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 eve