n the
pillows. There she knelt, unmindful of the dinner waiting downstairs,
unmindful of the bright day that was droning on its hours. Whether she
prayed she knew not, whether she was weeping she could not have told. Her
heart was crying out in one great longing to have this cloud of sorrow
that had settled upon David lifted.

She might have knelt there until night had there not come the sound of a
knock upon the front door. It startled her to her feet in an instant, and
she hastily smoothed her rumpled hair, dashed some water on her eyes, and
ran down.

It was the clerk from the office with a letter for her. The post chaise
had brought it that afternoon, and he had thought perhaps she would like
to have it at once as it was postmarked from her home. Would she tell Mr.
Spafford when he returned--he seemed to take it for granted that David was
out of town for the day--that everything had been going on all right at the
office during his absence and the paper was ready to send to press. He
took his departure with a series of bows and smiles, and Marcia flew up to
her room to read her letter. It was in the round unformed hand of Mary
Ann. Marcia tore it open eagerly. Never had Mary Ann's handwriting looked
so pleasant as at that moment. A letter in those days was a rarity at all
times, and this one to Marcia in her distress of mind seemed little short
of a miracle. It began in Mary Ann's abrupt way, and opened up to her the
world of home since she had left it. But a few short days had passed,
scarcely yet numbering into weeks, since she left, yet it seemed half a
lifetime to the girl promoted so suddenly into womanhood without the
accompanying joy of love and close companionship that usually makes
desolation impossible.

"DEAR MARSH,"--the letter ran:--

"I expect you think queer of me to write you so soon. I ain't much
on writing you know, but something happened right after you
leaving and has kept right on happening that made me feel I kinder
like to tell you. Don't you mind the mistakes I make. I'm thankful
to goodness you ain't the school teacher or I'd never write 'slong
s' I'm living, but ennyhow I'm going to tell you all about it.

"The night you went away I was standing down by the gate under the
old elm. I had on my best things yet from the wedding, and I hated
to go in and have the day over and have to begin putting on my old
calico to-morrow morning again, and wa