“Oh—­I don’t know!  I suppose it’s just that I cannot seem to feel that one of those bare little houses in the Estates ever will seem like home,” faltered Lydia.  “You and Pa must do as you think best, of course—­you’re young and bright and full of life, and naturally you forget—­but I suppose I feel that Ma—­that Ma—!”

She left the table in tears, Martie staring rather bewilderedly after her.  Teddy gazed steadily at his mother, a question in his dark eyes.  He was not a talkative child, except occasionally, when she and he were alone, but they always understood each other.  To Martie he was the one exquisite and unalloyed joy in life.  His splendid, warm little person was at once the tie that bound her to the old days, and to the future.  Whatever that future might be, it would bring her nothing of which she could be so proud.  Nobody else might claim him; he was hers.

He suddenly smiled at her now, and slipping from the table with a great square of sponge cake in his hand, backed up to his mother to have his napkin untied.  He guarded his cake as best he could when his mother suddenly beset him with a general rumpling and kissing, and then slipped out into the yard as silently as a little rabbit.

But Martie sat on, musing, trying to catch the inference that she knew she had missed from Lydia’s tirades.  Lydia was furious about the sale of the house, of course—­but this new note—?

In a rush, comprehension came.  Alone in the dark old dining room, in the disorder of the Sunday suppertable, Martie’s cheeks were dyed a bright, conscious crimson.  Could Lydia mean—­could Lydia possibly be implying that Cliff—­that Cliff—?

For half an hour she sat motionless—­thinking.  The richest—­the most respected man in Monroe, and herself engaged to him, married to him.  But could it be true?

She began to remember, to recall and dissect and analyze her recent encounters with Clifford, and as she did so, again the warm girlish colour flooded her cheeks with June.  No questioning it, he had rather singled her out for his companionship of late.  Last Sunday, and the Sunday before, he had come to call—­once, most considerately, the girls thought, to show Pa the plans for the new High School, once to take Martie and Sally and the children driving.  Martie had sat next him on the front seat, during the drive, her black veil blowing free about her wide-brimmed hat, her blue eyes dancing with pleasure, and her cheeks rosy in the cool foggy air.

Well, she was widowed.  She was free to marry again.  It seemed strange to her that in eighteen months she had never once weighed the possibility.  She had pondered every other avenue open to women; she had considered this work and that, but marriage had not once crossed her mind.

She said to herself that she would not allow herself to think of it now, probably Clifford had never thought of it, and if he had, he was notoriously slow about making up his mind.  Her only course was to be friendly and dignified, and to meet the issue when it came.