She initiated Maud into that strange world of vulgar
and unhealthy sentiment found in the cheap weeklies which load every
news-stand in the country, and made her tenfold more the child of
dreams than herself.
Miss Windom remained but a few months at the common school, and then
left it for the high school. She told Maud one day of her intended
flitting, and was more astonished than pleased at the passion of grief
into which the announcement threw her friend. Maud clung to her with
sobs that would not be stilled, and with tears that reduced Miss
Azalea's dress to limp and moist wretchedness, but did not move the
vain heart beneath it. "I wonder if she knows," thought Azalea, "how
ugly she is when she bawls like that. Few brunettes can cry stylishly
anyhow." Still, she could not help feeling flattered by such devotion,
and she said, partly from a habit of careless kindness and partly to
rescue the rest of her raiment from the shower which had ruined her
neck-ribbon,--
"There, don't be heart-broken. You will be in the high school yourself
in no time."
Maud lifted up her eyes and her heart at these words.
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