ir was as soft as summer, but with a
strange, pungent quality which the summer had lacked. There was a
slightly smoky scent which exhilarated. It was a scent of death
coming from bonfires of dead leaves and drying vegetation, and yet it
seemed to presage life. When Maria and Evelyn went out to take the
trolley for Westbridge, Maria wore a cluster of white chrysanthemums
pinned to her blouse. The blouse itself was a very pretty one, worn
with a black plaited skirt. It was a soft silk of an old-rose shade,
and it was trimmed with creamy lace. Maria had left off her mourning.
Evelyn looked with a little surprise at Maria's blouse.

"Why, you've got on your pink blouse, sister," she said.

Maria colored softly, for no ostensible reason. "Yes," she said.

"You don't generally wear it to school."

"I thought as long as it was the first day," Maria said, in a
slightly faltering tone. She bent her head until her rose-wreathed
hat almost concealed her face. The sisters stood in front of the
house waiting for their car. Evelyn made a sudden little run back
into the yard.

"You hold the car!" she cried.

"I don't know that they will wait; you must not stop," Maria called
out. But the car had just stopped when Evelyn returned, and she had a
little cluster of snowberries pinned in the front of her red gown.
She looked bewitchingly over them at Maria when they were seated side
by side in the car.

"I guess I was going to wear flowers as well as some other folks,"
she whispered with a soft, dark glance at her sister from under her
long lashes. Maria smiled.

"You don't need to wear flowers," she said.

"Why not as well as you?"

"Oh, you are a flower yourself," Maria said, looking fondly at her.

Indeed, the young girl looked like nothing so much as a rose, with
her tenderly curved pink cheeks, the sweet arch of her lips, and her
glowing radiance of smiles. Maria looked at her critically, then bade
her turn that she might fasten a hook on her collar which had become
unfastened.

"Now you are all right," she said.

Evelyn smiled. "Don't you think these snowberries are pretty with
this red dress?" she asked.

"Lovely."

"I wonder what the new principal will be like," Evelyn said,
musingly, after riding awhile in silence.

"I presume he will be very much like other young men. The main thing
to consider is, if he is a good teacher," Maria said.

"What makes you cross, sister?" Evelyn whispered plaintively.

"I am