ith the
unidentified dead. But it was months before Marietta would believe it.

"She acted as if her mind were a little touched all that summer. Used to
dress up every evening in the clothes he had liked best, with a flower
in her hair, and go down to the honeysuckle arbour to wait for him.
She'd sit there and wait and wait all alone, until her father'd go down
and lead her in. The next day she'd go through the same performance. It
ended in a spell of brain fever. She came out of that with her mind all
right, but she never was strong again. After all the rest of their
troubles came, she had a stroke of paralysis. It's left her so she can't
walk. But she can lie there and make buttonholes and pull basting
threads. She's a perfect marvel, she's so patient and cheerful. People
like to go there just on that account. You'd never know she had a
trouble to hear her talk. But I know what she's suffered, and I know
that she still keeps the wedding-gown. It's laid away in rose leaves
for her to be buried in."

Mrs. Bisbee paused and spread out the finished quilt-piece on her knee,
patting it approvingly before choosing the scraps for another block.
Then she wiped her spectacles. "Sometimes I don't know which I'm the
sorriest for, Marietta, who had such a good man for a lover as Murray
Cathright was, and lost him, or Agnes, who's never had anything."

"Why don't people invite her out and give her a good time?" asked Lloyd.
"Her being a seamstress oughtn't to make any difference to old family
friends, when she's such a lady."

"It doesn't," answered Mrs. Bisbee. "People used to be nice to those
girls, and they were always invited everywhere at first. But after
awhile there was Marietta always in bed, and Agnes a mere baby, and poor
Miss Sarah with the burden of their support. She had only her needle to
keep the wolf from the door. She couldn't accept invitations then. There
was no time. Gradually people stopped asking her. She dropped out of the
social life of the Valley so completely that Agnes grew up without any
knowledge of it. All she has known has been hard work. Miss Allison has
tried to draw her into things, but the older sisters are proud, as I
said. Agnes cannot dress suitably, and they can make no return of
hospitalities, so she has never ventured into anything more than the
King's Daughters' Circle."

"There's Alec with the carriage!" exclaimed Lloyd. "He's stopping at the
stoah. If I hurry, I can ride back home. I