the ghost of wasted opportunities.

"I look awful, don't I?" she said at last with a happy sigh.

Ally smiled and took back the hat. "I'll stitch the roses on right here,
so's you can put it away at once."

Charity laughed, and ran her fingers through her rough dark hair.
She knew that Harney liked to see its reddish edges ruffled about her
forehead and breaking into little rings at the nape. She sat down on her
bed and watched Ally stoop over the hat with a careful frown.

"Don't you ever feel like going down to Nettleton for a day?" she asked.

Ally shook her head without looking up. "No, I always remember that
awful time I went down with Julia--to that doctor's."

"Oh, Ally----"

"I can't help it. The house is on the corner of Wing Street and Lake
Avenue. The trolley from the station goes right by it, and the day the
minister took us down to see those pictures I recognized it right off,
and couldn't seem to see anything else. There's a big black sign with
gold letters all across the front--'Private Consultations.' She came as
near as anything to dying...."

"Poor Julia!" Charity sighed from the height of her purity and her
security. She had a friend whom she trusted and who respected her.
She was going with him to spend the next day--the Fourth of July--at
Nettleton. Whose business was it but hers, and what was the harm? The
pity of it was that girls like Julia did not know how to choose, and to
keep bad fellows at a distance.... Charity slipped down from the bed, and
stretched out her hands.

"Is it sewed? Let me try it on again." She put the hat on, and smiled at
her image. The thought of Julia had vanished....

The next morning she was up before dawn, and saw the yellow sunrise
broaden behind the hills, and the silvery luster preceding a hot day
tremble across the sleeping fields.

Her plans had been made with great care. She had announced that she was
going down to the Band of Hope picnic at Hepburn, and as no one else
from North Dormer intended to venture so far it was not likely that her
absence from the festivity would be reported. Besides, if it were she
would not greatly care. She was determined to assert her independence,
and if she stooped to fib about the Hepburn picnic it was chiefly
from the secretive instinct that made her dread the profanation of her
happiness. Whenever she was with Lucius Harney she would have liked some
impenetrable mountain mist to hide her.

It was arranged that she