“You came from Edgham, Mr. Lee,” she said.

Wollaston looked at her.  “Yes.  Do you know anybody there?”

Evelyn laughed.  “I came from there myself,” she said, “and so did my sister, Maria.  Maria is one of the teachers, you know.”

Evelyn wondered why Mr. Lee’s face changed, not so much color but expression.

“Oh, you are Miss Edgham’s sister?” he exclaimed.

“Yes.  I am her sister—­her half-sister.”

“Let me see; you are in the senior class.”

“Yes,” replied Evelyn.  Then she added, “Did you remember my sister?”

“Oh yes,” replied Wollaston.  “We used to go to school together.”

“She cannot have altered,” said Evelyn.  “She always looks just the same to me, anyway.”

“She does to me,” said Lee, and there was in inflection in his voice which caused Evelyn to give a startled glance at him.  But he continued, quite naturally, “Your sister looks just as I remember her, only, of course, a little taller and more dignified.”

“Maria is dignified,” said Evelyn, “but of course she has taught school a long time, and a school-teacher has to be dignified.”

“Are you intending to teach school?” asked Lee, and even as he asked the question he felt amused.  The idea of this flower-like thing teaching school, or teaching anything, was absurd.  She was one of the pupils of life, not one of the expounders.

“No, I think not,” said Evelyn.  Then she said, “I have never thought about it.”  Then an incomprehensible little blush flamed upon her cheeks.  Evelyn was thinking that she should be married instead of doing anything else, but that the man did not consider.  He was singularly unversed in feminine nature.

A bell rang from the academy, and Evelyn turned about with reluctance.  “There is the bell,” said she.  She was 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.