eir intimate friends. She began to drift
into the public kindergarten in the mornings, to help Miss Malloy with
the unruly babies. And she missed Sally more every day.

Sally and Joe had gone to Pittsville immediately after their wedding;
Joe having received a dazzling offer of forty dollars a month for two
summer months from the express company there.

But when Sally had been married six weeks, Martie heard her voice one
day when the younger sister was passing the Hawkes's house. Instantly
she entered the gate, her heart beating high. Sally's dear,
unforgettable voice! And Sally's slender shoulders and soft, loose hair!

The girls were in each other's arms, laughing and crying as they clung
together. Martie thought she had never seen her sister look so well, or
seem so sweet and gay. There were a thousand questions on each side to
ask; Martie poured out the home news. Sally and Joe were housekeeping
in three rooms, and it was more FUN! And Sally really cooked him
wonderful dinners; his father and mother had come over to one, and
wasn't it good? Mrs. Hawkes enthusiastically agreed.

Of course, they had hardly ANYTHING, bubbled Sally, only two saucepans
and one frying pan and the coffee pot. But it was more FUN! And in the
evenings they walked around Pittsville, and went to the ten-cent
theatre, or bought candy and divided it. COULDN'T Martie come some time
to dinner?

"Pa," said Martie simply. Sally's bright face clouded. She sent a kiss
to Ma and darling Lyd. She and Joe would come back to Monroe in
September, and then she would come see Pa and make him forgive her.
Tell him she still loved him!

Martie delivered none of these airy messages. She secretly marvelled at
the happiness that could blind Sally to a memory of Pa, and Pa's
stubbornness.

"Listen, Martie," said Sally, when for a moment the sisters were alone,
"it wasn't so sudden as you think, my marrying Joe!" She stopped,
interrupted by some thought, and added impulsively, "Isn't it STRANGE,
Mart, that we might have missed each other; it makes us both just
SHIVER to think of it! Well"--and with a visible effort the little wife
brought herself down from a roseate cloud to realities again--"if--if
Lyd had married Cliff Frost," she said uncertainly, "I never should
have DARED marry Joe!"

"Or if I had married Rodney Parker, Sally?" Martie added steadily.

"Well--" The colour flew to Sally's face. "As it was," she went on a
little hurriedly, "I just--co