Again, with eager eyes and quivering lips, she read the letter. It
contained words that lifted her heart. Her starved love greedily
absorbed them. In them she had excuse for any resolve that might bring
Glenn closer to her. And she pondered over this longing to go to him.
Carley had the means to come and go and live as she liked. She did not
remember her father, who had died when she was a child. Her mother had
left her in the care of a sister, and before the war they had divided
their time between New York and Europe, the Adirondacks and Florida,
Carley had gone in for Red Cross and relief work with more of sincerity
than most of her set. But she was really not used to making any decision
as definite and important as that of going out West alone. She had never
been farther west than Jersey City; and her conception of the West was
a hazy one of vast plains and rough mountains, squalid towns, cattle
herds, and uncouth ill-clad men.
So she carried the letter to her aunt, a rather slight woman with
a kindly face and shrewd eyes, and who appeared somewhat given to
old-fashioned garments.
"Aunt Mary, here's a letter from Glenn," said Carley. "It's more of a
stumper than usual. Please read it."
"Dear me! You look upset," replied the aunt, mildly, and, adjusting her
spectacles, she took the letter.
Carley waited impatiently for the perusal, conscious of inward forces
coming more and more to the aid of her impulse to go West. Her aunt
paused once to murmur how glad she was that Glenn had gotten well. Then
she read on to the close.
"Carley, that's a fine letter," she said, fervently. "Do you see through
it?"
"No, I don't," replied Carley. "That's why I asked you to read it."
"Do you still love Glenn as you used to before--"
"Why, Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Carley, in surprise.
"Excuse me, Carley, if I'm blunt. But the fact is young women of modern
times are very different from my kind when I was a girl. You haven't
acted as though you pined for Glenn. You gad around almost the same as
ever."
"What's a girl to do?" protested Carley.
"You are twenty-six years old, Carley," retorted Aunt Mary.
"Suppose I am. I'm as young--as I ever was."
"Well, let's not argue about modern girls and modern times. We never get
anywhere," returned her aunt, kindly. "But I can tell you something of
what Glenn Kilbourne means in that letter--if you want to hear it."