now, when she had youth and plenty, what would it be when Pa was
gone?

It was all dark, confusing, baffling, to ignorant, untrained
nineteen. The sense of time passing, of opportunities unseen and
ungrasped, might well make Martie irritable, restless, and reckless.
Happiness and achievement were to be bought, but she knew not with
what coinage.

To-day the darkness had been shot by a gleam of living light.
Through Rodney Parker's casual gallantries Martie's eyes looked into
a new world. It was a world of loving, of radiant self-confidence
and self-expression. Martie saw herself buying gowns for the
wedding, whisking in and out of Monroe's shops, stopped by
affectionate and congratulatory friends. She was dining at Mrs.
Barker's, dignified, and yet gracious and responsive, too. Dear old
Judge Parker was being courteous to her; Mrs. Parker advising
Rodney's young wife. There were grandchildren running over the old
place. Martie remembered the big rooms from long-ago red-letter days
of her childhood. How she would love her home, and what a figure of
dignity and goodness Mrs. Rodney Parker would be in the life of the
town.

Oh, dear God--it was not so much to ask! People were getting married
all the time; Rodney Parker must marry some one. Lydia was unwed,
Sally had no lover; but out of so rich and full a world could not so
much be spared to Martie? Oh, how good she would be, how generous to
Pa and the girls, how kind to Ida and May!

Martie bowed her head on her knees. If this one thing might come her