“I knew it!  I knew it!  You can’t tell me!  I said so to Joe.  Oh, Mart, you old darling, I’m so glad—­I’m gladder than I can say!”

“Well, dear, I hope you’ll be just as happy as possible!” said Lydia’s wilted voice.  Martie kissed her cheek, and she returned the kiss.  “I can’t say I’m surprised, for nothing very much surprises me now,” Lydia went on.  “Cliff was simply heartbroken when Mary died, and he said then to Angela that there would never be another woman in his life, but of course we all know how much that means, and perhaps it’s better as it is.  I often wish I was constituted as most people seem to be nowadays—­forget, and rush on to something else; that’s the idea!  But I hope you’ll be very happy, Martie; you’ll certainly have everything in the world to make you happy, but that doesn’t always do it, of course.  I believe I’ll take these letters of Ma’s to Aunt Sally downstairs; they might get mixed in with the others and burned.  I suppose I’m not much in the mood for weddings and jollifications now, what with all this change bringing back—­our loss.  If other people can be happy, I hope they will; but sometimes I feel that I’ll be glad to get out of it all!  I’ll leave you two girls to talk wedding, and if you need me again, call me.”

“Isn’t she the limit!” Sally said indignantly, when Lydia had trailed away.  “Just when you’re so happy!  For Heaven’s sake tell me all about it, and when it’s going to be, and how it began, and everything!”

Martie was glad to talk.  She liked to hear Sally’s praise of Cliff; she had much to praise in him herself.  She announced a quiet wedding; indeed they were not going to spread the news of the engagement until all their plans were made.  Perhaps a week or two before the event they would tell a few intimate friends, and be safely away on their honeymoon before the village was over the first gasp.

“Don’t mind Lyd,” Sally said consolingly.  “She’ll have a grand talk with Pa, and feel martyred, and talk it over with Lou and Clara, and come to the conclusion that it’s all for the best.  Poor Lyd, do you remember how she used to laugh and dance about the house when we were little?  Do you remember the Spider-web Party?”

“Do you remember the pink dress, Sally?  I used to think Lyd was the loveliest thing in creation in that dress!”

Sally was flushed and dimpling; she was not listening.

“Mart!  I think it’s the most exciting thing—!  Shall you tell Teddy?”

“Sally, I don’t dare.”  A shadow fell across Martie’s bright face.  In these days she was wistfully tender and gentle with her son.  Teddy would not always be first in her consideration; there might be serious rivals some day.  Life was changing for little unconscious Teddy.

He would not remember his father, and the little sister laughing in her high-chair, and the cold, dirty streets, and the shabby, silent mother with her busy, tired hands and her frozen heart.  It was all gone, like a dream of struggle and shame, love and hate, joy and suffering.