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
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.