is why I can never say a word about all this.
They were so _good_ to me! I'm going to give
Stacia something nice for Christmas -- wouldn't
you?”

“Yes, I would,” gently said Betty.

“That night at supper, dinner, I mean, they
had wine, I'm sure. They did not say what it
was, but it was in a wine glass and I tasted it
and it was terribly bitter. I don't see how any-
body likes the stuff. Jim -- that's Stacia's
brother and such a handsome, dear sort of boy,
about eighteen, I imagine -- Jim drank a lot of
it, till his father said real low, 'That's enough,
Jim.'

“Then they took me to a moving picture, not
down town, but in the suburb, you know. And
we stayed up awfully late with the radio again
and this time some more wine, only I didn't
take any, only cake. Stacia urged me to try one
of her sister's cigarettes. I believe they don't
want Stacia to smoke yet, so she didn't do it
until we went upstairs. It made me cough just
to smell all the smoke, so I said 'no, thank you,
Stacia,' and got undressed. And then--” Doris
lowered her voice -- “about two o'clock, I think,
somebody came stumbling up the stairs, and
somebody was talking to him, and helping him,
I think. Stacia woke up and sat up in bed. We

[[126]]

(previous-page) (table-of-contents) (next-page)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 v?