"Yeth," replied Evelyn, without the slightest hesitation. A happy belief in her own merits was an inheritance from her mother. As yet it was more charming than otherwise, for the baby had unquestionable merits in which to believe. Harry and Maria laughed.

"Mamma is very glad," said Ida. She did not laugh; she saw no humor in it. She turned to Harry. "I think I will go in on the early train with you to-morrow, dear," she said. "I want to see about Maria's new dress." Then she turned to Maria. "I have been in to see Miss Keeler," said she, "and she says she can make it for you next week, so you can have it when you begin school. I thought of brown with a touch of blue and burnt-orange. How would you like that?"

"I think that would be perfectly lovely," said Maria with enthusiasm.

She cast a grateful look at her step-mother, almost a look of affection. She was always very grateful to Ida for her new clothes, and just now clothes had a more vital interest for her than ever. She took another st.i.tch in her collar, with Evelyn leaning against her and kicking out first one chubby leg, then the other, and she immediately erected new air-castles, in which she figured in her brown suit with the touches of burnt-orange and blue.

A week later, when she started on the train for Wardway in her new attire, she felt entirely satisfied with herself and life in general.

She was conscious of looking charming in her new suit of brown, with the touches of blue and burnt-orange, and her new hat, also brown with blue and burnt-orange glimpses in the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Wollaston Lee got on the same car and sat behind her. Maud Page, the other Edgham girl who was going to the academy, had a cousin in Wardway, and had gone there the night before. There were only Maria, Wollaston, and Edwin Shaw, who sat by himself in a corner, facing the other pa.s.sengers with a slightly shamed, sulky expression. He was very tall, and had blacked his shoes well, and the black light from them seemed to him obtrusive, the more so because his feet were very large. He looked out of the window as the train left the station, and saw a very pretty little child with a fluff of yellow hair, carrying a big doll, climbing laboriously on a train on the other track, with the tender a.s.sistance of a brakeman. She was in the wake of a very stout woman, who stumbled on her skirts going up the steps. Edwin Shaw thought that the child looked like Maria's little sister, but that she could not be, because the stout woman was a stranger to him.

Then he thought no more about it. He gazed covertly at Maria, with the black sparkles of his shoes continuing to disturb him. He admired Maria. Presently he saw Wollaston Lee lean over the back of her seat and say something to her, and saw her half turn and dimple, and noticed how the lovely rose flushed the curve of her cheek, and he scowled at his shiny shoes.

As for Maria, when she felt the boy's warm breath on her neck, her heart beat fast. She realized herself on the portals of an air-castle.

"Well, glad you are going to leave this old town?" said Wollaston.

"I am not going to leave it, really," replied Maria.

"Oh, of course not, but you are going to leave the old school, anyhow. I had got mighty tired of it, hadn't you?"

"Yes, I had, rather."

"It's behind the times," said the boy; and, as he spoke he himself looked quite up to the times. He had handsome, clearly cut features and black eyes, which seemed at the same time to demand and question.

He had something of a supercilious air, although the expression of youthful innocence and honesty was still evident on his face. He wore a new suit as well as Maria, only his was gray instead of brown, and he wore a red carnation in his b.u.t.ton-hole. Maria inhaled the clovy fragrance of it. At the next station more pa.s.sengers got into the train, and Wollaston seized upon that excuse to ask to share Maria's seat. They talked incessantly--an utterly foolish gabble like that of young birds. An old gentleman across the aisle cast an impatient glance at them from time to time. Finally he arose stiffly and went into the smoker. Their youth and braggadocio of innocence and ignorance, and the remembrance of his own, irritated him. He did not in the least regret his youth, but the recollection of the first stages of his life, now that he was so near the end, was like looking backward over a long road, which had led to absurdly different goals from what he had imagined. It all seemed inconceivable, silly and futile to him, what he had done, and what they were doing. He cast a furious glance at them as he pa.s.sed out, but neither noticed it.

Wollaston said something, and Maria laughed an inane little giggle which was still musical, and trilled through the car. Maria's cheeks were burning, and she seldom looked at the boy at her side, but oftener at the young autumn landscape through which they were pa.s.sing. The trees had scarcely begun to turn, but here and there one flamed out like a gold or red torch among the green, and all the way-sides were blue and gold with asters and golden-rod. It was a very warm morning for the season. When they stopped at one of the stations, a yellow b.u.t.terfly flew in through an open window and flitted airily about the car. Maria removed her coat, with the solicitous aid of her companion. She cast a conscious glance at the orange and blue on her sleeves.

"Say, that dress is a stunner!" whispered Wollaston.

Maria laughed happily. "Glad you like it," said she.

Before they reached Wardway, Wollaston's red carnation was fastened at one side of her embroidered vest, making a discord of color which, for Maria, was a harmony of young love and romance.

"That is the academy," said Wollaston, as the train rolled into Wardway. He pointed to a great brick structure at the right--a main building flanked by enormous wings. "Are you frightened?" he asked.

"I guess not," replied Maria, but she was.

"You needn't be a bit," said the boy. "I know some of the boys that go there, and I went to see the princ.i.p.al with father. He's real pleasant. I know the Latin teacher, Miss Durgin, too. My Uncle Frank married her cousin, and she has been to my house. You'll be in her cla.s.s." Wollaston spoke with a protective warmth for which Maria was very grateful.

She had a very successful although somewhat confused day. She was asked this and that and led hither and yon, and so surrounded by strange faces and sights that she felt fairly dizzy. She felt more herself at luncheon, when she sat beside Maud Page in the dining-hall, with Wollaston opposite. There was a restaurant attached to the academy, for the benefit of the out-of-town pupils.

When Maria went down to the station to take her train for home, Maud Page was there, and Wollaston. There was a long time to wait. They went out in a field opposite and picked great bunches of golden-rod, and the girls pinned them on their coats. Edwin Shaw was lingering about the station when they returned, but he was too shy to speak to them. When the train at last came in, Maria, with a duplicity which shamed her in thinking of it afterwards, managed to get away from Maud, and enter the car at the same time with Wollaston, who seated himself beside her as a matter of course. It was still quite light, but it had grown cold. Everything had a cold look--the clear cowslip sky, with its reefs of violet clouds; even the trees tossed crisply, as if stiffened with cold.

"Hope we won't have a frost," said Wollaston, as they got off at Edgham.

"I hope not," said Maria; and then Gladys Mann ran up to her, crying out:

"Say, Maria, Maria, did you know your little sister was lost?"

Maria turned deadly white. Wollaston caught hold of her little arm in its brown sleeve.

"When was she lost?" he asked, fiercely, of Gladys. "Don't you know any better than to rush right at anybody with such a thing as that?

Don't you be frightened, Maria. I'll find her."

A little knot of pa.s.sengers from the train gathered around them.

Gladys was pale herself, and had a strong sense of the sadness of the occasion, still she had a feeling of importance. Edwin Shaw came lumbering up timidly, and Maud Page pressed quickly to Maria's side with a swirl of her wide skirts.

"Gladys Mann, what on earth are you talking about?" said she, sharply. "Who's lost?"

"Maria's little sister."

"Hm! I don't believe a word of it."

"She is, so there! n.o.body has seen a sign of her since morning, and Maria's pa's most crazy. He's been sending telegrams all round.

Maria's step-mother, she telegraphed for him to come home, and he come at noon, and he sent telegrams all round, and then he went himself an hour ago."

"Went where?"

"Back to New York. Guess he's gone huntin' himself. Guess he thought he could hunt better than policemen. Maria's step-mother don't act scared, but I guess she is, awful. My mummer says that folks that bear up the best are the ones that feel things most. My mummer went over to see if she could do anything and see how she took it."

"When was she lost?" gasped Maria. She was shaking from head to foot.

"Your step-mother went down to the store, and when she got back the baby was gone. Josephine said she hadn't seen her after you had started for Wardway. She took her doll with her."

"Where?" gasped Maria.

"n.o.body knows where," said Gladys, severely, although the tears were streaming down her own grimy cheeks. "She wouldn't be lost, would she, if folks knew where she was? Nothin' ain't never lost when you know where it is unless you drop it down a well, and you 'ain't got no well, have you, Maria Edgham?"

"No," said Maria. She was conscious of an absurd thankfulness and relief that she had no well.

"And there ain't no pond round here big enough to drown a baby kitten, except that little mud-puddle up at Fisher's, and they've dragged every inch of that. I see 'em."

All this time Edwin Shaw had been teetering on uncertain toes on the borders of the crowd. He remembered the child with the doll whom he had seen climbing into the New York train in the morning, and he was eager to tell of it, to make himself of importance, but he was afraid. After all, the child might not have been Evelyn. There were so many little, yellow-haired things with dolls to be seen about, and then there was the stout woman to be accounted for. Edwin never doubted that the child had been with the stout woman whom he had seen stumbling over her voluminous skirts up the car steps. At last he stepped forward and spoke, with a moist blush overspreading his face, toeing in and teetering with embarra.s.sment.

"Say," he began.

The attention of the whole company was at once riveted upon him. He wriggled; the blood looked as if it would burst through his face.

Great drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead. He stammered when he spoke. He caught a glimpse of Maria's blue-and-orange tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and looked down, and again the black light of his shoes, which all the dust of the day had not seemed to dim, flashed in his eyes. He came of a rather illiterate family with aspirations, and when he was nervous he had a habit of relapsing into the dialect in common use in his own home, regardless of his educational attainments. He did so now.

"I think she has went to New York," he said.

"Who?" demanded Wollaston, eagerly. His head was up like a hunting hound; he kept close hold of Maria's little arm.

"Her."

"Who?"

"Her little sister-in-law." Edwin pointed to Maria.

Gladys Mann went peremptorily up to Edwin Shaw, seized his coat-collar, and shook him. "For goodness sake! when did she went?"

she demanded. "When did you see her? If you know anythin', tell it, an' not stand thar like a fool!"