“I think Mr. Lee treated you mean, so there,” Addie Hemingway said to Evelyn when they had left the room.

Evelyn said nothing.  Her face continued pale and shocked.  It was inconceivable to her that anybody, least of all Mr. Lee, could have spoken so to her.

“He’s treating you like a child,” Addie Hemingway continued.  “Mr. Lee has no right to speak so to seniors.”  Addie’s words were in themselves sympathetic, but there was an undertone of delight at the other girl’s discomfiture in her voice which she could not eliminate.  In reality she was saying to herself that Evelyn Edgham, in spite of her being so pretty, had had to meet a rebuff, and she exulted in it.

Evelyn still said nothing.  She left Addie abruptly and joined Maria in her class-room.  It was the noon-hour.  Maria glanced anxiously at her sister as she entered.

“Why, darling, what is the matter?” she cried.

“Nothing,” replied Evelyn.  An impulse of loyalty seized her.  She would not repeat, not even to Maria, the unkind words which Mr. Lee had used towards her.

“But you look so pale, dear,” said Maria.

“It was warm in there,” said Evelyn, with a quiet, dejected air unusual to her.

Maria could not get any admission that anything was wrong from her.  Evelyn tried to eat her luncheon, making more of an effort than usual, but she could not.  At last she laid her head down on her sister’s table and wept with the utter abandon of a child, but she still would not tell what caused her tears.

After that Evelyn lost flesh so rapidly that it became alarming.  Maria and her aunt wondered if they ought to allow her to go through the strain of the graduation exercises, but neither dared say anything about it to her.  Evelyn’s whole mind seemed fastened upon her graduation and the acquitting of herself with credit.  She studied assiduously.  She often used to go into the spare chamber and gaze at her graduating dress, which was spread out on the bed there covered with a sheet.

“She’s so set on that graduation and wearing that dress,” Aunt Maria said to Eunice Stillman, her sister-in-law, one day when she was alone with her in her parlor and heard Evelyn’s light step overhead.  “She goes in there almost every day and looks at it.”

Eunice sighed.  “Well, I wish she looked better,” said she.

“So do I. It seems to me that she loses every day.”

“Did you ever think—­” began Eunice.  Then she stopped and hesitated.

“Think what?”

“If—­anything happened to her, that that dress—­”

“Oh, for the land sake, stop, Eunice!” cried Aunt Maria, impatiently.  “Ain’t I had it on my mind the whole time.  And that dress looks just as if it was laid out there.”

“Do you think Maria notices?”

“Yes, she’s just as worried as I am.  But what can we do?  Maybe if Evelyn gets through the graduation she will be better.  I shall be thankful when it’s over, for my part.”