Sally observed amusedly, perhaps a little pityingly, that Lydia wanted everything.  There was nothing in the old house for which Lydia did not expect to have immediate need in the new.  This little table for the porch, this extra chair for the maid’s room, this mirror, this mattress, this ladder.  The older sister reserved enough furniture to fill the new house twice over; she would presently pack the new rooms with cumbersome, useless possessions, and go to her death believing herself the happier for having them.

CHAPTER V

The Eastern editor who had taken her first article presently wrote her again.  Martie treasured his letter with burning, secret pride, and with perhaps a faint, renunciatory pang.  She had pushed in her opening wedge at last, too late!  For no trifling literary success could change the destined course of Mrs. Clifford Frost.

This was the letter: 

Dear Mrs. Bannister:  We are constantly receiving more letters from women who read “Give Her A Job,” and find that what you had to say upon an apparently well-worn subject struck a most responsive chord.  Can you not give us another two thousand words upon this, or a similar subject?  This type of article is always most welcome.

That was all.  But it inspired Martie to try again.  After all, even as a rich man’s wife, she might amuse herself in this way as well as another.

Between the move from the old house, her wedding plans, the claims of her husband-to-be, and the Library work, she was busy now, every instant of the day.  Yet she found time, as only a busy woman can, for writing, and put a new ardour into her attempts, because of the little beginning of encouragement.  Hoping and fearing, she presently sent a second article on its way.

One July evening she stayed rather late at the Library working on a report.  Clifford was delayed in Pittsville, and would not see her until after dinner; the rare opportunity was too precious to lose.  In a day or two all Monroe would know of her new plans:  in six weeks she would be Clifford’s wife.

When the orderly sheets had been put into a long envelope, Martie pinned on her white hat, and stepped into the level rays of sunset light that were pouring into Main Street.  The little fruit stand opposite seemed wilted in the heat; hot little summer breezes were tossing chaff and papers about the street.

Martie’s eyes instantly found an unexpected sight:  a low, rakish motor car drawn up to the curb.  She had not seen it before in Monroe, nor did she recognize the man who sat on the seat next the driver’s seat, with his hat pulled over his eyes.

The driver, a handsome big fellow of perhaps forty or more, had just jumped from the car, and now came toward her.  She smiled into a clever, unfamiliar face that yet seemed oddly recognizable.  He asked her something.