An hour passed, and with it her
bitterness. She no longer felt that she must leave Webster Hall. But she
remembered her duties, and regretfully asked him to land her.
"Well, if I must," he said. "But I'm sorry, and we'll do it again some
day. I'm awfully obliged to you for coming."
"Obliged to me?--you?" she said, as he helped her to shore. "Oh, you
don't know--" And laughing lightly, she went rapidly up the path to the
house.
Miss Webster was standing on the veranda. Her brows were together in an
ugly scowl.
"Well!" she exclaimed. "So you go gallivanting about with boys in your
old age! Aren't you ashamed to make such an exhibition of yourself?"
Abby felt as if a hot palm had struck her face. Then a new spirit, born
of caressed vanity, asserted itself.
"Wouldn't you have done the same if you had been asked?" she demanded.
Miss Webster turned her back and went up to her room. She locked the
door and burst into tears. "I can't help it," she sobbed, helplessly.
"It's dreadful of me to hate Abby after all these years; but--those
terrible thirty! I'd give three of my millions to be where she is. I
used to think she was old, too. But she isn't. She's young! Young!--a
baby compared to me.
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