among those dressed-up girls. She would drop something, surely, feeling like this. Oh, why had she been led to come to a scene like this? Why did they have things of this sort anyway? There was no worship in it, and what else could people want of it? How terrible those girls had been. Cruel and terrible. And Isabel Cresson, how she had changed and coarsened. Her lips and cheeks were painted. What a difference it made in her. She used to be a pretty girl with lovely golden curly hair, and now it was all cut off, close, like a boy's. That might be pretty on some people, perhaps, but Isabel looked too big and old for it.
Marion's pale cheeks were flushed now, and her tired eyes bright with distress. She had never had quite such an experience as this, being turned down by an old schoolmate. One who had been under obligation to her, too. In the old days. What was the trouble? Wasn't she dressed right?
She glanced down at her plain brown dress, made in the fashion of two years ago. It was still fresh and good, but of course the fashion was behind the times. Why hadn't she realized that she needed to furbish up her wardrobe before going out into the world? She must attend to that before she went anywhere, even to church again. But what kind of people were they all to look down on an old acquaintance just because she was oddly dressed? She had been shut away from the world so long that she had got far away from the sense of worldliness. How odd it was that just dress made so much difference. And what a silly she was. Was she going to cry right there in the church before all those people? Oh, Jennie and Tom had been all wrong! She was not fit to go out anywhere. She was all tired out and needed to stay at home and rest and just be quiet.
She was edging her way through the merry crowds toward the church kitchen now, hoping to make her excuses and get away, when the minister loomed In her way and greeted her with a royal smile, and his wife put a comforting arm around her and began talking In a low tone saying dear things about her father; telling her just how she had felt when her father was taken away. The tight lines of suffering around Marion's delicate lips relaxed a little and she began to look almost happy. Then with a swoop Mrs. Shuttle, the chairman of the entertainment committee arrived:
"Well, here you are at last, Marion Warren!" she exclaimed in a loud voice that made Marion shrink. ''We've been looking all over the place for you. We want you terribly in the kitchen right away. The woman we hired to wash dishes hasn't come yet. She's always late nowadays. She's got a little baby and can't leave early, and we find the Christian Endeavor used the glasses and ice cream plates at their last social and just left them in the closet dirty! Isn't that the limit ? Something ought to be done about that. And see, we're almost ready to serve and not enough ice-cream plates nor glasses. You wouldn't mind washing a few for us would you, Marion? I told them I thought you wouldn't. We're almost wild back there in the kitchen. Come on! "
So Marion vanished into the kitchen and was presently established at the church sink washing dishes. Of course she could wash dishes. She had done that all her life. It was much less embarrassing than being out there in the other room being made to feel as if she came out of the ark. Yes, she was glad to wash dishes. 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 beside 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 tray full was landed on the table beside her, and did not groan nor 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 strait 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 wouldn't have stayed," said Jennie indignantly. "What do they think you are ? A servant? I wouldn't go to that church any more 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 to-morrow 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 yell."
Marion stood in the hall where she had been when Jennie called to her and stared at the pattern of the wall paper 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 were wanting 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 tired and sick she was 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 so to sleep again, with a dull, vague realization that she must get up pretty soon and get breakfast for Tom.
CHAPTER III
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 dish-pans 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
