The other girl looked.

“I suppose she thinks she’ll catch him, she’s so awful pretty,” whispered Addie maliciously.

“I don’t think she is so very pretty,” whispered back the other girl, who was pretty herself and disposed to assert her own claims to attention.

“She thinks she is,” whispered back Addie.  “Just see how bold she looks at him.  I should think she would be ashamed of herself.”

“So should I,” nodded the other girl.

But Evelyn had no more conception of the propriety of shame than nature itself.  She was pure nature.  Presently Wollaston himself, who had been making his address to his pupils with a vague sense of an upturned expanse of fresh young faces of boys and girls, without any especial face arresting his attention, saw Evelyn with a start which nobody, man or woman, could have helped.  She was so beautiful that she could no more be passed unnoticed than a star.  Wollaston made an almost imperceptible pause in his discourse, then he continued, fixing his eyes upon the oriel-window opposite.  He realized himself as surprised and stirred, but he was not a young man whom a girl’s beauty can rouse at once to love.  He had, moreover, a strong sense of honor and duty.  He realized Maria was his legal wife.  He was, although he had gotten over his boyish romance, which had been shocked out of him at the time of his absurd marriage, in an attitude of soul which was ready for love, and love for his wife.  He had often said to himself that no other honorable course was possible for either Maria or himself:  that it was decidedly best that they should fall in love with each other and make their marriage a reality.  At the same time, something more than delicacy and shyness restrained him from making advances.  He was convinced that Maria not only disliked but feared him.  A great pity for her was in his heart, and also pride, which shrank from exposing itself to rebuffs.  Yet he did not underestimate himself.  He considered that he had as good a chance as any man of winning her affection and overcoming her present attitude towards him.  He saw no reason why he should not.  While he was not conceited, he knew perfectly well his advantages as to personal appearance.  He also was conscious of the integrity of his purpose as far as she was concerned.  He knew that, whenever she should be willing to accept him, he should make her a good husband, and he recognized his readiness and ability to love her should she seem ready to welcome his love.  He, however, was very proud even while conscious of his advantages, and consequently easily wounded.  He could not forget Maria’s look of horror when she had recognized him the Saturday before.  A certain resentment towards her because of it was over him in spite of himself.  He said to himself that he had not deserved that look, that he had done all that mortal man could do to shield her from a childish tragedy, for which he had not been to blame in any