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 from them. She knew that he had not written to his family to tell the train upon which he and she would arrive; and he had explained to her that, except by appointment, no driver met a train at Itanaca. If anyone wanted a car, he walked across the road to the Ford garage; but no one hired a car to go to the Methodist parsonage; at least, no Herrick ever did. The house was hardly a half mile from the station.

"Of course well walk," Fidelia said and she took from the porter her box of roses and the long, narrow package of the parasol. David picked up their suitcase and her huge basket of chocolates; the flush of his feeling for his father was gone. At any moment he might meet his father; or he might see his mother in Harder's or at the counter of the butcher shop selecting, with her scrupulous care, a good cut of cheap meat. But on the street he saw no one of his family. Many friends spoke to him and every one stared at Fidelia; several stopped him. "This is your wife, Dave?" they asked.

Every one knew he had been married; so his father must have told them; his father would not depute to any one else the task of telling his congregation that his son secretly had married a girl whom the family had not yet met. But Fidelia amazed them. No one was prepared to see David Herrick bring home a girl like her.

"They're nice people here," Fidelia said to him, when she and he walked on alone.

"Anybody ought to be nice to you!" David replied. She was kept flushed by the many meetings