk that had
+been trampled upon during the wedding festivities. But Kate must have seen
+a good deal that went on.
+
+David took up the reins, settled himself with a smile at Marcia, touched
+the horse with the tip of the whip, which caused him to spring forward in
+astonishment--that from David! No horse in town would have expected it of
+him. They had known him from babyhood, most of them, and he was gentleness
+itself. It must have been a mistake. But the impression lasted long enough
+to carry them a rod or two past the Heath house at a swift pace, with only
+time for a lifting of David's hat, prolonged politely,--which might or
+might not have included Kate, and they were out upon their way together.
+
+Marcia could scarcely believe her senses that she was really here beside
+David, riding with him swiftly through the village and leaving Kate
+behind. She felt a passing pity for Kate. Then she looked shyly up at
+David. Would his gaiety pass when they were away, and would he grow grave
+and sad again so soon as he was out of Kate's sight? She had learned
+enough of David's principles to know that he would not think it right to
+let his thoughts stray to Kate now, but did his heart still turn that way
+in spite of him?
+
+Through the town they sped, glad with every roll of the wheels that took
+them further away from Kate. Each was conscious, as they rolled along, of
+that day one year ago when they rode together thus, out through the fields
+into the country. It was a day much as that other one, just as bright,
+just as warm, yet oh, so much more radiant to both! Then they were sad and
+fearful of the future. All their life seemed in the past. Now the darkness
+had been led through, and they had reached the brightness again. In fact,
+all the future stretched out before them that fair morning and looked
+bright as the day.
+
+They were conscious of the blueness of the sky, of the soft clouds that
+hovered in haziness on the rim of the horizon, as holding off far enough
+to spoil no moment of that perfect day. They were conscious of the waving
+grains and of the perfume of the buckwheat drifting like snow in the
+fields beyond the wheat; conscious of the meadow-lark and the wood-robin's
+note; of the whirr of a locust; and the thud of a frog in the cool green
+of a pool deep with brown shadows; conscious of the circling of mated
+butterflies in the simmering gold air; of the wild roses lifting fair pink
+petals from the brambly banks beside the road; conscious of the whispering
+pine needles in a wood they passed; the fluttering chatter of leaves and
+silver flash of the lining of poplar leaves, where tall trees stood like
+sentinels, apart and sad; conscious of a little brook that tinkled under a
+log bridge they crossed, then hurried on its way unmindful of their happy
+crossing; conscious of the dusty daisy beside the road, closing with a
+bumbling bee who wanted honey below the market price; conscious of all
+these things; but most conscious of each other, close, side by side.
+
+It was all so dear, that ride, and over so soon. Marcia was just trying to
+get used to looking up into the dazzling light of David's eyes. She had to
+droop her own almost immediately for the truth she read in his was
+overpowering. Could it be? A fluttering thought came timidly to her heart
+and would not be denied.
+
+"Can it be, can it be that he cares for me? He loves me. He loves me!" It
+sang its way in with thrill after thrill of joy and more and more David's
+eyes told the story which his lips dared not risk yet. But eyes and hearts
+are not held by the conventions that bind lips. They rushed into their
+inheritance of each other and had that day ahead, a day so rare and sweet
+that it would do to set among the jewels of fair days for all time and for
+any one.
+
+All too soon they began to turn into roads where were other vehicles, many
+of them, and all going in the same direction. Men and women in gala day
+attire all laughing and talking expectantly and looking at one another as
+the carriages passed with a degree of familiar curiosity which betokens a
+common errand. Family coaches, farm wagons, with kitchen chairs for
+accommodation of the family; old one-horse chaises, carryalls, and even a
+stage coach or two wheeled into the old turnpike. David and Marcia settled
+into subdued quiet, their joy not expressing itself in the ripples of
+laughter that had rung out earlier in the morning when they were alone.
+They sought each other's eyes often and often, and in one of these
+excursions that David's eyes made to Marcia's face he noticed how
+extremely becoming the new bonnet was. After thinking it over he decided
+to risk letting her know. He was not shy about it now.
+
+"Do you know, dear," he said,--there had been a good many "dear's" slipping
+back and forth all unannounced during that ride, and not openly
+acknowledged either. "Do you know how becoming your new bonnet is to you?
+You look prettier than I ever saw you look but once before." He kept his
+eyes upon her face and watched the sweet color steal up to her drooping
+eyelashes.
+
+"When was that?" she asked coyly, to hide her embarrassment, and sweeping
+him one laughing glance.
+
+"Why, that night, dear, at the gate, in the moonlight. Don't you
+remember?"
+
+"Oh-h-h-h!" Marcia caught her breath and a thrill of joy passed through
+her that made her close her eyes lest the glad tears should come. Then the
+little bird in her heart set up the song in earnest to the tune of Wonder:
+"He loves me, He loves me, He loves me!"
+
+He leaned a little closer to her.
+
+"If there were not so many people looking I think I should have to kiss
+you now."
+
+"Oh-h-h-h!" said Marcia drawing in her breath and looking around
+frightened on the number of people that were driving all about them, for
+they were come almost to the railroad now, and could see the black smoke
+of the engine a little beyond as it stood puffing and snorting upon its
+track like some sulky animal that had been caught and chained and
+harnessed and was longing to leap forward and upset its load.
+
+But though Marcia looked about in her happy fright, and sat a trifle
+straighter in the chaise, she did not move her hand away that lay next
+David's, underneath the linen lap robe, and he put his own hand over it
+and covered it close in his firm hold. Marcia trembled and was so happy
+she was almost faint with joy. She wondered if she were very foolish
+indeed to feel so, and if all love had this terrible element of solemn joy
+in it that made it seem too great to be real.
+
+They had to stop a number of times to speak to people. Everybody knew
+David, it appeared. This man and that had a word to speak with him, some
+bit of news that he must not omit to notice in his article, some new
+development about the attitude of a man of influence that was important;
+the change of two or three of those who were to go in the coaches on this
+trial trip.
+
+To all of them David introduced his wife, with a ring of pride in his
+voice as he said the words "My wife," and all of them stopped whatever
+business they had in hand and stepped back to bow most deferentially to
+the beautiful woman who sat smiling by his side. They wondered why they
+had not heard of her before, and they looked curiously, enviously at
+David, and back in admiration at Marcia. It was quite a little court she
+held sitting there in the chaise by David's side.
+
+Men who have since won a mention in the pages of history were there that
+day, and nearly all of them had a word for David Spafford and his lovely
+wife. Many of them stood for some time and talked with her. Mr. Thurlow
+Weed was the last one to leave them before the train was actually ready
+for starting, and he laid an urging hand upon David's arm as he went.
+"Then you think you cannot go with us? Better come. Mrs. Spafford will let
+you I am sure. You're not afraid are you, Mrs. Spafford? I am sure you are
+a brave woman. Better come, Spafford."
+
+But David laughingly thanked him again as he had thanked others, and said
+that he would not be able to go, as he and his wife had other plans, and
+he must go on to Albany as soon as the train had started.
+
+Marcia looked up at him half worshipfully as he said this, wondering what
+it was, instinctively knowing that it was for her sake he was giving up
+this honor which they all wished to put upon him. It would naturally have
+been an interesting thing to him to have taken this first ride behind the
+new engine "Dewitt Clinton."
+
+Then, suddenly, like a chill wind from a thunder cloud that has stolen up
+unannounced and clutched the little wild flowers before they have time to
+bind up their windy locks and duck their heads under cover, there happened
+a thing that clutched Marcia's heart and froze all the joy in her veins.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+A coach was approaching filled with people, some of them Marcia knew; they
+were friends and neighbors from their own village, and behind it plodding
+along came a horse with a strangely familiar gait drawing four people. The
+driver was old Mr. Heath looking unbelievingly at the scene before him. He
+did not believe that an engine would be able to haul a train any
+appreciable distance whatever, and he believed that he had come out here
+to witness this entire company of fanatics circumvented by the ill-natured
+iron steed who stood on the track ahead surrounded by gaping boys and a
+flock of quacking ganders, living symbol of the people who had come to see
+the thing start; so thought Mr. Heath. He told himself he was as much of a
+goose as any of them to have let this chit of a woman fool him into coming
+off out here when he ought to have been in the hay field to-day.
+
+By his side in all the glory of shimmering blue with a wide white lace
+bertha and a bonnet with a steeple crown wreathed about heavily with roses
+sat Kate, a blue silk parasol shading her eyes from the sun, those eyes
+that looked to conquer, and seemed to pierce beyond and through her sister
+and ignore her. Old Mrs. Heath and Miranda were along, but they did not
+count, except to themselves. Miranda was all eyes, under an ugly bonnet.
+She desired above all things to see that wonderful engine in which David
+was so interested.
+
+Marcia shrunk and seemed to wither where she sat. All her bright bloom
+faded in an instant and a kind of frenzy seized her. She had a wild desire
+to get down out of the carriage and run with all her might away from this
+hateful scene. The sky seemed to have suddenly clouded over and the hum
+and buzz of voices about seemed a babel that would never cease.
+
+David felt the arm beside his cringe, and shrink back, and looking down
+saw the look upon her sweet frightened face; following her glance his own
+face hardened into what might have been termed righteous wrath. But not a
+word did he say, and neither did he apparently notice the oncoming
+carriage. He busied himself at once talking with a man who happened to
+pass the carriage, and when Mr. Heath drove by to get a better view of the
+engine he was so absorbed in his conversation that he did not notice them,
+which seemed but natural.
+
+But Kate was not to be thus easily foiled. She had much at stake and she
+must win if possible. She worked it about that Squire Heath should drive
+around to the end of the line of coaches, quite out of sight of the engine
+and where there was little chance of seeing the train and its
+passengers,--the only thing Squire Heath cared about. But there was an
+excellent view of David's carriage and Kate would be within hailing
+distance if it should transpire that she had no further opportunity of
+speaking with David. It seemed strange to Squire Heath, as he sat there
+behind the last coach patiently, that he had done what she asked. She did
+not look like a woman who was timid about horses, yet she had professed a
+terrible fear that the screech of the engine would frighten the staid old
+Heath horse. Miranda, at that, had insisted upon changing seats, thereby
+getting herself nearer the horse, and the scene of action. Miranda did not
+like to miss seeing the engine start.
+
+At last word to start was given. A man ran along by the train and mounted
+into his high seat with his horn in his hand ready to blow. The fireman
+ceased his raking of the glowing fire and every traveller sprang into his
+seat and looked toward the crowd of spectators importantly. This was a
+great moment for all interested. The little ones whose fathers were in the
+train began to call good-bye and wave their hands, and one old lady whose
+only son was going as one of the train assistants began to sob aloud.
+
+A horse in the crowd began to act badly. Every snort of the engine as the
+steam was let off made him start and rear. He was directly behind Marcia,
+and she turned her head and looked straight into his fiery frightened
+eyes, red with fear and frenzy, and felt his hot breath upon her cheek. A
+man was trying most ineffectually to hold him, but it seemed as if in
+another minute he would come plunging into the seat with them. Marcia
+uttered a frightened cry and clutched at David's arm. He turned, and
+seeing instantly what was the matter, placed his arm protectingly about
+her and at once guided his own horse out of the crowd, and around nearer
+to the engine. Somehow that protecting arm gave Marcia a steadiness once
+more and she was able to watch the wonderful wheels begin to turn and the
+whole train slowly move and start on its way. Her lips parted, her breath
+came quick, and for the instant she forgot her trouble. David's arm was
+still about her, and there was a reassuring pressure in it. He seemed to
+have forgotten that the crowd might see him--if the crowd had not been too
+busy watching something more wonderful. It is probable that only one
+person in that whole company saw David sitting with his arm about his
+wife--for he soon remembered and put it quietly on the back of the seat,
+where it would call no one's attention--and that person was Kate. She had
+not come to this hot dusty place to watch an engine creak along a track,
+she had come to watch David, and she was vexed and angry at what she saw.
+Here was Marcia flaunting her power over David directly in her face.
+Spiteful thing! She would pay her back yet and let her know that she could
+not touch the things that she, Kate, had put her own sign and seal upon.
+For this reason it was that at the last minute Kate allowed poor Squire
+Heath to drive around near the front of the train, saying that as David
+Spafford seemed to find it safe she supposed she ought not to hold them
+back for her fears. It needed but the word to send the vexed and curious
+Squire around through the crowd to a spot directly behind David's
+carriage, and there Miranda could see quite well, and Kate could sit and
+watch David and frame her plans for immediate action so soon as the
+curtain should fall upon this ridiculous engine play over which everybody
+was wild.
+
+And so, amid shouts and cheers, and squawking of the geese that attempted
+to precede the engine like a white frightened body-guard down the track;
+amid the waving of handkerchiefs, the shouts of excited little boys, and
+the neighing of frightened horses, the first steam engine that ever drew a
+train in New York state started upon its initial trip.
+
+Then there came a great hush upon the spectators assembled. The wheels
+were rolling, the carriages were moving, the train was actually going by
+them, and what had been so long talked about was an assured fact. They
+were seeing it with their own eyes, and might be witnesses of it to all
+their acquaintances. It was true. They dared not speak nor breathe lest
+something should happen and the great miracle should stop. They hushed
+simultaneously as though at the passing of some great soul. They watched
+in silence until the train went on between the meadows, grew smaller in
+the distance, slipped into the shadow of the wood, flashed out into the
+sunlight beyond again, and then was lost behind a hill. A low murmur
+growing rapidly into a shout of cheer arose as the crowd turned and faced
+one another and the fact of what they had seen.
+
+"By gum! She kin do it!" ejaculated Squire Heath, who had watched the
+melting of his skeptical opinions in speechless amazement.
+
+The words were the first intimation the Spaffords had of the proximity of
+Kate. They made David smile, but Marcia turned white with sudden fear
+again. Not for nothing had she lived with her sister so many years. She
+knew that cruel nature and dreaded it.
+
+David looked at Marcia for sympathy in his smile at the old Squire, but
+when he saw her face he turned frowning toward those behind him.
+
+Kate saw her opportunity. She leaned forward with honeyed smile, and wily
+as the serpent addressed her words to Marcia, loud and clear enough for
+all those about them to hear.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Spafford! I am going to ask a great favor of you. I am sure you
+will grant it when you know I have so little time. I am extremely anxious
+to get a word of advice from your husband upon business matters that are
+very pressing. Would you kindly change places with me during the ride
+home, and give me a chance to talk with him about it? I would not ask it
+but that I must leave for New York on the evening coach and shall have no
+other opportunity to see him."
+
+Kate's smile was roses and cream touched with frosty sunshine, and to
+onlookers nothing could have been sweeter. But her eyes were coldly cruel
+as sharpened steel, and they said to her sister as plainly as words could
+have spoken: "Do you obey my wish, my lady, or I will freeze the heart out
+of you."
+
+Marcia turned white and sick. She felt as if her lips had suddenly
+stiffened and refused to obey her when they ought to have smiled. What
+would all these people think of her, and how was she behaving? For David's
+sake she ought to do something, say something, look something, but
+what--what should she do?
+
+While she was thinking this, with the freezing in her heart creeping up
+into her throat, the great tears beating at the portals of her eyes, and
+time standing suddenly still waiting for her leaden tongue to speak, David
+answered:
+
+All gracefully 'twas done, with not so much as a second's
+hesitation,--though it had seemed so long to Marcia,--nor the shadow of a
+sign that he was angry:
+
+"Mrs. Leavenworth," he said in his masterful voice, "I am sure my wife
+would not wish to seem ungracious, or unwilling to comply with your
+request, but as it happens it is impossible. We are not returning home for
+several days. My wife has some shopping to do in Albany, and in fact we
+are expecting to take a little trip. A sort of second honeymoon, you
+know,"--he added, smiling toward Mrs. Heath and Miranda; "it is the first
+time I have had leisure to plan for it since we were married. I am sorry I
+have to hurry away, but I am sure that my friend Squire Heath can give as
+much help in a business way as I could, and furthermore, Squire Schuyler
+is now in New York for a few days as I learned in a letter from him which
+arrived last evening. I am sure he can give you more and better advice
+than any I could give. I wish you good morning. Good morning, Mrs. Heath.
+Good morning, Miss Miranda!"
+
+Lifting his hat David drove away from them and straight over to the little
+wayside hostelry where he was to finish his article to send by the
+messenger who was even then ready mounted for the purpose.
+
+"My! Don't he think a lot of her though!" said Miranda, rolling the words
+as a sweet morsel under her tongue. "It must be nice to have a man so fond
+of you." This was one of the occasions when Miranda wished she had eyes in
+the back of her head. She was sharp and she had seen a thing or two, also
+she had heard scraps of her cousin Hannah's talk. But she sat demurely in
+the recesses of her deep, ugly bonnet and tried to imagine how the guest
+behind her looked.
+
+All trembling sat Marcia in the rusty parlor of the little hostelry, while
+David at the table wrote with hurried hand, glancing up at her to smile
+now and then, and passing over the sheets as he finished them for her
+criticism. She thought she had seen the Heath wagon drive away in the home
+direction, but she was not sure. She half expected to see the door open
+and Kate walk in. Her heart was thumping so she could scarcely sit still
+and the brightness of the world outside seemed to make her dizzy. She was
+glad to have the sheets to look over, for it took her thoughts away from
+herself and her nameless fears. She was not quite sure what it was she
+feared, only that in some way Kate would have power over David to take him
+away from her. As he wrote she studied the dear lines of his face and
+knew, as well as human heart may ever know, how dear another soul had
+grown to hers.
+
+David had not much to write and it was soon signed, approved, and sealed.
+He sent his messenger on the way and then coming back closed the door and
+went and stood before Marcia.
+
+As though she felt some critical moment had come she arose, trembling, and
+looked into his eyes questioningly.
+
+"Marcia," he said, and his tone was grave and earnest, putting her upon an
+equality with him, not as if she were a child any more. "Marcia, I have
+come to ask your forgiveness for the terrible thing I did to you in
+allowing you, who scarcely knew what you were doing then, to give your
+life away to a man who loved another woman."
+
+Marcia's heart stood still with horror. It had come then, the dreadful
+thing she had feared. The blow was going to fall. He did not love her!
+What a fool she had been!
+
+But the steady voice went on, though the blood in her neck and temples
+throbbed in such loud waves that she could scarcely hear the words to
+understand them.
+
+"It was a crime, Marcia, and I have come to realize it more and more
+during all the days of this year that you have so uncomplainingly spent
+yourself for me. I know now, as I did not think then in my careless,
+selfish sorrow, that I was as cruel to you, with your sweet young life, as
+your sister was cruel to me. You might already have given your heart to
+some one else; I never stopped to inquire. You might have had plans and
+hopes for your own future; I never even thought of it. I was a brute. Can
+you forgive me? Sometimes the thought of the responsibility I took upon
+myself has been so terrible to me that I felt I could not stand it. You
+did not realize what it was then that you were giving, perhaps, but
+somehow I think you have begun to realize now. Will you forgive me?" He
+stopped and looked at her anxiously. She was drooped and white as if a
+blast had suddenly struck her and faded her sweet bloom. Her throat was
+hot and dry and she had to try three times before she could frame the
+words, "Yes, I forgive."
+
+There was no hope, no joy in the words, and a sudden fear descended upon
+David's heart. Had he then done more damage than he knew? Was the child's
+heart broken by him, and did she just realize it? What could he do? Must
+he conceal his love from her? Perhaps this was no time to tell it. But he
+must. He could not bear the burden of having done her harm and not also
+tell her how he loved her. He would be very careful, very considerate, he
+would not press his love as a claim, but he must tell her.
+
+"And Marcia, I must tell you the rest," he went on, his own words seeming
+to stay upon his lips, and then tumble over one another; "I have learned
+to love you as I never loved your sister. I love you more and better than
+I ever could have loved her. I can see how God has led me away from her
+and brought me to you. I can look back to that night when I came to her
+and found you there waiting for me, and kissed you,--darling. Do you
+remember?" He took her cold little trembling hands and held them firmly as
+he talked, his whole soul in his face, as if his life depended upon the
+next few moments. "I was troubled at the time, dear, for having kissed
+you, and given you the greeting that I thought belonged to her. I have
+rebuked myself for thinking since how lovely you looked as you stood there
+in the moonlight. But afterward I knew that it was you after all that my
+love belonged to, and to you rightfully the kiss should have gone. I am
+glad it was so, glad that God overruled my foolish choosing. Lately I have
+been looking back to that night I met you at the gate, and feeling jealous
+that that meeting was not all ours; that it should be shadowed for us by
+the heartlessness of another. It gives me much joy now to think how I took
+you in my arms and kissed you. I cannot bear to think it was a mistake.
+Yet glad as I am that God sent you down to that gate to meet me, and much
+as I love you, I would rather have died than feel that I have brought
+sorrow into your life, and bound you to one whom you cannot love. Marcia,
+tell me truly, never mind my feelings, tell me! Can you ever love me?"
+
+Then did Marcia lift her flower-like face, all bright with tears of joy
+and a flood of rosy smiles, the light of seven stars in her eyes. But she
+could not speak, she could only look, and after a little whisper, "Oh,
+David, I think I have always loved you! I think I was waiting for you that
+night, though I did not know it. And look!"--with sudden thought----
+
+She drew from the folds of her dress a little old-fashioned locket hung by
+a chain about her neck out of sight. She opened it and showed him a soft
+gold curl which she touched gently with her lips, as though it were
+something very sacred.
+
+"What is it, darling?" asked David perplexed, half happy, half afraid as
+he took the locket and touched the curl more thrilled with the thought
+that she had carried it next her heart than with the sight of it.
+
+"It is yours," she said, disappointed that he did not understand. "Aunt
+Clarinda gave it to me while you were away. I've worn it ever since. And
+she gave me other things, and told me all about you. I know it all, about
+the tops and marbles, and the spelling book, and I've cried with you over
+your punishments, and--I--love it all!"
+
+He had fastened the door before he began to talk, but he caught her in his
+arms now, regardless of the fact that the shades were not drawn down, and
+that they swayed in the summer breeze.
+
+"Oh, my darling! My wife!" he cried, and kissed her lips for the third
+time.
+
+The world was changed then for those two. They belonged to each other they
+believed, as no two that ever walked through Eden had ever belonged. When
+they thought of the precious bond that bound them together their hearts
+throbbed with a happiness that well-nigh overwhelmed them.
+
+A dinner of stewed chickens and little white soda biscuits was served
+them, fit for a wedding breakfast, for the barmaid whispered to the cook
+that she was sure there was a bride and groom in the parlor they looked so
+happy and seemed to forget anybody else was by. But it might have been ham
+and eggs for all they knew what it was they ate, these two who were so
+happy they could but look into each other's eyes.
+
+When the dinner was over and they started on their way again, with Albany
+shimmering in the hot sun in the distance, and David's arm sliding from
+the top of the seat to circle Marcia's waist, David whispered:
+
+"This is our real wedding journey, dearest, and this is our bridal day.
+We'll go to Albany and buy you a trousseau, and then we will go wherever
+you wish. I can stay a whole week if you wish. Would you like to go home
+for a visit?"
+
+Marcia, with shining eyes and glowing cheeks, looked her love into his
+face and answered: "Yes, _now_ I would like to go home,--just for a few
+days--and then back to our home."
+
+And David looking into her eyes understood why she had not wanted to go
+before. She was taking her husband, _her_ husband, not Kate's, with her
+now, and might be proud of his love. She could go among her old comrades
+and be happy, for he loved her. He looked a moment, comprehended,
+sympathized, and then pressing her hand close--for he might not kiss her,
+as there was a load of hay coming their way--he said: "Darling!" But their
+eyes said more.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
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+essence of the play are necessarily touched upon but briefly in the short
+space of four acts. All this is narrated in the novel with a wealth of
+fascinating and absorbing detail, making it one of the most powerfully
+written and exciting works of fiction given to the world in years.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                         FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS
+                        IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+BARBARA WINSLOW, REBEL. By Elizabeth Ellis. With illustrations by John
+Rae, and colored inlay cover.
+
+The following, taken from story, will best describe the heroine: A TOAST:
+"To the bravest comrade in misfortune, the sweetest companion in peace and
+at all times the most courageous of women."--_Barbara Winslow._ "A romantic
+story, buoyant, eventful, and in matters of love exactly what the heart
+could desire."--_New York Sun._
+
+
+SUSAN. By Ernest Oldmeadow. With a color frontispiece by Frank Haviland.
+Medallion in color on front cover.
+
+Lord Ruddington falls helplessly in love with Miss Langley, whom he sees
+in one of her walks accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a
+misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive to
+the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary
+love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a
+droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly
+clever in the telling.
+
+
+WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE. By Jean Webster. With illustrations by C. D.
+Williams.
+
+"The book is a treasure."--_Chicago Daily News._ "Bright, whimsical, and
+thoroughly entertaining."--_Buffalo Express._ "One of the best stories of
+life in a girl's college that has ever been written."--_N. Y. Press._ "To
+any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot
+fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who have not
+been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure to be no
+less delightful."--_Public Opinion._
+
+
+THE MASQUERADER. By Katherine Cecil Thurston. With illustrations by
+Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+"You can't drop it till you have turned the last page."--_Cleveland
+Leader._ "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost
+takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is
+sublime."--_Boston Transcript._ "The literary hit of a generation. The best
+of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly story."--_St. Louis
+Dispatch._ "The story is ingeniously told, and cleverly constructed."--_The
+Dial._
+
+
+THE GAMBLER. By Katherine Cecil Thurston. With illustrations by John
+Campbell.
+
+"Tells of a high strung young Irish woman who has a passion for gambling,
+inherited from a long line of sporting ancestors. She has a high sense of
+honor, too, and that causes complications. She is a very human, lovable
+character, and love saves her."--_N. Y. Times._
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                         FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS
+                        IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations by
+Martin Justice.
+
+"As superlatively clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the
+reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort, and it is handled
+with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably novel."--_Boston
+Transcript._ "A feast of humor and good cheer, yet subtly pervaded by
+special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or whimsicality. A merry
+thing in prose."--_St. Louis Democrat._
+
+
+ROSE O' THE RIVER. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations by George
+Wright.
+
+"'Rose o' the River,' a charming bit of sentiment, gracefully written and
+deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book--daintily
+illustrated."--_New York Tribune._ "A wholesome, bright, refreshing story,
+an ideal book to give a young girl."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ "An idyllic
+story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As story-telling it is
+perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to the life."--_London
+Mail._
+
+
+TILLIE: A Mennonite Maid. By Helen R. Martin. With illustrations by
+Florence Scovel Shinn.
+
+The little "Mennonite Maid" who wanders through these pages is something
+quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love; and
+she comes into her inheritance at the end. "Tillie is faulty, sensitive,
+big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always lovable. Her
+charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the characters skilfully
+developed."--_The Book Buyer._
+
+
+LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. With illustrations by Howard
+Chandler Christy.
+
+"The most marvellous work of its wonderful author."--_New York World._ "We
+touch regions and attain altitudes which it is not given to the ordinary
+novelist even to approach."--_London Times._ "In no other story has Mrs.
+Ward approached the brilliancy and vivacity of Lady Rose's
+Daughter."--_North American Review._
+
+
+THE BANKER AND THE BEAR. By Henry K. Webster.
+
+"An exciting and absorbing story."--_New York Times._ "Intensely thrilling
+in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a love affair
+of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on the bank
+which is almost worth a year's growth, and there is all manner of
+exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book into high and
+permanent favor."--_Chicago Evening Post._
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               NATURE BOOKS
+
+             With Colored Plates, and Photographs from Life.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+BIRD NEIGHBORS. An Introductory Acquaintance with 150 Birds Commonly Found
+in the Woods, Fields and Gardens About Our Homes. By Neltje Blanchan. With
+an Introduction by John Burroughs, and many plates of birds in natural
+colors. Large Quarto, size 7-3/4 x 10-3/8, Cloth. Formerly published at
+$2.00. Our special price, $1.00.
+
+As an aid to the elementary study of bird life nothing has ever been
+published more satisfactory than this most successful of Nature Books.
+This book makes the identification of our birds simple and positive, even
+to the uninitiated, through certain unique features. I. All the birds are
+grouped according to color, in the belief that a bird's coloring is the
+first and often the only characteristic noticed. II. By another
+classification, the birds are grouped according to their season. III. All
+the popular names by which a bird is known are given both in the
+descriptions and the index. The colored plates are the most beautiful and
+accurate ever given in a moderate-priced and popular book. The most
+successful and widely sold Nature Book yet published.
+
+
+BIRDS THAT HUNT AND ARE HUNTED. Life Histories of 170 Birds of Prey, Game
+Birds and Water-Fowls. By Neltje Blanchan. With Introduction by G. O.
+Shields (Coquina). 24 photographic illustrations in color. Large Quarto,
+size 7-3/4 x 10-3/8. Formerly published at $2.00. Our special price,
+$1.00.
+
+No work of its class has ever been issued that contains so much valuable
+information, presented with such felicity and charm. The colored plates
+are true to nature. By their aid alone any bird illustrated may be readily
+identified. Sportsmen will especially relish the twenty-four color plates
+which show the more important birds in characteristic poses. They are
+probably the most valuable and artistic pictures of the kind available
+to-day.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               NATURE BOOKS
+
+             With Colored Plates, and Photographs from Life.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+NATURE'S GARDEN. An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect
+Visitors. 24 colored plates, and many other illustrations photographed
+directly from nature. Text by Neltje Blanchan. Large Quarto, size 7-3/4 x
+10-3/8. Cloth. Formerly published at $3.00 net. Our special price, $1.25.
+
+Superb color portraits of many familiar flowers in their living tints, and
+no less beautiful pictures in black and white of others--each blossom
+photographed directly from nature--form an unrivaled series. By their aid
+alone the novice can name the flowers met afield.
+
+Intimate life-histories of over five hundred species of wild flowers,
+written in untechnical, vivid language, emphasize the marvelously
+interesting and vital relationship existing between these flowers and the
+special insect to which each is adapted.
+
+The flowers are divided into five color groups, because by this
+arrangement any one with no knowledge of botany whatever can readily
+identify the specimens met during a walk. The various popular names by
+which each species is known, its preferred dwelling-place, months of
+blooming and geographical distribution follow its description. Lists of
+berry-bearing and other plants most conspicuous after the flowering
+season, of such as grow together in different kinds of soil, and finally
+of family groups arranged by that method of scientific classification
+adopted by the International Botanical Congress which has now superseded
+all others, combine to make "Nature's Garden" an indispensable guide.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                         FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS
+                        IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. By Edith Elmer Wood. With illustrations by
+Rufus Zogbaum.
+
+The standards and life of "the new navy" are breezily set forth with a
+genuine ring impossible from the most gifted "outsider." "The story of the
+destruction of the 'Maine,' and of the Battle of Manila, are very
+dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife of
+another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in 'The Spirit of the
+Service.'"--_The Book Buyer._
+
+
+A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in
+striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time of
+the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth century
+for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in adventure,
+mystery, peril and suspense.
+
+
+THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting
+or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again
+into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all of
+Miss Murfree's novels.
+
+
+THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by Harrison
+Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.
+
+As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like callousness,
+her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of God and man,
+she was condemned to bury her magnificent personality, her transcendent
+beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a King's left hand.
+A powerful story powerfully told.
+
+
+THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With illustrations by E.
+Pollak.
+
+A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and never
+attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date story of
+love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern improvements.
+The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner and the romance
+of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for the romance, old
+as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  ERRATA
+
+
+      CHAPTER I
+      Changed: girl in the *fairy tale* who left jewels
+      To: girl in the *fairy-tale* who left jewels
+
+      CHAPTER I
+      Changed: ever walked in *fairy tale*. But she saw
+      To: ever walked in *fairy-tale*. But she saw
+
+      CHAPTER III
+      Changed: before, but covered *wth* confusion and shame,
+      To: before, but covered *with* confusion and shame,
+
+      CHAPTER III
+      Changed: and she turned *delberately*, one dainty, slippered
+      To: and she turned *deliberately*, one dainty, slippered
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: her that this *wholsale* disposal of Marcia
+      To: her that this *wholesale* disposal of Marcia
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: Phoebe takes your place and then come back.* *
+      To: Phoebe takes your place and then come back.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: fine places, to *tea drinkings* and the like,
+      To: fine places, to *tea-drinkings* and the like,
+
+      CHAPTER VI
+      Changed: out radiant and *childlike* through her tears.
+      To: out radiant and *child-like* through her tears.
+
+      CHAPTER X
+      Changed: was always something *childlike* about Marcia's
+      To: was always something *child-like* about Marcia's
+
+      CHAPTER X
+      Changed: her old home *plentfully* supplied with those
+      To: her old home *plentifully* supplied with those
+
+      CHAPTER XII
+      Changed: got David that's worth everything.* *
+      To: got David that's worth everything.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XII
+      Changed: position on the *haircloth* sofa. But if
+      To: position on the *hair-cloth* sofa. But if
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: had Mary Ann's *hand-writing* looked so pleasant
+      To: had Mary Ann's *handwriting* looked so pleasant
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: seemed half a *life-time* to the girl
+      To: seemed half a *lifetime* to the girl
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: my old calico *tomorrow* morning again, and
+      To: my old calico *to-morrow* morning again, and
+
+      CHAPTER XIII
+      Changed: house with big *collums* to the front
+      To: house with big *columns* to the front
+
+      CHAPTER XV
+      Changed: table, and the *tea-kettle* was singing on
+      To: table, and the *tea kettle* was singing on
+
+      CHAPTER XV
+      Changed: The neighbor had *staid* longer than usual,
+      To: The neighbor had *stayed* longer than usual,
+
+      CHAPTER XVI
+      Changed: thus melted into *childlike* enthusiasm, felt his
+      To: thus melted into *child-like* enthusiasm, felt his
+
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+      Changed: with the flickering *candle-light* making grotesque
+      To: with the flickering *candle light* making grotesque
+
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+      Changed: Bible where the *candle-light* played at glances
+      To: Bible where the *candle light* played at glances
+
+      CHAPTER XXI
+      Changed: if he would *absord* the vision for
+      To: if he would *absorb* the vision for
+
+      CHAPTER XXII
+      Changed: and let the *floodtide* of his sorrow
+      To: and let the *flood-tide* of his sorrow
+
+      CHAPTER XXII
+      Changed: an' hopin' an' *tryin* fer somebody bigger.
+      To: an' hopin' an' *tryin'* fer somebody bigger.
+
+      CHAPTER XXII
+      Changed: There's no place like home.*'*
+      To: There's no place like home.* *
+
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+      Changed: * *MIRANDA GRISCOM."
+      To: *"*MIRANDA GRISCOM."
+
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+      Changed: all items accurate* * technicalities of preparation;
+      To: all items accurate*;* technicalities of preparation;
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: need all the rest you can get.* *
+      To: need all the rest you can get.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: had before--all your own I mean?* *
+      To: had before--all your own I mean?*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: any bonnet. Nothing but a pink sunbonnet.* *
+      To: any bonnet. Nothing but a pink sunbonnet.*"*
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: a little old *haircloth* trunk, her own
+      To: a little old *hair-cloth* trunk, her own
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: had done when* *a boy Aunt Clarinda
+      To: had done when* as *a boy Aunt Clarinda
+
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+      Changed: Kate a mere *common-place*? What was this
+      To: Kate a mere *commonplace*? What was this
+
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+      Changed: Marcia lift her *flowerlike* face, all bright
+      To: Marcia lift her *flower-like* face, all bright
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: love story well told."--_Boston Transcript_*,*
+      To: love story well told."--_Boston Transcript_*.*
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: by Frank Haviland. *Medalion* in color on
+      To: by Frank Haviland. *Medallion* in color on
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: *Suberb* color portraits of many familiar flowers
+      To: *Superb* color portraits of many familiar flowers
+
+      AD PAGES
+      Changed: her magnificent *personalty*, her transcendent
+      To: her magnificent *personality*, her transcendent
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCIA SCHUYLER***
+
+
+
+CREDITS
+
+
+October 20, 2007
+
+            Project Gutenberg Edition
+            Roland Schlenker and
+            Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG
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