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 purch