Soon winter was upon them in good earnest, and Rose's visits
"home," as she always called it, were naturally infrequent. By
Christmas time, she was receiving attentions from Frank Mall,
Nellie's second son, a young farmer of twenty-five.

To Mrs. Wade's everlasting credit, she never twitted Martin with
this, although she knew it from Rose's own lips, a month before
he heard of it through Bill. She was too grateful for their
narrow escape to feel vindictive and might have convinced herself
they had merely endured a bad nightmare if it had not been for
the shiny Victrola; the sight of it underscored the whole
experience and she wished there were some way to get rid of the
thing, a wish that was echoed even more fervently by Martin. In
the evenings they would sit around the cleared supper table, she
doing odd jobs of mending, Martin reading, checking up the
interest dates on his mortgages or making entries in his account
book, while Bill at his books, would study to the accompaniment
of record after record, blissfully unconscious of what a thorn in
the flesh he and his music were to both his parents.

It was all so unpleasant. To Mrs. Wade it brought up pictures.
And it made Martin feel sheepish--the way he had felt that
afternoon, decades ago, as he sat in the bakery eating a
chocolate ice-cream soda and watching her walk across the Square.
He would have told Bill to quit playing it--more than once the
sharp words were on his tongue--but memories of the enthusiasm he
had evinced the night he brought it home kept him silent. He was
afraid of what the boy might say, afraid he might put two and two
together, so he let it stay, although with his usual caution he