It was middle August before Marcia Lowe took her courage in her hands and went to see Miss Ann Walden. With city ways still asserting themselves now and again in her thought, she had waited for Miss Walden to call, but, apparently, no such intention was in the mind of the mistress of Stoneledge.
"Perhaps after a bit she will write and invite me up there," Marcia Lowe then pondered. But no invitation came, and finally the little doctor's temper rose.
"Very well," she concluded, "I'll go to her and have it out. I'm not a bit afraid, and, besides, Uncle Theodore's business is too important to delay any longer. She doesn't know, but she must know."
So upon a fine afternoon Marcia Lowe set forth. Grim determination made her face stern, and she looked older than she really was. When she passed the Morleys' cabin she smiled up at Mary, who was standing near by, but the amiable mistress ran in and slammed the door upon the passerby. A little farther on she came to Andrew Townley's home and she paused there to speak to the old man sunning himself by the doorway.
"You certainly do favour your uncle, Miss Marching," Andrew mumbled; he had heard the stranger's claim of relationship and trustingly accepted it; but her name was too much for him.
"Since you come I git to thinking more and more of Parson Starr. He was the pleasantest thing that ever happened to us-all."
"Oh! thank you, Mr. Townley!"
So lonely and homesick was the little doctor that any word of friendliness and good-will drew the tears to her eyes. They talked a little more of Theodore Starr and then the walk to Stoneledge was continued.
Marcia Lowe had never seen any of the family except from a distance, and she dreaded, more than she cared to own, the meeting now. Still she had come to set right, as far as in her lay, a bitter wrong and injustice, and she was not one to spare herself.
Her advance had been watched ever since she left Andrew Townley's cabin, but in reply to her timid knock on the front door, Lily Ivy responded with such an air of polite surprise that no one could have suspected her of deceit.