“But she’s your own cousin. You ought to be proud of her. Her teachers say she has the finest soprano—”
“What do you want from the store?” Gloria interrupted helplessly. But when she had made out the skimpy list, she could not forget the joy it had always been to go up to Tom’s store at home, and shop for the things Jane was wont to order to please Gloria, or to surprise her father.
This was indeed part payment for her unfair exchange.
CHAPTER XII
UNCLE CHARLEY
Each day seemed to bring new troubles.
“I just wonder,” Gloria asked herself, “if I really did right after all. This is a lot—worse—than I ever expected.”
She looked about her at the plainly furnished room. Then in her mind’s eye she saw through the wall into the room furnished for her cousin Hazel. The girl with the wonderful voice, the girl with the high-spirited ways, the girls so many at school talked about but so few said anything tangible concerning.
It was always, “Your cousin has wonderful hair,” or “Your cousin is going to be a singer,” or even, “I suppose you came up to be company for your aunt while your cousin is away at boarding school.”
Gloria had simply said “yes” or “no,” not deigning to add a remark that might have pleased the curious or critical. But when Natalie Warren said something about the Towers being “pretty well off,” and with the comment bestowing a compassionate glance at the silent Gloria, there had almost been an outbreak of the temperamental flash that always seemed held in restraint just back of those glittering eyes.