After the girls had gone she went into the other side of the house
and told Eunice. "There she has gone and made herself look like a
perfect scarecrow," she said. "I wonder if there is any insanity in
her father's family?"

"Did she look so bad?" asked Eunice, with a stare of terror at her
sister-in-law.

"Look so bad! She looked as old and homely as you and I every bit."

Maria made as much of a sensation on the trolley as she had done at
home. The boy who had persecuted her the night before with his
attentions bowed to Evelyn, and glanced at her evidently with no
recognition. After a while he came to Evelyn and asked where her
sister was that morning. Maria laughed, and he looked at her, then he
fairly turned pale, and lifted his hat. He mumbled something and
returned to his seat. Maria was conscious of his astonished and
puzzled gaze at her all the way. When she reached the academy the
other teachers--that is, the women--assailed her openly. One even
attempted to loosen by force Maria's tightly strained locks.

"Why, Miss Edgham, you fairly frighten me," she said, when Maria
resisted.

Maria realized the amazement of the pupils when they entered her
class-room, the amazement of incredulity and almost disgust.
Everybody seemed amazed and almost disgusted except Wollaston Lee. He
did, indeed, give one slightly surprised glance at her, then he
seemed to notice nothing different in her appearance. The man's sense
of duty and honor was so strong that in reality his sense of
externals was blunted. He had a sort of sublime short-sightedness to
everything that was not of the spirit. He had been convinced the
night previous that Maria was beginning to regard him with favor, and
being convinced of that made him insensible to any mere outward
change in her. She looked to him, on the whole, prettier than usual
because he seemed to see in her love for himself.

When the noon intermission came he walked into her class-room, and
invited Maria and Evelyn to go with him to a near-by restaurant and
lunch.

"I would ask you to go home with me," he said, apologetically, to
Maria, "but mother has a cold."

Maria turned pale. She wondered if he had possibly told his mother.
Then she remembered how he had promised her not to tell without her
permission, and was reassured. Evelyn blushed and smiled and dimpled,
and cast one of her sweet, dark glances at him, which he did not
notice at all. His attention was fixed upon Maria, who