Maida’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t like him,” she said. “He’s not polite.”
“Well, I like him,” Dicky Dore maintained stoutly. “He’s the best friend I’ve got anywhere. Arthur hasn’t any mother, and his father’s gone all day. He takes care of himself. He comes over to my place a lot. You’ll like him when you know him.”
The bell tinkling on his departure did not ring again till noon. But Maida did not mind.
“Granny,” she said after Dicky left, “I think I’ve made a friend. Not a friend somebody’s brought to me—but a friend of my very own. Just think of that!”
At twelve, Maida watched the children pour out of the little schoolhouse and disappear in all directions. At two, she watched them reappear from all directions and pour into it again. But between those hours she was so busy that she did not have time to eat her lunch until school began again. After that, she sat undisturbed for an hour.
In the middle of the afternoon, the bell rang with an important-sounding tinkle. Immediately after, the door shut with an important-sounding slam. The footsteps, clattering across the room to the show case, had an important-sounding tap. And the little girl, who looked inquisitively across the counter at Maida, had decidedly an important manner.
She was not a pretty child. Her skin was too pasty, her blue eyes too full and staring. But she had beautiful braids of glossy brown hair that came below her waist. And you would have noticed her at once because of the air with which she wore her clothes and because of a trick of holding her head very high.
Maida could see that she was dressed very much more expensively than the other children in the neighborhood. Her dark, blue coat was elaborate with straps and bright buttons. Her pale-blue beaver hat was covered with pale-blue feathers. She wore a gold ring with a turquoise in it, a silver bracelet with a monogram on it, a little gun-metal watch pinned to her coat with a gun-metal pin, and a long string of blue beads from which dangled a locket.
Maida noticed all this decoration with envy, for she herself was never permitted to wear jewelry. Occasionally, Granny would let her wear one string from a big box of bead necklaces which Maida had bought in Venice.
“How much is that candy?” the girl asked, pointing to one of the trays.