ot understand the perplexities of life
and was clucking to find out, after having been startled half out of its
senses.

But Marcia was not wholly without consolation, for David had flashed a
look of approval at her and had made room for her to sit down by his side
on the sofa. It was almost like belonging to him for a minute or two.
Marcia felt her heart glow with something new and pleasant.

Mr. William Heath drew his heavy grey brows together and looked at her
grimly over his spectacles, poking his bristly under-lip out in
astonishment, bewildered that he should have been answered by a gentle,
pretty woman, all frills and sparkle like his own daughter. He had been
wont to look upon a woman as something like a kitten,--that is, a young
woman,--and suddenly the kitten had lifted a velvet paw and struck him
squarely in the face. He had felt there were claws in the blow, too, for
there had been a truth behind her words that set the room a mocking him.

"Well, Dave, you've got your wife well trained already!" he laughed,
concluding it was best to put a smiling front upon the defeat. "She knows
just when to come in and help when your side's getting weak!"

They served cake and raspberry vinegar then, and a little while after
everybody went home. It was later than the hours usually kept in the
village, and the lights in most of the houses were out, or burning dimly
in upper stories. The voices of the guests sounded subdued in the misty
waning moonlight air. Marcia could hear Hannah Heath's voice ahead
giggling affectedly to Harry Temple and Lemuel Skinner, as they walked one
on either side of her, while her father and mother and grandmother came
more slowly.

David drew Marcia's hand within his arm and walked with her quietly down
the street, making their steps hushed instinctively that they might so
seem more removed from the others. They were both tired with the unusual
excitement and the strain they had been through, and each was glad of the
silence of the other.

But when they reached their own doorstep David said: "You spoke well,
child. You must have thought about these things."

Marcia felt a sob rising in a tide of joy into her throat. Then he was not
angry with her, and he did not disapprove as the two aunts had done. Aunt
Clarinda had kissed her good-night and murmured, "You are a bright little
girl, Marcia, and you will make a good wife for David. You will come soon
to see me, won't you?" and that had made