her sister's head went down again. She could
think of nothing to say. "I can't help thinking that our life would be
that," Martie went on presently, raising her sombre face to rest it on
one hand, her elbows propped on the table. "Everything would be
wonderful, just because we love each other so! He writes, and I would
write----"

"Feeling as you do," Sally said after a troubled silence, "I would
really say that you oughtn't to marry any one else, Mart. But even if
Cliff gave you up, how could you marry a divorced man?"

"Oh, Sally--don't keep reiterating that it's impossible!" Martie said
with a flash of impatience. "I know it--I know it--but that doesn't
make it any easier to bear! You women who have so much can't
realize----"

"You have Teddy," Sally suggested, in the silence.

"Yes, I have Teddy--God bless him!" his mother said, with a sudden
tender smile. And she seemed to see a line of little Teddies, playing
with Grandma Curley's spools, glancing fearfully at the "Cold Lairs,"
walking sturdily beside Margar's shabby coach, chattering to a quiet,
black-clad mother on the overland train. She had her gallant, gay
little Teddy still. "I don't know why I talk so recklessly, Sally," she
said sensibly. "It's only that I am so worried--and troubled. I don't
know what I ought to do! Suppose I tell Cliff frankly, and we break the
engagement? Then John will come back, and there'll be all that to go
over and over!"

"But that's--just selfishness," said Sally, spreading a checked blue
towel neatly over her pan of dough, and adding last touches to the now
orderly kitchen.

"Oh, men are all selfish!" Martie conceded. "Every one's selfish! Cliff
quite placidly broke Lydia's heart years ago; Rose and Rodney between
them nearly broke mine. But now Cliff wants something from me, and Rose
realizes that she has something to gain, and it's roses, roses all the
way."

"Well, that's life, Mart," submitted the older sister.

"If I had it all to do over again," Martie mused, "I wouldn't come back
after Wallace's death. Teddy and I could have made our way comfortably
in New York. By coming, I have more or less obliged myself to accept
the Monroe point of view----"

"Oh, but Mart, we've had such wonderful times together, and it means so
much to me to have you like Joe and the children!" said Sally.

"Yes," Martie's arm went about her sister, "that's been the one
definite gain, Sally, to see you so happy and prosperous, and to