At three o'clock the general restlessness visibly increased, and the air in the hall, between steaming wet garments and perspiring humanity, became almost insufferable. Julia experimentally opened a door and let in a wet blast of air, but this was too drastic, and her eyes were brought back from a wistful study of the high windows by a voice that said:

"Merry Christmas! Give me a stick, and I'll do it for you!"

The girl found her hand in Doctor Studdiford's, and their eyes met.

"I didn't know you were here!" said Julia, in swift memory of their last meeting.

"Just come." He looked at her, all kindliness. "How goes it?"

"Finely," Julia answered. When he had opened a window, he followed her across the room. "I may stay near you, mayn't I?"

"I am just going to begin," Julia said, taking her place at the piano, and facing the room across the top of it. Her small person seemed suddenly fired with authority. She struck a full chord. "Children!" she said. "_Children_! Who is talking? Some one is still talking! Keep still, everybody, please! Keep still, every one.

"Now we are going to sing the 'Adeste'--four verses. And then we'll give out the presents. Listen, every one! We are going to sing the 'Adeste,'

and then give out the presents. The presents, of course, go only to our own girls and boys, do you understand that? Listen, children, please!

"But we have a box of candy for every child here, whether that child comes to any of the cla.s.ses or not! So don't go home without your candy.

And don't come up for your present until you hear your name called, do you understand that? If I see any child coming up before Miss Pierce calls her name, I'll send her right back to her seat! Now, the 'Adeste,'

please!"

Jim had listened in intense amus.e.m.e.nt. How positive she was and how authoritative! Her straight little back, her severe braids, her stern blue eyes roving the hall as she touched the familiar chords, were all so different from the vague young women who were Barbara's friends. She played a few wandering chords after the distribution of gifts began, watching the children file up the aisle, and listening, with only an occasional lifting of her blue eyes to his face, to Doctor Studdiford's smiling comments. Her heart was beating high under a flood of unsensed joy, she did not know why--but she was happy beyond all words.

"I'm afraid I'll have to go help Miss Pierce and Miss Furey, Doctor,"

she said presently, standing up. "Our Miss Scott, who got married two years ago, used to be a perfect wonder at times like this! Here, little girl, little girl! You don't come to the cla.s.ses, do you? No? Well, then, go back to your seat and wait--you see!" She turned despairingly to Jim. "You see, they're simply making a _mess_ of it!"

"I have to go, anyway," said Jim.

"Oh?" Julia turned surprised eyes toward him, and said the one thing she meant to avoid. "But Mrs. Toland and Miss Barbara are coming," she submitted.

"And what of it?" Jim said meaningly. It was his turn to say the awkward thing. "How are the nerves these days?" he asked quickly.

Colour flooded Julia's face.

"Much better, thank you! I gave the tonic up weeks ago. It was just nerves," explained Julia, "a sort of breakdown after we came back from Cloverdale! And I'm so much obliged to you!" she ended shyly.

"Oh, not at all, not at all!" Jim protested gruffly. An unmanageable silence hung between them for a few seconds; then Julia, with a murmured excuse, went to the extrication of Miss Pierce, now hopelessly involved in a surge of swarming children, and Jim went on his way. He carried with him a warm memory of the erect young figure in white, and the thick twisted braid, set against a background of Christmas green. For Julia the rest of the afternoon was enchanted; an enchantment subtly flavoured with the odour of evergreen, and pierced by rapturous voices, and by the glowing colours of the Christmas tree, and the slapping rain at the window.

She and Miss Toland sat down, exhausted and well satisfied, at seven o'clock, to a sc.r.a.ppy little supper in the littered dining-room: one director had left chocolates, another violets; a child's soiled hair ribbon, still tied, lay on the floor; the chairs were pushed about at all angles.

"Give me some more coffee, dear, and open that box of candy," said Miss Toland luxuriously. "We'll sleep late, and go to high ma.s.s at the Cathedral. Alice always has room in her pew. And then we might go over to Sausalito and say 'Merry Christmas.' They'll all be scattered; Jim tells me he and my brother have an operation at twelve, poor wretches!

And I suppose Barbara and little Sally will be off somewhere. Sally always tries to keep them together for Christmas Eve, but in my opinion they're all bored by this tree and stocking business. But of course Ned and his extraordinary wife will be all over the place!"

"I've not been in Sausalito, except once, for eight years," Julia said reflectively.

"I know you've not. Well, we'll go to-morrow." Miss Toland reached for a cigarette; yawned as she lighted it. But Julia's heart began to beat fast in nervous antic.i.p.ation.

Mrs. Toland received them very graciously the next day, and Julia was at once made to feel at home in the pretty house, which was littered charmingly to-day with all sorts of Christmas gifts, and bright with open fires. Barbara was there, and the crippled Richie, but Sally had gone to a Christmas concert with her devoted little squire, Keith Borroughs, and Mrs. Toland presently took Miss Sanna aside for a long, distressed confidence. Theodora, it seemed, had had a stormy argument with her father on the subject of her admirer, Robert Carleton, some days before, and yesterday had left, in defiance of all authority, to meet him for a walk, and lunch with him. She and her father had not spoken to each other since, and Ted was keeping her room. Julia met Ned's wife, a pretentious, complacent little gabbling village belle, and was dragged about by the younger sisters to look at everybody's presents.

"Must be a long time since we saw you here, Miss Page?" said the old doctor, smiling at her over his gla.s.ses, as he carved at luncheon.

"I was here two years ago, one afternoon," Julia smiled. "But I think I haven't seen _you_ since 'The Amazons'--eight years ago!"

"Eight years!" Barbara said, struck. "Mother, do you realize that it is eight years since I was in that play with the Hazzards and Gray Babc.o.c.k and the Grinells? Isn't that _awful_?" She fell into sombre thought.

Julia went through the day in a sort of deep study. This was the enchanted castle that had stood to her for so long as the unattainable height of dreams; these were the envied inhabitants of that castle.

Everything was the same, except herself, yet how incredibly the change in her affected everything about her! She was at home here now, could answer the table pleasantries with her ready, grave smile, could feel that her interest in Constance and Jane was a pleasure to them, or could pick a book from the drawing-room table with the confidence that what she said of it would not be ridiculous. She could even feel herself happier than Barbara, who listened so closely to what Julia said of the settlement house, and sighed as she listened.

After luncheon Richie took her driving over cold country roads, behind a big-boned gray mare, and adored her, though she never dreamed it, because she neither offered to take the reins nor asked him at intervals if his back was tired. He was finishing work at the school of medicine now, and although he could never hope to be in regular practice, his thin, bony face was very bright as he outlined his plans. Julia listened to him sympathetically, and said good-bye to him at the boat with a sense of genuine liking on both sides. Miss Toland was waiting for her on the upper deck, her long nose nipped and red in the cold air.

"Well, he saw that you didn't miss it, after all!" said she, with a welcoming light for Julia in her sharp eyes, though she did not smile.

"Sit down! I've been hearing nice things about you, my dear! I said to Sally, 'So there _is_ something in old maids' children, eh?'" Miss Toland chuckled; she was well pleased with her protegee. Julia settled herself comfortably beside her. She liked to watch the running gray water, and to feel the cold December wind in her face. The thought of Mark was always with her, poor Mark! so much more in her heart dead than living!

But to-day his memory seemed only a part of the tender past; it was toward the future that her heart turned; she felt young and strong and full of hope.

In the new year Jim began to come pretty regularly to the settlement house. Sometimes he stayed but for two minutes, never for more than ten, and usually, even if Julia was out, he left some little gift for her, a book or a magazine, flower seeds, or violets, or a box of candy. She would glance up from the soiled and rumpled sewing of some small girl to find Jim smiling at her from the stage door, or come back from her little shopping round and have a moment's chat with him on the steps.

She grew more and more silent, more and more self-contained, but her beauty deepened daily, and her eyes shone like blue stars.

"G.o.d, I will not believe it--I _cannot_ believe it!" said Julia, on her knees, at night, her hands pressed tight against her eyes. "But I think he is beginning to love me!" And she walked in a strange dazzle of happiness, rejoicing in every sunny morning that, with its warmth and blueness and distant soft whistles from the bay, seemed to promise the spring, and rejoicing no less when rain beat against the windows of The Alexander, and the children rushed in upon her at three o'clock with raindrops in their hair and on their glowing cheeks. The convent garden, in the February mornings, the a.s.sembly room, with late uncertain sunlight checking its floor in the long afternoons, the Colonial restaurant filled with lights and the odours of food at night, all these familiar things seemed strangely new and thrilling, and the arrival of the postman was, twice a day, a heart-shaking event.

In April Doctor Toland went on a fortnight's trip to Mexico, and took his third daughter with him, in the undisguised hope of winning some small share of her confidence, and convincing her of his own disinterested affection. Two days later Barbara telephoned her aunt the harrowing news of Sally's elopement with Keith Borroughs, and Miss Toland went at once to Sausalito, taking Julia along.

They found the big house full of excitement. Richie was with his mother, who had retired to her room and was tearful and hysterical; Ned and his wife had gone back after Christmas to the country town, where he held a small position under his father-in-law; and Jim was doing both his own work and that of his foster father for the time being, and could not be found by telephone; so Julia was received by Barbara and the two younger girls, who were not inclined to make light of the event.

"Four years younger than Sally!" said Constance, not for the first time.

"It's not _that_," Barbara contributed disgustedly. "But he's only nineteen--not of age, even! And he hasn't one single penny! Why, Mrs.

Carter was thinking of sending him abroad for two years' work with his music. I _see_ her doing it now! Little sloppy-haired, conceited idiot, that's what _he_ is!"

"And Richie says he'll have to have his mother's consent before he can marry her," said Jane with a virtuous air.

"It's too disgusting!" Barbara added, giving Jane a sharp glance. "And you oughtn't talk that way, Jane; it doesn't sound very well in a girl your age to talk about any one's having to marry any one!"

"I know this," said Constance gloomily. "It's going to give this family a horrible black eye. A fine chance we'll have to marry, we younger ones, with Sally disgracing every one this way!" Constance was the handsomest of all the Tolands, and felt keenly the disadvantages of being the youngest of four unmarried sisters.

"Don't worry about your marriage until it comes along, Con," said Barbara wearily.

"I'll bet I marry before you do!" said Constance, without venom.

"I long ago made up my mind never to marry at all," Barbara said, with a bored air. Julia chuckled.

"It is so funny to hear you go at each other," she explained. "It sounds so cross--and it really isn't at all! Don't worry, Miss Toland," she added soothingly, "Miss Sally wouldn't marry him if she didn't love him--"

"Oh, she loves him fast enough!" Barbara admitted, consoled.

"And if people love each other, it's all right," Julia went on. Barbara sighed.

"Oh, I hope it is, Julia!" said she, as conscious of the little familiarity for all her abstracted air as Julia was, and suspecting that it thrilled Julia, as indeed it did.

"And it's all the result of idleness, that's what it is, and that's what I've been telling your mother," said Miss Toland, coming in. "You've all got nothing to do except sit about and think how bored you are!"