Martie, the Unconquered

Sally demurred, observing that people would talk. But one or two persons app

d friends, and Martie's boy was as much at home in the little cr

he old man; "stick to it. I don't know how one of

ie said a little sadly. "But at least what Monroe thinks doesn'

Dr. Ben smiled at hi

small, second-hand car, packed with Hawkeses of all ages, began to be seen in Monroe streets, and Sally grew rosier and fatter and more childish-l

at little the Estates don't eat up must go to Lydia, and if y

o something better," Martie s

d her mother actually had town help for a while, when he died. Now they have that cottage free of debt, and somethi

, quite frankly, and her brother-in-la

e you,

caused her some chagrin. Rose had actually been president once, as had May Parker

ub," Sally said to Martie. "Unless, of course," she added, brightening, "

o, Sis? What do they do-s

e to keep up the fountains and statues-well, I don't care!" Sally interrupted herself with a reluc

t the children, and look at Joe

ashamed. "But sometimes it do

ring! 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 t

d with shame at the indelicacy of this

that you-ALWAYS

ed healthily. "Why, I

isibly

t last! But to sit opposite that pleasant, fat face-he is getting quite fat!-and hear that complacent voice all the days of

e, and made her a very happy wo

VE 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 gu

AYING that!" S

n about! He immediately told me that the Mason building down town was reinforced concrete throughout. I said that I had always missed the orchards in the East, and he said, with such an unpleasant laugh, 'We

tone, and Sally dis

the club, and I suppose we less fortunate people can talk all we please, they'll be

and mined and planned and foresaw, where would Rod be to-day, telling me that HE th

Rodney is really an awfully clever,

bout making money," said Lydia, "but

e col

n to colour with resentment; she thought that Martie's acceptance o

f the Library now, and by the time the fogs had risen from Main Street, she was tied into her silicia apron and happily absorbed in her work. She and Mis

king out lo

's nobody else

irls, old women and children. She liked moving about in a businesslike way-not a casual caller, but a part of the institution. She had long, whispered conversations, at th

Miss Fanny's amazement, on the very first day,

gether. There was a warmth and brightness and openness about the Library entirely different from the warmest home. And she took a deep interest in the members, advised them as to books, and held good b

ight in the old house. Also she was lovely to look upon, and she must have been blind not to know it. Her tall, erect figure looked its best in plain black; Martie would never be fat again; her skin was like an apple blossom, white touched deeply with rose, her eyes, with their tender sadness and veile

rbed in the closely written sheet

r to her mild look of questioning. "Don't you remember that I

dear," Lydia amended,

Lyddy! I rememb

you thought you did

try to get it published instead, and my dear-it's

ld waist that had been for months in her sewing basket, "I

" Martie mused

encourage this

at all. She's left him, in fact

mmented, in a

nhappy sort of woman. She and this doctor of hers had some sort of affair, and the outcome

oh

yden, t

and heartbroken," Ly

isn't like other people. If she wants a divorce-Jo

citement, "to let his own wife leave him while he writes letters ask

little, shrugged her shoulders

er work, a flus

for you, Martie," she said q

oked up,

absolutely depends upon me! Why, fancy, he's the man who wanted me to open the

Lydia asked with he

re anything-wrong in his feel

married man, and you a married woman! My dear, can't you see how far y

h many days. His letter seemed to bring a bracing breath of the big city. A day or two later she and Teddy chanced to be held in mid-street while the big Easter

s, and annoyed and amused her younger siste

; she was a prim, quiet, contentedly complaining woman now, a little too critical perhaps, a little self-righteous, but kind and good. Lydia's will was always for the happiness of others: Pa's comfort, Pauline's rights, and the wisest course for Martie and Sally to take occupied her mind and t

ry if all or any of the children were indisposed. But she was not so obliging if mere pleasure took Sally away from her maternal duties

ds, and to have them beg her favours or stories. But if Lydia had expressed the opinion that it was too cold for the children to go barefoot, and Ma

Lydia would say patiently, firmly, and kindly. Martie and Sally, wives for years, were able to refrai

Martie told Sally. "I don't know, though, some aunts are wonderful! Only that pleasant just

an intercourse had no lighter phases for her. She must analyze and suspect and brood. Wherever a possible slight

weetness. When they laughed together at dinner she liste

egative hardly interrupted the account he was giving his youngest daughter of the law-suit he had won years ago against old man Thomas. But after breakfast Martie found Lydia crying into one of the apro

ed, half-amused, half-sympathetic. L

best thing for us all to do is to forget and laugh

ring dresses now that had been hers six years ago; sometimes a blue gingham or a gray madras was worn a whole season by Lydia without one trip to the tub. She carrie

silent Mrs. Monroe had evidently left a fund of advice behind her.

sed to say that good cream was half the secret of good coffee!" "I remember Ma used to say t

How do you mean she's never been the same since last fall, Lou? I don't remember anything special happening to Minnie Scott last fall." There was a frankly and flatly amazed tone, in which Lydia might say: "Well, Clara told me yesterday about Potter Street, and if you'll tell me what POSSESSED that boy, I'll be obliged to you!" And then th

erself contributed something, a similar case in New York, perhaps, but the others were not interested. They knew, without ever having expressed it, that there is no int

her was at the Library, and Lydia liked her authority over the child and his companionship. There was no peace in the old ho

as in the Library when Miss Fanny came in with the mail, and her hand trembled as she cut the strings. The

y smile at the memory of his childish dependence upon her suggestions as to the smaller points of

t her lips and glanced about. Miss Fanny h

etected felony could not have given Martie a more s

the selection, for her letters to him were always signed,

hatever life finds good in mine. Martie read the four lines as many times, then she lifted the

ng on a swift, triumphant flight. Ah, this was something to have brou

ing that she were a better judge of all these

rful!" Martie decid

ess, fresh from her convent, to the strange coast of England, and to the welcome of the strange King, her prospective husband's brother. The words were simplicity's self, like all inspired words, yet they brought the co

obes of purple and green. The shops were already disguised under bushy evergreens; wreaths of red and green paper made circles of steam against the show windows. Silva, of the fruit market opposite, was selling a Christmas tree from the score that lay at the curb

f Christmas Eve, but to-night it was lighted for Martie with poetry and romance. The thou

rrow!" she said to Fanny,

er real Christmas j

least she never betrayed the fact. There never were pots and pans awaiting cleaning in Pauline's sink, there never was a teaspoonful of flour spilled upon her biscuit board. Her gingham cuffs we

ry passing minute. She moved a shining pot forward on a shining stove, she took plates of inviting cold things from the safe, a

like with a "trace-end" for any infractions of domestic rule. Of snows so lasting and deep that housewives buried their brown linens in October, and found them again, snowy white, on the April grass. Pauline's mother, dying of "a shock," had been the devoted daughter's char

mas Tree at the large table. Two or three empty cardboard boxes stood waiting the neatly trimmed and pressed bread: Lydia did this sor

that held a crinkled rice-pudding; the broom had held that corner for thirty years; for thirty years the roller towel had dangled from that door. She and Len and S

of exquisite lightheartedness she had not laid aside. She sat down in the kitchen rocker, and Teddy climbed into her lap, and, while she talked with Lyd

ng like Bonestell's in my life. It's cold, too-but sort of bracing cold! We had both the stoves going all

ed, "and afterward Sally and I walked down town, with all the children. She expect

ap!" Teddy whispered

s the child to whisper that

a nap, Lyd, I think he d

pacified, "if you're really going to take hi

the bed, Lyd-yo

Teddy asked,

er memory of authority abused that his happiness was entrusted. It was her joy to explain, to adjust, to reconcile, the little elements of his life. She taught him the rules of simplicity and industry and s

mas tree, and dressed herself, prettily, as well. But before she turned out the g

in her dazzled eyes were reading the few words th

tle furniture clerk with his eager, faun-like smile. And for the first time she let h

iting odours of supper, of Pauline's creamed salmon and fluffy rolls. Her father sat beside the fire, i

did so, helped him to the table, and tied Teddy's napkin under the child's round, firm c

and Lydia leaning on the free arm, she was walking through the

hed, when the little boy commented upon her ga

last Christmas, poor Mart!" s

o get a little arm about her neck, for he knew that she was crying. The revulsion had come, and Martie, tears running down her

s a pungent smell of evergreen in the air. About the confessionals there was a constant shuffle,

the lights and warmth and noise and music of the Sodality Hall. Sally saw that Martie had been crying, and when they were seat

earest, I'

e blinked and m

this first Christmas is o

w and loss. Sally's beautiful Elizabeth was one of the Christmas angels in the play to-night, and Sally's pride was almost too great to bear. Billy was sturdily dashing about selling p

ped in wet paper, and delivered in a dark, bare hall? Sally's serene destiny lay here, away from the damp, close heat under which milk poisoned and babies wilted, away from the icy c

t Sally, she was not Rose; she had earned her entry into a higher school. Those E

ly at her, saw that she was smiling. Martie did not notice the look: she was far aw

lived in New York, and was a widow, they reminded each other, and thrilled. She never dreamed that they made her a heroine and a model, quoted her, loitered into the Library to be enslaved afresh by

o express worried hopes that the March baby would be a boy, a male in the Monroe line at last. Rose fluttered near,

she realized that the weeks that went on so quietly i

ssed more than any other book of the year. Martie found John's photograph in all the literary magazines, and saw his name everywhere. Interviews with him frequently stared at her from unexpected places, and flattering prophecies

ome to the husband of a woman like Adele, the odd, inarticulate little clerk in a furniture store. She wondered if it had

standard and the old life the false. Martie agreed with Lydia that the little Eastman girl had a prettier voice than any she had ever heard in

have the best times! And I admit that Tiffany's and the big shops and so on, well, of course, they're

crashing elevated trains with chestnut-sellers' lights blowing beneath them, of summer dawns, when the city woke to the creeping tide of heat, and of autumn afternoons, when motor cars