e 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