"Well, we all have bones, Carrie."
"Ye-es, I suppose so, but it sounds so sort of—spooky"
Kate talked the engagement over with Charlotte, too.
"I don't know what possessed him, Charlotte; it just seems utterly crazy to me."
"It does to us, too, Aunt Kate. Hoagland says he thinks they must both have been out of their minds."
"Well, I don't know that it's such an insane thing to fall in love with Joe!"
"We"
"After all, I think Joe's capable of picking out whoever he wants to marry, without our assistance."
Hoagland, indeed! Who had asked Hoagland for his opinions? But, oh dear! Oh dear!
How lonely and old I am, Kate thought. Look at my hands and my scrawny old neck! She glared at herself in the mirror. Why can't I feel old? It would be so much easier. But it doesn't matter. Joe doesn't see me any more, and there's nobody else to care. Two tears welled up, overflowed. She watched them trickle down her cheeks with mournful interest.
Youth flowing on, passing—no, not passing, but disappearing like those lost rivers that disappear underground. Her youth lay deep in her hidden heart.
She read the beauty advertisements. "Tired skins made lovely again"—"A few minutes' care each morning and night will accomplish wonderful results for
