rs, 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 m