Chapter XXXV

Maria, after that call, faced her future course more fully than ever.  She had disliked Mrs. Lee as much as Mrs. Lee had disliked her.  Only the fact that she was Wollaston’s mother made her endurable to her.

“Isn’t Mrs. Lee perfectly lovely?” said Evelyn, when she and Maria were on their way home.

“Yes,” Maria answered, but she did not think so.  Mrs. Lee shone for her only with reflected glory.

“I wonder where Mr. Lee was?” Evelyn murmured, timidly.

“I don’t know,” Maria said with an absent air.  “We did not go to call on him.”

“Of course we didn’t,” said Evelyn.  “Don’t be cross, sister.”

“I am not in the least cross,” Maria answered with perfect truth.

“I didn’t know but you were, you spoke so,” said Evelyn.  She leaned wearily against her sister, and looked ahead with a hollow, wistful expression.

Evelyn had grown thin and lost much of her color.  Aunt Maria and Eunice talked about it when they were alone.

“I wonder if there is any consumption in her mother’s family?” Aunt Maria said.

“I wonder,” said Eunice.  “I don’t like the way she looks.”

“Well, don’t say anything about it to Maria, for she will worry herself sick,” said Aunt Maria.  “She sets her eyes by Evelyn.”

“Don’t you think she notices?”

“No, she hasn’t said a word about it.”

But Aunt Maria was wrong.  Maria had noticed.  That afternoon, returning from Westbridge, she looked anxiously down at her sister.

“Don’t you feel well, dear?” she asked.

“Perfectly well,” Evelyn replied languidly, “only I am a little tired.”

“Perhaps it is the spring weather,” said Maria.

Evelyn nodded.  It was the beginning of the spring term, and spring came like a flood that year.  The trees fairly seemed to burst forth in green-and-rosy flames, and the shrubs in the door-yards bloomed so boldly that they shocked rather than pleased.

“I like the spring to come slowly, so one does not feel choked with it,” Evelyn said after a little, as she gazed out of the window.  “There are actually daisies in that field.  They have come too soon.”  Evelyn spoke with an absurd petulance which was unusual with her.

Maria laughed.  “Well, dear, we can’t help it,” she said.

“If this world is for people, and not the people for this world, it seems to me we ought to be able to help a little,” said Evelyn with perfectly unconscious heresy.  “There it rained too much last week, and this week it is too hot, and the apple blossoms have come too soon after the cherry blossoms.  It is like eating all your candy in one big pill.”

Maria laughed again, but Evelyn sighed wearily.  The car was very hot and close.

“I shall be thankful when we get home,” Evelyn said.

“Yes, you will feel better when you get home and have some supper,” said Maria.