She would rather wash dishes than serve. Much! Oh, much! This was what she said when it was discovered that the woman with the little baby did not arrive at all and that many more dishes besides the glasses and ice-cream plates would have to be washed before the evening was over.

So Marion stayed in the kitchen and washed dishes the rest of the evening, and rejoiced that she was not called upon to go back into the big room and be looked at. Never, never, never would she come to anything again till she made sure she was dressed just right! And never would she come at all just for pleasure.

Marion did not even eat any ice cream. The thought of it was revolting to her. She felt cold and hot and wanted to cry, but she washed dishes faithfully all the evening and smiled when each new trayful was landed on the table beside her and did not groan or complain and was rewarded at the end by commendation from Mrs. Shuttle.

“Oh, Marion, you’ve been just wonderful! I can’t thank you enough! You love to wash dishes, don’t you? You make dish washing a fine art, don’t you? Now, you really do! I wish you would come every time and help us. We’ll remember you when we get in a pinch again.”

“It’s a small thing to do,” said Marion, trying not to let her voice sound weary.

“And will you really come and help us again?”

“Why, surely,” said Marion, “if you need me,” and resolved if she did, that she would enter by the back door and not go at all into the main room. It was all well enough to serve the Lord in the church by washing dishes if she was needed, but there was no law at all either moral or spiritual to compel her to force herself on the church socially. She would never do it again.

So Marion went home at half past eleven, having wiped and set up the last hundred glasses and spoons herself, and let herself in at the front door with her latch key, and hoped that Jennie had gone to bed.

But Jennie was very much awake. She called down from the head of the stairs.

“Mercy! What kept you so late? Did you have a good time? You must have, to stay so long. Did anyone come home with you?”

“I was washing dishes,” said Marion wearily. “No, I didn’t have an especially good time. I stayed because the dishes had to be washed. No, no one came home with me. The janitor offered to, but I told him it wasn’t necessary.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t have stayed,” said Jennie indignantly. “What do they think you are? A servant? I wouldn’t go to that church anymore if I were you. There are other churches. Anyway, perhaps we’re not going to stay here much longer. Tom’s heard of a farm for sale up in New England. He’s taking the New York express tomorrow at six. We’ll have to get breakfast by five. You better get right up to bed or you won’t wake up. I can’t be depended on to do much, you know, because the baby is sure to wake up and cry.”

Marion stood in the hall where she had been when Jennie called to her and stared at the pattern of the wallpaper dazedly as she heard Jennie shut her door with a click and snap off her light. So that was the next thing that she was going to be confronted by, was it? They were going to try to go away. They wanted to sell the house and go away from the only spot on earth that was dear to her!

She went over and sat down on the lower step of the stairs and put her face down in her hands and thought how she was tired and sick of it all, and how wonderful it would be if she could just slip away and go where her father had gone.

After a few minutes she got up sadly, locked the front door, turned out the light, and went up to her room. After taking off her hat and coat, she dropped upon her knees by her bed and let her heart cry out to God.

“Oh, God! What am I going to do? How am I going to bear it? Won’t you take care of me?”

Praying thus, she fell asleep upon her knees, and woke hours later, stiff and chilly, to creep under the covers shivering and go to sleep again, with a dull, vague realization that she must get up pretty soon and get breakfast for Tom.

Chapter 3

The light had been turned out in the kitchen to save electricity while they ate supper, and Marion Warren did not turn it on when she slipped away from the table with her hands full of dishes. She did not wish to have anyone see the trouble in her face. By the light that came through the open door, she scraped the dishes quietly and filled her dishpans without much noise, that she might hear what her brother was saying.

Tom Warren was a large man with heavy movements and a voice to correspond. His sister had no difficulty in hearing it above the subdued clatter of the dishes.

He had arrived home but an hour before from the trip to Vermont, where he had gone to look at a farm that was for sale at a low price. The days of his absence had been a time of anxiety for his sister, and of eager expectations for his wife.