"Worse than you--expected? What do you mean, please?"
"Worse than I thought it would be--before you came. The idea of those
five men taking a girl to bring up!"
Billy sat very still. She was even holding her breath, though Mrs.
Hartwell did not know that.
"You mean--that they did not--want me?" she asked quietly, so quietly
that Mrs. Hartwell did not realize the sudden tension behind the words.
For that matter, Mrs. Hartwell was too angry now to realize anything
outside of herself.
"Want you! Billy, it is high time that you understand just how things
are, and have been, at the house; then perhaps you will conduct yourself
with an eye a little more to other people's comfort. Can you imagine
three young men like my brothers WANTING to take a strange young woman
into their home to upset everything?"
"To--upset--everything!" echoed Billy, faintly. "And have I done--that?"
"Of course you have! How could you help it? To begin with, they thought
you were a boy, and that was bad enough; but William was so anxious
to do right by his dead friend that he insisted upon taking you, much
against the will of all the rest of us. Oh, I know this isn't pleasant
for you to hear," admitted Mrs. Hartwell, in response to the dismayed
expression in Billy's eyes; "but I think it's high time you realize
something of what those men have sacrificed for you.
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