I rode home very soberly . When I reached The Maples I did what I had not done for years ... looked critically at myself in the mirror . The realization that I had grown older came home to me with a new and unpleasant force . There were marked lines on my lean face , and silver glints in the dark hair over my temples . When Betty was ten she had thought me `` an old person . '' Now , at eighteen , she probably thought me a veritable ancient of days . Pshaw , what did it matter ? And yet ... I thought of her as I had seen her , standing under the pines , and something cold and painful laid its hand on my heart . My premonitions as to lovers proved correct . Glenby was soon infested with them . Heaven knows where they all came from . I had not supposed there was a quarter as many young men in the whole county ; but there they were . Sara was in the seventh heaven of delight . Was not Betty at last a belle ? As for the proposals ... well , Betty never counted her scalps in public ; but every once in a while a visiting youth dropped out and was seen no more at Glenby . One could guess what that meant . Betty apparently enjoyed all this . I grieve to say that she was a bit of a coquette . I tried to cure her of this serious defect , but for once I found that I had undertaken something I could not accomplish . In vain I lectured , Betty only laughed ; in vain I gravely rebuked , Betty only flirted more vivaciously than before .
Men might come and men might go , but Betty went XXXXX forever .
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