ing money, and Rose had absolutely everything she
wanted. Colonel Frost was dead. Miss Frost looked like death--Martie
had smiled at the old phrase--and Grandma Kelly was dead; Father Martin
was quoted as saying that she was a saint if ever there was one. George
Patterson had been sued by a girl in Berkeley, and Monroe was of the
opinion that the Pattersons never would hold up their heads again. Pa
and Len were in some real estate venture together, Len had talked Pa
into it at last. And finally, Sally and the children were well, and Joe
wrote her every day.

This last sentence had puzzled Martie; where was Joe Hawkes then, that
he must write every day to his wife? She had intended to write Sally in
the old affectionate, confidential strain, and ask all the questions
that rose now and then in her thoughts of Monroe. But she had not
written for months, and now--now this.

She grasped the news in the tear-stained sheets at a first glance. Her
mother was dead. Martie repeated the words to herself with a stupid
realization that she could not grasp their meaning. The old dark house
in the sunken square would know that slender, gentle presence no more.
She had never felt the parting final; a chill wind from some forgotten
country smote her. Her mother was dead, her child was growing up, her
husband had failed her.

Sally's letter was brief, restrained, and tender. Martie could read
Sally's development in the motherly lines. But Lydia had written in a
sort of orgy of grief. Ma had "seemed like herself all Wednesday," and
had gone with Lydia to see old Mrs. Mussoo, and had eaten her dinner
that night, and the next day, Thursday, she had come down as usual to
breakfast, and so on and on for ten long days, every hour of which was
treasured now in Lydia's heart. "And poor Pa," wrote the older sister,
"I must be all in all to him now; I never can marry now. And oh,
Martie, I couldn't help wishing, for your sake, that you could feel
that you had never, even as a thoughtless girl, caused our dear angel
an hour of grief and pain! You must say to yourself that she forgave
you and loved you through it all ..."

Martie made a wry mouth over the letter. But into the small hours of
the morning she lay awake, thinking of her mother and of the old days.
Odd little memories came to her: the saucer pies that she and Sally
used to have for their tea-parties, out under the lilac trees, and a
day when she, Martie, had been passionately concern