“Oh, Sally Price Hawkes!  Look at the children, and look at Joe, covering himself with glory!”

“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.

“I like civic pride,” Martie, who was rambling on in her old inconsequential way, presently added, “but Rod is merely smug.  I happened to mention some building in New York—­I didn’t know what to talk to the man 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 lead the world, Martie, you can’t get away from it.  Do you suppose I’d stay here one moment if I didn’t think that there is a better chance of making money right here to-day than anywhere else in the world?’”

She had caught his tone, and Sally disrespectfully laughed.

“Well, I know he is one of our most prominent young men, and Rose was president of the club, and I suppose we less fortunate people can talk all we please, they’ll be just that much better off than we are!” Lydia said with a little edge to her voice.

“Because his father is rich, Lyd.  If it wasn’t for the dear old Judge, who pioneered and mined and planned and foresaw, where would Rod be to-day, telling me that he thought it best that Rose should nurse the baby, and that he does this and thinks that?”