ffered, and her loving heart longed
to help him in his suffering.

But there was nothing in the room to keep her, and remembering the fire
she had left upon the hearth, which must be almost spent and need
replenishing by this time, she turned to go downstairs.

Just at the door something caught her eye under the edge of the chintz
valence round the bed. It was but the very tip of the corner of an old
daguerreotype, but for some reason Marcia was moved to stoop and draw it
from its concealment. Then she saw it was her sister's saucy, pretty face
that laughed back at her in defiance from the picture.

As if she had touched something red hot Marcia dropped it, and pushed it
with her foot far back under the bed. Then shutting the door quickly she
went downstairs. Was it always to be thus? Would Kate ever blight all her
joy from this time forth?

CHAPTER X

Marcia's cheeks were flushed when David came home to dinner, for at the
last she had to hurry.

As he stood in the doorway of the wide kitchen and caught the odor of the
steaming platter of green corn she was putting upon the table, David
suddenly realized that he had eaten scarcely anything for breakfast.

Also, he felt a certain comfort from the sweet steady look of wistful
sympathy in Marcia's eyes. Did he fancy it, or was there a new look upon
her face, a more reserved bearing, less childish, more touched by sad
knowledge of life and its bitterness? It was mere fancy of course,
something he had just not noticed. He had seen so little of her before.

In the heart of the maiden there stirred a something which she did not
quite understand, something brought to life by the sight of her sister's
daguerreotype lying at the edge of the valence, where it must have fallen
from David's pocket without his knowledge as he lay asleep. It had seemed
to put into tangible form the solid wall of fact that hung between her and
any hope of future happiness as a wife, and for the first time she too
began to realize what she had sacrificed in thus impetuously throwing her
young life into the breach that it might be healed. But she was not
sorry,--not yet, anyway,--only frightened, and filled with dreary
forebodings.

The meal was a pleasant one, though constrained. David roused himself to
be cheerful for Marcia's sake, as he would have done with any other
stranger, and the girl, suddenly grown sensitive, felt it, and appreciated
it, yet