ain.

When they each tried to reach for the tea kettle to fill the coffee pot
and their fingers touched, each drew back and pretended not to notice, but
yet had felt the contact sweet.

They were lingering over the dinner when Hannah Heath came to the door.
David had been telling of some of his adventures in detail and was
enjoying the play of expression on Marcia's face as she listened eagerly
to every word. They had pushed their chairs back a little and were sitting
there talking,--or rather David was talking, Marcia listening. Hannah stood
for one jealous instant and saw it all. This was what she had dreamed for
her own long years back, she and David. She had questioned much just what
feeling there might be between him and Marcia, and now more than ever she
desired to bring him face to face with Kate and read for herself what the
truth had been. She hated Marcia for that look of intense delight and
sympathy upon her face; hated her that she had the right to sit there and
hear what David had to say--some stupid stuff about railroads. She did not
see that she herself would have made an ill companion for a man like
David.

As yet neither Marcia nor David had touched upon the subjects which had
troubled them. They did not realize it, but they were so suddenly happy in
each other's company they had forgotten for the moment. The pleasant
converse was broken up at once. Marcia's face hardened into something like
alarm as she saw who stood in the doorway.

"Why, David, have you got home at last?" said Hannah. "I did not know it."
That was an untruth. She had watched him from behind Grandmother Heath's
rose bush. "Where did you come from last? New York? Oh, then you saw Mrs.
Leavenworth. How is she? I fell in love with her when I was there."

Now David had never fully taken in Kate's married name. He knew it of
course, but in his present state of happiness at getting home, and his
absorption in the work he had been doing, the name "Mrs. Leavenworth"
conveyed nothing whatever to David's mind. He looked blankly at Hannah and
replied indifferently enough with a cool air. "No, Miss Hannah, I had no
time for social life. I was busy every minute I was away."

David never expected Hannah to say anything worth listening to, and he was
so full of his subject that he had not noticed that she made no reply.

Hannah watched him curiously as he talked, his remarks after all were
directed more to Marcia than to her, and when he pause