So I looked my last on the
child Betty.
That was a lonely year. My occupation was gone and I began to
fear that I had outlived my usefulness. Life seemed flat, stale,
and unprofitable. Betty's weekly letters were all that lent it
any savor. They were spicy and piquant enough. Betty was
discovered to have unsuspected talents in the epistolary line.
At first she was dolefully homesick, and begged me to let her
come home. When I refused--it was amazingly hard to refuse--she
sulked through three letters, then cheered up and began to enjoy
herself. But it was nearly the end of the year when she wrote:
"I've found out why you sent me here, Stephen--and I'm glad you
did."
I had to be away from home on unavoidable business the day Betty
returned to Glenby. But the next afternoon I went over. I found
Betty out and Sara in. The latter was beaming. Betty was so
much improved, she declared delightedly. I would hardly know
"the dear child."
This alarmed me terribly. What on earth had they done to Betty?
I found that she had gone up to the pineland for a walk, and
thither I betook myself speedily. When I saw her coming down a
long, golden-brown alley I stepped behind a tree to watch her--I
wished to see her, myself unseen. As she drew near I gazed at
her with pride, and admiration and amazement--and, under it all,
a strange, dreadful, heart-sinking, which I could not understand
and which I had never in all my life experienced before--no, not
even when Sara had refused me.
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