said that Maud Matchin did not find the high school
all her heart desired. Her pale goddess had not enough substantial
character to hold her worshipper long. Besides, at fifteen, a young
girl's heart is as variable as her mind or her person; and a great
change was coming over the carpenter's daughter. She suddenly gained
her full growth; and after the first awkwardness of her tall stature
passed away, she began to delight in her own strength and beauty. Her
pride waked at the same time with her vanity, and she applied herself
closely to her books, so as to make a good appearance in her classes.
She became the friend instead of the vassal of Azalea, and by slow
degrees she found their positions reversed. Within a year, it seemed
perfectly natural to Maud that Azalea should do her errands and talk to
her about her eyes; and Miss Windom found her little airs of
superiority of no avail in face of the girl who had grown prettier,
cleverer, and taller than herself. It made no difference that Maud was
still a vulgar and ignorant girl--for Azalea was not the person to
perceive or appreciate these defects. She saw her, with mute wonder,
blooming out before her very eyes, from a stout, stocky, frowzy child,
with coarse red cheeks and knuckles like a bootblack, into a tall,
slender girl, whose oval face was as regular as a conic section, and
whose movements were as swift, strong, and graceful, when she forgot
herself, as those of a race-horse. There were still the ties of habit
and romance between them. Azalea, whose brother was a train-boy on the
Lake Shore road, had a constant supply of light literature, which the
girls devoured in the long intervals of their studies. But even the
romance of Miss Matchin had undergone a change. While Azalea still
dreamed of dark-eyed princes, lords of tropical islands, and fierce and
tender warriors who should shoot for her the mountain eagle for his
plumes, listen with her to the bulbul's song in valleys of roses, or
hew out a throne for her in some vague and ungeographical empire, the
reveries of Miss Maud grew more and more mundane and reasonable. She
was too strong and well to dream much; her only visions were of a rich
man who should love her for her fine eyes. She would meet him in some
simple and casual way; he would fall in love at sight, and speedily
prosper in his wooing; they would be married,--privately, for Maud
blushed and burned to think of her home at such times,--and then they
wo