That evening mother suggested that Missy go to bed early. "You
didn't eat your supper, and you look tired out," she explained.
Missy did feel tired--terribly tired; but she wouldn't have admitted
it, for fear of being asked the reason. Did mother, perhaps, know?
Missy had a teasing sense that, under the placid, commonplace
conversation, there was something unspoken. A curious and
uncomfortable feeling. But, then, as one ascertains increasingly
with every year one lives, Life is filled with curious and often
uncomfortable feelings. Which, however, one would hardly change if
one could, because all these things make Life so much more complex,
therefore more interesting. The case of Ben was in point: if he had
not "cut up," it might have been weeks before she got acquainted
with the Dark Stranger!
Still pondering these "deep" things, Missy took advantage of her
mother's suggestion and went up to undress. She was glad of the
chance to be alone.
But she wasn't to be alone for yet a while. Her mother followed her
and insisted on helping unfasten her dress, turning down her bed,
bringing some witch-hazel to bathe her forehead--a dozen little
pretexts to linger.
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