Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/137

 miraculously removed, one hope sang faintly beneath: she, too, had her power! A glance in the street had called her from one army of her sisters to the other, and the difference was inestimable.

Her classes stared at her with naïve admiration. The girls in the house begged for her as a chaperon to Amherst entertainments, and sulked when a report that the young hosts found her too attractive to enable strangers to distinguish readily between her and her charges rendered another selection advisable. The fact that her interest in them was fitful, sometimes making her merry and intimate, sometimes relegating them to a connection purely professional, only left her more interesting to them; and boxes of flowers, respectful solicitations to spreads, and tempting invitations to long drives through the lengthening afternoons began to elect her to an obvious popularity. Once it would have meant much to her; she marvelled now at the little