The old Monroe house looked shabby, even in the spring green. Martie had seen the deeper, fresher green of the East for six successive springs. The eucalyptus trees wore their tassels, the willows' fresh foliage had sprung over the old rusty leaves. A raw gateway had been cut, out by the old barn, into Clipper Lane, and a driveway filled in. Tired, confused, train-sick, Martie got down into the old yard, and the old atmosphere enveloped her like a garment. The fuchsia bushes, the marguerites so green on top, so brown and dry under their crown of fresh life, the heliotrope sprawling against the peeling boards under the dining-room windows, and tacked in place with strips of kid glove--how well she knew them! They went in the side door, and through the dark dining room, odorous of vegetable soup and bread and butter. An unearthly quiet held the house. Pa's door was closed; Martie imagined the room darker and more grim than ever. Lydia had given her her old room; the room in which she and Sally had grown to womanhood. It was as clean and bare as a hotel room. Lydia and Sally had discussed the advisability of a bowl of flowers, but had decided flowers might remind poor Mart of funerals. Martie remembered the counterpane on the bed and the limp madras curtains at the windows. She put her gloves in a bureau drawer lined with folded newspaper, and hung her wraps in the square closet that was, for some unimaginable reason, a step higher than the room. Lydia sat on the bed, and Sally on a chair, while Martie slowly moved about her new domain. The children had gone into the yard, 'Lizabeth and Billy charged not to let their little cousin get his clothes dirty; when the trunks came, with his overalls, he could get as dirty as he pleased. The soiled, tumbled contents of the hand bag, after the five days' trip, filled Martie with a sort of weary concern. She stood, puzzling vaguely over the damp washcloth that was wrapped about a cake of soap, the magazines of which she had grown so tired, the rumpled night-wear. "I suppose I should hang these up; we may not get the trunks to-night." "Oh, you will!" Lydia reassured her. A certain blankness fell on them all. It was the glaring spring hour of four o'clock; not lunch time, nor dinner time, nor bed time, nor time to go to market. Suddenly a tear fell on Martie's hand; she sniffed. "Ah, don't, Mart!" Lydia said, fumbling for her own handkerchief. "We know--we know how hard it is! Your husband, and Ma not here to welcome you--" The sisters cried together. But she slept well in the old walnut bed, and enjoyed a delicious, unfamiliar leisure the next morning, when Teddy was turned out to the safety of the yard, and Pa, after paternally reassuring her as to her welcome and pompously reiterating that her old father's home was hers for the rest of her life, was gone. She and Lydia talked deeply over the breakfast table, while Pauline rattled dishes in the kitchen and a soft fog pressed against the windows.