truest proverb that ever was made. She was heartbroken.

xv

There was no question of seeing May or calling upon Mrs. Perce. Sally
was beaten. She was full of expostulations and arguments, but all were
addressed to Toby, and she could not have borne any other society. So
she wandered about the streets for an hour, miserably aware that once or
twice she was followed by an aimless strolling youth who did not know
how to occupy a lonely evening and who yet was too much of a coward to
address her. In her mind she went over every detail of her friendship
with Toby. It had become suddenly unreal, like a thing that had happened
years before. And yet the throb of pain belonging to her sense of his
cruelty was immediate. Every detail was clear to her; and the whole was
blurred. He was a stranger; and yet his presence would at once have
given life to her memories. They had been written, as it were, in
invisible ink, which needed only the warmth of a fire to produce their
message vividly once again. Sally sobbed from time to time; but she was
no longer crying. Her pain was too deep to be relieved by tears, which
with her were the result of weakness, since she was not naturally
liquid. And as the memory was exhausted in its evocation she began to
think as of old. Her quick brain was recovering its sway. She was no
longer an overwrought child. And yet when she strove to plan a
discomfiture for Toby, who had so wickedly hurt her, she shrank from
that also; so it was still a restless and undetermined Sally who
returned home to find her mother dozing by the feeble warmth of a dying
fire.

The next day passed in a variety of moods, and in the evening Sally
found in herself the determination to call upon Mrs. Perce. She had
explained her non-arrival of the previous night to May, and had removed
her grievance with a recital of all she had done during the stolen day.
She had endured Miss Jubb's sour scrutiny of her hair, which was
accomplished without comment. And she had almost, but not quite, told
Miss Jubb of her proposed change. At times her courage was very nearly
high enough, but it never reached the necessary point, or the
opportunity was ruined at the vital moment by some interruption. So Miss
Jubb worked innocently, not guessing the blow that was to fall. That it
would be a serious blow only Sally suspected. Miss Jubb had never even
supposed it possible that Sally would leave her. The three of them spent
the day in the littl