Noon
came at last, and she kept with the others until they dispersed on
the sidewalk. She was so abnormally self-conscious she fancied all the
hundreds of that laughing, throng saw and jested at her. When she passed
the brown-eyed boy walking with the girl of her encounter, she knew, for
she heard him say: "Did you really let that gawky piece of calico get
ahead of you?" The answer was indistinct.
Elnora hurried from the city. She intended to get her lunch, eat it in
the shade of the first tree, and then decide whether she would go back
or go home. She knelt on the bridge and reached for her box, but it
was so very light that she was prepared for the fact that it was empty,
before opening it. There was one thing for which to be thankful. The boy
or tramp who had seen her hide it, had left the napkin. She would not
have to face her mother and account for its loss. She put it in her
pocket, and threw the box into the ditch. Then she sat on the bridge and
tried to think, but her brain was confused.
"Perhaps the worst is over," she said at last. "I will go back. What
would mother say to me if I came home now?"
So she returned to the high school, followed some other pupils to the
coat room, hung her hat, and found her way to the study where she had
been in the morning. Twice that afternoon, with aching head and empty
stomach, she faced strange professors, in different branches. Once she
escaped notice; the second time the worst happened.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25