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Aunt Maria, who had both suspicion and imagination, had conceived a reason for Maria's mysterious absence the night before. She knew that Professor Lane was to take a night train from Westbridge. She jumped at the conclusion that Maria had gone to Westbridge to see him off, and had missed the trolley connection.
Then she stopped, for Maria re-entered the room with the roses in a tall vase. She wore some of them pinned to the shoulder of her blue gown that evening. She knew who had sent them, and it seemed to her that she did not overestimate the significance of the sending. When she started for Westbridge that evening she was radiant.
When they reached the academy grounds he quite deserted Maria, who walked to the chapel with one of the other teachers, who entered at the same time. She was a young lady who lived in Westbridge.
Maria was to return to Amity on the last trolley from Westbridge. It was quite a walk from the academy. She dreamed of Wollaston's escorting her to the trolley-line. She dressed herself with unusual care when the day came. She had a long, trailing gown of a pale-blue cloth and a blue knot for her yellow hair. She also had quite a pretentious blue evening cloak.
I want to know if you can go over the river with me to-night on an errand?" "Over the river? Where?" "Oh, only to Jessy Ramsey's. Aunt Eunice and I have been to Westbridge and bought these things for her, and I want to carry them to her to-night. I thought maybe you would go with me." Lily hesitated.
It was "the wind which bloweth where it listeth, and no man knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth," which precipitated the small tragedy of a human life. The Saturday before the fall term commenced, Evelyn came home from Westbridge, where she had been for some shopping, and she had a piece of news.
"I have to go on to Westbridge," he said. "Will there be a carriage at the station?" "There always is," Maria replied. "Don't think of walking up at this hour. It is too late. What " Wollaston hesitated a second, then he continued, in a whisper, "What are you going to tell your aunt?" he said. "Nothing," replied Maria. "Can you?" "I must. I don't see any other way, unless I tell lies."
"There isn't any card," she said. "I wonder who sent them?" All at once a surmise seized her that Professor Lane, who was said to be regaining his health in Colorado, had sent an order to the Westbridge florist for these flowers. Simultaneously the thought came to Evelyn, but Eunice, who was in the room, looked bewildered.
"I can wear holly in my hair, and it will be perfectly lovely," Evelyn said. But she came down with such a severe cold and sore throat at the very beginning of the holidays that going to Westbridge was out of the question. Evelyn lamented over the necessity of her staying at home like a child. She even cried. "I wouldn't be such a baby," said Aunt Maria.
In the afternoon her mother, without saying anything to her, took the trolley for Westbridge. Lily thought with a shiver that she might be going over there to purchase some article for her trousseau. The thought of her mother with a trousseau caused her to laugh a little, hysterical laugh, as she sat alone in her chamber. That evening she and her mother went to a concert in the town hall.
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