“Do you blush to look back on it?”
Mother rose and made a sweeping gesture with her right arm.
“I wash my hands of you!” she said. “You are impertanent and indelacate. At your age I was an inocent child, not troubleing with things that did not concern me. As for Love, I had never heard of it until I came out.”
“Life must have burst on you like an explosion,” I observed. “I suppose you thought that babies——”
“Silense!” mother shreiked. And seeing that she persisted in ignoring the real things of Life while in my presence, I went out, cluching the precious paper to my Heart.
January 15th. I am alone in my boudoir (which is realy the old schoolroom, and used now for a sowing room).
My very soul is sick, oh Dairy. How can I face the truth? How write it out for my eyes to see? But I must. For something must be done. The play is failing.
The way I discovered it was this. Yesterday, being short of money, I sold my amethist pin to Jane, one of the housemaids, for two dollars, throwing in a lace coller when she seemed doubtful, as I had a special purpose for useing funds. Had father been at home I could have touched him, but mother is diferent.
I then went out to buy a frame for his picture, which I had repaired by drawing in the other eye, although lacking the Fire and passionate look of the originle. At the shop I was compeled to show it, to buy a frame to fit. The clerk was almost overpowered.
“Do you know him?” she asked, in a low and throbing tone.