In the meantime, what had become of Victoria? She had paused for a moment in the doorway and then had turned and disappeared. Her one thought was flight, and like a flash she ran down the avenue and was lost to sight beneath the brow of the hill.
Miss Madison’s brother was the man who had bought the etching! What would Honor say?
CHAPTER XI.
VICTORIA DECIDES TO KEEP IT SECRET.
What would Honor say? This was Victoria’s chief thought as she rushed headlong down the hill, not pausing until she had reached the safe shelter of their own place. There beneath one of the old trees she found a rustic bench, and sinking down upon it, quite breathless from her run, she tried to consider calmly the situation.
What would Honor say? She who had hoped that they might never see the young man again because in her eyes the affair had been so mortifying! And so it had been, Victoria said to herself. What would Mr. Madison himself think when he learned that one of his new neighbors was actually the girl whom he had encountered in a Boston picture store peddling her wares, and of whom he had bought something purely as an act of charity?
Victoria, looking back at the occurrence, felt perfectly confident that it was chiefly owing to his good nature that he had bought the etching.
He was sorry, probably, for a girl who was forced to do such a thing, and had given her an extra five or ten dollars merely out of charity. Victoria writhed in spirit.
She did not regret her expedition to Boston, for they had been in sore need of the money, and to part with the pictures and the jewelry had been a perfectly honorable means of getting it. She did not feel in the least degree ashamed of having sold the etchings, but she was deeply mortified when she remembered that she had allowed herself to accept the higher price from one who was a complete stranger to her, and one who certainly did appear to be sorry for her.
The Starr family pride—of which this daughter of the house had no small share—was up in arms. She felt that she could never look Roger Madison in the face. That he would remember her as clearly as she remembered him, she had not the smallest doubt.