“Has anything been heard about Gale Howard?” her Aunt asked after a while.
“No,” Phyllis said in a low voice, “she is still missing.”
“Hmph! Probably run off for some fun somewhere never thinking of the worry to her parents. She’s a wild one, that girl. I never liked——”
“She is a fine girl,” Phyllis interrupted hotly. Her Aunt never failed to rouse Phyllis’ resentment when she talked about her friends. “There isn’t a nicer girl in Marchton than Gale Howard. She is a friend of mine, too,” Phyllis finished proudly.
“I won’t have you associating with that crowd from the high school!” her Aunt said, coldly despotic. “I have told you time and time again. You shall not——”
“I shall too!” Phyllis said, for once in her young life openly defying her Aunt. “I shall see them whenever I can. You won’t let me have any friends! Even now you want to separate me from them by not sending me to Briarhurst because they are going there.”
“Phyllis! How dare you speak so? Go to your room!”
Without another word Phyllis whirled and marched from the kitchen. She mounted the stairs to her room and closed the door behind her. Only for an instant a smile hovered about her lips. There was more than one way of escaping from working in the hot kitchen. Not that she had deliberately, with such an intention, spoken so rashly to her Aunt! Her words had been forced from her. Now she was regretting them with all her heart, but she would not say she was sorry! She wasn’t sorry, and what she had said was true—every word! But it would make life so difficult for her. Her Aunt’s disapproval hung over the house like a dark cloud unnerving Phyllis more at every moment.
What her Aunt had said about Gale had made Phyllis angry. Gale was her best friend. They would have done anything for each other. More than ever now, when they did not know where Gale was, what had happened to her, or when they would see her again, Phyllis could not let anyone speak slightingly of her.
It was hard for Phyllis to remember how many hours she and Gale and Valerie and the other girls had spent together when now perhaps Gale was needing them and they didn’t even know it. She knelt by the window and listened to the cool late autumn air rustling the tree branches against the window pane.