Only snobbishness refuses."
There was a long pause, while Mary Lee considered the old general's
little sermon, and he watched her, with a kindly twinkle in his eyes.
"Are you strong enough to do that, child?" he asked, presently; "to
rise to the eagle view of the situation, and stay on here regardless
of the slights that have stung you, for your friend's sake? And your
father's sake, too," he added. "It would grieve him sorely to know of
your disappointment, as he would have to know it, if you went back
before the appointed time."
Mary Lee looked up quickly. "I don't believe that you understand,
after all," she cried. "I could rise above the snubbings. It is not
that that hurts, but it is the disappointment. Oh, you don't know how
I longed to be friends with those girls! They are so bright and
attractive, and seem to have such good times together. It is the
missing of all that I had hoped to find that hurts."
The wistfulness of the fair little face touched the general's gallant
soul to the quick. "'Pon my word," he declared. "If you care as
much as that for their friendship, you shall have it. I'll conduct
a campaign into the enemy's quarters, and capture it for you, myself!"
[Illustration: "IT WAS NOT HER VOICE ALONE WHICH DREW SO MANY
ADMIRERS."]
And nobly the old general kept his promise.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62