his feet were very
large. He looked out of the window as the train left the station, and
saw a very pretty little child with a fluff of yellow hair, carrying
a big doll, climbing laboriously on a train on the other track, with
the tender assistance of a brakeman. She was in the wake of a very
stout woman, who stumbled on her skirts going up the steps. Edwin
Shaw thought that the child looked like Maria's little sister, but
that she could not be, because the stout woman was a stranger to him.
Then he thought no more about it. He gazed covertly at Maria, with
the black sparkles of his shoes continuing to disturb him. He admired
Maria. Presently he saw Wollaston Lee lean over the back of her seat
and say something to her, and saw her half turn and dimple, and
noticed how the lovely rose flushed the curve of her cheek, and he
scowled at his shiny shoes.

As for Maria, when she felt the boy's warm breath on her neck, her
heart beat fast. She realized herself on the portals of an air-castle.

"Well, glad you are going to leave this old town?" said Wollaston.

"I am not going to leave it, really," replied Maria.

"Oh, of course not, but you are going to leave the old school,
anyhow. I had got mighty tired of it, hadn't you?"

"Yes, I had, rather."

"It's behind the times," said the boy; and, as he spoke he himself
looked quite up to the times. He had handsome, clearly cut features
and black eyes, which seemed at the same time to demand and question.
He had something of a supercilious air, although the expression of
youthful innocence and honesty was still evident on his face. He wore
a new suit as well as Maria, only his was gray instead of brown, and
he wore a red carnation in his button-hole. Maria inhaled the clovy
fragrance of it. At the next station more passengers got into the
train, and Wollaston seized upon that excuse to ask to share Maria's
seat. They talked incessantly--an utterly foolish gabble like that of
young birds. An old gentleman across the aisle cast an impatient
glance at them from time to time. Finally he arose stiffly and went
into the smoker. Their youth and braggadocio of innocence and
ignorance, and the remembrance of his own, irritated him. He did not
in the least regret his youth, but the recollection of the first
stages of his life, now that he was so near the end, was like looking
backward over a long road, which had led to absurdly different goals
from what he had imagined. It all seemed