Beauty for Ashes by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

can’t
help
feeling that way about Stan, as if I never had really known him, and as if nothing he ever said to me was true!”
    The father’s hand was still warm on hers, but he was silent for some seconds, and when he spoke his voice was husky with feeling. “I understand, Gloria dear,” he said, speaking slowly. “You were right in your feeling. It was what I felt for you the most, though I was not sure you fully understood what it all meant. But I felt disgraced and outraged for you, dear child, that one who had undertaken to love, honor, and protect you through life should so forget all decency, even though he had been drinking. He had no business to be drinking. That was another thing, Gloria. It didn’t sit well with me to trust you with a drinker. You know how I feel about that.”
    “Yes, I know, Dad, and for that reason somehow I never could drink more than a sip or two. Something inside always made me stop. But Stan could stand a lot, Dad. He never seemed to get silly the way some of the others did. That is one reason why I can’t excuse him. Oh, it seems awful of me to be putting this into words even to you. He is dead now, and I suppose I ought to keep still. But Dad, my heart just cried out. I felt as if everything—the very foundations of the earth—were reeling! And then when Mother said I was silly and it was wicked of me to mind about that girl, and when I think of the way they ignored the whole thing at the funeral, I began to think I was all made up wrong inside, and I had to ask you about it. Is Mother right? Do most of them do such things nowadays?”
    “No!” said her father again earnestly. “No! But if they did, little girl, you’re better off to live out your days alone than marry a man who would be as disloyal to you as Stan has been. It isn’t as if there were any question about it, you know. I had that looked into”—he spoke with a voice of deep sadness—“and it was all true and more than the paper stated!”
    A little sound broke from her white lips, but she made no comment.
    “That is why,” went on her father, “I am hoping you will not grieve too deeply over all this. The young man was not worthy of it. He was not thinking of you, his promised bride, when he went up there to see that girl. He was pleasing himself.”
    Then after an instant he went on again, reluctantly, haltingly, almost shyly. “And you must not think too hardly of your mother either, Glory. She was brought up in a most careful, sheltered way. She really knows little of the evil in the world, and what little she has heard, she has chosen to ignore or not to believe. She has taken up the fashionable way of excusing and condoning the faults of young men and calling them follies rather than sins. Also your mother was not brought up in a religious way as I was, and that makes some difference. I have sometimes thought that she looks down on me as being rather old-fashioned for holding the views that I do—” He paused, thoughtfully, sadly.
    “Father, I think I’m old-fashioned, too, in my thinking,” said the girl at last. “And do you know, I think Mother would be too if it were only the fashion now to be old-fashioned again.”
    Then they both laughed, and a tender feeling of sympathy crept into their voices.
    Soon after that they came upon a little white farmhouse tucked away under elm trees, winking a friendly light from its windows and showing a sign inviting travelers to stop all night.
    “How would you like to stay here tonight?” asked her father. “Or would you rather go on to a good hotel? There’s a small city only about ten miles farther on.” He got out his map and measured the distance with his eye.
    “Oh, let’s stay here!” said Gloria. “It looks quiet here, and we might meet someone we knew if we went on to the city.”
    So they went in and found pleasant quarters for the night, and to her surprise Gloria fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
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