But it isn't to be."
"Thanks to your stepma's wheedling and Mark Foster's scheming,"
said I.
"No, Mark didn't scheme," she said patiently. "Don't be unjust
to Mark, Aunt Rachel. He has been very good and kind."
"He's as stupid as an owlet and as stubborn as Solomon's mule," I
said, for I WOULD say it. "He's just a common fellow, and yet he
thinks he's good enough for my beauty."
"Don't talk about Mark," she pleaded again. "I mean to be a
good, faithful wife to him. But I'm my own woman yet--YET--for
just a few more sweet hours, and I want to give them to HIM. The
last hours of my maidenhood--they must belong to HIM."
So she talked of him, me sitting there and holding her, with her
lovely hair hanging down over my arm, and my heart aching so for
her that it hurt bitter. She didn't feel as bad as I did,
because she'd made up her mind what to do and was resigned. She
was going to marry Mark Foster, but her heart was in France, in
that grave nobody knew of, where the Huns had buried Owen
Blair--if they had buried him at all. And she went over all they
had been to each other, since they were mites of babies, going to
school together and meaning, even then, to be married when they
grew up; and the first words of love he'd said to her, and what
she'd dreamed and hoped for. The only thing she didn't bring up
was the time he thrashed Mark Foster for bringing her apples.
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