top it. Truly I will. I'm only doing it
to be considerate to Joe, anyway!"

"You needn't do anything on my account," Martie said gruffly. "But I
think you ought to stop it on your own. Joe is only a kid, he doesn't
know beans--much less enough to really fall in love!"

She lay awake for a long time that night, in troubled thought. Cold
autumn moonlight poured into the room; a restless wind whined about the
house. The cuckoo clock struck eleven--struck twelve.

At all events she HAD gone driving with Rodney; she HAD had tea at the
Parkers'--

CHAPTER IV

"I honestly think that some of us ought to go down to-night and see
Grandma Kelly," said Lydia at luncheon a week later. November had come
in bright and sunny, but with late dawns and early twilights. Rodney
Parker's college friend having delayed his promised visit, the
agitating question of the Friday Fortnightly had been temporarily laid
to rest, but Martie saw him nearly every day, and family and friends
alike began to change in their attitude to Martie.

"I'll go," she and Sally said together--Martie, because she was in a
particularly amiable mood; Sally, perhaps because old Mrs. Kelly was
Joe Hawkes's grandmother.

"Well, I wish you would, girls," their mother said in her gentle,
complaining voice. "She's a dear old lady--a perfect saint about
getting to church in all weathers! And while Pa doesn't care much about
having you so intimate with the Hawkeses, he was saying this morning
that Grandma Kelly is different. She was my nurse when all four of you
were born, and she certainly was interested and kind."

"We can go down about seven," Lydia said, "and not stay too long. But I
suppose 'most every one in Monroe will run in to wish her many happy
returns. Tom David's wife will come in from Westlake with Grandma's
great-grandchildren, I guess, and all the others will be there."

"That houseful alone would kill me, let alone having the whole tribe
stream in, if _I_ were seventy-eight!" Martie observed. "But I'd just
as soon go. We'll see how we feel after dinner!"

And after dinner, the night being fresh and sweet, and the meal early
concluded because Malcolm was delayed in Pittsville and did not return
for dinner, the three Monroes pinned on their hats, powdered their
noses, and buttoned on their winter coats. Any excitement added to her
present ecstatic mood was enough to give Martie the bloom of a wild
rose, and Sally had her own reasons for radia