"I'll trouble you for my book," a clear, stiff voice said.
The Other Girl came to her senses abruptly.
"Oh! Why!" she stammered, her lean little face flooding crimson. "Oh,
is it you? Oh, I didn't know we'd got to Douglas--oh, wait, please
wait! Please let me explain." She kept tight hold of the book and
faced Glory pluckily. "You must _let_ me explain. Maybe you think I
can't, but I can. I'm not a thief!"
"I don't care for any explanation, but I'd thank you for my books,"
Glory said loftily. "I suppose you've got the rest, too. They were
all together."
"I have them all," the Other Girl returned quietly. The crimson in
her cheeks had faded to a faint pink. She gazed up at Glory with
steady eyes.
"But I cannot give them up till you let me explain," she persisted.
"You've _got_ to let me. Do you suppose I'm going to let you go away
with my good name as though I would steal your books? They were lying
on the seat--I saw you had forgotten them--I took care of them for
you--I was going to give them back to you this morning, but I got
interested in doing that sum and didn't know we'd got to Douglas yet.
There!"
She sprang to her feet and forced the books into Glory's hands, her
own fingers quivering as she did it. Suddenly Glory forgot her
heroics and began to laugh.
"I never got interested in doing a sum," she cried. "I wish you'd
tell me how you do it."
The laugh was infectious. The Other Girl laughed too. Unconsciously
she moved along on her seat and as unconsciously Glory sat down.
"Oh, it's so easy to be interested!" breathed the Other Girl eagerly.
Her eyes shone with enthusiasm. "You just have to open the book."
"I've opened a book a good many times and never got interested. Never
was--never am--never shall be interested."
The Other Girl laid her rough red fingers on the books.
"Don't!" she said, gently. "It sort of--hurts to hear anyone talk
that way. It all means so much to me. I had just begun history
when--" She caught herself up abruptly, but Glory was curious. Was
there ever a stranger "find" than this?--a girl in a shabby coat,
with rough, red hands, who liked history!
"Yes, you had just begun when--"
"When I had to stop," went on the Other Girl, quietly. "I think I
felt sorriest about the history, though it broke my heart to give up
Latin. I don't know what you'll think, but I translated six lines in
your Cicero last night. I did--I couldn't help it. I haven't the
least idea I got them right, but I translated them."
Decidedly this was interesting. Couldn't help translating Cicero!
Glory gasped with astonishment. She faced squarely about and gazed at
her shabby little neighbor.
"Where do you go to school?" she demanded. Wherever it was, she was
thinking that was the school Aunt Hope would like her to go to.
"At the East Centre Town rubber factory," the Other Girl smiled
wistfully. "And oh, dear! that makes me think--can you smell rubber?"
Glory sniffed inquiringly. She certainly could detect a whiff of it
somewhere. "Yes--yes, I think I do," she said.
"Then I'm going ahead. It's me," the Other Girl cried sharply. "I
ought to have remembered. _I_ wouldn't enjoy sitting beside a rubber
factory if I was somebody else--if I was you. I forgot--I'm sorry."
She stood up and tried to pass out into the aisle in front of Glory,
but Glory would not let her.
"Sit down, please--_please_. I don't smell it now, and anyway I like
it. It's a variety. I'm tired of the perfume of white violets! If you
don't mind, I wish you'd tell me some more about when you had
to--stop, you know. I suppose you mean stop going to school, don't
you?"
"Yes. It was when my father was killed in an accident. I had to stop
then. There's only mother and me and 'Tiny Tim.' I went to work in
the rubber factory--it was six months ago. I had just begun getting
really into study, you know."
The quiet voice was unsteady with intense wistfulness. The Other
Girl's eyes were gazing out of the car window as if they saw lost
opportunities and yearned over them. Glory could not see the longing
in them until they turned suddenly toward her and she caught a
wondering glimpse of it.
"We had never had much, you see, but after father was killed--after
that there was only mother and me, and mother is sick. So of course I
had to stop going to school. I should like to have had enough so I
could teach instead of working in a factory--"
This much said, the Other Girl shrank into herself as if into a
little shabby shell. The distance between the two girls seemed
abruptly to have widened. All at once Glory's hands were delicately
gloved and the Other Girl's bare and red; Glory's dress trim and
beautiful, and the Other Girl's faded and worn; Glory's jacket
buttons rich and handsome, the Other Girl's top button split. It
seemed all to have happened in a moment when the Other Girl woke up.
How could she have forgotten herself so and talked like that!
"I wish--if you'd just as lief--you'd go back to your seat now," she
said. "I--I never talked like that before to a stranger, and I ain't
like you, you know. I've explained about the books. I studied them
last night, but I don't think I hurt them any."
"I guess you did them good," laughed Glory, brightly. "I expect to
find an inspiration between the pages--why, actually, I feel a little
bit (oh, a very little) of interest already in history. How delighted
Aunt Hope would feel if she knew!--No, I'm not going back to my seat.
Why, here's Centre Town! Did you ever see such a short ride! I've got
to get off here, and I wish I hadn't--oh, dear! Good-by."
Out on the platform Glory waved her books at the girlish face in the
car window. The friendly little act sent the Other Girl on to the
East Centre Town rubber factory with a warm spot in her heart.
"She's splendid, Diantha Leavitt, but don't you go to presuming on
that wave!" she said to herself, severely. "This minute I believe
you're presuming! You're looking ahead to seeing her again to-night
when you go home, and getting another wave--it's just like you. I
know you! A little thing like that turns your head round on your
shoulders!"
A little thing! Was it a little thing to have beautiful, breezy Glory
wave her books at you? To have her nod and smile up at your window?
All day long the Other Girl smiled over her petty, distasteful work,
and Glory's face crept in between her tasks and nodded at her in
friendly fashion. She watched for it breathlessly at night, when the
train stopped at Centre Town. And it was there on the platform; it
came smiling into the car and stopped at her seat! By the time Little
Douglas was reached the two girls were friends.
"Auntie," Glory cried, dropping down by her aunt, "would you believe
you could get to love anybody in two three-quarters of an hour? Well,
I did to-day." And then she told her aunt of the girl in the sailor
hat. "Her clothes were shabby--oh, terribly shabby. I thought her
dreadful at first, till I found out--now I love her. You would, too."
"And who is she really? What is her name?"
"I don't know her name! Think of it, auntie, I love her and may be
her name's Martha Jane! _I_ don't know. But I don't care--I shall
keep right on liking her. And so will you, because she studies
history because she likes it. _Likes_ it! Says she'd rather study it
than not! It's a fact."
"I love her!" exclaimed Aunt Hope, fervently, and then they both
laughed. And Glory told all that she knew about the Other Girl. Aunt
Hope smoothed Glory's hair. It was the way she did when she approved
of things.
"I like your new friend. I'm glad you left the books in the car," she
said. "But there's more to the sad little story. It's to be
continued, Glory. You must find out the other chapters. There will be
plenty of time if you go back and forth together. And, dear, if you
sit beside her in the car perhaps you will learn to love books, too."
"Never!" Glory laughed. "It isn't the age for miracles, auntie. The
most you can hope for is that I'll learn to _study_. That's bad
enough!"
"Well, kiss me, Little Disappointment, and run away. I wrote your
father to-day, and what do you think I told him?"
"That I was a very good girl and he was to send on that ring right
off; that you were actually worried about me, I was studying so hard;
that--"
"That you were a dear girl," Aunt Hope laughed softly. "Now off with
you!"
In the middle of the night Glory woke out of a dream that she was at
the tip-top head of the geometry class, and in Latin the wonder of
Centre Town Seminary for Young Ladies. The moonlight was streaming in
on her face and found it laughing at the absurdity of the dream.
"The dream belongs to the Other Girl, not me. She's the one that
ought to have the chances, too. I wish I could help her--why!" Glory
sat up in bed, wide awake. Something had occurred to her.
"Why, of course. Why didn't I think of it before!" she said aloud.
"I'll ask Aunt Hope--no, I'll _do_ it." And then she tumbled back
into the pillows to think out her plan. If the Other Girl could have
known!