“‘I would like above all things to ride again,’ she said ‘as I used to on the plains when I lived out West; but there is no use talking about it, Milly dear, I can’t do it. I have no riding habit, and I cannot afford to have one made. Thank you just as much, but don’t say another word about it.’
“You can imagine how disappointed I was. I knew very well that neither Madame nor mamma would let me ride alone with Professor Waite, even if papa would permit it; and I knew, too, that the Professor would lose every bit of interest in the plan if Adelaide did not go. I was not thoroughly selfish, Tib. I wanted Adelaide to have a good time too, and I wanted Professor Waite to be happy. I told myself that if he loved Adelaide, I would do all I could to help him, and perhaps some day he would remember that it was through me that he had won her, and like me a little for it, and never suspect that I—that I——”
Her voice broke and she buried her head on my shoulder. “Dear Milly,” I said, caressing and soothing her as best I could. “Of course you were not selfish. Well, and what happened next?”
“I couldn’t give up the plan, Tib, and I thought that if all that kept Adelaide from joining in it was the lack of a habit, that could be easily arranged. I would make her a present of it. I was sure that father would give me twenty-five dollars for my next birthday present, and I thought it would do no harm to spend it in advance. So I asked Celeste how much cloth it would take, and I had it sent her from Arnold’s, a beautiful fine dark-green broadcloth. And then I told Adelaide what I had done and that she must go around to Celeste’s with me and be fitted. Do you believe it, she would not? She said that it would be wrong for her to accept such a present from me; and besides, nothing would induce her to ride with Professor Waite, for she couldn’t endure him. That put an end to the ride in the Park. Cynthia would have taken Adelaide’s place, but when I told Professor Waite that Adelaide would not go, he looked so angry that I saw he wanted to get out of the arrangement, and I suggested that perhaps we had better give up the plan. He said, very well, just as I pleased, and looked so relieved that I almost cried then and there. Papa was so provoked when I told him of it that I did not dare say a word about the riding-habit, especially as he had just handed me my little Swiss watch as my birthday present. So I pretended to be pleased with it, and there was that dreadful cloth for the riding-habit on my hands, and I didn’t know what to do. Mamma was still in Florida, and papa said that she was not very strong and must not be worried—I must only write cheerful letters to her. I didn’t feel very cheerful, I assure you. Then Cynthia told me one day that she had twenty dollars with which she wanted to purchase a winter suit and she would like my advice about it. I was in debt just twenty dollars for the cloth for the habit, and I told her about it and begged her to take it off my hands. She went with me to Celeste’s and liked it very much. The only trouble was that her mother had intended the twenty dollars to pay for both material and making, and of course she ought to get something not nearly so nice.
“She said at last that if I would get Celeste to wait for her pay she would take the dress and pay her later. I thought only of paying for the material at Arnold’s, for I had expected to have the money by that time, and had asked them to make a separate bill out, and not put it on my book that goes every month to papa. So we arranged it. Cynthia gave me her twenty dollars and I settled for the cloth, and Celeste made the dress for her, and furnished the trimmings. But how she did run them up! She had a band of real sable around the hem of the skirt and trimmed the jacket with it too; and made her that cute little toque with heads and tails on it, and when the bill came in it was sixty dollars. Cynthia was frightened. ‘I never can pay it in the world,’ she said. ‘I think your dressmaker is frightfully extortionate; and I had no idea it would be so much.’ I felt sorry for her and I felt, too, that I was to blame for getting her into the predicament; so I said we would divide the expense, and she should only pay half. But she grumbled at that, and said that I had inveigled her into the trouble, and that she had a dressmaker on 125th Street who would have made the suit for ten dollars. When I reminded her of the fur, she said she did not believe it was real sable, and she didn’t want it any way.
“I offered to take it to Gunther’s and see if I could get something for it, if she would rip it off, but she said she would do no such thing; the dress would be a fright without it. It was all a miserable mess, and I was so unhappy. It would have been some consolation if Cynthia had been grateful, but she blamed me for everything, and I think that, considering all I have done for her, she treated me very shabbily when she said that Adelaide was the only lady in the Amen Corner, and she did not care to speak to any of us again.”
“That was like Cynthia, and I am sure that the loss of her friendship can only be a benefit to you. But, Milly, you must bravely shoulder the greater part of the blame yourself. Your first wrong step was in getting the golden net without permission, then in letting Celeste pay you for it and yet having it charged to your father. Then, again, in getting the cloth for Adelaide’s habit without consulting your father you deliberately did wrong; and in bargaining with Cynthia, instead of going straight to your father and confessing your fault, you waded still more deeply in——”
“I know it; but there you are scolding me just like Winnie, and it doesn’t make the trouble a bit easier to bear to be told that I deserve it all, and am a miserable little sinner. You needn’t imagine that I did not realize what a wretch I was; only I didn’t seem to see the way out. Everything I did to extricate myself got me deeper into the quicksand. I saved every way, all that I could; one month I laid by two dollars and thirty-seven cents, but the next I slipped back three and a quarter, and Cynthia handed me a five dollar bill one day, and told me that was every cent that she could pay, and I must let her off from the rest. And to crown it all, Winnie found out about it, and nearly drove me wild. Oh, Tib, I have been in such trouble, what with this dreadful bill that I didn’t dare tell papa about, and Professor Waite, and all my lessons so hard, and my marks getting worse than ever, and Winnie turning on me. It just seemed as if I would die, and I almost wished I could. I thought seriously about killing myself only the night before last. I think if I could have found any poison that would not have hurt I would have taken it.”
“Don’t talk so, Milly; it is wicked. You would have done nothing of the sort.”
“But I would. I went into the chemical laboratory and looked at the green and blue stuff in the test tubes, but I couldn’t quite screw my courage up to do more than taste just a little bit of one kind that looked more deadly than the rest. It was horrid, and took the skin off of the tip of my tongue. I ate a quarter of a pound of assorted mints before I could get the taste out of my mouth. If I could have found some laudanum, or something that would not have tasted so bad, or would have killed me by putting me to sleep, I would have taken it that night, for I was miserable enough to do anything, however unscrupulous and reckless. If I hadn’t been so very desperate perhaps I would never have dared to do what I did do; the thing which really broke the meshes of the golden net which seemed to have me in its toils. I didn’t mean to tell any one, but I was just driven to it, and I know you will keep my secret—besides I have told you so much that you might as well know all. Tib, I——”