She knew that she had done nothing to give Bernice just cause for taking offence, and it hurt her to be misunderstood.
"If it were anything else," she mused, as she strolled up and down under the locusts, "I could go to her and explain.

But explanation is impossible in a case of this kind.

It would sound too conceited for anything for me to tell her what I know to be the truth about Malcolm's attentions to her, and as for the othah--" she shrugged her shoulders.
"It would be hopeless to try that.

Oh, if I could only talk it ovah with mothah or Papa Jack!" she sighed.
But they had gone away immediately after the house-party, for a week's outing in the Tennessee mountains.

She could have gone to her grandfather for advice on most questions, but this was too intangible for her to explain to him.