“No,” she sobbed, suddenly realizing that she really had no grounds to base a legal action upon. She had built her hopes on a baseless fabric of neighborly politeness, nothing more, and her house of cards had tumbled to the ground.
The revulsion from long hope to sudden despair was so bitter that it awakened an intense and jealous hatred for Leola, superseding the devotion of years.
Hermann realized that he had made a mistake in taking her into his confidence, and made a masterly retreat, exclaiming:
“Oh, well, well, don’t take it so hard, Amanda Tuttle; you’re too old to behave like a love-sick chit! It isn’t likely that Leola will want to marry him, anyhow, and if she refuses, of course I must let old Bennett take the house and everything, and we can all go to the almshouse together!”
CHAPTER VII.
BOAST NOT THYSELF OF TO-MORROW.
It was the bitterest hour of her life to poor Miss Tuttle.
While she was talking to old Hermann she heard merry voices out of doors, and knew that Ray Chester had arrived and was sitting out in the rose arbor laughing and talking with beautiful Leola, who had turned out to be her rival when she thought her only a merry-hearted young girl.
She wondered if it could be true, as her employer said, that no one would look at her twice when his lovely ward was by, and now she sadly remembered several little things that made her sure that his words were true.
Sometimes, when the three went for long walks together, the younger pair would quite tire her out, but they would insist on going still further, leaving her waiting under some shady tree with a novel for an hour sometimes, while they hunted wild flowers or bird’s nests, and their happy laughter would come ringing back as if they did not miss her in the least, as now she suddenly realized they did not; they only wanted her for an elderly chaperon.