"Oh, Charity----" Ally cried, springing up. For a long interval the two
girls faced each other across the ruined garment. Ally burst into tears.
"Oh, what'll I say to her? What'll I do? It was real lace!" she wailed
between her piping sobs.
Charity glared at her unrelentingly. "You'd oughtn't to have brought it
here," she said, breathing quickly. "I hate other people's clothes--it's
just as if they was there themselves." The two stared at each other
again over this avowal, till Charity brought out, in a gasp of anguish:
"Oh, go--go--go--or I'll hate you too...."
When Ally left her, she fell sobbing across her bed.
The long storm was followed by a north-west gale, and when it was over,
the hills took on their first umber tints, the sky grew more densely
blue, and the big white clouds lay against the hills like snow-banks.
The first crisp maple-leaves began to spin across Miss Hatchard's lawn,
and the Virginia creeper on the Memorial splashed the white porch with
scarlet. It was a golden triumphant September.
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