And in that
helplessness she had told Hale good-night. She remembered now how
she had looked upon Lonesome Cove after she went to the Gap; how
she had looked upon the Gap after her year in the Bluegrass, and
how she had looked back even on the first big city she had seen
there from the lofty vantage ground of New York. What was the use
of it all? Why laboriously climb a hill merely to see and yearn
for things that you cannot have, if you must go back and live in
the hollow again? Well, she thought rebelliously, she would not go
back to the hollow again--that was all. She knew what was coming
and her cousin Dave's perpetual sneer sprang suddenly from the
past to cut through her again and the old pride rose within her
once more. She was good enough now for Hale, oh, yes, she thought
bitterly, good enough NOW; and then, remembering his life-long
kindness and thinking what she might have been but for him, she
burst into tears at the unworthiness of her own thought. Ah, what
should she do--what should she do? Repeating that question over
and over again, she fell toward morning into troubled sleep. She
did not wake until nearly noon, for already she had formed the
habit of sleeping late--late at least, for that part of the world-
-and she was glad when the negro boy brought her word that Mr.
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