Even when the editor’s brief, pleasant note was in her hand, three weeks later, and when she had banked the check for thirty-five dollars, Martie was not particularly thrilled.  It was so small a drop in the ocean of magazine reading—­it was so short a step toward independence!  She told Miss Fanny and Sally about it, and for a month or two watched the magazine for it.  Then she forgot it.

CHAPTER IV

She forgot it for a new dream.  For long before the tangled negotiations that surrounded the sale of the old Monroe place were completed, Martie’s thoughts were absorbed by a new and tremendous consideration:  Clifford Frost was paying her noticeable attention.

Monroe saw this, of course, before she did.  Without realizing it, Martie still kept a social gulf between herself and the Frost and Parker families.  They were the richest and most prominent people in the village, she was just one of the Monroe girls.  She was too busy, and too little given to thought of herself, to waste time on speculations of this nature.

More than that, Lydia’s deep resentment of the sale of the old home gave Martie food for thoughts of another nature.  Lydia never let the subject rest for an instant.  She came to the table red-eyed and sniffing.  It was no use to plant sweet-peas this year, it was no use to prune the roses.  Whether Lydia was sitting rocking on the side porch silently, through the spring twilight, or impatiently flinging a setting hen off the nest, with muttered observations concerning the senseless scattering of the Monroe family before that setting of eggs could be hatched, Martie felt her deep and angry disapproval.

It was several weeks, and April had clothed Monroe in buttercups and new grass, before Martie became aware that the name of Clifford Frost was frequently associated with Lydia’s long protests.

“I suppose it’s the new way of doing things,” she heard her sister saying one day.  “Delicacy—!  They don’t know what it is nowadays.  Do as you like—­run into a man’s office—­meet him on the steps after church—!”

Martie felt a sudden prick.  She had indeed gone more than once to Clifford’s office, and last Sunday she had indeed chanced to meet him after church—!

“Tear away old associations!” Lydia was continuing darkly.  “Slash—­ chop—­nothing matters!  I know I am old-fashioned,” she added, with a sort of violent scorn.  “But I declare it makes me laugh to remember how dignified I was—­Ma used to say that it was born in me to hold aloof!  A man had to say something pretty definite before I was willing to fling myself into his arms!  And what’s the result, I’m an old maid—­and I have myself to thank!”

“Lyddy, darling, what are you driving at?”

The sisters were at supper together, on a warm spring Sunday.  Martie, removing from his greasy little hand a chop-bone that Teddy had chewed white, looked up to see that her sister’s face was pale, and her eyes reddened with tears.  Cornered, Lydia took refuge in pathos.