of mind, I knew the things would fit
her, and I was more than glad to get rid of them. Also she didn't have
any of her own convenient, and she might as well be sensible. She was,
and put in her own tooth brush and powder and left the rest to me, and
by eleven o'clock everything was ready.

When the next day the news flew around that the marriage had taken
place and I had been the leading spirit in it, I went to bed and stayed
there until the town had finished chewing me up, and then I came out
again. It was the most sensible thing I ever did and saved a lot of
talk and argument.

Another reason I went to bed was because I was so homesick and so
lonely, and so something I had no name for, that I knew it was wiser to
be by myself. I can't be much in life, but I can keep from being a
nuisance, and when you feel you haven't a friend on earth outside of
your family, who sometimes are queer also, you're apt to be a trial to
those you come in contact with. For two whole days I stayed in my room
and thought of nothing but a big, brawny, domineering, dictating girl
from the West who was giving Billy no time to write letters; and though
I would die before I would let anybody know it, even Jess, I nearly
cried my eyes out under the bedclothes the day of the marriage.

Life is a poor thing at times. And it is never so poor as when you
think a friend has failed you. There was nothing on earth that could
have made me believe Billy would ever fail me when we had known each
other since children, and he had saved my life three or four times; but
how can I help believing it when he is letting a perfectly ordinary,
straight-haired, large-footed girl from the West make him forget that I
am living and spending the summer in Twickenham Town? If he had not
forgotten, would he not write? He would. I am miserable and I will
never be happy until I can say some things to William Spencer Sloane
that he ought to hear. But I'm trying to keep my miserableness to
myself. People aren't interested in other people's miseries. I wonder
if I will ever again get a letter from Billy!

CHAPTER XXVII

It is a perfectly magnificent thing to be alive! And this world is a
perfectly glorious place to be alive in! There isn't a bird in
Twickenham Town that isn't singing to-day, or a flower that isn't
blooming, and, owing to the rain last night, the dust is laying. As
for the sun--there couldn't be a more shining one, and the sky is a
bl