THE OLD MAID
were a prison she must break out of. She lowered her head. “I want—to get away,” she panted.
“Get away? From Joe?”
“From his ideas—the Ralston ideas.”
Delia bridled—after all, she was a Ralston! “The Ralston ideas? I haven’t found them—so unbearably unpleasant to live with,” she smiled a little tartly.
“No. But it was different with you: they didn’t ask you to give up things.”
“What things?” What in the world (Delia wondered) had poor Charlotte that any one could want her to give up? She had always been in the position of taking rather than of having to surrender. “Can’t you explain to me, dear?” Delia urged.
“My poor children—he says I’m to give them up,” cried the girl in a stricken whisper.
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