But Jennie gave Marion very little time to meditate over these things. She seemed restlessly eager to keep something going all the time. At breakfast one morning she said to Marion:
"Marion, I don't see why you don't get out and see your friends now. There's nothing to hinder. Have a little company in and make the place lively. It will do you good. It's been so gloomy all the time Father was sick. Let's have some life now. Don't you want to ask some friends in to dinner or lunch or something?"
Marion roused from her sad thoughts to smile:
"Why, I guess not, Jennie. I don't know who I'd ask I'm sure. Nearly all my old school friends are married or gone away or interested in their own affairs. I really haven't seen any of them for so long they would think it queer if I hunted them out now. I never did go out much you know. When I was in school I was too busy, and after Mother got sick I had no time."
"Well, you're too young to get that way. You'll be an old maid before you know it. Tom, don't you think Marion ought to get out more? "
"Why, if she wants to," said Tom good-naturedly. " Marion always was kind of quiet."
"Now, Tom, that's no way to talk. You know Marion ought to get out among young folks and have good times. She's been mewed up too long."
But the tears suddenly came into Marion's eyes and her lip quivered:
"Don't, please, Jennie! " she protested. "I wasn't mewed up. I loved to be with Father."
"Oh, of course," said Jennie sharply, " we all know you were a good daughter and all that. You certainly deserve a lot of praise. But you owe it to yourself to go out more now. It isn't right. Shut up in a city house. If we only lived out in the country now it would be different."
Marion didn't quite see why the country would be any better but she tried to answer pleasantly:
"Well, Jennie, I am going back and take my old Sunday School class if they still need me. I had thought of that."
"Oh, a Sunday School class! " sniffed Jennie.
"Well, if that pleases you, of course. But I should think you'd want to get in with some nice young folks again. My land! this house is as silent as the tomb! Why, I had lots of friends in Port Harris before we came here to be with you. They would run in every day, and we'd telephone a lot in between. They do that in the country or in a small town. But in a city nobody comes near you. They aren't friendly."
"I suppose you are lonely, Jennie,'' said Marion apologetically. " I hadn't realized it, I have been so occupied ever since you came."
"Oh, I'm never lonely," said Jennie, tossing her head. " I'm thinking of you. I could be alone with my house and my children from morning to night and never mind it. It's you I'm worrying about."
Marion looked at her sister-in-law in mild surprise. It was so new for Jennie to care what became of her. Jennie had manifested very little interest in her during the years she had been living with them. What had got into Jennie ?
When they came to clean the den Jennie insisted upon doing it herself, saying she thought it would be too hard for Marion yet awhile, it would remind her of her father too much. Marion tried to protest, but when she got up the next morning she found that Jennie had arisen before her and finished cleaning the room entirely, so that there was nothing left for Marion to do in there. She stood for a moment looking around on the bare room with its book-lined walls, its desk and worn old chair, and the little upholstered chair where she used to sit by her father's side and study her lessons in the dear old days when he was well and she was still in school. Then she dropped into the desk chair with her head down on the desk, and cried for a minute.
A wish came into her heart that she might have her house to herself for a little while. Just a little while. Of course it was nice of Jennie to be willing to come there and do the work all these years while there had been sickness. Of course Jennie had given up things to come. She had come away off from her own father and mother who lived up in Vermont, and she had not liked the city very well. But oh, if she just wouldn't take things into her own hands quite so much and try to make her sister do everything she thought she ought. If she only hadn't come into this sacred room and done the cleaning! It seemed to Marion that the spirit of the room had been hurt by such unsympathetic touches as Jennie would have given.
But that was silly of course! So Marion raised her head and wiped her eyes and summoned a smile to go out and help Nannie wash the breakfast dishes, but somehow day after day the strange, hurt feeling-grew in her heart, that all the precious things of her soul life were being commonized by Jennie, yet Jennie was doing it out of kindness to her. If only there were some way to let Jennie know without hurting her feelings. Marion was gentle and shy and couldn't bear to hurt people's feelings.
Then Marion began to think about what Jennie had said. Perhaps she ought to get out more. Perhaps she ought to hunt up her old friends.
So she went to church the next Sabbath. She had always loved to go to church, but it had been so long since she had been able to leave her father and go, that it seemed strange now to her to be sitting alone in the old seat where she and Father had sat.
She had dreaded this and had even ventured to suggest to Tom that perhaps he would go with her. Jennie had declined most decidedly. She couldn't leave the baby. But Tom said he had to see a man who had some property for sale and he wanted to find out about it. So she had to come alone.
But it was good to be there again, after all, in spite of the loneliness, and she had a feeling that her father would be pleased she had gone.
The minister came down and spoke to her kindly. He asked if she wouldn't come back and take her old Sunday School class again. One of the ladies came over and asked her if she wouldn't come out to the Mite Society social and help wait on the folks, they had so much trouble getting girls to come and be waitresses.
Marion agreed to come although she shrank tremendously from it. But it was something she could do, of course, and she felt she ought not to refuse. Jennie was most enthusiastic about it and offered to go with her, but when the evening came Jennie had a cold and so she had to go alone.
As she entered the big Sunday School room where the social was to be held she had an instant of hesitation. It seemed to her she could not go through a long evening all alone with strangers. She had always been a shy girl, and her five years of service caring for Mother and then Father had made her still more so. She was at home among books, not humans. If her books could have come alive and been present at that gathering, how gladly would she have walked in and conversed with their characters, one by one, thrilled by the thought of meeting those she knew so well. But a lot of people frightened her. She liked to be on the outside of things and watch. She loved to weave stories to herself about people, but to have to move among them and make conversation was terrible. She had purposely come late to avoid having to sit and talk a long while with someone while people were gathering.
But a group of merry girls was coming in behind her and she hated to have them stare at her, so she hurried in and took off her coat and hat in the ladies' parlor which was already well decorated with hats and wraps.
The bevy of eager girls entered just as she turned to go out, shouting and laughing, gay in bright-colored dresses, combing their bobbed locks,