delight was almost tearful. She led Martie rapturously over her
domain: the little bedroom spotless and sunshiny in the summer
afternoon; the microscopic kitchen scented with the baked apples that
HAD burned a little and the cookies that would NOT brown; the
living-and-dining room that was at once so bare and so rich. It was a
home, Martie realized dimly, and Sally was a person at last. The
younger sister peeped interestedly into spice-tins and meat safe; three
eggs were in a small yellow bowl, two thin slices of bacon on a plate.
In the bread box was half a loaf of bread and one cut slice.

"Sally, it must be fun!" said Martie. "All this doll's house for six
dollars a month!"

"Oh--fun!" Sally was rapturous beyond words. She gave them pale, hot
cookies; the cream puffs would delight Joe.

The three laughed and feasted happily; Martie with a new sense of
freedom and independence that exhilarated her like wine.

"Find us a nice little place like this, sister," said Wallace. "Martie
loves me, Sarah. Their lips met in one long, rapturous kiss. The end."

The girls laughed joyously. Martie went home at five, Wallace
accompanying her. She told her father that night that she had been in
the Library.

The next day she did clean the chicken house, and did go down to spend
the afternoon with Miss Fanny. But freedom danced in her veins; on the
third afternoon she and Wallace took a long walk, and stopped to see
Dr. Ben, and, sitting on two barrels behind the old railway station,
ate countless cherries and apricots. Again--and again--they went to
Pittsville. Sally was in their confidence and feasted them in the
little flat or went with them on their innocent expeditions.

From their third meeting, it was cheerfully taken for granted that
Wallace and Martie belonged to each other. Martie never knew what he
really felt, any more than he dreamed of the girlish amusement and
distrust in which she held him. They flirted only, but they swiftly
found life uninteresting when apart. They never talked of marriage, yet
every time they parted it was reluctantly, and never without definite
plans for another immediate meeting. Wallace began to advise Martie not
to eat the rich things that made her sick; Martie counselled him about
his new suit, and listened, uneasy and ashamed, to a brief, penitential
reference to "crazy" things he had done, as a "kid." He promised her
never to drink again and incidentally told her that his real name wa