Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/215

Rh Therefore Laurel traveled from one side of Boston to another, pursuing music in one building, French and German in another. Art in a third. Current Events in a fourth. Filet lace-making in the top loft of a fifth. She chafed beneath the incoherent routine. She longed for Miss Fillibrown's, although she hadn't been very happy there. She thought it was the familiar classrooms and familiar faces she was homesick for, but really it was the coördination and consistency of an organized unit. The pupils in Laurel's classes in Boston were as varied in age, race, sex, and station as are a chance group gathered together in the elevator of a public building.

Night after night Laurel cried softly into her pillow after her mother had fallen safely to sleep. Day after day she struggled with tears that seemed always to be just beneath the thin surface of her smiles.

She tried to reason with herself. She had been away from Milhampton before. Why, almost every summer since she could remember, she had been lonely in some unfamiliar place. But it had been bearable, she supposed, because it had been only for limited periods. And, besides, there had always been bellboys to speak to, elevator-men, and chambermaids. There had always been a game of billiards to watch, or an auction-table of women to listen to.

Once, on the sidewalk outside the apartment, waiting for her mother to return from a shopping-tour, Laurel fell into shy conversation with a dark little girl, a few years younger than herself who lived in the apartment below. The possibility of a