Will you forgive me?"
"And sing at your concert?" said Irene sweetly and insultingly.
"If you mean," said Rilla miserably, "that I would not be apologizing to
you if it were not for the concert perhaps that is true. But it is also
true that I have felt ever since it happened that I should not have said
what I did and that I have been sorry for it all winter. That is all I
can say. If you feel you can't forgive me I suppose there is nothing
more to be said."
"Oh, Rilla dear, don't snap me up like that," pleaded Irene. "Of course
I'll forgive you--though I did feel awfully about it--how awfully I
hope you'll never know. I cried for weeks over it. And I hadn't said or
done a thing!"
Rilla choked back a retort. After all, there was no use in arguing with
Irene, and the Belgians were starving.
"Don't you think you can help us with the concert," she forced herself
to say. Oh, if only Irene would stop looking at that boot! Rilla could
just hear her giving Olive Kirk an account of it.
"I don't see how I really can at the last moment like this," protested
Irene. "There isn't time to learn anything new."
"Oh, you have lots of lovely songs that nobody in the Glen ever heard
before," said Rilla, who knew Irene had been going to town all winter
for lessons and that this was only a pretext. "They will all be new down
there."
"But I have no accompanist," protested Irene.
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