But suddenly above this monotonous scene Martie noticed a dull glow that grew rosier and steadier as the early evening deepened. Up against the first early stars the lights of New York climbed in a wide bar of pink and gold, flung a quivering bar of red. She was back again! Back in the great city. She belonged once more to the seething crowds in the Ghetto, to the cool arcades between the great office buildings, to Broadway with its pushing crowds of shoppers, to the Bronx teeming with tiny shops and swung with the signs of a thousand apartments to let. The hotels, with their uniformed starters, the middle Forties, with their theatrical boarding-houses, the tiny experimental art shops and tea shops and gift shops that continually appear and disappear among the basements of old brown-stone houses--she was back among them all! Tears of joy and excitement came to her eyes. She pressed her face eagerly beside the child's face at the window. "Look down, Ted, that's the East Side, dear, with all the children playing; do you remember? And see all the darling awnings flapping!" "I shouldn't wonder if we should have an electric storm!" said Teddy, finding the old phrase easily, his warm little cheek against hers. "We're back in New York, Teddy! We're home again!" She was gathering her things together. A thought smote her, and she paused with suddenly colouring cheeks. This might so easily have been her wedding-trip; she and Clifford might have been together now. Poor Clifford, with his stiffly moving brain and his platitudes! She hoped he would marry some more grateful woman some day. What a Paradise opening for Lydia if he could ever fancy her again! Martie spent a moment in wonder as to what the story given Monroe would be. She had mailed a letter to Lydia, and one to Clifford, during that last, quiet, foggy morning--letters written after the packing had been done on that last night. She had suggested that Monroe be given a hint that business had taken Mrs. Bannister suddenly eastward. It would be a nine days' wonder; in six months Monroe would only vaguely remember it. Gossips might suspect the truth: they would never know it. Clifford himself, in another year, would be placidly implying that there never had been anything in the rumour of an engagement. Rose would dimple and shake her head; Martie was always just a little ODD. Lydia would confide to Sally that she was just sick for fear that Dryden man--and Sally, sternly inspecting Jimmy's little back for signs of measles, would quote Joe. Joe ALWAYS thought Martie would make good, and Joe wasn't one bit sorry she had done as she had. Dr. Ben would defend her, too, for on that sudden impulsive call she had let her full heart thank him for all his fatherly goodness to her beloved Sally, and had told him what she was doing. "Mark ye, if you was engaged to me, ye wouldn't jump the traces like this!" the old man had assured her.