"A nun!" Hallie almost shrieked. "Ellie Fenwick, what are you thinking of? Why, you would have to cut off all your lovely hair!"
"Yes," I said, "one of the sisters there told me that she had hair as long as mine when she was a girl, and yet she doesn't look unhappy now. And then everything is so peaceful over there, the garden is so quiet, and they are so calm! I think I should love to; and oh, dear, Hallie, you don't know! I am very unhappy!"
Hallie put her arm around me and said firmly, "You will do no such thing! You will come to Estrella's party to-night and forget all about convents and such hateful things! Of course, I know what the matter is; and it's very lovely and awfully romantic, but really I'm afraid that he is quite gone, dear. Don't you think you could think of some one else?"
I said I couldn't bear to, that I didn't want to go to Estrella's party, that I hated the thought of the people I would have to meet. But Hallie can be very persuading, and when I left her my resolution had weakened considerably.
"Why not go?" I argued with myself on my way home. "I will have to begin this sort of thing again sometime—that is, supposing I don't go into the convent, and I am afraid father wouldn't like me to do that. At least while I am making up my mind about it anything will be better than brooding over this thing, which I can't help."
When I reached home I felt restless and the house seemed very small. Rather diffidently I broached the subject of Estrella's ball to father; but he was quite delighted.
"Excellent," he said, hurried off a boy to the Mendez house with word that I was coming, sent out for flowers and made a lovely little fuss about me. I tried to make myself look as pretty as possible in a pale tulle, with little rosy wreaths upon it, and the high old tortoise-shell comb, that had been mother's, in my hair. The excitement gave me more color than I had had for weeks. I thought, "Even if I am not happy, at least I can be excited."
