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 be such a baby,” said Aunt Maria.  At times Aunt Maria could not quite forgive Evelyn for being Ida Slome’s child, especially when she showed any weakness.  She looked severely now at poor Evelyn, in her red house-wrapper, weeping in her damp little handkerchief.  “I should think you were about ten,” she said.

Evelyn wiped her eyes and sniffed.  Her throat was very sore, and her cold was also in her head.  Her pretty lips were disfigured with fever-sores.  Her eyes were inflamed.

“You wouldn’t want to go looking the way you do, anyhow,” said Aunt Maria, pitilessly.

After Aunt Maria went out of the room, Maria, who was putting some finishing-touches to the gown which she herself was to wear to the Christmas-tree, went over to her sister and knelt down beside her.  “Poor darling,” she said.  “Don’t you want me to stay at home with you?”

Evelyn pushed her away gently, with a fresh outburst of tears.  “No,” she said.  “Don’t come so close, Maria, or you will catch it.  Everybody says it is contagious.  No, I wouldn’t have you stay at home for anything.  I am not a pig, if I am disappointed.  But Aunt Maria need not be so cross.”

“Aunt Maria does not mean to be cross, sweetheart,” said Maria, stroking her sister’s fluffy, dark head.  “Are you sure that you do not want me to stay home with you, dear?”

“Perfectly sure,” replied Evelyn.  “I want you to go so you can tell me about it.”

Evelyn had not the slightest idea of jealousy of Maria.  While she admired her, it really never occurred to her, so naive she was in her admiration of herself, that anybody could think her more attractive than she was and fall in love with her, to her neglect.  She had not the least conception of what this Christmas-tree meant to her older sister:  the opportunity of seeing Wollaston Lee, of talking with him, of perhaps some attention on his part.  Maria was to return to Amity on the last trolley from Westbridge.