pretend to be friends with a person
who is not truthful, and whom I understand as I understand Elizabeth
Hamilton Carter. I don't like her, and though it is not necessary to
say so unless occasion requires, neither is it necessary to appear to
be what I am not. I like Whythe, and when I saw him a few days after
Elizabeth gave herself the satisfaction of communicating to me the
return of his tempted affections, I shook hands with him good and hard
and wished him all the happiness I knew there was little chance of his
getting. If I were a man and had to live in the house with a female
who shut her mouth tight every time she got mad and was continually
hurt and always sensitive, there would likely be in that house battle,
murder, or sudden death. Any kind of outspokenness is better to be
endured than silent offense.

CHAPTER XXV

This is the last day of August, and it is a day
Twickenham Town is going to remember for
a long time. I have done again that which I
should not have done, and I guess I had better go
home. I had expected to stay until the twenty-seventh
of September and return with Father, who
was to spend a week here with me, but he can't come.

I suppose it was the awful disappointment of
knowing Father couldn't come, and being so miserable
myself (not one line yet from that person named
William Spencer Sloane, who is probably married
to an elderly woman by this time), and because
of my sureness that no human being could be
depended on in time of temptation, especially
vigorous, aggressive temptations that come out
of the West, that I gave help where help seemed
to be needed, and now again I am in everybody's
mouth. Also my ankles are still a little sore from
the weight of the window being on them as I hung
out, but they are nearly well, and even if they
were not it would not matter. Two young hearts
are happy and a proud person is not, and the
blame is on me. That also doesn't matter. I am
soon going away.

The thing I did, which maybe I shouldn't have
done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston
get married. She is the property of her
grandmother, who is a very important part of
Twickenham Town. Having no parents or sisters or
brothers, and only enough money of her own for
her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on
for years loving an awfully nice chap named
Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying
him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks
her why she do