“Was it true that you and Wollaston Lee and Gladys Mann all went to New York looking for your sister, and came out on the last train?”
“Yes, it is true,” replied Maria, quite steadily.
“What ever made you?”
“I thought she might have gone to a cousin of Hers who used to live on Forty-ninth Street, but we found the cousin had moved when we got there.”
“Gracious!” said Maud. “And you didn't come out till that last train?”
“No.”
“I should think you would be tired to death, and you don't look any too chipper.” Maud turned and stared at Wollaston, who was standing aloof. “I declare, he looks as if he had been up a week of Sundays, too,” said she. Then she called out to him, in her high-pitched treble, which sounded odd coming from her soft circumference of throat. Maud's voice ought, by good rights, to have been a rich, husky drone, instead of bearing a resemblance to a parrot's. “Say, Wollaston Lee,” she called out, and the boy approached perforce, lifting his hat—“say,” said Maud, “I hear you and Maria eloped last night.” Then she giggled.
The boy cast a glance of mistrust and doubt at Maria. His face turned crimson.
“You are telling awful whoppers, Maud Page,” Maria responded, promptly, and his face cleared. “We just went in to find Evelyn.”
“Oh!” said Maud, teasingly.