hat? That dreadful, fateful hat! Was it too conspicuous? Did he think
it was vulgar? She was eager to cross the street on the next block where
there were large plate-glass windows which she and Piney--if Piney were
only with her now!--had often used as mirrors.
But there was a great crowd on the next block, congregated around the
bank,--her father's bank! A vague terror, she knew not what, now began
to creep over her. She would have turned into a side street, but mingled
with her fear was a resolution not to show it,--not to even THINK of
it,--to combat it as she had combated the horrid laugh of the Secamp
girls, and she kept her way with a beating heart but erect head, without
looking across the street.
There was another crowd before the newspaper office--also on the other
side--and a bulletin board, but she would not try to read it. Only one
idea was in her mind,--to reach home before any one should speak to her;
for the last intelligible sound that had reached her was the laugh of
the Secamp girls, and this was still ringing in her ears, seeming to
voice the hidden strangeness of all she saw, and stirring her, as that
had, with childish indignation. She kept on with unmoved face, however,
and at last turned into the planked side-terrace,--a part of her
father's munificence,--and reached the symmetrical garden-beds and
graveled walk. She ran up the steps of the veranda and entered the
drawing-room through the open French window. Glancing around the
familiar room, at her father's closed desk, at the open piano with the
piece of music she had been practicing that morning, the whole walk
seemed only a foolish dream that had frightened her. She was Cissy
Trixit, the daughter of the richest man in the town! This was her
father's house, the wonder of Canada City!
A ring at the front doorbell startled her; without waiting for the
servant to answer it, she stepped out on the veranda, and saw a boy whom
she recognized as a waiter at the hotel kept by Piney's father. He
was holding a note in his hand, and staring intently at the house and
|