which
was almost paternal was over him. He used almost to wish that she was
not so proficient in her studies. One day, meeting her in the
vestibule when no one was in sight, he could not resist the impulse
which led him to pat her little, dark, curly head and say, in a voice
broken with tenderness:

"Don't study too hard, little one."

Evelyn gave an upward glance at him and ran away. Wollaston stood
still a moment, dazed. He was not naturally a conceited man. Then,
too, he had always regarded himself as so outside the pale that he
doubted the evidence of his own senses. If he had not been tied to
Evelyn's sister he would have said to himself, in a rapture, that
that look of the young girl's meant, could mean, only one thing: that
all her innocent heart was centred upon himself. It would have
savored no more of conceit that the seeing his face in a mirror. He
would simply have thought it the truth. But now, since he was always
forgetting that other women did not know the one woman's secret, and
looked upon him as an unmarried man, and therefore a fit target for
their innocent wiles, the preening of their dainty dove plumage, he
said to himself that he must have been mistaken. That Evelyn had
looked at him as she had done only because she was nervous and
overwrought, and the least thing was sufficient to disturb her
equilibrium.

However, he was very careful not to address Evelyn particularly
again, but that one little episode had been sufficient for the girl
to build another air castle upon. That night when she went home she
was radiant with happiness. Her color had returned, smiles lit her
whole face. Ineffable depths of delight sparkled in her eyes. It
seemed almost a sacrilege to look at the young girl, whose heart was
so plainly evident in her face. Maria looked at her, and felt a chill
in her own heart.

"Something must have happened," she said to herself. She thought that
Evelyn would tell her, but she did not; she ate her supper with more
appetite than she had shown for many a week. Her gayety in the
evening, when some neighbors came in, was so unrestrained and
childlike that it was fairly infectious. They sat out on the front
door-step. It had been a warm day, and the evening cool was welcome
and laughter floated out into the street. It was laughter over
nothing, but irresistible, induced because of the girl's exuberant
mood. She felt that night as if there was no meaning in the world
except happiness and