"She's sick?" asked father, at last.
"Heartsick!" said mother bitterly.
"We'd better have Doc come?"
"She says she isn't sick, and she won't see him."
"She will if I put my foot down."
"Best not, Paul! She'll feel better soon. She's so young! She must get over it."
They were silent for a long time and then father asked in a harsh whisper: "Ruth, can she possibly have brought us to shame?"
"God forbid!" cried mother. "Let us pray."
Then those two people knelt on each side of that bed, and I could hear half the words they muttered, until I was wild enough to scream. I wished with all my heart that I hadn't listened. I had always known it was no nice way. I must have gone to sleep after a while, but when I woke up I was still thinking about it, and to save me, I couldn't quit. All day, wherever I went, that question of father's kept going over in my head. I thought about it until I was almost crazy, and I just couldn't see where anything about shame came in.
She was only mistaken. She THOUGHT he loved her, and he didn't. She never could have been so bloomy, so filled with song, laughter, and lovely like she was, if she hadn't truly believed with all her heart that he loved her. Of course it would almost finish her to give him up, when she felt like that; and maybe she did wrong to let herself care so much, before she was sure about him; but that would only be foolish, there wouldn't be even a shadow of shame about it. Besides, Laddie had done exactly the same thing. He loved the Princess until it nearly killed him when he thought he had to give her up, and he loved her as hard as ever he could, when he hadn't an idea whether she would love him back, even a tiny speck; and the person who wasn't foolish, and never would be, was Laddie.