secretly proud
although somewhat abashed at being seen walking back to the academy
with the new principal. Addie Hemingway was looking out of a window,
and she said to the other girl, the same whom she had addressed in
the chapel:

"See, Evelyn Edgham has got him in tow already."

That night, when Maria and Evelyn arrived home, Aunt Maria asked
Evelyn how she liked the new principal. "Oh, he's perfectly
splendid," replied Evelyn. Then she blushed vividly. Aunt Maria
noticed it and gave a swift glance at Maria, but Maria did not notice
it at all. She was so wrapped in her own dreams that she was
abstracted. After she went to bed that night she lay awake a long
time dreaming, just as she had done when she had been a little girl.
Her youth seemed to rush back upon her like a back-flood. She caught
herself dreaming of love-scenes in that same little wood where
Wollaston and Evelyn had walked that day. She never thought of Evelyn
and the possibility of her thinking of Wollaston. But Evelyn, in her
little, white, maiden bed, was awake and dreaming too. Outside the
wind was blowing and the leaves dropping and the eternal stars
shining overhead. It seemed as if so much maiden-dreaming in the
house should make it sound with song, but it was silent and dark to
the night. Only the reflection of the street-lamp made it evident at
all to occasional passers. It is well that the consciousness of human
beings is deaf to such emotions, or all individual dreams would cease
because of the multiple din.

Chapter XXXII

Evelyn, as the weeks went on, did not talk as much as she had been
accustomed to do. She did not pour her confidences into her sister's
ears. She never spoke of the new principal. She studied assiduously,
and stood exceedingly well in all her classes. She had never taken so
much pains with her pretty costumes. When her mother sent her a
Christmas present of a Paris gown, she danced with delight. There was
to be a Christmas-tree in the academy chapel, and she planned to wear
it. Although it was a Paris gown it was simple enough, a pretty,
girlish frock of soft white cloth, with touches of red. "I can wear
holly in my hair, and it will be perfectly lovely," Evelyn said. But
she came down with such a severe cold and sore throat at the very
beginning of the holidays that going to Westbridge was out of the
question. Evelyn lamented over the necessity of her staying at home
like a child. She even cried.

"I wouldn't