“Maria's own mother was very particular, wasn't she, dear?” she said.
“Very,” replied Harry.
“Maria takes it from her, without any doubt,” Ida said, smoothly. “She looked so sweet in that new gown to-day, that I would like to have the Adamses see her without her coat to-night; and Maria looks even prettier without her hat, too, her hair grows so prettily on her temples. Maria grows lovelier every day, it seems to me. I don't know how many I saw looking at her in church this morning.”
“Yes, she is going to be pretty, I guess,” said Harry, and again his very soul seemed warm and light with pleasure and gratitude.
“She is pretty,” said Ida, conclusively. “She is at the awkward age, too. But there is no awkwardness about Maria. She is like a little fairy.”
Harry beamed upon her. “She is as proud as punch when she gets a chance to take the little one out, and they made a pretty picture going down the street,” said he, “but I hope she won't catch cold. Is that new suit warm?”
“Oh yes! it is interlined. I looked out for that.”
“You look out for my child as if she were your own, bless you, dear,” Harry said, affectionately.
Then Ida thought that the time for her carefully-led-up-to coup had arrived. “I try to,” said she, meekly.
“You do.”
Ida began to speak, then she hesitated, with timid eyes on her husband's face.
“What is it, dear?” asked he.
“Well, I have been thinking a good deal lately about Maria and her associates in school here.”
“Why, what is the matter with them?” Harry asked, uneasily.
“Oh, I don't know that there is anything very serious the matter with them, but Maria is at an age when she is very impressible, and there are many who are not exactly desirable. There is Gladys Mann, for instance. I saw Maria walking down the street with her the other day. Now, Harry, you know that Gladys Mann is not exactly the kind of girl whom Maria's own mother would have chosen for an intimate friend for her.”
“You are right,” Harry said, frowning.
“Well, I have been thinking over the number of pupils of both sexes in the school who can be called degenerates, either in mind or morals, and I must say I was alarmed.”
“Well, what is to be done?” asked Harry, moodily. “Maria must go to school, of course.”
“Yes, of course, Maria must have a good education, as good as if her own mother had lived.”
“Well, what is to be done, then?”
Then Ida came straight to the point. “The only way I can see is to remove her from doubtful associates.”
“Remove her?” repeated Harry, blankly.
“Yes; send her away to school. Wellbridge Hall, in Emerson, where I went myself, would be a very good school. It is not expensive.”
Harry stared. “But, Ida, she is too young.”
“Not at all.”
“You were older when you went there.”
“A little older.”
“How far is Emerson from here?”
“Only a night's journey from New York. You go to sleep in your berth, and in the morning you are there. You could always see her off. It is very easy.”
“Send Maria away! Ida, it is out of the question. Aside from anything else, there is the expense. I am living up to my income as it is.”
“Oh,” said Ida—she gave her head a noble toss, and spoke impressively—“I am prepared to go without myself to make it possible for you to meet her bills. You know I spoke the other day of a new lace dress. Well, that would cost at least a hundred; I will go without that. And I wanted some new portières for my room; I will go without them. That means, say, fifty more. And you know the dining-room rug looks very shabby. I was thinking we must have an Eastern rug, which would cost at least one hundred and fifty; I thought it would pay in the end. Well, I am prepared to give that up and have a domestic, which only costs twenty-five; that is a hundred and twenty-five more saved. And I had planned to have my seal-skin coat made over after Christmas, and you know you cannot have seal-skin touched under a hundred; there is a hundred more. There are three hundred and seventy-five saved, which will pay for Maria's tuition for a year, and enough over for travelling expenses.” Nothing could have exceeded the expression of lofty virtue of Ida Edgham when she concluded her speech. As for her own selfish considerations, those, as always, she thought of only as her duty. Ida established always a clear case of conscience in all her dealings for her own interests.
But Harry continued to frown. The childish droop of his handsome mouth became more pronounced. “I don't like the idea,” he said, quite sturdily for him.
“Suppose we leave it to Maria,” said Ida.
“I really think,” said Harry, in almost a fretful tone, “that you exaggerate. I hardly think there is anything so very objectionable about her associates here. I will admit that many of the children come from what we call the poor whites, but after all their main vice is shiftlessness, and Maria is not very likely to become contaminated with that.”
“Why, Harry, my dear, that is the very least of their vices.”
“What else?”
“Why, you know that they are notoriously light-fingered.”
“My dear Ida, you don't mean to say that you think Maria—”
“Why, of course not, Harry, but aside from that, their morals.”
Harry rose from his chair and walked across the room nervously.
“My dear Ida,” he said, “you are exaggerating now. Maria is simply not that kind of a girl; and, besides, I don't know that she does see so much of those people, anyway.”
“Gladys Mann—”
“Well, I never heard any harm of that poor little runt. On the other side, Ida, I should think Maria's influence over her for good was to be taken into consideration.”
“I hope you don't mean Maria to be a home missionary?” said Ida.
“She might go to school for a worse purpose,” replied Harry, simply. “Maria has a very strong character from her mother, if not from her father. I actually think the chances are that the Mann girl will have a better chance of getting good from Maria than Maria evil from her.”
“Well, dear, suppose we leave it to Maria herself,” said Ida. “Nobody is going to force the dear child away against her will, of course.”
“Very well,” said Harry. His face still retained a slightly sulky, disturbed expression.
Ida, after a furtive glance at him, took up a sheet of the Sunday paper, and began swaying back and forth gracefully in her rocking-chair, as she read it.
“How foolish all this sentiment about that murderer in the Tombs is,” said she presently. “They are actually going to give him a Christmas-tree.”
“He is only a boy,” said Harry absently.
“I know that—but the idea!”
Just then Maria passed the window, dragging little Evelyn in her white sledge. Ida rose with a motion of unusual quickness for her, but Harry stopped her as she was about to leave the room.
“Don't go out, Ida,” he said, with a peremptoriness which sat strangely upon him.
Ida stared at him. “Why, why not?” she asked. “I wanted to take Evelyn out. You know Josephine is not here.”
“She is getting out all right with Maria's help; sit down, Ida,” said Harry, still with that tone of command which was so foreign to him.
Ida hesitated a second, then she sat down. She realized the grace and policy of yielding in a minor point, when she had a large one in view. Then, too, she was in reality rather vulnerable to a sudden attack, for a moment, although she was always as a rule sure of ultimate victory. She was at a loss, moreover, to comprehend Harry's manner, which was easily enough understood. He wished to be the first to ascertain Maria's sentiments with regard to going away to school. Without admitting it even to himself, he distrusted his wife's methods and entire frankness.
Presently Maria entered, leading little Evelyn, who was unusually sturdy on her legs for her age. She walked quite steadily, with an occasional little hop and skip of exuberant childhood.
She could talk a little, in disconnected sentences, with fascinating mistakes in the sounds of letters, but she preferred a gurgle of laughter when she was pleased, and a wail of woe when things went wrong. She was still in the limbos of primitivism. She was young with the babyhood of the world. To-day she danced up to her father with her little thrill of laughter, at once as meaningless and as full of meaning as the trill of a canary. She pursed up her little lips for a kiss, she flung frantic arms of adoration around his neck. She clung to him, when he lifted her, with all her little embracing limbs; she pressed her lovely, cool, rosy cheek against his, and laughed again.
“Now go and kiss mamma,” said Harry.
But the baby resisted with a little, petulant murmur when he tried to set her down. She still clung to him. Harry whispered in her ear.
“Go and kiss mamma, darling.”
But Evelyn shook her head emphatically against his face. Maria, almost as radiant in her youth as the child, stood behind her. She glanced uneasily at Ida. She held the white fur robes and wraps which she had brought in from the sledge.
“Take those things out and let Emma put them away, dear,” Ida said to her. She smiled, but her voice still retained its involuntary harshness.
Maria obeyed with an uneasy glance at little Evelyn. She knew that her step-mother was angry because the baby would not kiss her. When she was out in the dining-room, giving the fluffy white things to the maid, she heard a shriek, half of grief, half of angry dissent, from the baby. She immediately ran back into the parlor. Ida was removing the child's outer garments, smiling as ever, and with seeming gentleness, but Maria had a conviction that her touch on the tender flesh of the child was as the touch of steel. Little Evelyn struggled to get to her sister when she saw her, but Ida held her firmly.
“Stand still, darling,” she said. It was inconceivable how she could say darling without the loving inflection which alone gave the word its full meaning.
“Stand still and let mamma take off baby's things,” said Harry, and there was no lack of affectionate cadences in his voice. He privately thought that he himself could have taken off the child's wraps better than his wife, but he recognized her rights in the matter. Harry remembering his first wife, with her child, was in a state of constant bewilderment at the sight of his second with hers. He had always had the masculine opinion that women, in certain primeval respects, were cut on one pattern, and his opinion was being rudely shaken.
“Call Emma, please,” said Ida to Maria, and Maria obeyed.
When the maid came in, Ida directed her to take the child up-stairs and put on another frock.
Maria was about to follow, but Harry stopped her. “Maria,” said he.
Maria stopped, and eyed her father with surprise.
“Maria,” said Harry, bluntly, “your mother and I have been talking about your going away to school.”
Maria turned slightly pale and continued to stare at him, but she said nothing.
“She thinks, and I don't know but she is right,” said Harry, with painful loyalty, “that your associates here are not just the proper ones for you, and that it would be much better for you to go to boarding-school.”
“How much would it cost?” asked Maria, in a dazed voice. The question sounded like her own mother.
“Father can manage that; you need not trouble yourself about that,” replied Harry, hurriedly.
“Where?” said Maria, then.
“To a nice school where your mother was educated.”
“My mother?”
“Ida—to Wellbridge Hall.”
“How often should I come home and see you and Evelyn? Every week?”
“I am afraid not, dear,” said Harry, uneasily.
“How long are the terms?” asked Maria.
“Only about twelve weeks,” said Ida.
Maria stood staring from one to the other. Her face had turned deadly pale, and had, moreover, taken on an expression of despair and isolation. Somehow, although the little girl was only a few feet from the others, she had a look as if she were leagues off, as if she were outside something vital, which removed her, in fact, to immeasurable distances. And, in fact, Maria had a feeling which never afterwards wholly left her, of being outside the love of life in which she had hitherto dwelt with confidence.
“Maybe you would like it, dear,” Harry said, feebly.
“I will go,” Maria said, in a choking voice. Then she turned without another word and went out of the room, up-stairs to her own little chamber. When there she sat down beside the window. She did not think. She did not seem to feel her hands and feet. It was as if she had fallen from a height. The realization that her father and his new wife wanted to send her away, that she was not wanted in her home, stunned her.
But in a moment the door was flung open and her father entered. He knelt down beside Maria and pulled her head to his shoulder and kissed her, and she felt with a sort of dull wonder his face damp against her own.
“Father's little girl!” said Harry. “Father's own little girl! Father's blessing! Did she think he wanted to send her away? I rather guess he didn't. How would father get along without his own precious baby, when he came home at night. She shan't go one step. She needn't fret a bit about it.”
Maria turned and regarded him with a frozen look still on her face. “It was She that wanted me to go?” she said, interrogatively.
“She thought maybe it would be best for you, darling,” said Harry. “She means to do right by you, Maria; you must try to think so.”
Maria said nothing.
“But father isn't going to let you go,” said Harry. “He can't do without his little girl.”
Then Maria's strange calm broke up. She clung, weeping, to her father, as if he were her only stay. Harry continued to soothe her.
“Father's blessing!” he whispered in her ear. “She was the best little girl that ever was. She is just like her own dear mother.”
“I wish mother was back,” Maria whispered, her whisper stifled against his ear.
“Oh, my God, so do I!” Harry said, with a half sob. For the minute the true significance of his position overwhelmed him. He felt a regret, a remembrance, that was a passion. He realized, with no disguise, what it all meant: that he a man with the weakness of a child in the hands of a masterly woman, had formerly been in the leading-strings of love for himself, for his own best good, whereas he was now in the grasp of the self-love of another who cared for him only as he promoted her own interests. In a moment, however, he recovered himself. After all, he had a sense of loyalty and duty which amounted to positive strength. He put Maria gently from him with another kiss.
“Well, this won't bring your mother back, dear,” he said, “and God took her away, you know, and what He does is for the best; and She means to do her duty by you, you know, dear. She thought it would be better for you, but father can't spare you, that's all there is about it.”
Chapter XIII
It was an utter impossibility for Ida Edgham to be entirely balked of any purpose which she might form. There was something at once impressive and terrible about the strength of this beautiful, smiling creature's will, about its silence, its impassibility before obstacles, its persistency. It was as inevitable and unswervable as an avalanche or a cyclone. People might shriek out against it and struggle, but on it came, a mighty force, overwhelming petty things as well as great ones. It really seemed a pity, taking into consideration Ida's tremendous strength of character, that she had not some great national purpose upon which to exert herself, instead of such trivial domestic ones.
Ida realized that she could not send Maria to the school which she had proposed. Her strength had that subtlety which acknowledges its limitations and its closed doors, and can look about for other means and ways. Therefore, when Harry came down-stairs that Sunday afternoon, his face working with emotion but his eyes filled with a steady light, and said, with no preface, “It's no use talking, Ida, that child does not want to go, and she shall never be driven from under my roof, while I live,” Ida only smiled, and replied, “Very well, dear, I only meant it for her good.”
“She is not going,” Harry said doggedly.
Harry resumed his seat with a gesture of defiance which was absurd, from its utter lack of any response from his wife. It was like tilting with a windmill.
Ida continued to sway gently back and forth, and smile.
“I think if the Adamses do come in to-night we will have a little salad, there will be enough left from the chicken, and some cake and tea,” she observed presently. “We won't have the table set, because both the maids have asked to go out, but Maria can put on my India muslin apron and pass the things. I will have the salad made before they go, and I will make the tea. We can have it on the table in here.” Ida indicated, by a graceful motion of her shoulder, a pretty little tea-table loaded with Dresden china.
“All right,” replied Harry, with a baffled tone. He felt baffled without knowing exactly why.
Ida took up another sheet of the Herald, a fashion page was uppermost. She read something and smiled. “It says that gowns made like Maria's new one are the most fetching ones of the season,” she said. “I am so glad I have the skirt plaited.”
Harry made a gesture of assent. He felt, without in the least knowing why, like a man who had been completely worsted in a hand-to-hand combat. He felt humiliated and unhappy. His first wife, even with her high temper and her ready tongue, had never caused him such a sense of abjectness. He had often felt angry with her, but never with himself. She had never really attacked his self-respect as this woman did. He did not dare look up from his newspaper for a while, for he realized that he should experience agony at seeing the beautiful, radiant face of his second wife opposite him instead of the worn, stern, but altogether loving and single-hearted face of his first. He was glad when Maria came down-stairs, and looked up and greeted her with a smile of reassuring confidence. Maria's pretty little face was still tear-stained, although she had bathed it with cold water. She also took up a sheet of the Sunday paper.
“Did you see Alice Lundy's new hat in church to-day, dear?” Ida presently asked her, and her manner was exactly as if nothing had occurred to disturb anybody.
Maria looked at her with a sort of wonder, which made her honest face almost idiotic.
“No, ma'am,” said she.
Maria had been taught to say “yes, ma'am” and “no, ma'am” by her own mother, whose ideas of etiquette were old-fashioned, and dated from the precepts of her own childhood.
“It is a little better not to say ma'am,” said Ida, sweetly. “I think that expression is not used so much as formerly.”
Maria looked at her with a quick defiance, which gave her an almost startling resemblance to her own mother.
“Yes, ma'am,” said she.
Harry's mouth twitched behind his paper. Ida said no more. She continued to smile, but she was not reading the paper which she held. She was making new plans to gain her own ends. She was seeking new doors of liberty for her own ways, in lieu of those which she saw were closed to her, and by the time dinner was served she was quite sure that she had succeeded.
The next autumn, Maria began attending the Elliot Academy, in
Wardway. The Elliot Academy was an endowed school of a very high
standing, and Wardway was a large town, almost a city, about
fifteen miles from Edgham. When this plan was broached by Ida,
Maria did not make any opposition; she was secretly delighted.
Wollaston Lee was going to the Elliot Academy that autumn, and
there was another Edgham girl and her brother, besides Maria, who
were going.
“Now, darling, you need not go to the Elliot Academy any more than to the other school she proposed, if you don't want to,” Harry told Maria, privately, one Saturday afternoon in September, shortly before the term began.
Ida had gone to her club, and Harry had come home early from the city, and he and Maria were alone in the parlor. Evelyn was having her nap up-stairs. A high wind was roaring about the house. A cherry-tree beside the house was fast losing its leaves in a yellow rain. In front of the window, a hydrangea bush, tipped with magnificent green-and-rosy plumes, swayed in all its limbs like a living thing. Somewhere up-stairs a blind banged.
“I think I would like to go,” Maria replied, hurriedly. Then she jumped up. “That blind will wake Evelyn,” she said, and ran out of the room.
She had colored unaccountably when her father spoke. When she returned, she had a demure, secretive expression on her face which made Harry stare at her in bewilderment. All his life Harry Edgham had been helpless and bewildered before womenkind, and now his little daughter was beginning to perplex him. She sat down and took up a piece of fancy-work, and her father continued to glance at her furtively over his paper. Presently he spoke of the academy again.
“You need not go if you do not want to,” he repeated.
Then again Maria's delicate little face and neck became suffused with pink. Her reply was not as loud nor more intelligible than the murmur of the trees outside in the wind.
“What did you say, darling?” asked Harry. “Father did not understand.”
“I would like to go there,” Maria replied, in her sweet, decisive little pipe. A fresh wave of color swept over her face and neck, and she selected with great care a thread from a skein of linen floss.
“Well, she thought you might like that,” Harry said, with an air of relief.
“Maud Page is going, too,” said Maria.
“Is she? That will be nice. You won't have to go back and forth alone,” said Harry.
Maria said nothing; she continued her work.
Her father turned his paper and looked at the stock-list. Once he had owned a hundred shares of one of the Industrials. He had long since sold out, not at a loss, but the stock had risen since. He always noted it with an odd feeling of proprietorship, in spite of not owning any. He saw with pride that it had advanced half a point.
Maria worked silently; and as she worked she dreamed, and the dream was visible on her face, had any one been astute enough to understand it. She was working a lace collar to wear with a certain blue blouse, and upon that flimsy keystone was erecting an air-castle. She was going to the Elliot Academy, wearing the blue blouse and the lace collar, and looking so lovely that Wollaston Lee worshipped her. She invented little love-scenes, love-words, and caresses. She blushed, and dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth, the blue light of her eyes under her downcast lids was like the light of living gems. She viewed with complacency her little, soft white hands plying the needle. Maria had hands like a little princess. She cast a glance at the toe of her tiny shoe. She remembered how somebody had told her to keep her shoulders straight, and she threw them back with a charming motion, as if they had been wings. She was entirely oblivious of her father's covert glances. She was solitary, isolated in the crystal of her own thoughts. Presently, Evelyn woke and cried, and Maria roused herself with a start and ran up-stairs. Soon the two came into the room, Evelyn dancing with the uncertain motion of a winged seed on a spring wind. She was charming. One round cheek was more deeply flushed than the other, and creased with the pillow. Her yellow hair, fine and soft and full of electric life, tossed like a little crest. She ran with both fat little hands spread palms outward, and pounced violently upon her father. Harry rolled her about on his knee, and played with her as if she had been a kitten. Maria stood by laughing. The child was fairly screaming with mirth.
A graceful figure passed the window, its garments tightly wrapped by the wind, flying out like a flag behind. Harry set the little girl down at once.
“Here is mamma coming,” said he. “Go to sister and she will show you the pictures in the book papa brought home the other day.”
Evelyn obeyed. She was a docile little thing, and she had a fear of her mother without knowing why. She was sitting beside Maria, looking demurely at the pictures which her sister pointed out to her, when Ida entered.
“See the horsey running away,” said Maria. Then she added in a whisper, “Go and kiss mamma, baby.”
The child hesitated, then she rose, and ran to her mother, who stooped her radiant face over her and kissed her coolly.
“Have you been a good little girl?” asked she. Ida was looking particularly self-satisfied to day, and more disposed consequently to question others as to their behavior.
“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 stitch 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 trimmings. 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 passengers 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 assistance 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 button-hole. Maria inhaled the clovy fragrance of it. At the next station more passengers 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 passed 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 passing. 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 butterfly 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 principal 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 class.” 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 passengers 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! Nobody 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.
“Nobody 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 embarrassment.
“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 trimmings, 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!”
“I saw a little girl jest about her size, a-carryin' of a doll, that clim on the New York train jest as we went out this mornin',” replied Edwin with a gasp, as if the information were wrung from him by torture. “And she was with a awful fat woman. Leastways—”
“A fat woman!” cried Wollaston Lee. “Who was the fat woman?”
“I hadn't never saw her afore. She was awful fat, and was a steppin' on her dress.”
Wollaston was keen-witted, and he immediately grasped at the truth of the matter.
“You idiot!” he said. “What makes you think she was with the stout woman—just because she was climbing into the train after her?”
“Little girls don't never go to New York alone with dolls,” vouchsafed Edwin, more idiotically than ever. “Leastways—”
“If you don't stop saying leastways, I'll punch your head,” said Wollaston. “Are you sure the child was Maria's little sister?”
“Looked like her,” said Edwin, shrinking back a little. “Leastways—”
“What was she dressed in?” asked Maria, eagerly.
“I didn't see as she had nothin' on.”
“You great gump!” said Gladys, shaking him energetically. “Of course she had something on.”
“She had a big doll.”
“What did she have on? You answer me this minute!” said Gladys.
“She might have had on a blue dress,” admitted Edwin, with a frantic grasp at his memory, “but she didn't have nothin' on her, nohow. Leastways—”
“Oh!” sobbed Maria, “she did wear her little blue dress this morning. She did! Was her hair light?”
“Yes, it were,” said Edwin, quite positively. “Leastways—”
“It was Evelyn,” sobbed Maria. “Oh, poor little Evelyn, all alone in New York! She never went but once with Her and me, and she wouldn't know where to go. Oh, oh!”
“Where did she go when she went with your step-ma and you?” demanded Gladys, who seemed to have suddenly developed unusual acumen. Her face was streaming with tears but her voice was keen.
“She went to Her cousin's, who lives in an apartment in West Forty-ninth Street,” said Maria.
“She'd try to go there again,” said Gladys. “Did she know the woman's name?”
“Yes, she did.”
“You bet she did. She was an awful bright kid,” said Gladys. “Now, I tell you what, Maria, I shouldn't a mite wonder if your step-ma had had a telegram from her cousin by this time, that she was to her house. You'd better jest run home an' see.”
“She was only her third cousin,” said Maria, “and She hardly ever heard from her. It was only the other day I heard Her say that she didn't know but she had left New York. I don't think Her cousin liked her very well.”
“What was the cousin's name?”
“She called her Alice, but her name was Mrs. George B. Edison.”
“That's jest where the kid has went,” said Gladys. “You go right home, M'ria. We'll go with you, and I'll bet a cooky you'll find that your step-ma has had a telegram.”
Maria hesitated a moment; then she started, Wollaston Lee still keeping close hold of her arm. Gladys was on the other side.
Chapter XIV
When Maria reached home, she pushed open the front door, which was unlocked, and rushed violently in. Wollaston and Gladys followed her, after a slight hesitation, but remained standing in the vestibule. When Maria had come in sight of the house, she had perceived the regular motion of a rocking female head past the parlor light, and she knew that it was Ida. Ida nearly always occupied a rocking-chair, and was fond of the gentle, swaying motion.
“There she is, rocking just as if the baby wasn't lost,” Maria thought, with the bitterest revulsion and sarcasm. When she opened the door she immediately smelled tea, the odor of broiling beefsteak and fried potatoes. “Eating just as if the baby wasn't lost,” she thought. She rushed into the parlor, and there was Ida swaying back and forth in her rocking-chair, and there were three ladies with her. One was Mrs. Jonas White; one was a very smartly dressed woman, Mrs. Adams, perhaps the most intimate friend whom Ida had in Edgham; one was the wife of the minister whose church the Edghams attended, Mrs. Applegate, or, as she was called, Mrs. Dr. Applegate—her husband had a degree. Her sister had just died and she was dressed in the deepest mourning; sitting in the shade in a corner, she produced a curious effect of a vacuum of grief. Mrs. Adams, who was quite young and very pretty, stout and blond, was talking eagerly; Mrs. Jonas White was sniffing quietly; Mrs. Applegate, who was ponderously religious, asked once in a while, in a subdued manner, if Mrs. Edgham did not think it would be advisable to unite in prayer.
Ida made no reply. She continued to rock, and she had a curious set expression. Her lips were resolutely compressed, as if to restrain that radiant smile of hers, which had become habitual with her. She looked straight ahead, keeping her eyes fastened upon a Tiffany vase which stood on a little shelf, a glow of pink and gold against a skilful background of crimson velvet. It was as if she were having her photograph taken and had been requested by the photographer to keep her eyes fixed upon that vase.
“The detective system of New York is so lax,” said Mrs. Adams. “I do wish there was more system among them and among the police. One would feel—” She heaved a deep sigh.
Mrs. Jonas White sobbed audibly.
“Do you not think, dear friends, that it would be a good plan to offer up our voices at the Throne of Grace for the dear child's return?” asked Mrs. Applegate in a solemn voice, albeit somewhat diffidently. She was a corpulent woman, and was richly dressed, in spite of her deep mourning. A jet brooch rimmed with pearls, gleamed out of the shadow where she sat.
Ida continued to rock.
“But,” said Mrs. Adams, “a great many children are lost every year and found. Sometimes the system does really work in a manner to astonish any one. I should not be surprised at any minute to see Mr. Edgham or a policeman walking in with her. But—well—there is so much to be done. The other night, when Mr. Adams and I went in to hear Mrs. Fiske, we drove eight blocks after the performance without seeing one policeman.”
“I suppose, though, if you had been really attacked, a dozen would have sprung out from somewhere,” said Mrs. White, in a tearful voice. Mrs. White could not have heard Satan himself assailed without a word in his defence, such was the maternal pity of her heart.
“That was what Mr. Adams said,” retorted Mrs. Adams, with some asperity, “and I told him that I would rather the dozen policemen were in evidence before I was shot and robbed than after. I had on all my rings, and my diamond sunburst.”
“Do you not think, dear friend, that it would be a good plan to offer up our voices at the Throne of Grace for the safe restoration of the dear child?” asked Mrs. Applegate again. Her voice was sonorous, very much like her husband's. She felt that, so far as in her lay, she was taking his place. He was out of town.
It was then that Maria rushed into the room. She ran straight up to her step-mother. The other women started. Ida continued to rock, and look at the Tiffany vase. It seemed as if she dared not take her eyes from it for fear of losing her expression. Then Maria spoke, and her voice did not sound like her own at all. It was accusatory, menacing.
“Where is my little sister?” she cried. “Where is she?”
Mrs. Jonas White rose, approached Maria, and put her arms around her caressingly. “You poor, dear child,” she sobbed, “I guess you do feel it. You did set a heap by that blessed little thing, didn't you?”
“She is in the hands of the Lord,” said Mrs. Applegate.
“If the police of New York were worth anything, she would be in the police station by this time,” said Mrs. Adams, with a fierce toss of her pretty blond head.
“We know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in air; we only know we cannot drift beyond His love and care,” said Mrs. Applegate, with a solemn aside. Tears were in her own eyes, but she resolutely checked her impulse to weep. She felt that it would show a lack of faith. She was entirely in earnest.
“Mebbe she is in the police-station,” sobbed Mrs. White, continuing to embrace Maria. But Maria gave her a forcible push away, and again addressed herself to her step-mother.
“Where is she?” she demanded.
“Oh, you poor, dear child! Your ma don't know where she is, and she is so awful upset, she sets there jest like marble,” said Mrs. White.
“She isn't upset at all. You don't know her as well as I do,” said Maria, mercilessly. “She thinks she ought to act upset, so she sits this way. She isn't upset.”
“Oh, Maria!” gasped Mrs. White.
“The child is out of her head,” said Mrs. Adams, and yet she looked at Maria with covert approval. She was Ida's intimate friend, but in her heart of hearts she doubted her grief. She had once lost by death a little girl of her own. She kept thinking of her little Alice, and how she should feel in a similar case. It did not seem to her that she should rock, and look at a Tiffany vase. She inveighed against the detectives and police with a reserve meaning of indignation against Ida. It seemed to her that any woman whose child was lost should be up and generally making a tumult, if she were doing nothing else.
The Maria, standing before the beautiful woman swaying gently, with her eyes fixed upon the pink and gold of the vase, spoke out for the first time what was in her heart of hearts with regard to her.
“You are a wicked woman,” said she; “that is what you are. I don't know as you can help being wicked. I guess you were made wicked; but you are a wicked woman. Your mouth smiles, but your heart never does. You act now as if you were sorry,” said she, “but you are not sorry, the way my mother would have been sorry if she had lost me, the way she would have been sorry if Evelyn had been her little girl instead of yours. You are a wicked woman. I have always known it, but I have never told you so before. Now I am going to tell you. Your own child is lost, you let her be lost. You didn't look out for her. Yes, your own child is lost, and you sit there and rock!”
Ida for a moment made no reply. The other women, and Gladys and Wollaston in the vestibule, listened with horror.
“You have had beefsteak and fried potatoes cooked, too,” continued Maria, sniffing, “and you have eaten them. You have been eating beefsteak and fried potatoes when your own child was lost and you did not know where she was!” It might have been ridiculous, this last accusation in the thin, sweet, childish voice, but it was not. It was even more terrible than anything else.
Ida turned at last. “I hate you,” she said slowly. “I have always hated you. You have hated me ever since I came into this house,” she said, “though I have done more than your own mother ever did for you.”
“You have not!” cried Maria. “You have got nice clothes for me, but my own mother loved me. What are nice clothes to love? You have not even loved Evelyn. You have only got her nice clothes. You have never loved her. Poor papa and I were the only ones that loved her. You never even loved poor papa. You saw to it that he had things to eat, but you never loved him. You are not made right. All the love in your heart is for your own self. You are turned the wrong way. I don't know as you can help it, but you are a dreadful woman. You are wicked. You never loved the baby, and now you have let her be lost. She is my own little sister, and papa's child, a great deal more than she is anything to you. Where is she?” Maria's voice rang wild. Her face was blazing. She had an abnormal expression in her blue eyes fixed upon her step-mother.
Ida, after her one outburst, gazed upon her with a sort of fear as well as repulsion. She again turned to the Tiffany vase.
Mrs. White, sobbing aloud like a child, again put her arms around Maria.
“Come, come,” she said soothingly, “you poor child, I know how you feel, but you mustn't talk so, you mustn't, dear! You have no right to judge. You don't know how your mother feels.”
“I know how She doesn't feel!” Maria burst out, “and She isn't my mother. My mother loves me more way off in heaven than that woman loves Her own child on earth. She doesn't feel. She just rocks, and thinks how She looks. I hate Her! Let me go!” With that Maria was out of the room, and ran violently up-stairs.
When she had gone, the three visiting women looked at one another, and the same covert expression of gratified malice, at some one having spoken out what was in their inmost hearts, was upon all three faces. Ida was impassive, with her smiling lips contracted. Mrs. Applegate again murmured something about uniting in prayer.
Maria came hurrying down-stairs. She had in her hand her purse, which contained ten dollars, which her father had given her on her birthday, also a book of New York tickets which had been a present from Ida, and which Ida herself had borrowed several times since giving them to Maria. Maria herself seldom went to New York, and Ida had a fashion of giving presents which might react to her own benefit. Maria, as she passed the parlor door, glanced in and saw her step-mother rocking and staring at the vase. Then she was out of the front-door, racing down the street with Wollaston Lee and Gladys hardly able to keep up with her. Wollaston reached her finally, and again caught her arm. The pressure of the hard, warm boy hand was grateful to the little, hysterical thing, who was trembling from head to foot, with a strange rigidity of tremors. Gladys also clutched her other sleeve.
“Say, M'ria Edgham, where be you goin'?” she demanded.
“I'm going to find my little sister,” gasped out Maria. She gave a dry sob as she spoke.
“My!” said Gladys.
“Now, Maria, hadn't you better go back home?” ventured Wollaston.
“No,” said Maria, and she ran on towards the station.
“Come home with me to my mother,” said Wollaston, pleadingly, but a little timidly. A girl in such a nervous strait as this was a new experience for him.
“She can go home with me,” said Gladys. “My mother's a heap better than Ida Slome. Say, M'ria, all them things you said was true, but land! how did you darse?”
Maria made no reply. She kept on.
“Say, M'ria, you don't mean you're goin' to New York?” said Gladys.
“Yes, I am. I am going to find my little sister.”
“My!” said Gladys.
“Now, Maria, don't you think you had better go home with me, and see mother?” Wollaston said again.
But Maria seemed deaf. In fact, she heard nothing but the sound of the approaching New York train. She ran like a wild thing, her little, slim legs skimming the ground like a bird's, almost as if assisted by wings.
When the train reached the station, Maria climbed in, Wollaston and Gladys after her. Neither Wollaston nor Gladys had the slightest premeditation in the matter; they were fairly swept along by the emotion of their companion.
When the train had fairly started, Gladys, who had seated herself beside Maria, while Wollaston was in the seat behind them, heaved a deep sigh of bewilderment and terror. “My!” said she.
Wollaston also looked pale and bewildered. He was only a boy, and had never been thrown much upon his own responsibility. All that had been uppermost in his mind was the consideration that Maria could not be stopped, and she must not go alone to New York. But he did not know what to think of it all. He felt chaotic. The first thing which seemed to precipitate his mentality into anything like clearness was the entrance of the conductor. Then he thought instinctively about money. Although still a boy, money as a prime factor was already firmly established in his mind. He reflected with dismay that he had only his Wardway tickets, and about three dollars beside. It was now dark. The vaguest visions of what they were to do in New York were in his head. The fare to New York was a little over a dollar; he had only enough to take them all in, then what next? He took out his pocket-book, but Gladys looked around quickly.
“She's got a whole book of tickets,” she said.
However, Wollaston, who was proud, started to pay the conductor, but he had reached Maria first, and she had said “Three,” peremptorily. Then she handed the book to Wollaston, with the grim little ghost of a smile. “You please keep this,” said she. “I haven't got any pocket.”
Wollaston was so bewildered that the possession of pockets seemed instantly to restore his self-respect. He felt decidedly more at his ease when he had Maria's ticket-book in his innermost pocket. Then she gave him her purse also.
“I wish you would please take this,” said she. “There are ten dollars in it, and I haven't any pocket.” Wollaston took that.
“All right,” he said. He buttoned his gray vest securely over Maria's pretty little red purse. Then he leaned over the seat, and began to speak, but he absolutely did not know what to say. He made an idiotic remark about the darkness. “Queer how quick it grows dark, when it begins,” said he.
Maria ignored it, but Gladys said: “Yes, it is awful queer.”
Gladys's eyes looked wild. The pupils were dilated. She had been to New York but once before in her life, and now to be going in the evening to find Maria's little sister was almost too much for her intelligence, which had its limitations.
However, after a while, Wollaston Lee spoke again. He was in reality a keen-witted boy, only this was an emergency into which he had been surprised, and which he had not foreseen, and Maria's own abnormal mood had in a measure infected him. Presently he spoke to the point.
“What on earth are you going to do when you get to New York, anyhow?” said he to Maria.
“Find her,” replied Maria, laconically.
“But New York is a mighty big city. How do you mean to go to work? Now I—”
Maria cut him short. “I am going right up to Her cousin's, on West Forty-ninth Street, and find out if Evelyn is there,” said she.
“But what would make the child want to go there, anyhow?”
“It was the only place she had ever been in New York,” said Maria.
“But I don't see what particular reason she would have for going there, though,” said Wollaston. “How would she remember the street and number?”
“She was an awful bright kid,” said Gladys, with a momentary lapse of reason, “and kids is queer. I know, 'cause we've got so many of 'em to our house. Sometimes they'll remember things you don't ever think they would. My little sister Maud remembers how my mother drowned five kittens oncet, when she was in long clothes. We knowed she did, 'cause when the cat had kittens next time we caught her trying to drown 'em herself. Kids is awful queer. Maud can't remember how to spell her own name, either, and she's most six now. She spells it M-a-u-d, when it had ought to be M-a-u-g-h-d. I shouldn't be one mite surprised if M'ria's little sister remembered the street and number.”
“Anyway, she knew her whole name, because I've heard her say it,” said Maria. “Her cousin's name is Mrs. George B. Edison. Evelyn used to say it, and we used to laugh.”
“Oh, well, if she knew the name like that she might have found the place all right,” said Wollaston. “But what puzzles me is why she wanted to go there, anyway?”
“I don't know,” said Maria.
“I don't know,” said Wollaston, “but it seems to me the best thing to do would be to go directly to a police-office and have the chief of police notified, and set them at work; but then I suppose your father has done that already.”
Maria turned upon him with indignation. “Go to a police-station to find my little sister!” said she. “What would I go there for?”
“Yes, what do you suppose that kid has did?” asked Gladys.
“What would I go there for?” demanded Maria, flashing the light of her excited, strained little face upon the boy.
Maria no longer looked pretty. She no longer looked even young. Lines of age were evident around her mouth, her forehead was wrinkled. The boy fairly started at the sight of her. She seemed like a stranger to him. Her innermost character, which he had heretofore only guessed at by superficial signs, was written plainly on her face. The boy felt himself immeasurably small and young, manly and bold of his age as he really was. When a young girl stretches to the full height of her instincts, she dwarfs any boy of her own age. Maria's feeling for her little sister was fairly maternal. She was in spirit a mother searching for her lost young, rather than a girl searching for her little sister. Her whole soul expanded. She fairly looked larger, as well as older. When they got off the train at Jersey City, she led the little procession straight for the Twenty-third Street ferry. She marched ahead like a woman of twice her years.
“You had better hold up your dress, M'ria,” said Gladys, coming up with her, and looking at her with wonder. “My, how you do race!”
Maria reached round one hand and caught a fold of her skirt. Her new dress was in fact rather long for her. Ida had remarked that morning that she would have Miss Keeler shorten it on Saturday. Ida had no wish to have a grown-up step-daughter quite yet, whom people might take for her own.
The three reached the ferry-boat just as she was about to leave her slip. They sat down in a row midway of the upper deck. The heat inside was intense. Gladys loosened her shabby little sacque. Maria sat impassible.
“Ain't you most baked in here?” asked Gladys.
“No,” replied Maria.
Both Gladys and Wollaston looked cowed. They kept glancing at each other and at Maria. Maria sat next Gladys, Wollaston on Gladys's other side. Gladys nudged Wollaston, and whispered to him.
“We've jest got to stick close to her,” she whispered, in an alarmed cadence. The boy nodded.
Then they both glanced again at Maria, who seemed quite oblivious of their attention. When they reached the other side, Wollaston, with an effort, asserted himself.
“We had better take a cross-town car to the Sixth Avenue Elevated,” he said, pressing close to Maria's side and seizing her arm again.
Maria shook her head. “No,” she said. “Where Mrs. Edison lives is not so near the Elevated. It will be better to take a cross-town car and transfer at Seventh Avenue.”
“All right,” said Wollaston. He led the way in the run down the stairs, and aided his companions onto the cross-town car. He paid their fares, and got the transfers, and stopped the other car. He was beginning to feel himself again, at least temporarily.
“Well, I think the police-station is the best place to look, but have your own way. It won't take long to see if she is there now,” said Wollaston. He was hanging on a strap in front of Maria. The car was crowded with people going to up-town theatres. Some of the ladies, in showy evening wraps, giving glimpses of delicate waists, looked curiously at the three. There was something extraordinary about their appearance calculated to attract attention, although it was difficult to say just why. After they had left the car, a lady with a white lace blouse showing between the folds of a red cloak, said to her escort: “I wonder who they were?”
“I don't know,” said the man, who had been watching them. “I thought there was something unusual.”
“I thought so, too. That well-dressed young woman, and that handsome boy, and that shabby little girl.” By the “young woman” she meant Maria.
“Yes, a queer combination,” said the man.
“It wasn't altogether that, but they looked so desperately in earnest.”
Meantime, while the lights of the car disappeared up the avenue, Maria, Wollaston, and Gladys Mann searched for the house in which had lived Ida Edgham's cousin.
At last they found it, mounted the steps, and rang the bell. It was an apartment-house. After a little the door opened of itself.
“My!” said Gladys, but she followed Wollaston and Maria inside.
Wollaston began searching the names above the rows of bells on the wall of the vestibule.
“What did you say the name was?” he asked of Maria.
“Edison. Mrs. George B. Edison.”
“There is no such name here.”
“There must be.”
“There isn't.”
“Let me see,” said Maria. She searched the names. “Well, I don't care,” said she. “It was on the third floor, and I am going up and ask, anyway.”
“Now, Maria, do you think—” began Wollaston.
But Maria began climbing the stairs. There was no elevator.
“My!” said Gladys, but she followed Maria.
Wollaston pushed by them both. “See here, you don't know what you are getting into,” said he, sternly. “You let me go first.”
When they reached the third floor, Maria pointed to a door. “That is the door,” she whispered, breathlessly.
Wollaston knocked. Immediately the door was flung open by a very pretty young woman in a rose-colored evening gown. Her white shoulders gleamed through the transparent chiffon, and a comb set with rhinestones sparkled in the fluff of her blond hair. When she saw the three she gave a shrill scream, and immediately a very small man, much smaller than she, but with a fierce cock of a black pointed beard, and a tremendous wiriness of gesture, appeared.
“Oh, Tom!” gasped the young woman. “Oh!”
“What on earth is the matter, Stella?” asked the man. Then he looked fiercely at the three. “Who are these people?” he asked.
“I don't know. I opened the door. I thought it was Adeline and Raymond, and then I saw these strange people. I don't know how they got in.”
“We came in the door,” said Gladys, with some asperity, “and we are lookin' for M'ria's little sister. Be you her ma-in-law's cousin?”
“I don't know who these people are,” the young woman said, faintly, to the man. “I think they must be burglars.”
“Burglars, nothin'!” said Gladys, who had suddenly assumed the leadership of the party. Opposition and suspicion stimulated her. She loved a fight. “Be you her ma-in-law's cousin, and have you got her little sister?”
Wollaston looked inquiringly at Maria, who was very pale.
“It isn't Her cousin,” she gasped. “I don't know who she is. I never saw her.”
Then Wollaston spoke, hat in hand, and speaking up like a man. “Pardon us, sir,” he said, “we did not intend to intrude, but—”
“Get out of this,” said the man, with a sudden dart towards the door.
His wife screamed again, and put her hand over a little diamond brooch at her throat. “I just know they are sneak-thieves,” she gasped. “Do send them away, Tom!”
Wollaston tried to speak again. “We merely wished to ascertain,” said he, “if a lady by the name of Mrs. George A.—”
“B.” interrupted Gladys.
“B. Edison lived here. This young lady's little sister is lost, and Mrs. Edison is a relative, and we thought—”
The man made another dart. “Don't care what you thought,” he shouted. “Keep your thoughts to yourself! Get out of here!”
“Do you know where Mrs. George B. Edison lives now?” asked Wollaston, courteously, but his black eyes flashed at the man.
“No, I don't.”
“No, we don't,” said the young woman in pink. “Do make them go, Tom.”
“We are perfectly willing to go,” said Wollaston. “We have no desire to remain any longer where people are not willing to answer civil questions.”
Maria all this time had said nothing. She was perfectly overcome with the conviction that Ida's cousin was not there, and consequently not Evelyn. Moreover, she was frightened at the little man's fierce manner. She clung to Wollaston's arm as they retreated, but Gladys turned around and deliberately stuck her tongue out at the man and the young woman in rose. The man slammed the door.
The three met on the stoop of the house two people in gay attire.
“Go up and see your friends that don't know how to treat folks decent,” said Gladys. The woman looked wonderingly at her from under the shade of a picture hat. Her escort opened the door. “Ten chances to one they had the kid hid somewhere,” said Gladys, so loudly that both turned and looked at her.
“Hush up,” said Wollaston.
“Well, what be you goin' to do now?” asked Gladys.
“I am going to a drug-store, and see if I can find out where Maria's relatives have moved to,” replied Wollaston. He walked quite alertly now. Maria's discomfiture had reassured him.
They walked along a few blocks until they saw the lights of a drug-store on the corner. Then Wollaston led them in and marched up to the directory chained to the counter.
“What's that?” Gladys asked. “A Bible?”
“No, it's a directory,” Maria replied, in a dull voice.
“What do they keep it chained for? Books don't run away.”
“I suppose they are afraid folks will steal it.”
“My!” said Gladys, eying the big volume. “I don't see what on earth they'd do with it when they got it stole,” she remarked, in a low, reflective voice.
Maria leaned against the counter and waited.
Finally, Wollaston turned to her with an apologetic air. “I can't find any George B. here,” he said. “You are sure it was B?”
“Yes,” replied Maria.
“Well, there's no use,” said Wollaston. “There is no George B. Edison in this book, anyhow.”
He came forward, and stood looking at Maria. Maria gazed absently at the crowds passing on the street. Gladys watched them both.