"Len's first little suit," Lydia mused. "Dear me--dear me! And this old table-cover; I remember when that was new! And here are Aunt Carrie's things; she sent Ma a great box of them when she died; look, Sally, the old-fashioned sleeves with fibre-chamois in them! This box is full of hats; this was my Merry Widow hat; it was always so pretty I hated to destroy it, but I suppose it really isn't much good! I wonder if some poor woman could use it. And these are all old collars of Pa's and Len's--it seems a shame to throw them away. I wonder if we could find some one who wears this size? Martie, don't throw that coat over there in the pile for the fire--it's a good piece of serge, and that cape style may come in again!" Absorbed and interested, the three worked among memories. Sometimes for an hour at a time there was silence in the attic. Martie, with a faded pink gingham dress spread across her lap, would be eight again, trotting off to school with Sally, and promising Ma to hold Len's hand when they crossed Main Street. How clean and trim, how ready for the day, she had felt, when her red braid was tied with a brown ribbon, and this little garment firmly buttoned down the back, and pressed with a great sweep of Ma's arms to crush the too stiffly starched skirt! Sally observed amusedly, perhaps a little pityingly, that Lydia wanted everything. There was nothing in the old house for which Lydia did not expect to have immediate need in the new. This little table for the porch, this extra chair for the maid's room, this mirror, this mattress, this ladder. The older sister reserved enough furniture to fill the new house twice over; she would presently pack the new rooms with cumbersome, useless possessions, and go to her death believing herself the happier for having them. CHAPTER V The Eastern editor who had taken her first article presently wrote her again. Martie treasured his letter with burning, secret pride, and with perhaps a faint, renunciatory pang. She had pushed in her opening wedge at last, too late! For no trifling literary success could change the destined course of Mrs. Clifford Frost. This was the letter: DEAR MRS. BANNISTER: We are constantly receiving more letters from women who read "Give Her A Job," and find that what you had to say upon an apparently well-worn subject struck a most responsive chord. Can you not give us another two thousand words upon this, or a similar subject? This type of article is always most welcome. That was all. But it inspired Martie to try again. After all, even as a rich man's wife, she might amuse herself in this way as well as another.