“Pa said at noon that you had ’phoned you wanted to come say good-bye,” said her mother mildly.  “I hope you’ll always be happy, Martie, and remember that we did our best for you.  If you’re a good girl, and write some day and ask Pa’s forgiveness, I think he may come ’round, because he was always a most affectionate father to his children.”

The toneless, lifeless voice ceased.  Martie kissed Lydia’s unresponsive warm cheek, and her mother’s flat soft one.  She walked quickly down the old garden, through the still rich green, and smelled, as she had smelled a thousand times before, the velvety sweetness of wallflowers.  As she went, she heard her sister say, in a quick, low tone: 

“Look, Ma—­there’s Angela Baxter with that man again.  I wonder who on earth he is?”

CHAPTER III

The big train moved smoothly.  Martie, her arm laid against the window, felt it thrill her to her heart.  She smiled steadily as she watched the group on the platform, and Sally, Joe, and all the others who had come to say good-bye smiled steadily back.  Sometimes they shouted messages; but they all were secretly anxious for the train to move, and Martie, for all her smiling and nodding, was in a fever to be gone.

They vanished; all the faces she knew.  The big train slid through Monroe.  Martie had a last glimpse of Mason and White’s—­of the bridge—­of the winery with its pyramids of sweet-smelling purple refuse.  Outlying ranches, familiar from Sunday walks and drives, slipped by.  Down near the old Archer ranch, Henry Prout was driving his mother into town.  The surrey and the rusty white horse were smothered in sulphurous dust.  It seemed odd to Martie that Henny was driving Mrs. Prout into town with an air of actual importance; Henny was clean, and the old lady had on cotton gloves and a stiff gray percale.  Yet they were only going to hot little Monroe.  Martie was going to New York!

All her life she remembered the novelty and delight of the trip.  Wallace was at his best; the new hat had its share in the happy recollection.  The dining car, the berths, the unchanging routine of the day—­all charmed her.

She watched her first thunder storm in Chicago with awed pleasure.  The hour came, when, a little jaded, feeling dirty and tumbled, feeling excited and headachy and nervous, Martie saw her neighbours in the car begin to straighten garments and gather small possessions.  They were arriving!

She was silent, as first impressions jumbled themselves together in her tired brain.  Wallace, at her elbow, was eager with information.

“Look, Mart—­this is the Grand Central.  They’re going to tear all this down!  Look—­that’s the subway—­those hoods, where the people are going down!  See over that way—­this is Forty-Second Street, one of the biggest cross-streets there is—­and over that way is Broadway!  We can’t take the subway, I wish we could—­you wait until you see the expresses!  But I’ll tell you what we’ll do, we’ll go over and take a ’bus, on the Avenue—­see, here’s a Childs’—­see, there’s the new Library!  Climb right up on the ’bus, if you get a chance, because then we can see the Park!”