"Summer Beauty"
Macy Cook was the picture of a Southern heiress: a beautiful young woman with an inheritance of cotton as far as she could see from her third-floor window. Her father had forbidden any men to come a’calling on her until she turned seventeen, but ever since her birthday it had been open season. There had been a steady stream of dashing young men from every plantation in the county all summer long.
Macy had turned down every one of them for one reason or another, until she found it was much more amusing just to string them along for a while instead of breaking their hearts outright. Except the ones with ugly teeth or knobbly knees, of course. They got shown the door right off.
How quickly would she take any one of them right down the aisle now? How different Summer Macy had been from the Macy of Fall? Ever since that Saturday night, everything had changed. Not even the boys with knobbly knees came to her door any longer. The gifts, the parties, the shy glances, the outright marriage proposals. They were all gone.
Even though the fire was weeks past, she still felt its sting on her skin. What was left for the pretty young girl now that she was pretty no more? A voice called her name to come down to dinner and she withdrew her beautiful face from the window, turning her scarred cheek on the world outside.
Macy Cook was the picture of a Southern heiress: a beautiful young woman with an inheritance of cotton as far as she could see from her third-floor window. Her father had forbidden any men to come a’calling on her until she turned seventeen, but ever since her birthday it had been open season. There had been a steady stream of dashing young men from every plantation in the county all summer long.
Macy had turned down every one of them for one reason or another, until she found it was much more amusing just to string them along for a while instead of breaking their hearts outright. Except the ones with ugly teeth or knobbly knees, of course. They got shown the door right off.
How quickly would she take any one of them right down the aisle now? How different Summer Macy had been from the Macy of Fall? Ever since that Saturday night, everything had changed. Not even the boys with knobbly knees came to her door any longer. The gifts, the parties, the shy glances, the outright marriage proposals. They were all gone.
Even though the fire was weeks past, she still felt its sting on her skin. What was left for the pretty young girl now that she was pretty no more? A voice called her name to come down to dinner and she withdrew her beautiful face from the window, turning her scarred cheek on the world outside.
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