By the Light of the Soul: A Novel

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

“My dear,” said Ida, “you forget that such ideas do not get into girls' heads; they are born in them.”

“I presume one of the other girls sent them,” said Harry, almost angrily.

“Perhaps,” replied Ida, and again she laughed her soft, sarcastic laugh, which grated terribly on Harry. It irritated him beyond measure that any boy should send roses to this little, delicate, fair girl of his. For all he had spoken of her marriage, the very idea of confiding her to any other man than himself made him furious. Especially the idea of some rough school-boy, who knew little else than to tumble about in a football game and was not his girl's mental equal, irritated him. He went over in his mind all the boys in her class. The next morning, going to New York, Edwin Shaw, who had lost much of his uncouthness and had divorced himself entirely from his family in the matter of English, was on the train, and he scowled at him with such inscrutable fierceness that the boy fairly trembled. He always bowed punctiliously to Maria's father, and this morning Maria was with her father. She was to have a day off: sit in her father's office and read a book until noon, then go to lunch with him at a French restaurant, then go to the matinée. She wore a festive silk waist, and looked altogether lovely, the boy thought.

“Who is that great gawk of a fellow?” asked Harry of Maria.

“Edwin Shaw. He was in my class,” replied Maria, and she blushed, for no earthly reason except that her father expected her to do so. Young girls are sometimes very ready, even to deceit, to meet the emotional expectations of their elders. Harry then and there made up his mind that Edwin Shaw was the sender of the basket of roses.

“He comes of a family below par, and he shows it,” he said, viciously, to Maria. He scowled again at Edwin's neck, which was awkwardly long above his collar, but the boy did not see it. He sat on the opposite side of the car a seat in advance.

Harry said again to Maria, when they had left the train, and Edwin, conscious of his back, which he was straightening, was striding in front of them, what a great gawk of a fellow he was, and how he came of a family below par. Maria assented indifferently. She did not dream of her father's state of mind, and, as for Edwin Shaw, he was no more to her than a set of car-steps, not so much, because the car-steps were of obvious use.

That very night, when Maria and her father reached home after a riotous day in the city, there was a letter in the post-office from Aunt Maria, to the effect that there was no doubt that Maria could have the school in Amity in the fall. The teacher who had held the position was to be married in a few weeks. The salary was not much—Amity was a poor little country village—but Maria felt as if she had expectations of untold wealth. She was sorry at the prospect of leaving her father and Evelyn, but the idea of self-support and independence, and taking a little of the burden from her father, intoxicated her. Maria had the true spirit of the women of her race. She liked the feel of her own muscles and nerves of individuality and self-reliance. She felt a head taller after she had read her aunt's letter.

“She says she will board me for four dollars a week,” she said. “I shall have quite a lot of money clear.”

“Well, four dollars a week will recompense her, and help her, too,” said Harry, a little gloomily. To tell the truth, he did not in the least like the idea of Maria's going to Amity to teach. Nothing except the inner knowledge of his own failing health could have led him to consent to it. Ida was delighted at the news, but she concealed her delight as well as her annoyance under her smiling mask, and immediately began to make plans for Maria's wardrobe.