Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/87

Rh a dozen or so different types in groups made up of dissimilar elements.

Of course at first she felt shy, awkward, shrank from asking questions; but Miss Park—a wonderful, goddess-like creature, whose particular gift seemed to be discovering the girl or woman whom she might help somehow or other—had taken Reba in charge by her second day at the Alliance, and made everything clear and understandable. All Reba's apprehensions as to the good taste of joining certain classes—dancing, for instance, at her time of life—were not as much as recognized by Miss Park, laughed, pooh-poohed away.

It was one of the sweet surprises of her life that the tortures she had so dreaded were spared her. The city itself seemed inclined toward kindliness, she thought. It didn't frighten her. She liked the sound of it at night from her high bedroom window, which, after she had put out the light, she would open and sit beside in her warm wool kimona. The sound of the city at night was like the cheerful hum of the mills, Reba thought, only bigger, deeper, significant of greater vitality. She took the same shy pleasure in listening to it, in gazing at its mysterious lights and flashing electric signs, glimpses of which she could see from her window, as in watching the activities of the mills at home. More—for she was part of the city. She smiled to think that if she clapped her hands, or spoke outloudout-loud [sic], the little sound she made would become part of the great ocean-like drone.

Of course Reba had been to the city before, but as an alien—unsympathetically. Several times she and Aunt Augusta had spent a night in Boston on their