Then she set about making a bit of blaze, or a great deal of smoke in the little imp of a stove. The stove was small and cracked and rusty, and could smoke like a furnace. What a contrast to the glowing coal-grate where Flossy at this hour toasted her pretty cheeks. Yet Marion, in her way, was less dismal than Flossy in hers. It was not in Marion's nature to shed any tears; instead, she hummed a few notes of a glorious old tune triumphant in every note, trying this to rob herself of gloom and cheat herself into the belief that she was not very lonely, and that her life did not stretch out before her as a desolate thing. She did not mean to give herself up to glooming, though she did hover over the little stove and lean her cheek on her hand and look at nothing in particular for a few minutes. What she said when she rallied from the silence was simply: "What an abominable smoke you can make to be sure, Marion Wilbur, when you try. Hardly any one can compete with you in that line, at least." Then she drew her school reports toward her, intending to make them out for the week thus far, but she scribbled on the fly-leaf with her pencil instead. She wrote her own name, "Marion J. Wilbur," a pretty enough name. She smiled tenderly over the initial of "J"--nobody knew what that was for. Suppose the girls knew that it stood for "Josiah," her father's name; that he had named her, after the mother was buried, Marion--that after the mother, Josiah--that after the father, Wilbur--the dear name that belonged to them both; in this way fancying in his gentle heart that he linked this child to them both in a way that would be dear to her to remember. It was dear; she loved him for it; she thoroughly understood the feeling, but hardly any one else would. So she thought she had never given them a chance to smile over the queer name her father had given. She could smile herself, but she wanted no one else to do so. Then she wrote "Grace L. Dennis." What a pretty name that was. She knew what the "L" was for--Lawrence, the family name--Grace's mother's name. Her mother, too, had died when she was a wee baby. Gracie remembered her, though, and by that memory so much more did she miss her. Marion knew how that was by her remembrance of her father. All the same she would not have that blotted out, by so much richer was Gracie than herself, and then that living, loving father. Marion smiled over the folly of Grace Dennis considering her life a lonely one. "Yet, I presume she feels it, poor darling," she said aloud, and with a sigh. It was true that every heart knew its own bitterness.