Rodney Parker was not quite familiar with this well-established
precedent. His sisters were not enough of the village to be asked
either to walk or drive with the local swains, and he had been away
for several years. For two Sundays he walked with Martie, and then
he asked her to drive.

For the girl, these weeks were suffused with a tremulous and
ecstatic delight beyond definition, beyond words. What she would not
have dared to hope, she actually experienced. No need to boast
before Sally and Grace and Florence Frost. They saw: the whole
village saw.

Martie bloomed like a rose. She forgot everything--Pa, Len, the
gloomy home, the uncertain future--for joy. That her old hat was
shabby and her clothes inappropriate meant nothing to Martie;
ignorant, unhelped, she stumbled on her way alone. Nobody told her
to pin her bronze braids more trimly, to keep her brilliant skin
free from the muddying touch of sweets and pastries, to sew a hook
here and catch a looping hem there. Nobody suggested that she
manicure her fine big hands, or use some of her endless leisure to
remove the spots from her blue silk dress.

More; the family dared take only a stealthy interest in Martie's
affair, because of Malcolm's extraordinary perversity and Len's
young scorn. Malcolm, angered by Lydia's fluttered pleasure in the
honour Rodney Parker was doing their Martie, was pleased to assume a
high and mighty attitude. He laughed heartily at the mere idea that
the attentions of Graham Parker's son might be construed as a
compliment to a Monroe, and sarcastically rebuked Lydia when, on a
Sunday afternoon, she somewhat stealthily made preparations for tea.