t
she. She knew always that he was not for her, and perhaps, even so early
as that in her new life, if the choice had been given her whether she
would go back to her girlhood again and be as she was before Kate had run
away, or whether she would choose to stay here in the new life with David,
it is likely she would have chosen to stay.

There were occasional letters from Squire Schuyler. He wrote of politics,
and sent many messages to his son-in-law which Marcia handed over to David
at the tea table to read, and which always seemed to soften David and
bring a sweet sadness into his eyes. He loved and respected his
father-in-law. It was as if he were bound to him by the love of some one
who had died. Marcia thought of that every time she handed David a letter,
and sat and watched him read it.

Sometimes little Harriet or the boys printed out a few words about the
family cat, or the neighbors' children, and Marcia laughed and cried over
the poor little attempts at letters and longed to have the eager childish
faces of the writers to kiss.

But in all of them there was never a mention of the bright, beautiful,
selfish girl around whom the old home life used to centre and who seemed
now, judging from the home letters, to be worse than dead to them all. But
since the afternoon upon the hill a new and pleasant intercourse had
sprung up between David and Marcia. True it was confined mainly to
discussions of the new railroad, the possibilities of its success, and the
construction of engines, tracks, etc. David was constantly writing up the
subject for his paper, and he fell into the habit of reading his articles
aloud to Marcia when they were finished. She would listen with breathless
admiration, sometimes combating a point ably, with the old vim she had
used in her discussion over the newspaper with her father, but mainly
agreeing with every word he wrote, and always eager to understand it down
to the minutest detail.

He always seemed pleased at her praise, and wrote on while she put away
the tea-things with a contented expression as though he had passed a high
critic, and need not fear any other. Once he looked up with a quizzical
expression and made a jocose remark about "our article," taking her into a
sort of partnership with him in it, which set her heart to beating
happily, until it seemed as if she were really in some part at least
growing into his life.

But after all their companionship was a shy, distant one, m