The south-bound train had not arrived and as I

turned away the station-agent again changed its time

on the bulletin board. It was now due in ten minutes.

A few students had boarded the Chicago train, but a

greater number still waited on the farther platform.

The girl in gray was surrounded by half a dozen students,

all talking animatedly. As I walked toward them

I could not justify my stupidity in mistaking a grown

woman for a school-girl of fifteen or sixteen; but is was

the tam-o'-shanter, the short skirt, the youthful joy in

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the outdoor world that had disguised her as effectually

as Rosalind to the eyes of Orlando in the forest of Arden.

She was probably a teacher,-quite likely the

teacher of music, I argued, who had amused herself

at my expense.

It had seemed the easiest thing in the world to approach

her with an apology or a farewell, but those few

inches added to her skirt and that pretty gray toque

substituted for the tam-o'-shanter set up a barrier that

did not yield at all as I drew nearer. At the last moment,

as I crossed the track and stepped upon the other

platform, it occurred to me that while I might have

some claim upon the attention of Olivia Gladys Armstrong,

a wayward school-girl of athletic tastes, I had

none whatever upon a person whom it was proper to

address as Miss Armstrong,-who was, I felt sure, quite

capable of snubbing me if snubbing fell in with her

mood.

She glanced toward me and bowed instantly. Her

young companions withdrew to a conservative distance;

and I will say this for the St. Agatha girls: their manners

are beyond criticism, and an affable discretion is

one of their most admirable traits.

"I didn't know they ever grew up so fast,-in a day

and a night!"

I was glad I remembered the number of beads in her

chain; the item seemed at once to become important.

"It's the air, I suppose. It's praised by excellent

critics, as you may learn from the catalogue."

"But you are going to an ampler ether, a diviner air.

You have attained the beatific state and at once take

flight. If they confer perfection like an academic degree

at St. Agatha's, then-"

I had never felt so stupidly helpless in my life.

There were a thousand things I wished to say to her;

there were countless questions I wished to ask; but her

calmness and poise were disconcerting. She had not,

apparently, the slightest curiosity about me; and there

was no reason why she should have-I knew that well

enough! Her eyes met mine easily; their azure depths

puzzled me. She was almost, but not quite, some one I

had seen before, and it was not my woodland Olivia.

Her eyes, the soft curve of her cheek, the light in

her hair,-but the memory of another time, another

place, another girl, lured only to baffle me.




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