"
I bathed my eyes and hurried from the house to forget the thought, but it
followed everywhere. The rain had not stopped, but it suited me to be
drenched, to hold my face to the whiplash of the water snapped by the
wind. I went to Meg Van Dam, who had long urged me to pay her a visit.
This time I was ready to consent, for she at least was glad to have me;
and before I left her I had agreed to go to her.
It was dinner time when I reached home, glad that it was to be home to me
no longer; the house made me shudder as a dungeon might. It was so changed
since morning, seen now with different eyes. The dining room was so
heavily respectable, with its fussily formal arrangements--like Uncle, for
it's big; like Aunt, for it's crotchety.
I suppose there must have been a scene with Ned. Aunt Frank was depressed,
fitfully talkative. Milly scarcely spoke, but in the curtness with which
she turned her sullen head when poor Ethel asked some question, I wasn't
slow in finding a meaning.
Joy begged in vain for her nightly lullaby. I couldn't respond to her
"Thing, Cothin Nelly!" I'd never before noticed how like she is to her
sisters.
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