Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The morning came with glorious winter sunlight, and Ellen Latimer, turning luxuriously under her warm soft blankets, stared blankly at a clock that was rapidly moving toward nine o'clock. They must all have had breakfast by this time—evidently nobody cared whether she was alive or dead. But the situation seemed rather interesting than tragic this morning. She got up, enjoying the unexpected warmth of the room, and went yawning into the bathroom, and turned on both faucets for a bath. Not that Ellen took a bath every morning, there was no bathroom in the old Latimer house, but she was as adaptable as most girls of her age. While the bath was running, she peeped timidly into Mrs. Rose's room, and was pleasantly surprised to see that lady's large form, heaving in deep slumber, upon the bed. One person would be later than Ellen, at all events! Ellen had had a white night, one of the few in her experience. For long hours she had lain awake, thinking soberly about the events of the past two days, and, quite unconsciously, assimilating their bitter lesson. These girls were not better than she, not wiser, not really happier. But their circumstances were utterly different, and it was Ellen who was to blame, not they, for trying to bridge the gulf between their lives. She still had her good home, her own admiring and affectionate group, her books to read by the fire, her garden to dream over in the spring, and the swimming and boating and tennis that absorbed all youthful Port Washington from June to October. She had Willa and Olive and the Henshaw boys and Bobby Carnival to take Sunday walks with, and, above all, she had her work at the League—and she was going to work in deadly earnest now. Lucia and Doris were not real, and Ellen's life dealt only with what was...