did not understand why it made her unhappy.

She was anxious to please him, and kept asking if the potatoes were
seasoned right and if his corn were tender, and if he wouldn't have
another cup of coffee. Her cheeks were quite red with the effort at
matronly dignity when David was finally through his dinner and gone back
to the office, and two big tears came and sat in her eyes for a moment,
but were persuaded with a determined effort to sink back again into those
unfathomable wells that lie in the depths of a woman's eyes. She longed to
get out of doors and run wild and free in the old south pasture for
relief. She did not know how different it all was from the first dinner of
the ordinary young married couple; so stiff and formal, with no gentle
touches, no words of love, no glances that told more than words. And yet,
child as she was, she felt it, a lack somewhere, she knew not what.

But training is a great thing. Marcia had been trained to be on the alert
for the next duty and to do it before she gave herself time for any of her
own thoughts. The dinner table was awaiting her attention, and there was
company coming.

She glanced at the tall clock in the hall and found she had scarcely an
hour before she might expect David's aunts, for David had brought her word
that they would come and spend the afternoon and stay to tea.

She shrank from the ordeal and wished David had seen fit to stay and
introduce her. It would have been a relief to have had him for a shelter.
Somehow she knew that he would have stayed if it had been Kate, and that
thought pained her, with a quick sharpness like the sting of an insect.
She wondered if she were growing selfish, that it should hurt to find
herself of so little account. And, yet, it was to be expected, and she
must stop thinking about it. Of course, Kate was the one he had chosen and
Kate would always be the only one to him.

It did not take her long to reduce the dinner table to order and put all
things in readiness for tea time; and in doing her work Marcia's thoughts
flew to pleasanter themes. She wondered what Dolly and Debby, the servants
at home, would say if they could see her pretty china and the nice
kitchen. They had always been fond of her, and naturally her new honors
made her wish to have her old friends see her. What would Mary Ann say?
What fun it would be to have Mary Ann there sometime. It would be almost
like the days when they had played house under the old elm