Mrs. Towers sat back in her chair and breathed in little snatchy gulps. She was evidently surprised at Gloria’s show of spirit. Once or twice she seemed about to speak and then turned her head away with a sharp twist.
This was the second day after Gloria’s arrival. The first had been too bitter to remember, yet the girl, away from home and loved ones, could not forget it. How hard it had been to satisfy Jane’s questions? Her suspicion that things were not to be entirely happy for her young charge kept her until the very last train out to her sister’s at Logan Center.
And Gloria had been so eager to get her away! Mrs. Towers could hardly speak civilly, her alarm was so great that Jane would discover the true state of affairs. But Gloria was wise enough to talk of her home and her absent father, thus seemingly, finally, to allay Jane’s suspicion, and to account for her own state of depression.
Good old, loyal Jane! Gloria would go to her —she felt determined of that just now—she would go out to the sister Mary’s house where all the interesting children were cuddled, if things became unbearable at her Aunt Harriet’s.
For Gloria was not to go to boarding school!
This great disappointment was first made known to her on that rainy afternoon, when she came out to Sandford in response to her aunt’s request.
And that was why the world seemed to “go black” all around her, that was why the picnic with all its merriment failed to arouse in her a responsive echo of joy, and that was why her father had read in her face an expression of relief when he was ordered to report earlier—she was glad he would go before her own strength to guard her secret might weaken, anxious that he should go before his own love would sound the depths of her resolve: that his great expedition should not be put off because her own plans for the year at boarding school had been frustrated.
Yes, frustrated! That was the hateful word. But what did it mean? How had it happened? Had not the loving Aunt Lottie been true to her promise to provide for Gloria’s education?
Then why? What? How had the disappointment come about?
Question after question rose bitterly to her lips as she faced her aunt, Hazel’s mother, and as she realized that Hazel was gone on to the coveted boarding school.