"Well, I know." Sally looked ashamed. "But sometimes it does seem as if it wasn't fair!"
"I met Rodney Parker the other day," Martie said thoughtfully. "It isn't that he wasn't extremely pleasant—not to say flattering! No one could have been more so. He told me that Rose was in the hospital, and that they had been so busy since I got to town—I told you all this? But as we parted my only thought was gratitude to Heaven that I had never married Rodney Parker!"
Lydia, sitting sewing near by, coloured with shame at the indelicacy of this, and made her characteristic comment.
"You don't mean that you—ALWAYS felt so, Martie?"
"Always!" Martie echoed healthily. "Why, I was crazy about him."
Lydia visibly shrank.
"He's so LIMITED" Martie continued with spirit. "I'm glad that things have gone well with them, and that they have a baby at last! But to sit opposite that pleasant, fat face—he is getting quite fat!—and hear that complacent voice all the days of my life, those little puns, and that cheerful way of implying that he is the greatest man since Alexander—no, I couldn't!"
"He has built Rose a lovely home, and made her a very happy woman," Lydia said sententiously.
"Well, I suppose that when I thought of marrying Rod, I thought of the old house," Martie pursued. "Of course, they HAVE built a nice home, but the glory for me was the old place! Rose has a big drawing room, and a big bedroom, and a guest's bath, and pantries and a side porch—but I like your house better, Sally, with its trees and flowers and babies!"
"You're just SAYING that!" Sally observed.