She did not go to bed at once, but sat down by the window looking out on the moonlit street. There had been some sort of a meeting at the church across the way, and the people were filing out and taking their various ways home, calling pleasant good nights, and speaking cheerily of the morrow. The moon, though beginning to wane, was bright and cast sharp shadows. Marcia longed to get out into the night. If she could have got downstairs without being heard she would have slipped out into the garden. But downstairs she could hear David pacing back and forth like some hurt, caged thing. Steadily, dully, he walked from the front hall back into the kitchen and back again. There was no possibility of escaping his notice. Marcia felt as if she might breathe freer in the open air, so she leaned far out of her window and looked up and down the street, and thought. Finally,—her heart swelled to bursting, as young hearts with their first little troubles will do,—she leaned down her dark head upon the window seat and wept and wept, alone.
It was the next morning at breakfast that David told her of the festivities that were planned in honor of their home coming. He spoke as if they were a great trial through which they both must pass in order to have any peace, and expressed his gratitude once more that she had been willing to come here with him and pass through it. Marcia had the impression, after he was done speaking and had gone away to the office, that he felt that she had come here merely for these few days of ceremony and after they were passed she was dismissed, her duty done, and she might go home. A great lump arose in her throat and she suddenly wished very much indeed that it were so. For if it were, how much, how very much she would enjoy queening it for a few days—except for David’s sadness. But already, there had begun to be an element to her in that sadness which in spite of herself she resented. It was a heavy burden which she began dimly to see would be harder and harder to bear as the days went by. She had not yet begun to think of the time before her in years.
They were to go to the aunts’ to tea that evening, and after tea a company of David’s old friends—or rather the old friends of David’s aunts—were coming in to meet them. This the aunts had planned: but it seemed they had not counted her worthy to be told of the plans, and had only divulged them to David. Marcia had not thought that a little thing could annoy her so much, but she found it vexed her more and more as she thought upon it going about her work.
There was not so much to be done in the house that morning after the breakfast things were cleared away. Dinners and suppers would not be much of a problem for some days to come, for the house was well stocked with good things.
The beds done and the rooms left in dainty order with the sweet summer breeze blowing the green tassels on the window shades, Marcia went softly down like some half guilty creature to the piano. She opened it and was forthwith lost in delight of the sounds her own fingers brought forth.
She had been playing perhaps half an hour when she became conscious of another presence in the room. She looked up with a start, feeling that some one had been there for some time, she could not tell just how long. Peering into the shadowy room lighted only from the window behind her, she made out a head looking in at the door, the face almost hidden by a capacious sunbonnet. She was not long in recognizing her visitor of the day before. It was like a sudden dropping from a lofty mountain height down into a valley of annoyance to hear Miranda’s sharp metallic voice:
“Morning!” she courtesied, coming in as soon as she perceived that she was seen. “At it again? I ben listening sometime. It’s as pretty as Silas Drew’s harmonicker when he comes home evenings behind the cows.”
Marcia drew her hands sharply from the keys as if she had been struck. Somehow Miranda and music were inharmonious. She scarcely knew what to say. She felt as if her morning were spoiled. But Miranda was too full of her own errand to notice the clouded face and cool welcome. “Say, you can’t guess how I got over here. I’ll tell you. You’re going over to the Spafford house to-night, ain’t you? and there’s going to be a lot of folks there. Of course we all know all about it. It’s been planned for months. And my cousin Hannah Heath has an invite. You can’t think how fond Miss Amelia and Miss Hortense are of her. They tried their level best to make David pay attention to her, but it didn’t work. Well, she was talking about what she’d wear. She’s had three new frocks made last week, all frilled and fancy. You see she don’t want to let folks think she is down in the mouth the least bit about David. She’ll likely make up to you, to your face, a whole lot, and pretend she’s the best friend you’ve got in the world. But I’ve just got this to say, don’t you be too sure of her friendship. She’s smooth as butter, but she can give you a slap in the face if you don’t serve her purpose. I don’t mind telling you for she’s given me many a one,” and the pale eyes snapped in unison with the color of her hair. “Well, you see I heard her talking to Grandma, and she said she’d give anything to know what you were going to wear to-night.”
“How curious!” said Marcia surprised. “I’m sure I do not see why she should care!” There was the coolness born of utter indifference in her reply which filled the younger girl with admiration. Perhaps too there was the least mite of haughtiness in her manner, born of the knowledge that she belonged to an old and honored family, and that she had in her possession a trunk full of clothes that could vie with any that Hannah Heath could display. Miranda wished silently that she could convey that cool manner and that wide-eyed indifference to the sight of her cousin Hannah.
“H’m!” giggled Miranda. “Well, she does! If you were going to wear blue you’d see she’d put on her green. She’s got one that’ll kill any blue that’s in the same room with it, no matter if it’s on the other side. Its just sick’ning to see them together. And she looks real well in it too. So when she said she wanted to know so bad, Grandma said she’d send me over to know if you’d accept a jar of her fresh pickle-lily, and mebbe I could find out about your clothes. The pickle-lily’s on the kitchen table. I left it when I came through. It’s good, but there ain’t any love in it.” And Miranda laughed a hard mirthless laugh, and then settled down to her subject again.