“Marcia, Marcia! You hadn't ought to! It's ridiculous!” she protested. But she suffered herself to be thrust out of the room, grateful for exile, in which she could collect her scattered wits and set herself to realize the fact that had dispersed them. It was decorous, also, for her to leave Marcia alone with Mr. Hubbard, far more so now than when he was merely company; she felt that, and she fumbled over the dressing she was sent about, and once she looked out of her chamber window at the office where Mr. Gaylord sat, and wondered what Mr. Gaylord (she thought of him, and even dreamt of him, as Mr. Gaylord, and had never, in the most familiar moments, addressed him otherwise) _would_ say! But she left the solution of the problem to him and Marcia; she was used to leaving them to the settlement of their own difficulties. “Now, Bartley,” said Marcia, in the business-like way that women assume in such matters, as soon as the great fact is no longer in doubt, “you must help me to set the table. Put up that leaf and I'll put up this. I'm going to do more for mother than I used to,” she said, repentant in her bliss. “It's a shame how much I've left to her.” The domestic instinct was already astir in her heart. Bartley pulled the table-cloth straight from her, and vied with her in the rapidity and exactness with which he arranged the knives and forks at right angles beside the plates. When it came to some heavier dishes, they agreed to carry them turn about; but when it was her turn, he put out his hand to support her elbow: “As I did last night, and saved you from dropping a lamp.” This made her laugh, and she dropped the first dish with a crash. “Poor mother!” she exclaimed. “I know she heard that, and she'll be in agony to know which one it is.” Mrs. Gaylord did indeed hear it, far off in her chamber, and quaked with an anxiety which became intolerable at last. “Marcia! Marcia!” she quavered, down the stairs, “what _have_ you broken?” Marcia opened the door long enough to call back, “Oh, only the old blue-edged platter, mother!” and then she flew at Bartley, crying, “For shame! For shame!” and pressing her hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. “She'll hear you, Bartley, and think you're laughing at her.” But she laughed herself at his struggles, and ended by taking him by the hand and pulling him out into, the kitchen, where neither of them could be heard. She abandoned herself to the ecstasy of her soul, and he thought she had never been so charming as in this wild gayety. “Why, Marsh! I never saw you carry on so before!” “You never saw me engaged before! That's the way all girls act--if they get the chance. Don't you like me to be so?” she asked, with quick anxiety. “Rather!” he replied.