“That's what I've made up my mind to,” said her husband.
Mrs. Gaylord rolled up the sewing in her work-basket, and packed it away against the side, bracing it with several pairs of newly darned socks and stockings neatly folded one into the other. She took her time for this, and when she rose at last to go out, with her basket in her hand, the door opened in her face, and Marcia entered. Mrs. Gaylord shrank back, and then slipped round behind her daughter and vanished. The girl took no notice of her mother, but went and sat down on her father's knee, throwing her arms round his neck, and dropping her haggard face on his shoulder. She had arrived at home a few hours earlier, having driven over from a station ten miles distant, on a road that did not pass near Equity. After giving as much of a shock to her mother's mild nature as it was capable of receiving by her unexpected return, she had gone to her own room, and remained ever since without seeing her father. He put up his thin old hand and passed it over her hair, but it was long before either of them spoke.
At last Marcia lifted her head, and looked her father in the face with a smile so pitiful that he could not bear to meet it. “Well, father?” she said.
“Well, Marsh,” he answered huskily. “What do you think of me now?”
“I'm glad to have you back again,” he replied.
“You know why I came?”
“Yes, I guess I know.”
She put down her head again, and moaned and cried, “Father! Father!” with dry sobs. When she looked up, confronting him with her tearless eyes, “What shall I do? What shall I do?” she demanded desolately.
He tried to clear his throat to speak, but it required more than one effort to bring the words. “I guess you better go along with me up to Boston. I'm going up the first of the week.”
“No,” she said quietly.