Read "The Priceless Pearl" by Alice Duer Miller online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The following Thursday afternoon Pearl stepped from the fast train to the platform of the Southampton station. Since the train reached Quogue she had been agreeably aware of the damp saltness in the air, which comes only from proximity to the open ocean. But now, on the platform, she smelled nothing but the fumes of innumerable exhausts, saw nothing but masses of automobiles crowding toward the station like a flock of parti-colored elephants. She stood dazed for a minute by the noise of self-starters and the crowd of arrivals, until, darting in and out under the elbows of chauffeurs and passengers, she saw a little bareheaded, barefooted figure in a dirty white dress edged with the finest Valenciennes lace. Pearl felt an instant conviction that this was her future charge.
"Antonia," she said in her deep voice, and the child made a rush for her.