"Oh, I was hurt in every part of me--my body and my soul and my mind! My precious dreams had crumbled forever and ever. And I had to face that dreadful scandal! Not that I ever saw a soul--Sabrina took care of _that_! She kept me shut up as though I had the plague. But through her reproachful eyes I was made to see the accusations of every man, woman and child on the Hero Islands. And I couldn't _make_ her believe it wasn't so! She simply wouldn't talk about it. She went around with that dreadful look, day after day, and when she'd say anything at all, it was about how I had brought shame to the Leavitt name. And after awhile I began to feel as though I _had_ done something--more than just run away to study music. She made me understand that the only way I could atone for it all was by burying myself within these four walls." "Then _that's_ what she means by 'making your bed.'" "Yes, dear, I was so crushed that I came to believe she was right. God knew that all I had wanted when I went away was a right to my own way of living, but His ways are inscrutable and His Will has to be done! Sabrina called it the sword of wrath and the justice of the Almighty, and it didn't make much difference to me _what_ it was called--I was here. That's my story, dear, that's the way I've lived until--to-day. But you've changed it. Something inside of me that I thought was dead--isn't dead at all! Do you know what I told Sabrina? I told her I didn't _care_ what she thought, that I guessed when a woman was forty years old and over she could decide things for herself and if just going out there in the orchard was wicked, then I'd go on being _wickeder_! That's what I told her. Dear, dear, you should have seen her face!" "Hurrah, hurrah, Aunt Milly!" "Poor Sabrina, I never spoke like that in my life to her! I've always been so--_afraid_, until to-day! I don't know what she'll do now. You must not blame her too much, Nancy dear, it's the Leavitt trouble that has made her what she is--it shadowed all our lives!" "Aunt Milly, what was the Leavitt trouble?" Aunt Milly looked distressed. "Then you _don't_ know? I shouldn't have spoken of it! I promised Sabrina I wouldn't speak to you--about it." "But, Aunt Milly, I have a--a right to know, haven't I? Even Webb hinted about it, and it makes me feel as though I was--well, on the outside of things, to be kept in ignorance."