d of the constant, half-fretful, half playful fault-finding.

The gay footsteps and voices died away down the village street, and Marcia
ventured forth from her retreat. The moon was just rising and came up a
glorious burnished disk, silhouetting her face as she stood a moment
listening to the stirring of a bird among the branches. It was her will
to-night to be alone and let her fancies wander where they would. The
beauty and the mystery of a wedding was upon her, touching all her deeper
feelings, and she wished to dream it out and wonder over it. Again it came
to her what if the day after the morrow were her wedding day and she stood
alone thinking about it. She would not have gone off down the street with
a lot of giggling girls nor walked with another young man. She would have
stood here, or down by the gate--and she moved on toward her favorite arch
of lilac and syringa--yes, down by the gate in the darkness looking out and
thinking how it would be when he should come. She felt sure if it had been
herself who expected David she would have begun to watch for him a week
before the time he had set for coming, heralding it again and again to her
heart in joyous thrills of happiness, for who knew but he might come
sooner and surprise her? She would have rejoiced that to-night she was
alone, and would have excused herself from everything else to come down
there in the stillness and watch for him, and think how it would be when
he would really get there. She would hear his step echoing down the street
and would recognize it as his. She would lean far over the gate to listen
and watch, and it would come nearer and nearer, and her heart would beat
faster and faster, and her breath come quicker, until he was at last by
her side, his beautiful surprise for her in his eyes. But now, if David
should really try to surprise Kate by coming that way to-night he would
not find her waiting nor thinking of him at all, but off with Captain
Leavenworth.

With a passing pity for David she went back to her own dream. With one
elbow on the gate and her cheek in her hand she thought it all over. The
delayed evening coach rumbled up to the tavern not far away and halted.
Real footsteps came up the street, but Marcia did not notice them only as
they made more vivid her thoughts.

Her dream went on and the steps drew nearer until suddenly they halted and
some one appeared out of the shadow. Her heart stood still, for form and
face in the dark