“One death is two deaths, they say,” Lydia had sighed, telling Martie of the Colonel’s death.  “You know Cliff’s wife died only two months before his father did.  That was a terrible thing!  Her little girl was seven years old, and she was going to have another—­”

When Martie, in the early afternoon of a warm sweet day on mid-February, had stepped from the train, with Teddy’s little fingers held tight in hers, Sally’s face, running over with tears and smiles, had been the first she found.  Curiously changed, yet wonderfully familiar, the sisters had clung together, hardly knowing how to begin their friendship again after six long years.  There were big things to say, but they said the little things.  They talked about the trip and the warm weather that had brought the buttercups so soon, and the case that had kept Pa on jury duty in Pittsville.

Len—­rather pompous, and with a moustache!—­explained why his wife could not be there:  the two-year-old daughter was not very well.  Martie questioned him eagerly of his two children.  Both girls, Len said gloomily; he asked his sister if she realized that there was not a Monroe yet.

Lydia wept a few tears; “Martie, dear, to see you in black!” and Martie’s eyes watered, and her lip shook.

“Grace and all the others would have come,” Sally said quickly, “but we knew you’d be tired, and then it’s homecoming, Martie, and you’ll have lots of time to see us all!”

She introduced Elizabeth, a lovely, fly-away child with bright loose hair, and Billy, a freckled, ordinary-looking boy, who gave his aunt a beautiful smile from large, dark eyes.  The others were left with “Mother”—­Joe’s mother.

“But, Sally, you’re so fat!”

“And, Mart, you’re so thin!”

“Never mind; it’s becoming to you, Sally.  You look still like a little girl.  Really, you do!  And how’s Joe?”

“Oh, Joe’s lovely.  I went down and spent a week with him.  I had the choice of that or a spring suit, and I took that!”

“Went—­but where is he?  I suppose he hasn’t been sent to San Quentin?”

“Oh, Martie, don’t!  You know Russell Harrison, ‘Dutch’s’ cousin, that used to play with Len, really was sent there!”

“For Heaven’s sake, what for?”

“Well, Hugh Wilson had some trouble with Paul King, and—­it was about money—­and Russell Harrison went to Hughie and told him—­”

So the conversation was diverted over and over again; and the inessential things were said, and the important ones forgotten.  Len had borrowed the firm’s motor car, and they all got in.  Martie, used to Wallace’s careless magnificence, was accustomed enough to this mode of travel, but she saw that it was a cause of great excitement to the children, and even to Sally.

“You say the ‘firm,’ Len—­I’ll never get used to my little brother with a moustache!  What do you mean by the ‘firm?’” asked Martie.  “My goodness—­goodness—­goodness, there’s the Library and Lacey’s!” she added, her eyes eagerly roving the streets.