in one end of the large bright kitchen,
that end furnished with a comfortable lounge, a few bookshelves, a thick
ingrain carpet, and a blooming geranium in the wide window seat. But there
was always the other room for company, for "high days and holidays."

Out of this morning room the pantry opened with its spicy odors of
preserves and fruit cake.

Marcia looked about her well pleased. The house itself was a part of
David's inheritance, his mother's family homestead. Things were all on a
grand scale for a bride. Most brides began in a very simple way and
climbed up year by year. How Kate would have liked it all! David must have
had in mind her fastidious tastes, and spent a great deal of money in
trying to please her. That piano must have been very expensive. Once more
Marcia felt how David had loved Kate and a pang went through her as she
wondered however he was to live without her. Her young soul had not yet
awakened to the question of how _she_ was to live _with_ him, while his
heart went continually mourning for one who was lost to him forever.

The rooms upstairs were all pleasant, spacious, and comfortably furnished.
There was no suggestion of bareness or anything left unfinished. Much of
the furniture was old, having belonged to David's mother, and was in a
state of fine preservation, a possession of which to be justly proud.

There were four rooms besides the one in which Marcia had slept: a front
and back on the opposite side of the hall, a room just back of her own,
and one at the end of the hall over the large kitchen.

She entered them all and looked about. The three beside her own in the
front part of the house were all large and airy, furnished with high
four-posted bedsteads, and pretty chintz hangings. Each was immaculate in
its appointments. Cautiously she lifted the latch of the back room. David
had not slept in any of the others, for the bedcoverings and pillows were
plump and undisturbed. Ah! It was here in the back room that he had
carried his heavy heart, as far away from the rest of the house as
possible!

The bed was rumpled as if some one had thrown himself heavily down without
stopping to undress. There was water in the washbowl and a towel lay
carelessly across a chair as if it had been hastily used. There was a
newspaper on the bureau and a handkerchief on the floor. Marcia looked
sadly about at these signs of occupancy, her eyes dwelling upon each
detail. It was here that David had su