Phoebe drew closer to me, pressing against me ... but a fierce, battling reluctance rose in my breast....
She was astonished, stunned by my negation.
Silently I dressed,—she, with a sullen pout on her fresh, childish mouth.
"You fool! I hate you! You're no damn good!" she cried passionately.
With a cruel pleasure in the action, I beat her on the back. She began to sob.
Then we walked on a space. And we sat down together on the crest of a hill. My mood changed, and I held her close to me, with one arm flung about her, till she quietened down from her sobbing. I was full of a power I had never known before.
I have told of the big, double house my grandmother had for renting, and how she might have made a good living renting it out, if she had used a little business sense ... but now she let the whole of it to a caravan of gypsies for their winter quarters,—who, instead of paying rent, actually held her and Millie in their debt by reading their palms, sometimes twice a day ... I think it was my Uncle Joe who at last ousted them....