By the Light of the Soul Part 23

Maria cut him short. "I am going right up to Her cousin's, on West Forty-ninth Street, and find out if Evelyn is there," said she.

"But what would make the child want to go there, anyhow?"

"It was the only place she had ever been in New York," said Maria.

"But I don't see what particular reason she would have for going there, though," said Wollaston. "How would she remember the street and number?"

"She was an awful bright kid," said Gladys, with a momentary lapse of reason, "and kids is queer. I know, 'cause we've got so many of 'em to our house. Sometimes they'll remember things you don't ever think they would. My little sister Maud remembers how my mother drowned five kittens oncet, when she was in long clothes. We knowed she did, 'cause when the cat had kittens next time we caught her trying to drown 'em herself. Kids is awful queer. Maud can't remember how to spell her own name, either, and she's most six now. She spells it M-a-u-d, when it had ought to be M-a-u-g-h-d. I shouldn't be one mite surprised if M'ria's little sister remembered the street and number."

"Anyway, she knew her whole name, because I've heard her say it,"

said Maria. "Her cousin's name is Mrs. George B. Edison. Evelyn used to say it, and we used to laugh."

"Oh, well, if she knew the name like that she might have found the place all right," said Wollaston. "But what puzzles me is why she wanted to go there, anyway?"

"I don't know," said Maria.

"I don't know," said Wollaston, "but it seems to me the best thing to do would be to go directly to a police-office and have the chief of police notified, and set them at work; but then I suppose your father has done that already."

Maria turned upon him with indignation. "Go to a police-station to find my little sister!" said she. "What would I go there for?"

"Yes, what do you suppose that kid has did?" asked Gladys.

"What would I go there for?" demanded Maria, flashing the light of her excited, strained little face upon the boy.

Maria no longer looked pretty. She no longer looked even young. Lines of age were evident around her mouth, her forehead was wrinkled. The boy fairly started at the sight of her. She seemed like a stranger to him. Her innermost character, which he had heretofore only guessed at by superficial signs, was written plainly on her face. The boy felt himself immeasurably small and young, manly and bold of his age as he really was. When a young girl stretches to the full height of her instincts, she dwarfs any boy of her own age. Maria's feeling for her little sister was fairly maternal. She was in spirit a mother searching for her lost young, rather than a girl searching for her little sister. Her whole soul expanded. She fairly looked larger, as well as older. When they got off the train at Jersey City, she led the little procession straight for the Twenty-third Street ferry. She marched ahead like a woman of twice her years.

"You had better hold up your dress, M'ria," said Gladys, coming up with her, and looking at her with wonder. "My, how you do race!"

Maria reached round one hand and caught a fold of her skirt. Her new dress was in fact rather long for her. Ida had remarked that morning that she would have Miss Keeler shorten it on Sat.u.r.day. Ida had no wish to have a grown-up step-daughter quite yet, whom people might take for her own.

The three reached the ferry-boat just as she was about to leave her slip. They sat down in a row midway of the upper deck. The heat inside was intense. Gladys loosened her shabby little sacque. Maria sat impa.s.sible.

"Ain't you most baked in here?" asked Gladys.

"No," replied Maria.

Both Gladys and Wollaston looked cowed. They kept glancing at each other and at Maria. Maria sat next Gladys, Wollaston on Gladys's other side. Gladys nudged Wollaston, and whispered to him.

"We've jest got to stick close to her," she whispered, in an alarmed cadence. The boy nodded.

Then they both glanced again at Maria, who seemed quite oblivious of their attention. When they reached the other side, Wollaston, with an effort, a.s.serted himself.

"We had better take a cross-town car to the Sixth Avenue Elevated,"

he said, pressing close to Maria's side and seizing her arm again.

Maria shook her head. "No," she said. "Where Mrs. Edison lives is not so near the Elevated. It will be better to take a cross-town car and transfer at Seventh Avenue."

"All right," said Wollaston. He led the way in the run down the stairs, and aided his companions onto the cross-town car. He paid their fares, and got the transfers, and stopped the other car. He was beginning to feel himself again, at least temporarily.

"Well, I think the police-station is the best place to look, but have your own way. It won't take long to see if she is there now," said Wollaston. He was hanging on a strap in front of Maria. The car was crowded with people going to up-town theatres. Some of the ladies, in showy evening wraps, giving glimpses of delicate waists, looked curiously at the three. There was something extraordinary about their appearance calculated to attract attention, although it was difficult to say just why. After they had left the car, a lady with a white lace blouse showing between the folds of a red cloak, said to her escort: "I wonder who they were?"

"I don't know," said the man, who had been watching them. "I thought there was something unusual."

"I thought so, too. That well-dressed young woman, and that handsome boy, and that shabby little girl." By the "young woman" she meant Maria.

"Yes, a queer combination," said the man.

"It wasn't altogether that, but they looked so desperately in earnest."

Meantime, while the lights of the car disappeared up the avenue, Maria, Wollaston, and Gladys Mann searched for the house in which had lived Ida Edgham's cousin.

At last they found it, mounted the steps, and rang the bell. It was an apartment-house. After a little the door opened of itself.

"My!" said Gladys, but she followed Wollaston and Maria inside.

Wollaston began searching the names above the rows of bells on the wall of the vestibule.

"What did you say the name was?" he asked of Maria.

"Edison. Mrs. George B. Edison."

"There is no such name here."

"There must be."

"There isn't."

"Let me see," said Maria. She searched the names. "Well, I don't care," said she. "It was on the third floor, and I am going up and ask, anyway."

"Now, Maria, do you think--" began Wollaston.

But Maria began climbing the stairs. There was no elevator.

"My!" said Gladys, but she followed Maria.

Wollaston pushed by them both. "See here, you don't know what you are getting into," said he, sternly. "You let _me_ go first."

When they reached the third floor, Maria pointed to a door. "That is the door," she whispered, breathlessly.

Wollaston knocked. Immediately the door was flung open by a very pretty young woman in a rose-colored evening gown. Her white shoulders gleamed through the transparent chiffon, and a comb set with rhinestones sparkled in the fluff of her blond hair. When she saw the three she gave a shrill scream, and immediately a very small man, much smaller than she, but with a fierce c.o.c.k of a black pointed beard, and a tremendous wiriness of gesture, appeared.

"Oh, Tom!" gasped the young woman. "Oh!"

"What on earth is the matter, Stella?" asked the man. Then he looked fiercely at the three. "Who are these people?" he asked.

"I don't know. I opened the door. I thought it was Adeline and Raymond, and then I saw these strange people. I don't know how they got in."

"We came in the door," said Gladys, with some asperity, "and we are lookin' for M'ria's little sister. Be you her ma-in-law's cousin?"