dding should escape them, she would have started
on a search at once. She knew if she just ran into old Miss Pemberton's,
whose house stood out upon the street with two straight-backed little,
high, white seats each side of the stoop, a most delightful post of
observation, she could discover at once in which direction Kate had gone,
and perhaps a good deal more of hints and suggestions besides. But Marcia
had no mind to make gossip. She must wait as patiently as she could for
Kate. Moreover Kate might be walking even now in some secluded, rose-lined
lane arm in arm with the captain, saying a pleasant farewell. It was
Kate's way and no one might gainsay her.

Marcia's dreams came back once more, the thoughts that had been hers as
she stood there an hour before. She thought how the kiss had fitted into
the dream. Then all at once conscience told her it was Kate's lover, not
her own, whose arms had encircled her. And now there was a strange
unwillingness to go back to the dreams at all, a lingering longing for the
joys into whose glory she had been for a moment permitted to look. She
drew back from all thoughts and tried to close the door upon them. They
seemed too sacred to enter. Her maidenhood was but just begun and she had
much yet to learn of life. She was glad, glad for Kate that such
wonderfulness was coming to her. Kate would be sweeter, softer in her ways
now. She could not help it with a love like that enfolding her life.

At last there were footsteps! Hark! Two people--only two! Just what Marcia
had expected. The other girls and boys had dropped into other streets or
gone home. Kate and her former lover were coming home alone. And,
furthermore, Kate would not be glad to see her sister at the gate. This
last thought came with sudden conviction, but Marcia did not falter.

"Kate, David has come!" Marcia said it in low, almost accusing tones, at
least so it sounded to Kate, before the two had hardly reached the gate.
They had been loitering along talking in low tones, and the young
captain's head was bent over his companion in an earnest, pleading
attitude. Marcia could not bear to look, and did not wish to see more, so
she had spoken.

Kate, startled, sprang away from her companion, a white angry look in her
face.

"How you scared me, Marsh!" she exclaimed pettishly. "What if he has come?
That's nothing. I guess he can wait a few minutes. He had no business to
come to-night anyway. He knew we wouldn't be ready