“I’m happier than I’ve been in years! There must be gypsy in me. I’m happy at the thought of travelling again! The old days, even the hungry, cold ones in the box-car wagon, were happier than the days of being fed and warmed but made to sit in school and sew my stint afternoons. Don’t you see, Granny dear, I’m different; and when a person finds that out for sure and some wonderful thing happens to them like Miss Clergy’s hearing me sing that it’s the right thing to go on and follow the trail? Tell Dan—no, I’ll write him, bless his old heart, he didn’t know I halfway wanted to refuse to marry him,” Thurley sobered as if momentarily contrite. Betsey Pilrig looked at her with lack of comprehension. “Maybe you’re right—maybe you’re wrong. I’ve no power to keep you. What did she say when she offered to take you away?” “So many things! I could travel abroad, and, if I worked very hard and the right person trained me, she thought I would be famous and she is to be my godmother as it were. The only condition was not to marry for twenty years—that was easy to promise. For I’ll never love any one but Dan, and all of me didn’t love him. So I gave my pledge. She would not have taken me unless I did. She’s bitter, Granny, because of her own affair. She likes to think of cheating a man of me—poor dear! Why, I didn’t mind the promising.” “I don’t like the condition,” Betsey said, gravely. “You’re young and you don’t know all that is in your heart any more than the world knows of your voice. That wasn’t fair of her!” But Thurley in a state of ecstasy refused to listen. She fell to packing, and, when Dan came an hour later, Betsey was forced to send him away with the unsatisfactory message that Thurley was busy—she would see him later. After which Betsey Pilrig watched the light of his roadster twinkle into nothingness. Moonlight called her attention to the box-car wagon. She visualized the long-legged, ragged child Thurley who had sung for her supper—and got it—at the Hotel Button, and the worthless parents. Then she saw Philena limping eagerly about in Thurley’s train as they played missionaries; she saw Thurley in her white dress on Children’s Day when she was made to speak the part of Saturday and declared joyously that she did not care, she really wanted to work for her living. She saw a taller, lovelier Thurley singing at Philena’s funeral. Then she saw Dan and Thurley in the first flush of courtship, with Thurley all blushes and happy songs and four or five engagements a day, while Dan’s business ran itself ... well, that was at an end. In her simple fashion Betsey realized the girl Thurley would never return nor would Dan Birge remain a light-hearted, whistling boy. As for Abby Clergy, some folks might call it generous on her part to take Thurley to the city, but Betsey called it using youth as a crutch and a revenge and she wondered what Miss Abby’s parents would have said if they had known.