She did not see much of the young Parkers after that, nor did she expect to be counted among their intimate friends.  She began to drift into the public kindergarten in the mornings, to help Miss Malloy with the unruly babies.  And she missed Sally more every day.

Sally and Joe had gone to Pittsville immediately after their wedding; Joe having received a dazzling offer of forty dollars a month for two summer months from the express company there.

But when Sally had been married six weeks, Martie heard her voice one day when the younger sister was passing the Hawkes’s house.  Instantly she entered the gate, her heart beating high.  Sally’s dear, unforgettable voice!  And Sally’s slender shoulders and soft, loose hair!

The girls were in each other’s arms, laughing and crying as they clung together.  Martie thought she had never seen her sister look so well, or seem so sweet and gay.  There were a thousand questions on each side to ask; Martie poured out the home news.  Sally and Joe were housekeeping in three rooms, and it was more fun!  And Sally really cooked him wonderful dinners; his father and mother had come over to one, and wasn’t it good?  Mrs. Hawkes enthusiastically agreed.

Of course, they had hardly anything, bubbled Sally, only two saucepans and one frying pan and the coffee pot.  But it was more fun!  And in the evenings they walked around Pittsville, and went to the ten-cent theatre, or bought candy and divided it.  Couldn’t Martie come some time to dinner?

“Pa,” said Martie simply.  Sally’s bright face clouded.  She sent a kiss to Ma and darling Lyd.  She and Joe would come back to Monroe in September, and then she would come see Pa and make him forgive her.  Tell him she still loved him!

Martie delivered none of these airy messages.  She secretly marvelled at the happiness that could blind Sally to a memory of Pa, and Pa’s stubbornness.

“Listen, Martie,” said Sally, when for a moment the sisters were alone, “it wasn’t so sudden as you think, my marrying Joe!” She stopped, interrupted by some thought, and added impulsively, “Isn’t it strange, Mart, that we might have missed each other; it makes us both just Shiver to think of it!  Well”—­and with a visible effort the little wife brought herself down from a roseate cloud to realities again—­“if—­if Lyd had married Cliff Frost,” she said uncertainly, “I never should have dared marry Joe!”

“Or if I had married Rodney Parker, Sally?” Martie added steadily.

“Well—­” The colour flew to Sally’s face.  “As it was,” she went on a little hurriedly, “I just—­couldn’t bear to go on and on, it made me desperate!  And I thought Pa and Ma’s way is no good, our house never seems to have much happiness in it—­and I’m going to get out!  There never was a place like this for good times, and babies, and jokes, and company to dinner!” smiled Sally, looking about the Hawkeses’ parlour triumphantly.