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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17564-h.zip b/17564-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea75cab --- /dev/null +++ b/17564-h.zip diff --git a/17564-h/17564-h.htm b/17564-h/17564-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80099d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17564-h/17564-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15837 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of By the Light of the Soul</title> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's By the Light of the Soul, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: By the Light of the Soul + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Illustrator: Harold M. Brett + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #17564] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY THE LIGHT OF THE SOUL *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>By the Light of the Soul</h1> +<h2>A Novel</h2> +<h3>By<br> +Mary E. Wilkins Freeman</h3> + +<p>Author of<br> +"The Debtor" "The Portion of Labor"<br> +"Jerome" "A New England Nun"<br> +Etc. etc.</p> + +<p>Illustrations by<br> +Harold M. Brett</p> + +<p>New York and London<br> +Harper & Brothers Publishers<br> +1907</p> + +<p>Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers.<br> +All rights reserved.<br> +Published January, 1907.</p> + +<p>To Harriet and Carolyn Alden</p> + + +<h4 align="center">Chapter I</h4> +<p>Maria Edgham, who was a very young girl, sat in the church +vestry beside a window during the weekly prayer-meeting.</p> +<p>As was the custom, a young man had charge of the meeting, and he +stood, with a sort of embarrassed dignity, on the little platform +behind the desk. He was reading a selection from the Bible. Maria +heard him drone out in a scarcely audible voice: “Whom the +Lord loveth, He chasteneth,” and then she heard, in a quick +response, a soft sob from the seat behind her. She knew who sobbed: +Mrs. Jasper Cone, who had lost her baby the week before. The odor +of crape came in Maria's face, making a species of discordance with +the fragrance of the summer night, which came in at the open +window. Maria felt irritated by it, and she wondered why Mrs. Cone +felt so badly about the loss of her baby. It had always seemed to +Maria a most unattractive child, large-headed, flabby, and mottled, +with ever an open mouth of resistance, and a loud wail of +opposition to existence in general. Maria felt sure that she could +never have loved such a baby. Even the unfrequent smiles of that +baby had not been winning; they had seemed reminiscent of the +commonest and coarsest things of life, rather than of heavenly +innocence. Maria gazed at the young man on the platform, who +presently bent his head devoutly, and after saying, “Let us +pray,” gave utterance to an unintelligible flood of +supplication intermingled with information to the Lord of the state +of things on the earth, and the needs of his people. Maria wondered +why, when God knew everything, Leon Barber told him about it, and +she also hoped that God heard better than most of the congregation +did. But she looked with a timid wonder of admiration at the young +man himself. He was so much older than she, that her romantic +fancies, which even at such an early age had seized upon her, never +included him. She as yet dreamed only of other dreamers like +herself, Wollaston Lee, for instance, who went to the same school, +and was only a year older. Maria had made sure that he was there, +by a glance, directly after she had entered, then she never glanced +at him again, but she wove him into her dreams along with the +sweetness of the midsummer night, and the morally tuneful +atmosphere of the place. She was utterly innocent, her farthest +dreams were white, but she dreamed. She gazed out of the window +through which came the wind on her little golden-cropped head (she +wore her hair short) in cool puffs, and she saw great, plumy masses +of shadow, themselves like the substance of which dreams were made. +The trees grew thickly down the slope, which the church crowned, +and at the bottom of the slope rushed the river, which she heard +like a refrain through the intermittent soughing of the trees. A +whippoorwill was singing somewhere out there, and the katydids +shrieked so high that they almost surmounted dreams. She could +smell wild grapes and pine and other mingled odors of unknown +herbs, and the earth itself. There had been a hard shower that +afternoon, and the earth still seemed to cry out with pleasure +because of it. Maria had worn her old shoes to church, lest she +spoil her best ones; but she wore her pretty pink gingham gown, and +her hat with a wreath of rosebuds, and she felt to the utmost the +attractiveness of her appearance. She, however, felt somewhat +conscience-stricken on account of the pink gingham gown. It was a +new one, and her mother had been obliged to have it made by a +dress-maker, and had paid three dollars for that, beside the +trimmings, which were lace and ribbon. Maria wore the gown without +her mother's knowledge. She had in fact stolen down the backstairs +on that account, and gone out the south door in order that her +mother should not see her. Maria's mother was ill lately, and had +not been able to go to church, nor even to perform her usual tasks. +She had always made Maria's gowns herself until this pink +gingham.</p> +<p>Maria's mother was originally from New England, and her +conscience was abnormally active. Her father was of New Jersey, and +his conscience, while no one would venture to say that it was +defective, did not in the least interfere with his enjoyment of +life.</p> +<p>“Oh, well, Abby,” her father would reply, easily, +when her mother expressed her distress that she was unable to work +as she had done, “we shall manage somehow. Don't worry, +Abby.” Worry in another irritated him even more than in +himself.</p> +<p>“Well, Maria can't help much while she is in school. She +is a delicate little thing, and sometimes I am worried about +her.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria can't be expected to do much while she is in +school,” her father said, easily. “We'll manage +somehow, only for Heaven's sake don't worry.”</p> +<p>Then Maria's father had taken his hat and gone down street. He +always went down street of an evening. Maria, who had been sitting +on the porch, had heard every word of the conversation which had +been carried on in the sitting-room that very evening. It did not +alarm her at all because her mother considered her delicate. +Instead, she had a vague sense of distinction on account of it. It +was as if she realized being a flower rather than a vegetable. She +thought of it that night as she sat in meeting. She glanced across +at a girl who went to the same school—a large, heavily built +child with a coarseness of grain showing in every feature—and +a sense of superiority at once exalted and humiliated her. She said +to herself that she was much finer and prettier than Lottie Sears, +but that she ought to be thankful and not proud because she was. +She felt vain, but she was sorry because of her vanity. She knew +how charming her pink gingham gown was, but she knew that she ought +to have asked her mother if she might wear it. She knew that her +mother would scold her—she had a ready tongue—and she +realized that she would deserve it. She had put on the pink gingham +on account of Wollaston Lee, who was usually at prayer-meeting. +That, of course, she could not tell her mother. There are some +things too sacred for little girls to tell their mothers. She +wondered if Wollaston would ask leave to walk home with her. She +had seen a boy step out of a waiting file at the vestry door to a +blushing girl, and had seen the girl, with a coy readiness, slip +her hand into the waiting crook of his arm, and walk off, and she +had wondered when such bliss would come to her. It never had. She +wondered if the pink gingham might bring it to pass to-night. The +pink gingham was as the mating plumage of a bird. All unconsciously +she glanced sideways over the fall of lace-trimmed pink ruffles at +her slender shoulders at Wollaston Lee. He was gazing straight at +Miss Slome, Miss Ida Slome, who was the school-teacher, and his +young face wore an expression of devotion. Maria's eyes followed +his; she did not dream of being jealous; Miss Slome seemed too +incalculably old to her for that. She was not so very old, in her +early thirties, but the early thirties to a young girl are +venerable. Miss Ida Slome was called a beauty. She, as well as +Maria, wore a pink dress, at which Maria privately wondered. The +teacher seemed to her too old to wear pink. She thought she ought +wear black like her mother. Miss Slome's pink dress had knots of +black velvet about it which accentuated it, even as Miss Slome's +face was accentuated by the clear darkness of her eyes and the +black puff of her hair above her finely arched brows. Her cheeks +were of the sweetest red—not pink but red—which seemed +a further tone of the pink of her attire, and she wore a hat +encircled with a wreath of red roses. Maria thought that she should +have worn a bonnet. Maria felt an odd sort of instinctive +antagonism for her. She wondered why Wollaston looked at the +teacher so instead of at herself. She gave her head a charming +cant, and glanced again, but the boy still had his eyes fixed upon +the elder woman, with that rapt expression which is seen only in +the eyes of a boy upon an older woman, and which is primeval, +involving the adoration and awe of womanhood itself. The boy had +not reached the age when he was capable of falling in love, but he +had reached the age of adoration, and there was nothing in little +Maria Edgham in her pink gingham, with her shy, sidelong glances, +to excite it. She was only a girl, the other was a goddess. His +worship of the teacher interfered with Wollaston's studies. He was +wondering as he sat there if he could not walk home with her that +night, if by chance any <em>man</em> would be in waiting for her. +How he hated that imaginary man. He glanced around, and as he did +so, the door opened softly, and Harry Edgham, Maria's father, +entered. He was very late, but he had waited in the vestibule, in +order not to attract attention, until the people began singing a +hymn, “Jesus, Lover of my Soul,” to the tune of +“When the Swallows Homeward Fly.” He was a distinctly +handsome man. He looked much younger than Maria's mother, his wife. +People said that Harry Edgham's wife might, from her looks, have +been his mother. She was a tall, dark, rather harsh-featured woman. +In her youth she had had a beauty of color; now that had passed, +and she was sallow, and she disdained to try to make the most of +herself, to soften her stern face by a judicious arrangement of her +still plentiful hair. She strained it back from her hollow temples, +and fastened it securely on the top of her head. She had a scorn of +fashions in hair or dress except for Maria. “Maria is +young,” she said, with an ineffable expression of love and +pride, and a tincture of defiance, as if she were defying her own +age, in the ownership of the youth of her child. She was like a +rose-bush which possessed a perfect bud of beauty, and her own long +dwelling upon the earth could on account of that be ignored. But +Maria's father was different. He was quite openly a vain man. He +was handsome, and he held fast to his youth, and would not let it +pass by. His hair, curling slightly over temples boyish in +outlines, although marked, was not in the least gray. His mustache +was carefully trimmed. After he had seated himself unobtrusively in +a rear seat, he looked around for his daughter, who saw him with +dismay. “Now,” she thought, her chances of Wollaston +Lee walking home with her were lost. Father would go home with her. +Her mother had often admonished Harry Edgham that when Maria went +to meeting alone, he ought to be in waiting to go home with her, +and he obeyed his wife, generally speaking, unless her wishes +conflicted too strenuously with his own. He did not in the least +object to-night, for instance, to dropping late into the +prayer-meeting. There were not many people there, and all the +windows were open, and there was something poetical and sweet about +the atmosphere. Besides, the singing was unusually good for such a +place. Above all the other voices arose Ida Slome's sweet soprano. +She sang like a bird; her voice, although not powerful, was +thrillingly sweet. Harry looked at her as she sang, and thought how +pretty she was, but there was no disloyalty to his wife in the +look. He was, in fact, not that sort of man. While he did not love +his Abby with utter passion, all the women of the world could not +have swerved him from her.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham came of perhaps the best old family in that +vicinity, Edgham itself had been named for it, and while he partook +of that degeneracy which comes to the descendants of the large old +families, while it is as inevitable that they should run out, so to +speak, as flowers which have flourished too many years in a garden, +whose soil they have exhausted, he had not lost the habit of +rectitude of his ancestors. Virtue was a hereditary trait of the +Edghams.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham looked at Ida Slome with as innocent admiration as +another woman might have done. Then he looked again at his +daughter's little flower-like head, and a feeling of love made his +heart warm. Maria could sing herself, but she was afraid. Once in a +while she droned out a sweet, husky note, then her delicate cheeks +flushed crimson as if all the people had heard her, when they had +not heard at all, and she turned her head, and gazed out of the +open window at the plumed darkness. She thought again with +annoyance how she would have to go with her father, and Wollaston +Lee would not dare accost her, even if he were so disposed; then +she took a genuine pleasure in the window space of sweet night and +the singing. Her passions were yet so young that they did not +disturb her long if interrupted. She was also always conscious of +the prettiness of her appearance, and she loved herself for it with +that love which brings previsions of unknown joys of the future. +Her charming little face, in her realization of it, was as the +untried sword of the young warrior which is to bring him all the +glory of earth for which his soul longs.</p> +<p>After the meeting was closed, and Harry Edgham, with his little +daughter lagging behind him with covert eyes upon Wollaston Lee, +went out of the vestry, a number inquired for his wife. “Oh, +she is very comfortable,” he replied, with his cheerful +optimism which solaced him in all vicissitudes, except the single +one of actually witnessing the sorrow and distress of those who +belonged to him.</p> +<p>“I heard,” said one man, who was noted in the place +for his outspokenness, which would have been brutal had it not been +for his naïveté—“I heard she wasn't going +to get out again.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense,” replied Harry Edgham.</p> +<p>“Then she is?”</p> +<p>“Of course she is. She would have come to meeting to-night +if it had not been so damp.”</p> +<p>“Well, I'm glad to hear it,” said the man, with a +curious congratulation which gave the impression of +disappointment.</p> +<p>Little Maria Edgham and her father went up the village street; +Harry Edgham walked quite swiftly. “I guess we had better +hurry along,” he observed, “your mother is all +alone.”</p> +<p>Maria tagged behind him. Her father had to stop at a +grocery-store on the corner of the street where they lived, to get +a bag of peaches which he had left there. “I got some peaches +on my way,” he explained, “and I didn't want to carry +them to church. I thought your mother might like them. The doctor +said she might eat fruit.” With that he darted into the store +with the agility of a boy.</p> +<p>Maria stood on the dusty sidewalk in the glare of electric +light, and waited. Her pink gingham dress was quite short, but she +held it up daintily, like a young lady, pinching a fold between her +little thumb and forefinger. Mrs. Jasper Cone, with another woman, +came up, and to Maria's astonishment, Mrs. Cone stopped, clasped +her in her arms and kissed her. As she did so, she sobbed, and +Maria felt her tears of bereavement on her cheek with an odd +mixture of pity and awe and disgust. “If my Minnie +had—lived, she might have grown up to be like her,” she +gasped out to her friend. “I always thought she looked like +her.” The friend made a sympathetic murmur of assent. Mrs. +Cone kissed Maria again, holding her little form to her +crape-trimmed bosom almost convulsively, then the two passed on. +Maria heard her say again that she always had thought the baby +looked like her, and she felt humiliated. She looked after the poor +mother's streaming black veil with resentment. Then Miss Ida Slome +passed by, and Wollaston Lee was clinging to her arm, pressing as +closely to her side as he dared. Miss Slome saw Maria, and spoke in +her sweet, crisp tone. “Good-evening, Maria,” said +she.</p> +<p>Maria stood gazing after them. Her father emerged from the store +with the bag of peaches dangling from his hand. He looked +incongruous. Her father had too much the air of a gentleman to +carry a paper bag. “I do hope your mother will like these +peaches,” he said.</p> +<p>Maria walked along with her father, and she thought with pain +and scorn how singular it was for a boy to want to go home with an +old woman like Miss Slome, when there were little girls like +her.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter II</h4> +<p>Maria and her father entered the house, which was not far. It +was a quite new Queen Anne cottage of the better class, situated in +a small lot of land, and with other houses very near on either +side. There was a great clump of hydrangeas on the small smooth +lawn in front, and on the piazza stood a small table, covered with +a dainty white cloth trimmed with lace, on which were laid, in +ostentatious neatness, the evening paper and a couple of magazines. +There were chairs, and palms in jardinières stood on either +side of the flight of wooden steps.</p> +<p>Maria's mother was, however, in the house, seated beside the +sitting-room table, on which stood a kerosene lamp with a +singularly ugly shade. She was darning stockings. She held the +stocking in her left hand, and drew the thread through regularly. +Her mouth was tightly closed, which was indicative both of decision +of character and pain. Her countenance looked sallower than ever. +She looked up at her husband and little girl entering. +“Well,” she said, “so you've got home.”</p> +<p>“I've brought you some peaches, Abby,” said Harry +Edgham. He laid the bag on the table, and looked anxiously at his +wife. “How do you feel now?” said he.</p> +<p>“I feel well enough,” said she. Her reply sounded +ill-humored, but she did not intend it to be so. She was far from +being ill-humored. She was thinking of her husband's kindness in +bringing the peaches. But she looked at the paper bag on the table +sharply. “If there is a soft peach in that bag,” said +she, “and there's likely to be, it will stain the +table-cover, and I can never get it out.”</p> +<p>Harry hastily removed the paper bag from the table, which was +covered with a white linen spread trimmed with lace and +embroidered.</p> +<p>“Don't you feel as if you could eat one to-night? You +didn't eat much supper, and I thought maybe—”</p> +<p>“I don't believe I can to-night, but I shall like them +to-morrow,” replied Mrs. Edgham, in a voice soft with +apology. Then she looked fairly for the first time at Maria, who +had purposely remained behind her father, and her voice immediately +hardened. “Maria, come here,” said she.</p> +<p>Maria obeyed. She left the shelter of her father's broad back, +and stood before her mother, in her pink gingham dress, a miserable +little penitent, whose penitence was not of a high order. The +sweetness of looking pretty was still in her soul, although +Wollaston Lee had not gone home with her.</p> +<p>Maria's mother regarded her with a curious expression compounded +of pride and almost fierce disapproval. Harry went precipitately +out of the room with the paper bag of peaches. “You didn't +wear that new pink gingham dress that I had to hire made, trimmed +with all that lace and ribbon, to meeting to-night?” said +Maria's mother.</p> +<p>Maria said nothing. It seemed to her that such an obvious fact +scarcely needed words of assent.</p> +<p>“Damp as it is, too,” said her mother.</p> +<p>Mrs. Edgham extended a lean, sallow hand and felt of the dainty +fabric. “It is just as limp as a rag,” said she, +“about spoiled.”</p> +<p>“I held it up,” said Maria then, with feeble +extenuation.</p> +<p>“Held it up!” repeated her mother, with scorn.</p> +<p>“I thought maybe you wouldn't care.”</p> +<p>“Wouldn't care! That was the reason why you went out the +other door then. I wondered why you did. Putting on that new pink +gingham dress that I had to hire made, trimmed with all that lace +and ribbon, and wearing it out in the evening, damp as it is +to-night! I don't see what you were thinking of, Maria +Edgham.”</p> +<p>Maria looked down disconsolately at the lace-trimmed ruffles on +her skirt, but even then she thought how pretty it was, and how +pretty she must look herself standing so forlornly before her +mother. She wondered how her mother could scold her when she was +her own daughter, and looked so sweet. She still felt the damp +coolness of the night on her cheeks, and realized a bloom on them +like that of a wild rose.</p> +<p>But Mrs. Edgham continued. She had the high temper of the women +of her race who had brought up great families to toil and fight for +the Commonwealth, and she now brought it to bear upon petty things +in lieu of great ones. Besides, her illness made her irritable. She +found a certain relief from her constant pain in scolding this +child of her heart, whom secretly she admired as she admired no +other living thing. Even as she scolded, she regarded her in the +pink dress with triumph. “I should think you would be ashamed +of yourself, Maria Edgham,” said she, in a high voice.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham, who had deposited the peaches in the ice-box, and +had been about to enter the room, retreated. He went out the other +door himself, and round upon the piazza, when presently the smoke +of his cigar stole into the room. Then Mrs. Edgham included him in +her wrath.</p> +<p>“You and your father are just alike,” said she, +bitterly. “You both of you will do just what you want to, +whether or no. He will smoke, though he knows it makes me worse, +besides costing more than he can afford, and you will put on your +best dress, without asking leave, and wear it out in a damp night, +and spoil it.”</p> +<p>Maria continued to stand still, and her mother to regard her +with that odd mixture of worshipful love and chiding. Suddenly Mrs. +Edgham closed her mouth more tightly.</p> +<p>“Stand round here,” said she, violently. “Let +me unbutton your dress. I don't see how you fastened it up +yourself, anyway; you wouldn't have thought you could, if it hadn't +been for deceiving your mother. You would have come down to me to +do it, the way you always do. You have got it buttoned wrong, +anyway. You must have been a sight for the folks who sat behind +you. Well, it serves you right. Stand round here.”</p> +<p>“I am sorry,” said Maria then. She wondered whether +the wrong fastening had showed much through the slats of the +settee.</p> +<p>Her mother unfastened, with fingers that were at once gentle and +nervous, the pearl buttons on the back of the dress. “Take +your arms out,” said she to Maria. Maria cast a glance at the +window. “There's nobody out there but your father,” +said Mrs. Edgham, harshly, “take your arms out.”</p> +<p>Maria took her arms out of the fluffy mass and stood revealed in +her little, scantily trimmed underwaist, a small, childish figure, +with the utmost delicacy of articulation as to shoulder-blades and +neck. Maria was thin to the extreme, but her bones were so small +that she was charming even in her thinness. Her little, beautifully +modelled arms were as charming as a fairy's.</p> +<p>“Now slip off your skirt,” ordered her mother, and +Maria complied and stood in her little white petticoat, with +another glance of the exaggerated modesty of little girlhood at the +window.</p> +<p>“Now,” said her mother, “you go and hang this +up in the kitchen where it is warm, on that nail on the outside +door, and maybe some of the creases will come out. I've heard they +would. I hope so, for I've got about all I want to do without +ironing this dress all over.”</p> +<p>Maria gazed at her mother with sudden compunction and anxious +love. After all, she loved her mother down to the depths of her +childish heart; it was only that long custom had so inured her to +the loving that she did not always realize the warmth of her heart +because of it. “Do you feel sick to-night mother?” she +whispered.</p> +<p>“No sicker than usual,” replied her mother. Then she +drew the delicate little figure close to her, and kissed her with a +sort of passion. “May the Lord look out for you,” she +said, “if you should happen to outlive me! I don't know what +would become of you, Maria, you are so heedless, wearing your best +things every day, and everything.”</p> +<p>Maria's face paled. “Mother, you aren't any worse?” +said she, in a terrified whisper.</p> +<p>“No, I am not a mite worse. Run along, child, and hang up +your dress, then go to bed; it's after nine o'clock.”</p> +<p>It did not take much at that time to reassure Maria. She had +inherited something of the optimism of her father. She carried her +pink dress into the kitchen, with wary eyes upon the windows, and +hung it up as her mother had directed. On her return she paused a +moment at the foot of the stairs in the hall, between the +dining-room and sitting-room. Then, obeying an impulse, she ran +into the sitting-room and threw her soft little arms around her +mother's neck. “I'm real sorry I wore that dress without +asking you, mother,” she said. “I won't again, +honest.”</p> +<p>“Well, I hope you will remember,” replied her +mother. “If you wear the best you have common you will never +have anything.” Her tone was chiding, but the look on her +face was infinitely caressing. She thought privately that never was +such a darling as Maria. She looked at the softly flushed little +face, with its topknot of gold, the delicate fairness of the neck, +and slender arms, and she had a rapture of something more than +possession. The beauty of the child irradiated her very soul, the +beauty and the goodness, for Maria never disobeyed but she was +sorry afterwards, and somehow glorified faults seem lovelier than +cold virtues. “Well, run up-stairs to bed,” said she. +“Be careful of your lamp.”</p> +<p>When Maria was in her own room she set the lamp on the dresser +and gazed upon her face reflected in the mirror. That was her +nightly custom, and might have been regarded as a sort of fetich +worship of self. Nothing, in fact, could have been lovelier than +that face of childish innocence and beauty, with the soft rays of +the lamp illuminating it. Her blue eyes seemed to fairly give forth +light, the soft pink on her cheeks deepened until it was like the +heart of a rose. She opened her exquisitely curved lips, and smiled +at herself in a sort of ecstasy. She turned her head this way and +that in order to get different effects. She pulled the little +golden fleece of hair farther over her forehead. She pushed it +back, revealing the bold yet delicate outlines of her temples. She +thought how glad she should be when her hair was grown. She had had +an illness two years before, and her mother had judged it best to +have her hair cut short. It was now just long enough to hang over +her ears, curving slightly forward like the old-fashioned earlocks. +She had her hair tied back from her face with a pink ribbon in a +bow on top of her head. She loosened this ribbon, and shook her +hair quite loose. She peeped out of the golden radiance of it at +herself, then she shook it back. She was charming either way. She +was undeveloped, but as yet not a speck of the mildew of earth had +touched her. She was flawless, irreproachable, except for the +knowledge of her beauty, through heredity, in her heart, which was +older than she herself.</p> +<p>Suddenly Maria, after a long gaze of rapture at her face in the +glass, gave a great start. She turned and saw her mother standing +in the door looking at her.</p> +<p>Maria, with an involuntary impulse of concealment, seized her +brush, and began brushing her hair. “I was just brushing my +hair,” she murmured. She felt as guilty as if she had +committed a crime.</p> +<p>Her mother continued to look at her sternly. “There isn't +any use in your trying to deceive me, Maria,” said she. +“I am ashamed that a child of mine should be so silly. To +stand looking at yourself that way! You needn't think you are so +pretty, because you are not. You don't begin to be as good-looking +as Amy Long.”</p> +<p>Maria felt a cold chill strike her. She had herself had doubts +as to her superior beauty when Amy Long was concerned.</p> +<p>“You don't begin to be as good-looking as your aunt Maria +was at your age, and you know yourself how she looks now. Nobody +would dream for a minute of calling her even +ordinary-looking,” her mother continued in a pitiless +voice.</p> +<p>Maria shuddered. She seemed to see, instead of her own fair +little face in the glass, an elderly one as sallow as her mother's, +but without the traces of beauty which her mother's undoubtedly +had. She saw the thin, futile frizzes which her aunt Maria +affected; she saw the receding chin, indicative at once of +degeneracy and obstinacy; she saw the blunt nose between the lumpy +cheeks.</p> +<p>“Your aunt Maria looked very much as you do when she was +your age,” her mother went on, with the calm cruelty of an +inquisitor.</p> +<p>Maria looked at her, her mouth was quivering. “Did I look +like Mrs. Jasper Cone's baby that died last week when I was a +baby?” said she.</p> +<p>“Who said you did?” inquired her mother, +unguardedly.</p> +<p>“She did. She came up behind me with Mrs. Elliot when I +was waiting for father to get the peaches, and she said her baby +that died looked just like me; she had always thought +so.”</p> +<p>“That Cone baby look like you!” repeated Maria's +mother. “Well, one's own always looks different to them, I +suppose.”</p> +<p>“Then you don't think it did?” said Maria. Tears +actually stood in her beautiful blue eyes.</p> +<p>“No, I don't,” replied her mother, abruptly. +“Nobody in their sober senses could think so. I am sorry poor +Mrs. Cone lost her baby. I know how I felt when my first baby died, +but as for saying it looked like you—”</p> +<p>“Then you don't think it did, mother?”</p> +<p>“It was one of the homliest babies I ever laid my eyes on, +poor little thing, if it did die,” said Maria's mother, +emphatically. She was completely disarmed by this time. But when +she saw Maria glance again at the glass she laid hold of her moral +weapons, the wielding of which she believed to be for the best +spiritual good of her child. “Your aunt Maria was very much +better looking than you at her age,” she repeated, firmly. +Then, at the sight of the renewed quiver around the sensitive +little mouth her heart melted. “Get out of your clothes and +into your night-gown, and get to bed, child,” said she. +“You look well enough. If you only behave as well as you +look, that is all that is necessary.”</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter III</h4> +<p>Maria fell asleep that night with the full assurance that she +had not been mistaken concerning the beauty of the little face +which she had seen in the looking-glass. All that troubled her was +the consideration that her aunt Maria, whose homely face seemed to +glare out of the darkness at her, might have looked just as she did +when she was her age. She hoped, and then she hoped that the hope +was not wicked, that she might die young rather than live to look +like her aunt Maria. She pictured with a sort of pleasurable +horror, what a lovely little waxen-image she would look now, laid +away in a nest of white flowers. She had only just begun to doze, +when she awoke with a great start. Her father had opened her door, +and stood calling her.</p> +<p>“Maria,” he said, in an agitated voice.</p> +<p>Maria sat up in bed. “Oh, father, what is it?” said +she, and a vague horror chilled her.</p> +<p>“Get up, and slip on something, and go into your mother's +room,” said her father, in a gasping sort of voice. +“I've got to go for the doctor.”</p> +<p>Maria put one slim little foot out of bed. “Oh, +father,” she said, “is mother sick?”</p> +<p>“Yes, she is very sick,” replied her father. His +voice sounded almost savage. It was as if he were furious with his +wife for being ill, furious with Maria, with life, and death +itself. In reality he was torn almost to madness with anxiety. +“Slip on something so you won't catch cold,” said he, +in his irritated voice. “I don't want another one +down.”</p> +<p>Maria ran to her closet and pulled out a little pink wrapper. +“Oh, father, is mother very sick?” she whispered +again.</p> +<p>“Yes, she is very sick. I am going to have another doctor +to-morrow,” replied her father, still in that furious, +excited voice, which the sick woman must have heard.</p> +<p>“What shall I—” began Maria, but her father, +running down the stairs, cut her short.</p> +<p>“Do nothing,” said he. “Just go in there and +stay with her. And don't you talk. Don't you speak a word to her. +Go right in.” With that the front door slammed.</p> +<p>Maria went tiptoeing into her mother's room, still shaking from +head to foot, and her blue eyes seeming to protrude from her little +white face. Even before she entered her mother's room she became +conscious of a noise, something between a wail and a groan. It was +indescribably terrifying. It was like nothing which she had ever +heard before. It did not seem possible that her mother, that +anything human, in fact, was making such a noise, and yet no animal +could have made it, for it was articulate. Her mother was in fact +both praying and repeating verses of Scripture, in that awful voice +which was no longer capable of normal speech, but was compounded of +wail and groan. Every sentence seemed to begin with a groan, and +ended with a long-drawn-out wail. Maria went close to her mother's +bed and stood looking at her. Her poor little face would have torn +her mother's heart with its piteous terror, had she herself not +been in such agony.</p> +<p>Maria did not speak. She remembered what her father had said. As +her mother lay there, stretched out stiff and stark, almost as if +she were dead, Maria glanced around the room as if for help. She +caught sight of a bottle of cologne on the dresser, one which she +had given her mother herself the Christmas before; she had bought +it out of her little savings of pocket-money. Maria went unsteadily +over to the dresser and got the cologne. She also opened a drawer +and got out a clean handkerchief. She became conscious that her +mother's eyes were upon her, even although she never ceased for a +moment her cries of agony.</p> +<p>“What—r you do—g?” asked her mother, in +her dreadful voice.</p> +<p>“Just getting some cologne to put on your head, to make +you feel better, mother,” replied Maria, piteously. She +thought she must answer her mother's question in spite of her +father's prohibition.</p> +<p>Her mother seemed to take no further notice; she turned her face +to the wall. “Have—mercy upon me, O Lord, according to +Thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender +mercies,” she shrieked out. Then the words ended with a +long-drawn-out “Oh—oh—”</p> +<p>Had Maria not been familiar with the words, she could not have +understood them. Not a consonant was fairly sounded, the vowels +were elided. She went, feeling as if her legs were sticks, close to +her mother's bed, and opened the cologne bottle with hands which +shook like an old man's with the palsy. She poured some cologne on +the handkerchief and a pungent odor filled the room. She laid the +wet handkerchief on her mother's sallow forehead, then she +recoiled, for her mother, at the shock of the coldness, experienced +a new and almost insufferable spasm of pain. “Let—me +alone!” she wailed, and it was like the howl of a dog.</p> +<p>Maria slunk back to the dresser with the handkerchief and the +cologne bottle, then she returned to her mother's bedside and +seated herself there in a rocking-chair. A lamp was burning over on +the dresser, but it was turned low; her mother's convulsed face +seemed to waver in unaccountable shadows. Maria sat, not speaking a +word, but quivering from head to foot, and her mother kept up her +prayers and her verses from Scripture. Maria herself began to pray +in her heart. She said it over and over to herself, in unutterable +appeal and terror, “O Lord, please make mother well, please +make her well.” She prayed on, although the groaning wail +never ceased.</p> +<p>Suddenly her mother turned and looked at her, and spoke quite +naturally. “Is that you?” she said.</p> +<p>“Yes, mother. I'm so sorry you are sick. Father has gone +for the doctor.”</p> +<p>“You haven't got on enough,” said her mother, still +in her natural voice.</p> +<p>“I've got on my wrapper.”</p> +<p>“That isn't enough, getting up right out of bed so. Go and +get my white crocheted shawl out of the closet and put it over your +shoulders.”</p> +<p>Maria obeyed. While she was doing so her mother resumed her +cries. She said the first half of the twenty-third psalm, then she +looked again at Maria seating herself beside her, and said, in her +own voice, wrested as it were by love from the very depths of +mortal agony. “Have you got your stockings on?” said +she.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am, and my slippers.”</p> +<p>Her mother said no more to her. She resumed her attention to her +own misery with an odd, small gesture of despair. The cries never +ceased. Maria still prayed. It seemed to her that her father would +never return with the doctor. It seemed to her, in spite of her +prayer, that all hope of relief lay in the doctor, and not in the +Lord. It seemed to her that the doctor must help her mother. At +last she heard wheels, and, in her joy, she spoke in spite of her +father's injunction. “There's the doctor now,” said +she. “I guess he's bringing father home with him.”</p> +<p>Again her mother's eyes opened with a look of intelligence, +again she spoke in her natural voice. She looked towards the +clothes which she had worn during the day, on a chair. “Put +my clothes in the closet,” said she, but her voice strained +terribly on the last word.</p> +<p>Maria flew, and hung up her mother's clothes in the closet just +before her father and the doctor entered the room. As she did so, +the tears came for the first time. She had a ready imagination. She +thought to herself that her mother might never put on those clothes +again. She kissed the folds of her mother's dress passionately, and +emerged from the closet, the tears streaming down her face, all the +muscles of which were convulsed. The doctor, who was a young man, +with a handsome, rather hard face, glanced at her before even +looking at the moaning woman in the bed. He said something in a low +tone to her father, who immediately addressed her.</p> +<p>“Go right into your own room, and stay there until I tell +you to come out, Maria,” said he, still in that angry voice, +which seemed to have no reason in it. It was the dumb anger of the +race against Fate, which included and overran individuals in its +way, like Juggernaut.</p> +<p>At her father's voice, Maria gave a hysterical sob and fled. A +sense of injury tore her heart, as well as her anxiety. She flung +herself face downward on her bed and wept. After a while she turned +over on her back and looked at the room. Not one little thing in +the whole apartment but served to rack her very soul with the +consideration of her mother's love, which she was perhaps about to +lose forever. The dainty curtains at the windows, the scarf on the +dresser, the chintz cover on a chair—every one her mother had +planned. She could not remember how much her mother had scolded +her, only how much she had loved her. At the moment of death the +memory of love reigns triumphant over all else, but she still felt +the dazed sense of injury that her father should have spoken so to +her. She could hear the low murmur of voices in her mother's room +across the hall. Suddenly the cries and moans ceased. A great joy +irradiated the child. She said to herself that her mother was +better, that the doctor had given her something to help her.</p> +<p>She got off the bed, wrapped her little pink garment around her, +and stole across the hall to her mother's room. The whole hall was +filled with a strange, sweet smell which made her faint, but along +with the faintness came such an increase of joy that it was almost +ecstasy. She turned the knob of her mother's door, but, before she +could open it, it was opened from the other side, and her father's +face, haggard and resentful as she had never seen it, appeared.</p> +<p>“Go back!” he whispered, fiercely.</p> +<p>“Oh, father, is mother better?”</p> +<p>“Go back!”</p> +<p>Maria went back, and again the tempest of woe and injury swept +over her. Why should her father speak to her so? Why could he not +tell her if her mother were better? She sat in her little +rocking-chair beside the window, and looked out at the night. She +was conscious of a terrible sensation which seemed to have its +starting-point at her heart, but which pervaded her whole body, her +whole consciousness. She was conscious of such misery, such grief, +that it was like a weight and a pain. She knew now that her mother +was no better, that she might even die. She heard no more of the +cries and moans, and somehow now, the absence of them seemed harder +to bear than they themselves had been. Suddenly she heard her +mother's door open. She heard her father's voice, and the doctor's +in response, but she still could not distinguish a word. Presently +she heard the front door open and close softly. Then her father +hurried down the steps, and got into the doctor's buggy and drove +away. It was dark, but she could not mistake her father. She knew +that he had gone for another doctor, probably Dr. Williams, who +lived in the next town, and was considered very skilful. The other +doctor was remaining with her mother. She did not dare leave her +room again. She sat there watching an hour, and a pale radiance +began to appear in the east, which her room faced. It was like dawn +in another world, everything had so changed to her. The thought +came to her that she might go down-stairs and make some coffee, if +she only knew how. Her father might like some when he returned. But +she did not know how, and even if she had she dared not leave her +room again.</p> +<p>The pale light in the east increased, suddenly rosy streamers, +almost like northern lights, were flung out across the sky. She +could distinguish things quite clearly. She heard the rattle of +wheels, and thought it was her father returning with Dr. Williams, +but instead it was the milkman in his yellow cart. He carried a +bottle of milk around to the south door. There was something +horribly ghastly in that every-day occurrence to the watching +child. She realized the interminable moving on of things in spite +of all individual sufferings, as she would have realized the +revolution of a wheel of torture. She felt that it was simply +hideous that the milk should be left at the door that morning, just +as if everything was as it had been. When the milkman jumped into +his wagon, whistling, it seemed to her as if he were doing an awful +thing. The milk-wagon stopped at the opposite house, then moved on +out of sight down the street. She wished to herself that the +milkman's horse might run away while he was at some door. The +rancor which possessed her father, the kicking against the pricks, +was possessing her. She felt a futile rage, like that of some +little animal trodden underfoot. A boy whom she knew ran past +whooping, with a tin-pail, after the milkman. Evidently his mother +wanted some extra milk. The sun was reflected on the sides of the +swinging pail, and the flash of light seemed to hurt her, and she +felt the same unreasoning wrath against the boy. Why was not Willy +Royce's mother desperately sick, like her mother, instead of simply +sending for extra milk? The health and the daily swing of the world +in its arc of space seemed to her like a direct insult.</p> +<p>At last it occurred to her that she ought to dress herself. She +left the window, brushed her hair, braided it, and tied it with a +blue ribbon, and put on her little blue gingham gown which she +commonly wore mornings. Then she sat by the window again. It was +not very long after that that she saw the doctor coming, driving +fast. Her father was with him, and between them sat a woman. She +recognized the woman at once. She was a trained nurse who lived in +Edgham. “They have got Miss Bell,” she thought; +“mother must be awful sick.” She knew that Miss Bell's +wages were twenty-five dollars a week, and that her father would +not have called her in except in an extreme case. She watched her +father help out the woman, who was stout and middle-aged, and much +larger than he. Miss Bell had a dress-suit case, which her father +tugged painfully into the house; Miss Bell followed him. She heard +his key turn in the lock while the doctor fastened his horse.</p> +<p>She saw the doctor, who was slightly lame, limp around to the +buggy after his horse was tied, and take out two cases. She hated +him while he did it. She felt intuitively that something terrible +was to come to her mother because of those cases. She watched the +doctor limp up the steps with positive malevolence. “If he is +such a smart doctor, why doesn't he cure himself?” she +asked.</p> +<p>She heard steps on the stairs, then the murmur of voices, and +the sound of the door opening into her mother's room. A frightful +sense of isolation came over her. She realized that it was +infinitely worse to be left by herself outside, suffering, than +outside happiness. She tried again to pray, then she stopped. +“It is no good praying,” she reflected, “God did +not stop mother's pain. It was only stopped by that stuff I smelled +out in the entry.” She could not reason back of that; her +terror and misery brought her up against a dead wall. It seemed to +her presently that she heard a faint cry from her mother's room, +then she was quite sure that she smelled that strange, sweet smell +even through her closed door. Then her father opened her door +abruptly, and a great whiff of it entered with him, like some ghost +of pain and death.</p> +<p>“The doctors have neither of them had any breakfast, and +they can't leave her,” he said, with a jerk of his elbow, and +speaking still with that angry tone towards the unoffending child. +“Can you make coffee?”</p> +<p>“I don't know how.”</p> +<p>“Good for nothing!” said her father, and shut the +door with a subdued bang.</p> +<p>Maria heard him going down-stairs, and presently she heard a +rattle in the kitchen, a part of which was under her room. She went +out herself and stole softly down the stairs. Her father, with an +air of angry helplessness, was emptying the coffee-pot into her +mother's nice sink. Maria stood trembling at his elbow. “I +don't believe that's where mother empties it,” she +ventured.</p> +<p>“It has got to be emptied somewhere,” said her +father, and his tone sounded as if he swore. Maria shrank back. +“They've got to have some coffee, anyhow.”</p> +<p>Maria's father carried the coffee-pot over to the stove, in +which a freshly kindled fire was burning, and set it on it, in the +hottest place. Maria stealthily moved it back while he was +searching for the coffee in the pantry. She did not know much, but +she did know that an empty coffee-pot on such a hot place would +come to ruin.</p> +<p>Her father emerged from the pantry with a tin-canister in his +hand. “I've sent a telegram to our aunt Maria for her to come +right on,” said he, “but she can't get here before +afternoon. I don't suppose you know how much coffee your mother +puts in. I don't suppose you know about anything.”</p> +<p>Maria realized dimly that she was a scape-goat, but there was +such terrible suffering in her father's face that she had no +impulse to rebel. She smelled of the canister which her father held +out towards her with a nervously trembling hand. “Why, +father, this is tea; it isn't coffee,” said she.</p> +<p>“Well, if you don't know anything that a big girl like you +ought to know, I should think you might know enough not to try to +make coffee with tea,” said her father.</p> +<p>Maria looked at her father in a bewildered sort of way. “I +guess the coffee is in the other canister,” said she, +meekly.</p> +<p>“Why didn't you say so then?” demanded her +father.</p> +<p>Maria was silent. It seemed to her that her father had gone mad. +Harry Edgham made a ferocious stride across the kitchen to the +pantry. Maria followed him. “I guess that is the coffee +canister,” said she, pointing.</p> +<p>“Why didn't you say so, then?” asked her father, +viciously, and again Maria made no reply. Her father seized the +coffee canister and approached the stove. “I don't suppose +you know how much she puts in. I don't suppose you know +anything,” said he.</p> +<p>“I guess she puts in about a cupful,” said Maria, +trembling.</p> +<p>“A cupful! with coffee at the price it is now? I guess she +doesn't,” said her father. He poured the coffee-pot full of +boiling water from the tea-kettle, then he tipped the coffee +canister into his hand, and put one small pinch into the pot.</p> +<p>“Oh, father,” ventured Maria. “I don't believe—”</p> +<p>“You don't believe what?”</p> +<p>“I don't believe that is enough.”</p> +<p>“Of course it's enough. Don't you suppose your father +knows how to make coffee?”</p> +<p>Her father set the coffee-pot on the stove, where it immediately +began to boil. Then he carried back the canister into the pantry, +and returned with a panful of eggs. “You can set the table, I +suppose, anyhow?” said he. “You know enough to do as +much as that?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I can do that,” replied Maria, with alacrity, +and indeed she could. Her mother had exacted some small household +tasks from her, and setting the table was one of them. She hurried +into the dining-room and began setting the table with the pretty +blue-flowered ware that her mother had been so proud of. She seemed +to feel tears in her heart when she laid the plates, but none +sprang to her eyes. Somehow, handling these familiar inanimate +things was the acutest torture. Presently she smelled eggs burning. +She realized that her father was burning up the eggs, in his utter +ignorance of cookery. She thought privately that she didn't believe +but she could cook the eggs, but she dared not go out in the +kitchen. Her father, in his anxiety, had actually reached ferocity. +He had always petted her, in his easy-going fashion, now he +terrified her. She dared not go out there.</p> +<p>All at once, as she was getting the clean napkins from the +sideboard, she heard the front door open, and one of the neighbors, +Mrs. Jonas White, entered without knocking. She was a large woman +and carelessly dressed, but her great face was beaming with +kindness and pity.</p> +<p>“I just heard how bad your ma was,” she said, in a +loud whisper, “an' I run right over. I thought +mebbe—How is she?”</p> +<p>“She is very sick,” replied Maria. She felt at first +an impulse to burst into tears before this broadside of sympathy, +then she felt stiff.</p> +<p>“You are as white as a sheet,” said Mrs. White. +“Who is burnin' eggs out there?” She pointed to the +kitchen.</p> +<p>“Father.”</p> +<p>“Lord! Who's up-stairs?”</p> +<p>“Miss Bell and the doctors. They've sent for Aunt Maria, +but she can't come before afternoon.”</p> +<p>Mrs. White fastened a button on her waist. “Well, I'll +stay till then,” said she. “Lillian can get along all +right.” Lillian was Mrs. White's eighteen-year-old +daughter.</p> +<p>Mrs. White opened the kitchen door. “How is she?” +she said in a hushed voice to Harry Edgham, frantically stirring +the burned eggs, which sent up a monstrous smoke and smell. As she +spoke, she went over to him, took the frying-pan out of his hands, +and carried it over to the sink.</p> +<p>“She is a very sick woman,” replied Harry Edgham, +looking at Mrs. White with a measure of gratitude.</p> +<p>“You've got Dr. Williams and Miss Bell, Maria +says?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Maria says her aunt is coming?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I sent a telegram.”</p> +<p>“Well, I'll stay till she gets here,” said Mrs. +White, and again that expression of almost childish gratitude came +over the man's face. Mrs. White began scraping the burned eggs off +the pan.</p> +<p>“They haven't had any breakfast,” said Harry, +looking upward.</p> +<p>“And they don't dare leave her?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“Well, you just go and do anything you want to, Maria and +I will get the breakfast.” Mrs. White spoke with a kindly, +almost humorous inflection. Maria felt that she could go down on +her knees to her.</p> +<p>“You are very kind,” said Harry Edgham, and he went +out of the kitchen as one who beats a retreat before superior +forces.</p> +<p>“Maria, you just bring me the eggs, and a clean +cup,” said Mrs. White. “Poor man, trying to cook +eggs!” said she of Maria's father, after he had gone. She was +one of the women who always treat men with a sort of loving pity, +as if they were children. “Here is some nice bacon,” +said she, rummaging in the pantry. “The eggs will be real +nice with bacon. Now, Maria, you look in the ice-chest and see if +there are any cold potatoes that can be warmed up. There's plenty +of bread in the jar, and we'll toast that. We'll have breakfast in +a jiffy. Doctors do have a hard life, and Miss Bell, she ought to +have her nourishment too, if she's goin' to take care of your +mother.”</p> +<p>When Maria returned from the ice-box, which stood out in the +woodshed, with a plate of cold potatoes, Mrs. White was sniffing at +the coffee-pot.</p> +<p>“For goodness sake, who made this?” said she.</p> +<p>“Father.”</p> +<p>“How much did he put in?”</p> +<p>“He put in a little pinch.”</p> +<p>“It looks like water bewitched,” said Mrs. White. +“Bring me the coffee canister. You know where that is, don't +you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am.”</p> +<p>Maria watched Mrs. White pour out the coffee which her father +had made, and start afresh in the proper manner.</p> +<p>“Men are awful helpless, poor things,” said Mrs. +White. “This sink is in an awful condition. Did your father +empty all this truck in it?”</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am.”</p> +<p>“Well, I must clean it out, as soon as I get the other +things goin', or the dreen will be stopped up.” Mrs. White's +English was not irreproachable, but she was masterful.</p> +<p>Maria continued to stand numbly in the middle of the kitchen, +watching Mrs. White, who looked at her uneasily.</p> +<p>“You must be a good girl, and trust in the Lord,” +said she, and she tried to make her voice sharp. “Now, don't +stand there lookin' on; just fly round and do somethin'. I don't +believe but the dinin'-room needs dustin'. You find somethin' and +dust the dinin'-room real nice, while I get the +breakfast.”</p> +<p>Maria obeyed, but she did that numbly, without any realization +of the task.</p> +<p>The morning wore on. The doctors, one at a time came down, and +the nurse came down, and they ate a hearty breakfast. Maria watched +them, and hated them because they could eat while her mother was so +ill. Miss Bell also ate heartily, and she felt that she hated her. +She was glad that her father refused anything except a cup of +coffee. As for herself, Mrs. White made her drink an egg beaten up +with milk. “If you won't eat your breakfast, you've got to +take this,” said she.</p> +<p>Mrs. White took her own breakfast in stray bites, while she was +clearing away the table. She stayed, and put the house in order, +until Maria's aunt Maria arrived. One of the physicians went away. +For a short time Maria's mother's groans and wailings recommenced, +then the smell of chloroform was strong throughout the house.</p> +<p>“I wonder why they don't give her morphine instead of +chloroform?” said Mrs. White, while Maria was wiping the +dishes. “It is dreadful dangerous to give that, especially if +the heart is weak. Well, don't you be scart. I've seen folks enough +worse than your mother git well.”</p> +<p>In the last few hours Maria's face had gotten a hard look. She +no longer seemed like a little girl. After a while the doctors went +away.</p> +<p>“I don't suppose there is much they can do for a while, +perhaps,” remarked Mrs. White; “and Miss Bell, she is +as good as any doctor.”</p> +<p>Both physicians returned a little after noon, and previously +Mrs. Edgham had made her voice of lamentation heard again. Then it +ceased abruptly, but there was no odor of chloroform.</p> +<p>“They are giving her morphine now, I bet a cooky,” +Mrs. White said. She, with Maria, was clearing away the +dinner-table then. “What time do you think your aunt Maria +will get here?” she asked.</p> +<p>“About half-past two, father said,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, I'm real glad you've got some one like her you can +call on,” said Mrs. White. “Somebody that 'ain't ever +had no family, and 'ain't tied. Now I'd be willin' to stay right +along myself, but I couldn't leave Lillian any length of time. She +'ain't never had anything hard put on her, and she 'ain't any too +tough. But your aunt can stay right along till your mother gits +well, can't she?”</p> +<p>“I guess so,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>There was something about Maria's manner which made Mrs. White +uneasy. She forced conversation in order to make her speak, and do +away with that stunned look on her face. All the time now Maria was +saying to herself that her mother was going to die, that God could +make her well, but He would not. She was conscious of blasphemy, +and she took a certain pleasure in it.</p> +<p>Her aunt Maria arrived on the train expected, and she entered +the house, preceded by the cabman bearing her little trunk, which +she had had ever since she was a little girl. It was the only trunk +she had ever owned. Both physicians and the nurse were with Mrs. +Edgham when her sister arrived. Harry Edgham had been walking +restlessly up and down the parlor, which was a long room. He had +not thought of going to the station to meet Aunt Maria, but when +the cab stopped before the house he hurried out at once. Aunt Maria +was dressed wholly in black—a black mohair, a little black +silk cape, and a black bonnet, from which nodded a jetted tuft. +“How is she?” Maria heard her say, in a hushed voice, +to her father. Maria stood in the door. Maria heard her father say +something in a hushed tone about an operation. Aunt Maria came up +the steps with her travelling-bag. Harry forgot to take it. She +greeted Mrs. White, whom she had met on former visits, and kissed +Maria. Maria had been named for her, and been given a silver cup +with her name inscribed thereon, which stood on the sideboard, but +she had never been conscious of any distinct affection for her. +There was a queer, musty odor, almost a fragrance, about Aunt +Maria's black clothes.</p> +<p>“Take the trunk up the stairs, to the room at the +left,” said Harry Edgham, “and go as still as you +can.” The man obeyed, shouldering the little trunk with an +awed look.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria drew Mrs. White and Maria's father aside, and Maria +was conscious that they did not want her to hear; but she did +overhear—“...one chance in ten, a fighting +chance,” and “Keep it from Maria, her mother had said +so.” Maria knew perfectly well that that horrible and +mysterious thing, an operation, which means a duel with death +himself, was even at that moment going on in her mother's room. She +slipped away, and went up-stairs to her own chamber, and softly +closed the door. Then she forgot her lack of faith and her +rebellion, and she realized that her only hope of life was from +that which is outside life. She knelt down beside her bed, and +began to pray over and over, “O God, don't let my mother die, +and I will always be a good girl! O God, don't let my mother die, +and I will always be a good girl!”</p> +<p>Then, without any warning, the door opened and her father stood +there, and behind him was her aunt Maria, weeping bitterly, and +Mrs. White, also weeping.</p> +<p>“Maria,” gasped out Harry Edgham. Then, as Maria +rose and went to him, he seized upon her as if she were his one +straw of salvation, and began to sob himself, and Maria knew that +her mother had died.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter IV</h4> +<p>Without any doubt, Maria's self-consciousness, which was at its +height at this time, helped her to endure the loss of her mother, +and all the sad appurtenances of mourning. She had a covert +pleasure at the sight of her fair little face, in her black hat, +above her black frock. She realized a certain importance because of +her grief.</p> +<p>However, there were times when the grief itself came uppermost; +there were nights when she lay awake crying for her mother, when +she was nothing but a bereft child in a vacuum of love. Her +father's tenderness could not make up to her for the loss of her +mother's. Very soon after her mother's death, his mercurial +temperament jarred upon her. She could not understand how he could +laugh and talk as if nothing had happened. She herself was more +like her mother in temperament—that is, like the +New-Englander who goes through life with the grief of a loss grown +to his heart. Nothing could exceed Harry Edgham's tenderness to his +motherless little girl. He was always contriving something for her +pleasure and comfort; but Maria, when her father laughed, regarded +him with covert wonder and reproach.</p> +<p>Her aunt Maria continued to live with them, and kept the house. +Aunt Maria was very capable. It is doubtful if there are many +people on earth who are not crowned, either to their own +consciousness or that of others, with at least some small semblance +of glories. Aunt Maria had the notable distinction of living on one +hundred dollars a year. She had her rent free, but upon that she +did not enlarge. Her married brother owned a small house, of the +story-and-a-half type prevalent in New England villages, and Maria +had the north side. She lived, aside from that, upon one hundred +dollars a year. She was openly proud of it; her poverty became, in +a sense, her riches. “Well, all I have is just one hundred a +year,” she was fond of saying, “and I don't complain. I +don't envy anybody. I have all I want.” Her little plans for +thrift were fairly Machiavellian; they showed subtly. She told +everybody what she had for her meals. She boasted that she lived +better than her brother, who was earning good wages in a +shoe-factory. She dressed very well, really much better than her +sister-in-law. “Poor Eunice never had much management,” +Maria was wont to say, smoothing down, as she spoke, the folds of +her own gown. She never wore out anything; she moved carefully and +sat carefully; she did a good deal of fancy-work, but she was +always very particular, even when engaged in the daintiest toil, to +cover her gown with an apron, and she always held her thin-veined +hands high. She charged this upon her niece Maria when she had her +new black clothes. “Now, Maria,” said she, “there +is one thing I want you to remember, here is nothin'—” +(Aunt Maria elided her final “g” like most +New-Englanders, although she was not deficient in education, and +even prided herself upon her reading.) “Black is the worst +thing in the world to grow shiny. Folks can talk all they want to +about black bein' durable. It isn't. It grows shiny. And if you +will always remember one thing when you are at home, to wear an +apron when you are doin' anything, and when you are away, to hold +your hands high, you will gain by it. There is no need of anybody +gettin' the front breadths of their dresses all shiny by rubbin' +their hands on them. When you are at school you must remember and +hold your school-books so they won't touch your dress. Then there +is another thing you must remember, not to move your arms any more +than you can help, that makes the waist wear out under the arms. +There isn't any need of your movin' your arms much if any when you +are in school, that I can see, and when you come home you can +change your dress. You might just as well wear out your colored +dresses when you are home. Nobody is goin' to see you. If anybody +comes in that I think is goin' to mind, you can just slip +up-stairs, and put on your black dress. It isn't as if you had a +little sister to take your things—they ought to be worn +out.”</p> +<p>It therefore happened that Maria was dressed the greater part of +the time, in her own home, where she missed her mother most, in +bright-colored array, and in funeral attire outside. She told her +father about it, but he had not a large income, and it had been +severely taxed by his wife's almost tragic illness and death. +Besides, if the truth were known, he disliked to see Maria in +mourning, and the humor of the thing also appealed to him.</p> +<p>“You had better wear what your aunt says, dear. You feel +just the same in your heart, don't you?” asked Harry Edgham, +with that light laugh of his, which always so shocked his serious +little daughter.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” she replied, with a sob.</p> +<p>“Well, then, do just as your aunt says, and be a good +little girl,” said Harry, and he went hastily out on the +porch with his cigar.</p> +<p>Nothing irritated him so much as to see Maria weep for her +mother. He was one of those who wrestle and fight against grief, +and to see it thrust in his face by the impetus of another heart +exasperated him, although he could say nothing. It may be that, +with his temperament, it was even dangerous for him to cherish +grief, and, for that very reason, he tried to put his dead wife out +of his mind, as she had been taken out of his life.</p> +<p>“Well, men are different from women,” Aunt Maria +said to her niece Maria one night, when Harry had gone out on the +piazza, after he had talked and laughed a good deal at the +supper-table.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham heard the remark, and his face took on a set +expression which it could assume at times. He did not like his +sister-in-law, although he disguised the fact. She was very useful. +His meals were always on time, the house was as neatly kept as +before, and Maria was being trained as she had never been in +household duties.</p> +<p>Maria was obedient, under silent protest, to her aunt. Often, +after she had been bidden to perform some household task, and +obeyed, she had gone to her own room and wept, and told herself +that her mother would never have put such things on her. She had no +one in whom to confide. She was not a girl to have unlimited +intimates among other girls at school. She was too self-centred, +and, if the truth were told, too emulative.</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham thinks she's awful smart,” one girl +would say to another. They all admitted, even the most carping, +that Maria was pretty. “Maria Edgham is pretty enough, and +she knows it,” said they. She was in the high school, even at +her age, and she stood high in her classes. There was always a sort +of moral strike going on against Maria, as there is against all +superiority, especially when the superiority is known to be +recognized by the possessor thereof.</p> +<p>In spite of her prettiness, she was not a favorite even among +the boys. They were, as a rule, innocent as well as young, but they +would rather have snatched a kiss from such a pretty, dainty little +creature than have had her go above them in the algebra class. It +did not seem fitting. Without knowing it, they were envious. They +would not even acknowledge her cleverness, not even Wollaston Lee, +for whom Maria entertained a rudimentary affection. He was even +rude to her.</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham is awful stuck up,” he told his +mother. He was of that age when a boy tells his mother a good deal, +and he was an only child.</p> +<p>“She's a real pretty little girl, and her aunt says she is +a good girl,” replied his mother, who regarded the whole as +the antics of infancy.</p> +<p>The Lees lived near the Edghams, on the same street, and Mrs. +Lee and Aunt Maria had exchanged several calls. They were, in fact, +almost intimate. The Lees were at the supper-table when Wollaston +made his deprecatory remark concerning Maria, and he had been led +to do so by the law of sequence. Mrs. Lee had made a remark about +Aunt Maria to her husband. “I believe she thinks Harry Edgham +will marry her,” she said.</p> +<p>“That's just like you women, always trumping up something +of that kind,” replied her husband. His words were rather +brusque, but he regarded, while speaking them, his wife with +adoration. She was a very pretty woman, and looked much younger +than her age.</p> +<p>“You needn't tell me,” said Mrs. Lee. “She's +just left off bonnets and got a new hat trimmed with black daisies; +rather light mourning, I call it, when her sister has not been dead +a year.”</p> +<p>“You spiteful little thing!” said her husband, still +with his adoring eyes on his wife.</p> +<p>“Well, it's so, anyway.”</p> +<p>“Well, she would make Harry a good wife, I guess,” +said her husband, easily; “and she would think more of the +girl.”</p> +<p>It was then that Wollaston got in his remark about poor Maria, +who had herself noticed with wonder that her aunt had bought a new +hat that spring instead of a bonnet.</p> +<p>“Why, Aunt Maria, I thought you always wore a +bonnet!” said she, innocently, when the hat came home from +the milliner's.</p> +<p>“Nobody except old women are wearing bonnets now,” +replied her aunt, shortly. “I saw Mrs. Rufus Jones, who is a +good deal older than I, at church Sunday with a hat trimmed with +roses. The milliner told me nobody of my age wore a +bonnet.”</p> +<p>“Did she know how old you really are, Aunt Maria?” +inquired Maria with the utmost innocence.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham gave a little chuckle, then came to his +sister-in-law's rescue. He had a thankful heart for even small +benefits, and Aunt Maria had done a good deal for him and his, and +it had never occurred to him that the doing might not be entirely +disinterested. Besides, Aunt Maria had always seemed to him, as +well as to his daughter, very old indeed. It might have been that +the bonnets had had something to do with it. Aunt Maria had never +affected fashions beyond a certain epoch, partly from economy, +partly from a certain sense of injury. She had said to herself that +she was old, she had been passed by; she would dress as one who +had. Now her sentiments underwent a curious change. The possibility +occurred to her that Harry might ask her to take her departed +sister's place. She was older than that sister, much older than he, +but she looked in her glass and suddenly her passed youth seemed to +look forth upon her. The revival of hopes sometimes serves as a +tonic. Aunt Maria actually did look younger than she had done, even +with her scanty frizzes. She regarded other women, not older than +herself, with pompadours, and aspiration seized her.</p> +<p>One day she went to New York shopping. She secretly regarded +that as an expedition. She was terrified at the crossings. Stout, +elderly woman as she was, when she found herself in the whirl of +the great city, she became as a small, scared kitten. She gathered +up her skirts, and fled incontinently across the streets, with +policemen looking after her with haughty disapprobation. But when +she was told to step lively on the trolley-cars, her true self +asserted its endurance. “I am not going to step in front of a +team for you or any other person,” she told one conductor, +and she spoke with such emphasis that even he was intimidated, and +held the car meekly until the team had passed. When Aunt Maria came +home from New York that particular afternoon, she had an expression +at once of defiance and embarrassment, which both Maria and her +father noticed.</p> +<p>“Well, what did you see in New York, Maria?” asked +Harry, pleasantly.</p> +<p>“I saw the greatest lot of folks without manners, that I +ever saw in my whole life,” replied Aunt Maria, sharply.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham laughed. “You'll get used to it,” he +said, easily. “Everybody who comes from New England has to +take time to like New York. It is an acquired taste.”</p> +<p>“When I do acquire it, I'll be equal to any of +them,” replied Aunt Maria. “When I lose my temper, they +had better look out.”</p> +<p>Harry Edgham laughed again.</p> +<p>It was the next morning when Aunt Maria appeared at the early +breakfast with a pompadour. Her thin frizzes were carefully puffed +over a mystery which she had purchased the afternoon before.</p> +<p>Maria, when she first saw her aunt, stared open-mouthed; then +she ate her breakfast as if she had seen nothing.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham gave one sharp stare at his sister-in-law, then he +said: “Got your hair done up a new way, haven't you, +Maria?”</p> +<p>“Yes, my hat didn't set well on my head with my hair the +way I was wearing it,” replied Aunt Maria with dignity; still +she blushed. She knew that her own hair did not entirely conceal +the under structure, and she knew, too, why she wore the +pompadour.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham recognized the first fact with simple pity that his +sister-in-law's hair was so thin. He remembered hearing a +hair-tonic recommended by another man in the office, and he +wondered privately if Maria would feel hurt if he brought some for +her. Of the other fact he had not the least suspicion. He said: +“Well, it's real becoming to you, Maria. I guess I like it +better than the other way. I notice all the girls seem to wear +their hair so nowadays.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria smiled at him gratefully. When her sister had married +him, she had wondered what on earth she saw in Harry Edgham; now he +seemed to her a very likeable man.</p> +<p>When Maria sat in school that morning, her aunt's pompadour +diverted her mind from her book; then she caught Gladys Mann's +wondering eyes upon her, and she studied again.</p> +<p>While Maria could scarcely be said to have an intimate friend at +school, a little girl is a monstrosity who has neither a friend nor +a disciple; she had her disciple, whose name was Gladys Mann. +Gladys was herself a little outside the pale. Most of her father's +earnings went for drink, and Gladys's mother was openly known to +take in washing to make both ends meet, and keep the girl at school +at all; moreover, she herself came of one of the poor white +families which flourish in New Jersey as well as at the South, +although in less numbers. Gladys's mother was rather a marvel, +inasmuch as she was willing to take in washing, and do it well too, +but Gladys had no higher rank for that. She was herself rather a +pathetic little soul, dingily pretty, using the patois of her kind, +and always at the fag end of her classes. Her education, so far, +seemed to meet with no practical results in the child herself. Her +brain merely filtered learning like a sieve; but she thought Maria +Edgham was a wonder, and it was really through her, and her alone, +that she obtained any education.</p> +<p>“What makes you always say ‘have went’?” +Maria would inquire, with a half-kindly, half-supercilious glance +at her satellite.</p> +<p>“What had I ought to say,” Gladys would inquire, +meekly—“have came?”</p> +<p>“Have gone,” replied Maria, with supreme scorn.</p> +<p>“Then when my mother has came home shall I say she has +gone?” inquired Gladys, with positive abjectness.</p> +<p>“Gladys, you are such a ninny,” said Maria. +“Why don't you remember what you learn at school, instead of +what you hear at home?”</p> +<p>“I guess I hear more at home than I learn at +school,” Gladys replied, with an adoring glance at Maria.</p> +<p>Maria half despised Gladys, and yet she had a sort of protective +affection for her, as one might have for a little clinging animal, +and she confided more in her than in any one else, sure, at least, +of an outburst of sympathy. Maria had never forgotten how Gladys +had cried the first morning she went to school after her mother +died. Every time Gladys glanced at poor little Maria, in her black +dress, her head went down on a ring of her little, soiled, +cotton-clad arms on her desk, and Maria knew that she was sorrier +for her than any other girl in school.</p> +<p>Gladys had a sort of innocent and ignorant impertinence; she +asked anything which occurred to her, with no reflection as to its +effect upon the other party.</p> +<p>“Say, is it true?” she asked that very morning at +recess.</p> +<p>“Is what true?”</p> +<p>“Is your father goin' to marry her?”</p> +<p>“Marry who?” Maria turned quite pale, and forgot her +own grammar.</p> +<p>“Why, your aunt Maria.”</p> +<p>“My aunt Maria? I guess he isn't!” Maria left Gladys +with an offended strut. However, she reflected on Aunt Maria's +pompadour. A great indignation seized her. After this she treated +Aunt Maria stiffly, and she watched both her and her father.</p> +<p>There was surely nothing in Harry Edgham's behaviour to warrant +a belief that he contemplated marrying his deceased wife's sister. +Sometimes he even, although in a kindly fashion, poked fun at her, +in Maria's presence. But Aunt Maria never knew it; she was, in +fact, impervious to that sort of thing. But Maria came to be quite +sure that Aunt Maria had designs on her father. She observed that +she dressed much better than she had ever done; she observed the +fairly ostentatious attention which she bestowed upon her +brother-in-law, and also upon herself, when he was present. She +even used to caress Maria, in her wooden sort of way, when Harry +was by to see. Once Maria repulsed her roughly. “I don't like +to be kissed and fussed over,” said she.</p> +<p>“You mustn't speak so to your aunt,” said Harry, +when Aunt Maria had gone out of the room. “I don't know what +we should have done without her.”</p> +<p>“You pay her, don't you, father?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes, I pay her,” said Harry, “but that does +not alter the fact that she has done a great deal which money could +not buy.”</p> +<p>Maria gazed at her father with suspicion, which he did not +recognize.</p> +<p>It had never occurred to Harry Edgham to marry Aunt Maria. It +had never occurred to him that she might think of the possibility +of such a thing. It was now nearly a year since his wife's death. +He himself began to take more pains with his attire. Maria noticed +it. She saw her father go out one evening clad in a new, light-gray +suit, which he had never worn before. She looked at him wonderingly +when he kissed her good-bye. Harry never left the house without +kissing his little daughter.</p> +<p>“Why, you've got a new suit, father,” she said.</p> +<p>Harry blushed. “Do you like it, dear?” he asked.</p> +<p>“No, father, I don't like it half as well as a dark +one,” replied Maria, in a sweet, curt little voice. Her +father colored still more, and laughed, then he went away.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria, to Maria's mind, was very much dressed-up that +evening. She had on a muslin dress with sprigs of purple running +through it, and a purple ribbon around her waist. She made up her +mind that she would stay up until her father came home, in that new +gray suit, no matter what Aunt Maria should say.</p> +<p>However, contrary to her usual custom, Aunt Maria did not +mention, at half-past eight, that it was time for her to go to bed. +It was half-past nine, and her father had not come home, and Aunt +Maria had said nothing about it. She appeared to be working very +interestedly on a sofa-cushion which she was embroidering, but her +face looked, to Maria's mind, rather woe-begone, although there was +a shade of wrath in the woe. When the little clock on the +sitting-room shelf struck one for half-past nine, Maria looked at +her aunt, wondering.</p> +<p>“Why, I wonder where father has gone so late?” she +said.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria turned, and her voice, in reply, was both pained and +pitiless. “Well, you may as well know first as last,” +said she, “and you'd better hear it from me than outside: +your father has gone courtin'.”</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter V</h4> +<p>Maria looked at her aunt with an expression of almost idiocy. +For the minute, the term Aunt Maria used, especially as applied to +her father, had no more meaning for her than a term in a foreign +tongue. She was very pale. “Courtin',” she stammered +out vaguely, imitating her aunt exactly, even to the dropping of +the final “g.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria was, for the moment, too occupied with her own +personal grievances and disappointments to pay much attention to +her little niece. “Yes, courtin',” she said, harshly. +“I've been suspectin' for some time, an' now I know. A man, +when he's left a widower, don't smarten up the way he's done for +nothin'; I know it.” Aunt Maria nodded her head aggressively, +with a gesture almost of butting.</p> +<p>Maria continued to gaze at her, with that pale, almost idiotic +expression. It was a fact that she had thought of her father as +being as much married as ever, even although her mother was dead. +Nothing else had occurred to her.</p> +<p>“Your father's thinkin' of gettin' married again,” +said Aunt Maria, “and you may as well make up your mind to +it, poor child.” The words were pitying, the tone not.</p> +<p>“Who?” gasped Maria.</p> +<p>“I don't know any more than you do,” replied Aunt +Maria, “but I know it's somebody.” Suddenly Aunt Maria +arose. It seemed to her that she must do something vindictive. Here +she had to return to her solitary life in her New England village, +and her hundred dollars a year, which somehow did not seem as great +a glory to her as it had formerly done. She went to the parlor +windows and closed them with jerks, then she blew out the lamp. +“Come,” said she, “it's time to go to bed. I'm +tired, for my part. I've worked like a dog all day. Your father has +got his key, an' he can let himself in when he gets through his +courtin'.”</p> +<p>Maria crept miserably—she was still in a sort of +daze—up-stairs after Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, good-night,” said Aunt Maria. “You +might as well make up your mind to it. I suppose it had to come, +and maybe it's all for the best.” Aunt Maria's voice sounded +as if she were trying to reconcile the love of God with the +existence of hell and eternal torment. She closed her door with a +slam. There are, in some New England women, impulses of fierce +childishness.</p> +<p>Maria, when she was in her room, had never felt so lonely in her +life. A kind of rage of loneliness possessed her. She slipped out +of her clothes and went to bed, and then she lay awake. She heard +her father when he returned. The clock on a church which was near +by struck twelve soon after. Maria tried to imagine another woman +in the house in her mother's place; she thought of every eligible +woman in Edgham whom her father might select to fill that place, +but her little-girl ideas of eligibility were at fault. She thought +only of women of her mother's age and staidness, who wore bonnets. +She could think of only two, one a widow, one a spinster. She +shuddered at the idea of either. She felt that she would much +rather have had her father marry Aunt Maria than either of those +women. She did not altogether love Aunt Maria, but at least she was +used to her. Suddenly it occurred to her that Aunt Maria was +disappointed, that she felt badly. The absurdity of it struck her +strongly, but she felt a pity for her; she felt a common cause with +her. After her father had gone into his room, and the house had +long been silent, she got up quietly, opened her door softly, and +crept across the hall to the spare room, which Aunt Maria had +occupied ever since she had been there. She listened, and heard a +soft sob. Then she turned the knob of the door softly.</p> +<p>“Who is it?” Aunt Maria called out, sharply.</p> +<p>Maria was afraid that her father would hear.</p> +<p>“It's only me, Aunt Maria,” she replied. Then she +also gave a little sob.</p> +<p>“What's the matter?”</p> +<p>Maria groped her way across the room to her aunt's bed. +“Oh, Aunt Maria, who is it?” she sobbed, softly.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria did what she had never done before: she reached out +her arms and gathered the bewildered little girl close, in an +embrace of genuine affection and pity. She, too, felt that here was +a common cause, and not only that, but she pitied the child with +unselfish pity. “You poor child, you are as cold as ice. Come +in here with me,” she whispered.</p> +<p>Maria crept into bed beside her aunt, but she would rather have +remained where she was. She was a child of spiritual rather than +physical affinities, and the contact of Aunt Maria's thin body, +even though it thrilled with almost maternal affection for her, +repelled her.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria began to weep unrestrainedly, with a curious passion +and abandonment for a woman of her years.</p> +<p>“Has he come home?” she whispered. Aunt Maria's +hearing was slightly defective, especially when she was nervously +overwrought.</p> +<p>“Yes. Aunt Maria, who is it?”</p> +<p>“Hush, I don't know. He hasn't paid any open court to +anybody, that I know of, but—I've seen him +lookin'.”</p> +<p>“At whom?”</p> +<p>“At Ida Slome.”</p> +<p>“But she is younger than my mother was.”</p> +<p>“What difference do you s'pose that makes to a man. He'll +like her all the better for that. You can thank your stars he +didn't pitch on a school-girl, instead of the teacher.”</p> +<p>Maria lay stretched out stiff and motionless. She was trying to +bring her mind to bear upon the situation. She was trying to +imagine Miss Ida Slome, with her pink cheeks and her gay attire, in +the house instead of her mother. Her head began to reel. She no +longer wept. She became dimly conscious, after a while, of her aunt +Maria's shaking her violently and calling her by name, but she did +not respond, although she heard her plainly. Then she felt a great +jounce of the bed as her aunt sprang out. She continued to lie +still and rigid. She somehow knew, however, that her aunt was +lighting the lamp, then she felt, rather than saw, the flash of it +across her face. Her aunt Maria pulled on a wrapper over her +night-gown, and hurried to the door. “Harry, Harry +Edgham!” she heard her call, and still Maria could not move. +Then she also felt, rather than saw, her father enter the room with +his bath-robe slipped over his pajamas, and approach the bed.</p> +<p>“What on earth is the matter?” he said. He also laid +hands on Maria, and, at his touch, she became able to move.</p> +<p>“What on earth is the matter?” he asked again.</p> +<p>“She didn't seem able to speak or move, and I was +scared,” replied Aunt Maria, with a reproachful accent on the +“I”; but Harry Edgham was too genuinely concerned at +his little daughter's white face and piteous look to heed that at +all.</p> +<p>He leaned over and began stroking her soft little cheeks, and +kissing her. “Father's darling,” he whispered. Then he +said over his shoulder to Aunt Maria, “I wish you would go +into my room and get that flask of brandy I keep in my +closet.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria obeyed. She returned with the flask and a teaspoon, +and Maria's father made her swallow a few drops, which immediately +warmed her and made the strange rigidity disappear.</p> +<p>“I guess she had better stay in here with you the rest of +the night,” said Harry to his sister-in-law; but little Maria +sat up determinately.</p> +<p>“No, I'm going back to my own room,” she said.</p> +<p>“Hadn't you better stay with your aunt, +darling?”</p> +<p>Harry Edgham looked shamefaced and guilty. He saw that his +sister-in-law and Maria had been weeping, and he knew why, in the +depths of his soul. He saw no good reason why he should feel so +shamed and apologetic, but he did. He fairly cowered before the +nervous little girl and her aunt.</p> +<p>“Well, let father carry you in there, then,” he +said; and he lifted up the slight little thing, carried her across +the hall to her room, and placed her in bed.</p> +<p>It was a very warm night, but Maria was shivering as if with +cold. He placed the coverings over her with clumsy solicitude. Then +he bent down and kissed her. “Try and keep quiet, and go to +sleep, darling,” he said. Then he went out.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria was waiting for him in the hall. Her face, from grief +and consternation, had changed to sad and dignified +resignation.</p> +<p>“Harry,” said she.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham stopped.</p> +<p>“Well, sister,” he said, with pleasant +interrogation, although he still looked shamefaced.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria held a lamp, a small one, which she was tipping +dangerously.</p> +<p>“Look out for your lamp, Maria,” he said.</p> +<p>She straightened the lamp, and the light shone full upon her +swollen face, at once piteous and wrathful. “I only wanted to +know when you wanted me to go?” she said.</p> +<p>“Oh, Lord, Maria, you are going too fast!” replied +Harry, and he fairly ran into his own room.</p> +<p>The next morning when Maria, in her little black frock—it +was made of a thin lawn for the hot days, and the pale slenderness +of her arms and neck were revealed by the thinness of the +fabric—went to school, she knew, the very moment that Miss +Ida Slome greeted her, that Aunt Maria had been right in her +surmise. For the first time since she had been to school, Miss +Slome, who was radiant in a flowered muslin, came up to her and +embraced her. Maria submitted coldly to the embrace.</p> +<p>“You sweet little thing,” said Miss Slome.</p> +<p>There was a man principal of the school, but Miss Slome was +first assistant, and Maria was in most of her classes. She took her +place, with her pretty smile as set as if she had been a picture +instead of a living and breathing woman, on the platform.</p> +<p>“You are awful sweet all of a sudden, ain't you?” +said Gladys Mann in Maria's ear.</p> +<p>Maria nodded, and went to her own seat.</p> +<p>All that day she noted, with her sharp little consciousness, the +change in Miss Slome's manner towards her. It was noticeable even +in class. “It is true,” she said to herself. +“Father is going to marry her.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria was a little pacified by Harry's rejoinder the night +before. She begun to wonder if she had been, by any chance, +mistaken.</p> +<p>“Maybe I was wrong,” she said, privately, to Maria. +But Maria shook her head.</p> +<p>“She called me a sweet little thing, and kissed me,” +said she.</p> +<p>“Didn't she ever before?”</p> +<p>“No, ma'am.”</p> +<p>“Well, she may have taken a notion to. Maybe I was +mistaken. The way your father spoke last night sort of made me +think so.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria made up her mind that if Harry was out late the next +Sunday, and the next Wednesday, that would be a test of the +situation. The first time had been Wednesday, and Wednesday and +Sunday, in all provincial localities, are the acknowledged courting +nights. Of course it sometimes happens that an ardent lover goes +every night; but Harry Edgham, being an older man and a widower, +would probably not go to that extent.</p> +<p>He soon did, however. Very soon Maria and her aunt went to bed +every night before Harry came home, and Miss Ida Slome became more +loving towards Maria.</p> +<p>Wollaston Lee, boy as he was, child as he was, really suffered. +He lost flesh, and his mother told Aunt Maria that she was really +worried about him. “He doesn't eat enough to keep a bird +alive,” said she.</p> +<p>It never entered into her heart to imagine that Wollaston was in +love with the teacher, a woman almost if not quite old enough to be +his mother, and was suffering because of her love for Harry +Edgham.</p> +<p>One afternoon, when Harry's courtship of Ida Slome had been +going on for about six weeks, and all Edgham was well informed +concerning it, Maria, instead of going straight home from school, +took a cross-road through some woods. She dreaded to reach home +that night. It was Wednesday, and her father would be sure to go to +see Miss Slome. Maria felt an indefinable depression, as if she, +little, helpless girl, were being carried so far into the wheels of +life that it was too much for her. Her father, of late, had been +kinder than ever to her; Maria had begun to wonder if she ought not +to be glad if he were happy, and if she ought not to try to love +Miss Slome. But this afternoon depression overcame her. She walked +slowly between the fields, which were white and gold with +queen's-lace and golden-rod. Her slender shoulders were bent a +little. She walked almost like an old woman. She heard a quick step +behind her, and Wollaston Lee came up beside her. She looked at him +with some sentiment, even in the midst of her depression. The +thought flashed across her mind, what is she should marry Wollaston +at the same time her father married Miss Slome? That would be a +happy and romantic solution of the affair. She colored sweetly, and +smiled, but the boy scowled at her.</p> +<p>“Say?” he said.</p> +<p>Maria trembled a little. She was surprised.</p> +<p>“What?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Your father is the meanest man in this town, he is the +meanest in New Jersey, he is the meanest man in the whole United +States, he is the meanest man in the whole world.”</p> +<p>Again the boy scowled at Maria, who did not understand; but she +would not have her father reviled.</p> +<p>“He isn't, so there!” she said.</p> +<p>“He's going to marry teacher.”</p> +<p>“I don't see as he is mean if he is,” said Maria, +forced into justice by injustice.</p> +<p>“I was going to marry her myself, if she'd only waited, +and he hadn't butted in,” said Wollaston.</p> +<p>The boy gave one last scowl at the little girl, and it was as if +he scowled at all womanhood in her. Then he gave a fling away, and +ran like a wild thing across the field of golden-rod and +queen's-lace. Maria, watching, saw him throw himself down prone in +the midst of the wild-flowers, and she understood that he was +crying because the teacher was going to marry her father. She went +on, walking like a little old woman, and she had a feeling as if +she had found a road in the world that led outside all love.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter VI</h4> +<p>Maria felt that she no longer cared about Wollaston Lee, that +she fairly scorned him. Then, suddenly, something occurred to her. +She turned, and ran back as fast as she could, her short fleece of +golden hair flying. She wrapped her short skirts about her, and +wormed through the barbed-wire fence which skirted the +field—the boy had leaped it, but she was not equal to +that—and she hastened, leaving a furrow through the +white-and-gold herbage, to the boy lying on his face weeping. She +stood over him.</p> +<p>“Say?” said she.</p> +<p>The boy gave a convulsive wriggle of his back and shoulders, and +uttered an inarticulate “Let me alone”; but the girl +persisted.</p> +<p>“Say?” said she again.</p> +<p>Then the boy turned, and disclosed a flushed, scowling face +among the flowers.</p> +<p>“Well, what do you want, anyway?” said he.</p> +<p>“If you want to marry Miss Slome, why don't you, instead +of my father?” inquired Maria, bluntly, going straight to the +point.</p> +<p>“I haven't got any money,” replied Wollaston, +crossly; “all a woman thinks of is money. How'd I buy her +dresses?”</p> +<p>“I don't believe but your father would be willing for you +to live at home with her, and buy her dresses, till you got so you +could earn yourself.”</p> +<p>“She wouldn't have me,” said the boy, and he fairly +dug his flushed face into the mass of wild-flowers.</p> +<p>“You are a good deal younger than father,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“Your father he can give her a diamond ring, and I haven't +got more'n forty cents, and I don't believe that would buy much of +anything,” said Wollaston, in muffled tones of grief and +rage.</p> +<p>Maria felt a shock at the idea of a diamond ring. Her mother had +never owned one.</p> +<p>“Oh, I don't believe father will ever give her a diamond +ring in the world,” said she.</p> +<p>“She's wearing one, anyhow—I saw it,” said +Wollaston. “Where did she get it if he didn't give it to her, +I'd like to know?”</p> +<p>Maria felt cold.</p> +<p>“I don't believe it,” she said again. “Teacher +is all alone in the school-house, correcting exercises. Why don't +you get right up, and go back and ask her? I'll go with you, if you +want me to.”</p> +<p>Wollaston raised himself indeterminately upon one elbow.</p> +<p>“Come along,” urged Maria.</p> +<p>Wollaston got up slowly. His face was a burning red.</p> +<p>“You are a good deal younger and better looking than +father,” urged Maria, traitorously.</p> +<p>The boy was only a year older than Maria. He was much larger and +taller, but although she looked a child, at that moment he looked +younger. Both of his brown hands hung at his sides, clinched like a +baby's. He had a sulky expression.</p> +<p>“Come along,” urged the girl.</p> +<p>He stood kicking the ground hesitatingly for a moment, then he +followed the girl across the field. They went down the road until +they came to the school-house. Miss Slome was still there; her +graceful profile could be seen at a window.</p> +<p>Both children marched in upon Miss Slome, who was in a +recitation-room, bending over a desk. She looked up, and her face +lightened at sight of Maria.</p> +<p>“Oh, it's you, dear?” said she.</p> +<p>Maria then saw, for the first time, the white sparkle of a +diamond on the third finger of her left hand. She felt that she +hated her.</p> +<p>“He wants to speak to you,” she said, indicating +Wollaston with a turn of her hand.</p> +<p>Miss Slome looked inquiringly at Wollaston, who stood before her +like a culprit, blushing and shuffling, and yet with a sort of +doggedness.</p> +<p>“Well, what is it, Wollaston?” she asked, +patronizingly.</p> +<p>“I came back to ask you if—you would have me?” +said Wollaston, and his voice was hardly audible.</p> +<p>Miss Ida Slome looked at him in amazement; she was utterly +dazed.</p> +<p>“Have you?” she repeated. “I think I do not +quite understand you. What do you mean by ‘have you,’ +Wollaston?”</p> +<p>“Marry me,” burst forth the boy.</p> +<p>There was a silence. Maria looked at Miss Slome, and, to her +utter indignation, the teacher's lips were twitching, and it took a +good deal to make Miss Slome laugh, too; she had not much sense of +humor.</p> +<p>In a second Wollaston stole a furtive glance at Miss Slome, +which was an absurd parody on a glance of a man under similar +circumstances, and Miss Slome, who had had experience in such +matters, laughed outright.</p> +<p>The boy turned white. The woman did not realize it, but it was +really a cruel thing which she was doing. She laughed heartily.</p> +<p>“Why, my dear boy,” she said. “You are too +young and I am too old. You had better wait and marry Maria, when +you are both grown up.”</p> +<p>Wollaston turned his back upon her, and marched out of the room. +Maria lingered, in the vain hope that she might bring the teacher +to a reconsideration of the matter.</p> +<p>“He's a good deal younger than father, and he's better +looking,” said she.</p> +<p>Miss Slome blushed then.</p> +<p>“Oh, you sweet little thing, then you know—” +she began.</p> +<p>Maria interrupted her. She became still more traitorous to her +father.</p> +<p>“Father has a real bad temper, when things go +wrong,” said she. “Mother always said so.”</p> +<p>Miss Slome only laughed harder.</p> +<p>“You funny little darling,” she said.</p> +<p>“And Wollaston has a real good disposition, his mother +told my aunt Maria so,” she persisted.</p> +<p>The room fairly rang with Miss Slome's laughter, although she +tried to subdue it. Maria persisted.</p> +<p>“And father isn't a mite handy about the house,” +said she. “And Mrs. Lee told Aunt Maria that Wollaston could +wipe dishes and sweep as well as a girl.”</p> +<p>Miss Slome laughed.</p> +<p>“And I've got a bad temper, too, when I'm crossed; mother +always said so,” said Maria. Her lip quivered.</p> +<p>Miss Slome left her desk, came over to Maria, and, in spite of +her shrinking away, caught her in her arms.</p> +<p>“You are a little darling,” said she, “and I +am not a bit afraid of your temper.” She hesitated a moment, +looking at the child's averted face, and coloring. “My dear, +has your father told you?” she whispered; then, “I +didn't know he had.”</p> +<p>“No, ma'am, he hasn't,” said Maria. She fairly +pulled herself loose from Miss Slome and ran out of the room. Her +eyes were almost blinded with tears; she could scarcely see +Wollaston Lee on the road, ahead of her, also running. He seemed to +waver as he ran. Maria called out faintly. He evidently heard, for +he slackened his pace a little; then he ran faster than ever. Maria +called again. This time the boy stopped until the girl came up. He +picked a piece of grass, as he waited, and began chewing it.</p> +<p>“How do you know that isn't poison?” said Maria, +breathlessly.</p> +<p>“Don't care if it is; hope it is,” said the boy.</p> +<p>“It's wicked to talk so.”</p> +<p>“Let it be wicked then.”</p> +<p>“I don't see how I am to blame for any of it,” Maria +said, in a bewildered sort of way. It was the cry of the woman, the +primitive cry of the primitive scape-goat of Creation. Already +Maria began to feel the necessity of fitting her little shoulders +to the blame of life, which she had inherited from her Mother Eve, +but she was as yet bewildered by the necessity.</p> +<p>“Ain't it your father that's going to marry her?” +inquired Wollaston, fiercely.</p> +<p>“I don't want him to marry her any more than you +do,” said Maria. “I don't want her for a +mother.”</p> +<p>“I told you how it would come out, if I asked her,” +cried the boy, still heaping the blame upon the girl.</p> +<p>“I would enough sight rather marry you than my father, if +I were the teacher,” said Maria, and her blue eyes looked +into Wollaston's with the boldness of absolute guilelessness.</p> +<p>“Hush!” responded Wollaston, with a gesture of +disdain. “Who'd want you? You're nothing but a girl, +anyway.”</p> +<p>With that scant courtesy Wollaston Lee resumed his race +homeward, and Maria went her own way.</p> +<p>It was that very night, after Harry Edgham had returned from his +call upon Ida Slome, that he told Maria. Maria, as usual, had gone +to bed, but she was not asleep. Maria heard his hand on her +door-knob, and his voice calling out, softly: “Are you +asleep, dear?”</p> +<p>“No,” responded Maria.</p> +<p>Then her father entered and approached the child staring at him +from her white nest. The room was full of moonlight, and Maria's +face looked like a nucleus of innocence upon which it centred. +Harry leaned over his little daughter and kissed her.</p> +<p>“Father has got something to tell you, precious,” he +said.</p> +<p>Maria hitched away a little from him, and made no reply.</p> +<p>“Ida, Miss Slome, tells me that she thinks you know, and +so I made up my mind I had better tell you, and not wait any +longer, although I shall not take any decisive step +before—before November. What would you say if father should +bring home a new mother for his little girl, dear?”</p> +<p>“I should say I would rather have Aunt Maria,” +replied Maria, decisively. She choked back a sob.</p> +<p>“I've got nothing to say against Aunt Maria,” said +Harry. “She's been very kind to come here, and she's done all +she could, but—well, I think in some ways, some one +else—Father thinks you will be much happier with another +mother, dear.”</p> +<p>“No, I sha'n't.”</p> +<p>Harry hesitated. The child's voice sounded so like her dead +mother's that he felt a sudden guilt, and almost terror.</p> +<p>“But if father were happier—you want father to be +happy, don't you, dear?” he asked, after a little.</p> +<p>Then Maria began to sob in good earnest. She threw her arms +around her father's neck. “Yes, father, I do want you to be +happy,” she whispered, brokenly.</p> +<p>“If father's little girl were large enough to keep his +house for him, and were through school, father would never think of +taking such a step,” said Harry Edgham, and he honestly +believed what he said. For the moment his old love of life seemed +to clutch him fast, and Ida Slome's radiant visage seemed to +pale.</p> +<p>“Oh, father,” pleaded Maria. “Aunt Maria would +marry you, and I would a great deal rather have her.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense,” said Harry Edgham, laughing, with a +glance towards the door.</p> +<p>“Yes, she would, father; that was the reason she got her +pompadour.”</p> +<p>Harry laughed again, but softly, for he was afraid of Aunt Maria +overhearing. “Nonsense, dear,” he said again. Then he +kissed Maria in a final sort of way. “It will be all for the +best,” he said, “and we shall all be happier. Father +doesn't think any the less of you, and never will, and he is never +going to forget your own dear mother; but it is all for the best, +the way he has decided. Now, good-night, darling, try to go to +sleep, and don't worry about anything.”</p> +<p>It was not long before Maria did fall asleep. Her thoughts were +in such a whirl that it was almost like intoxication. She could not +seem to fix her mind on anything long enough to hold herself awake. +It was not merely the fact of her father's going to marry again, it +was everything which that involved. She felt as if she were looking +into a kaleidoscope shaken by fate into endless changes. The +changes seemed fairly to tire her eyes into sleep.</p> +<p>The very next afternoon Aunt Maria went home. Harry announced +his matrimonial intentions to her before he went to New York, and +she said immediately that she would take the afternoon train.</p> +<p>“But,” said Harry, “I thought maybe you would +stay and be at the—wedding, Maria. I don't mean to get +married until the November vacation, and it is only the first of +September now. I don't see why you are in such a hurry.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Aunt Maria, “I suppose you +thought I would stay and get the house cleaned, and slave here like +a dog, getting ready for you to be married. Well, I sha'n't; I'm +tired out. I'm going to take the train this afternoon.”</p> +<p>Harry looked helplessly at her.</p> +<p>“I don't see what Maria and I are going to do then,” +said he.</p> +<p>“If it wasn't for taking Maria away from school, I would +ask her to come and make me a visit, poor child,” said Aunt +Maria, “until you brought her new ma home. I have only a +hundred dollars a year to live on, but I'd risk it but I could make +her comfortable; but she can't leave her school.”</p> +<p>“No, I don't see how she can,” said Harry, still +helplessly. “I thought you'd stay, Maria. There is the house +to be cleaned, and some painting and papering. I thought—”</p> +<p>“Yes, I'll warrant you thought,” said Aunt Maria, +with undisguised viciousness. “But you were mistaken; I am +not going to stay.”</p> +<p>“But I don't see exactly—”</p> +<p>“Oh, Lord, you and Maria can take your meals at Mrs. Jonas +White's, she'll be glad enough to have you; and you can hire the +cleaning done,” said Aunt Maria, with a certain pity in the +midst of her disappointment and contempt.</p> +<p>It seemed to Maria, when her aunt went away that afternoon, as +if she could not bear it. There is a law of gravitation for the +soul as well as for the body, and Maria felt as one who had fallen +from a known quantity into strangeness, with a horrible shock.</p> +<p>“Now, if she don't treat you well, you send word, and I'll +have you come and stay with me,” whispered Aunt Maria at the +last.</p> +<p>Maria loved Aunt Maria when she went away. She went to school +late for the sake of seeing her off; and she was late in the +geography class, but Miss Slome only greeted her with a smile of +radiant reassurance.</p> +<p>At recess, Gladys Mann snuggled up to her.</p> +<p>“Say, is it true?” she whispered.</p> +<p>“Is what true?”</p> +<p>“Is your father goin' to get married to +teacher?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Maria. Then she gave Gladys a little +push. “I wish you'd let me alone,” she said.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter VII</h4> +<p>Extreme youth is always susceptible to diversion which affords a +degree of alleviation for grief. Many older people have the same +facility of turning before the impetus of circumstances to another +view of life, which serves to take their minds off too close +concentration upon sorrow, but it is not so universal. Maria, +although she was sadly lonely, in a measure, enjoyed taking her +meals at Mrs. Jonas White's. She had never done anything like it +before. The utter novelty of sitting down to Mrs. White's table, +and eating in company with her and Mr. Jonas White, and Lillian +White, and a son by the name of Henry, amused her. Then, too, they +were all very kind to her. They even made a sort of heroine of her, +especially at noon, when her father was in New York and she, +consequently, was alone. They pitied her, in a covert sort of +fashion, because her father was going to get married again, +especially Mrs. White and Lillian. Lillian was a very pretty girl, +with a pert carriage of blond head, and a slangy readiness of +speech.</p> +<p>“Well, she's a dandy, as far as looks and dress go, and +maybe she'll make you a real good mother-in-law,” she said to +Maria. Maria knew that Lillian should have said step-mother, but +she did not venture to correct her.</p> +<p>“Looks ain't everything,” said Mrs. White, with a +glance at her daughter. She had thought of the possibility of Harry +Edgham taking a fancy to her Lillian.</p> +<p>Mr. Jonas White, who with his son Henry kept a market, thereby +insuring such choice cuts of meat, spoke then. He did not, as a +rule, say much at table, especially when Maria and her father, who +in his estimation occupied a superior place in society, were +present.</p> +<p>“Guess Mr. Edgham knows what he's about,” said he. +“He's going to marry a good-looking woman, and one that's +capable of supportin' herself, if he's laid up or anything happens +to him. Guess she's all right.”</p> +<p>“I guess so, too,” said Henry White. Both nodded +reassuringly at Maria, who felt mournfully comforted.</p> +<p>“Shouldn't wonder if she'd saved something, too,” +said Mr. White.</p> +<p>When he and his son were on their way back to the market, +driving in the white-covered wagon with “J. White & +Son” on the sides thereof, they agreed that women were +queer.</p> +<p>“There's your mother and Lillian, they mean all +right,” said Jonas White, “but they were getting that +poor young one all stirred up.”</p> +<p>Maria never settled with herself whether the Whites thought she +had a pleasant prospect before her or the reverse, but they did not +certainly influence her to love Miss Ida Slome any more.</p> +<p>Miss Slome was so kind to Maria, in those days, that it really +seemed to her that she ought to love her. She and her father were +invited to take tea at Miss Slome's boarding-house, and after tea +they sat in the little parlor which the teacher had for her own, +and Miss Slome sang and played to them. She had a piano. Maria +heard her and her father talking about the place in the Edgham +parlor where it was to stand. Harry stood over Miss Slome as she +was singing, and Maria observed how his arm pressed against her +shoulder.</p> +<p>After the song was done, Harry and Miss Slome sat down on the +sofa, and Harry drew Maria down on the other side. Harry put his +arm around his little daughter, but not as if he realized it, and +she peeked around and saw how closely he was embracing Miss Slome, +whose cheeks were a beautiful color, but whose set smile never +relaxed. It seemed to Maria that Miss Slome smiled exactly like a +doll, as if the smile were made on her face by something outside, +not by anything within. Maria thought her father was very silly. +She felt scorn, shame, and indignation at the same time. Maria was +glad when it was time to go home. When her father kissed Miss +Slome, she blushed, and turned away her head.</p> +<p>Going home, Harry almost danced along the street. He was as +light-hearted as a boy, and as thoughtlessly in love.</p> +<p>“Well, dear, what do you think of your new mother?” +he asked, gayly, as they passed under the maples, which were +turning, and whose foliage sprayed overhead with a radiance of gold +in the electric light.</p> +<p>Then Maria made that inevitable rejoinder which is made always, +which is at once trite and pathetic. “I can't call her +mother,” she said.</p> +<p>But Harry only laughed. He was too delighted and triumphant to +realize the pain of the child, although he loved her. “Oh, +well, dear, you needn't until you feel like it,” he said.</p> +<p>“What am I going to call her, father?” asked Maria, +seriously.</p> +<p>“Oh, anything. Call her Ida.”</p> +<p>“She is too old for me to call her that,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>“Old? Why, dear, Ida is only a girl.”</p> +<p>“She is a good deal over thirty,” said Maria. +“I call that very old.”</p> +<p>“You won't, when you get there yourself,” replied +Harry, with another laugh. “Well, dear, suit yourself. Call +her anything you like.”</p> +<p>It ended by Maria never calling her anything except +“you,” and referring to her as “she” and +“her.” The woman, in fact, became a pronoun for the +child, who in her honesty and loyalty could never put another word +in the place which had belonged to the noun, and feel +satisfied.</p> +<p>Maria was very docile, outwardly, in those days, but inside she +was in a tumult of rebellion. She went home with Miss Slome when +she was asked, but she was never gracious in response to the +doll-like smile, and the caressing words, which were to her as +automatic as the smile. Sometimes it seemed to Maria that if she +could only have her own mother scold her, instead of Miss Slome's +talking so sweetly to her, she would give the whole world.</p> +<p>For some unexplained cause, the sorrow which Maria had passed +through had seemed to stop her own emotional development. She +looked at Wollaston Lee sometimes and wondered how she had ever had +dreams about him; how she had thought she would like him to go with +her, and, perhaps, act as silly as her father did with Miss Slome. +She remembered how his voice sounded when he said she was nothing +but a girl, and a rage of shame seized her. “He needn't +worry,” she thought. “I wouldn't have him, not if he +was to go down on his knees in the dust.” She told Gladys +Mann that she thought Wollaston Lee was a very homely boy, and not +so very smart, and Gladys told another girl whose brother knew +Wollaston Lee, and he told him. After a little, Wollaston and Maria +never spoke when they met. The girl did not seem to see the boy; +she was more delicate in her manner of showing aversion, but the +boy gazed straight at her with an insolent stare, as at one who had +dared him. He told the same boy who had told him what Maria had +said, that he thought Amy Long was the prettiest girl in school, +and Maria was homely enough to crack a looking-glass, and that came +back to Maria. Everything said in the school always came back, by +some mysterious law of gravitation.</p> +<p>There was one quite serious difficulty involved in Aunt Maria's +deserting her post, and that was, Maria was too young to be left +alone in the house every night while her father was visiting his +fiancée. She could not stay at Mrs. White's, because it was +obviously unfair to ask them to remain up until nearly midnight to +act as her guardian every, or nearly every, night in the week. +However, Harry submitted the problem to Miss Slome, who solved it +at once. She had, in some respects, a masterly brain, and her +executive abilities were somewhat thrown away in her comparatively +humble sphere.</p> +<p>“You must have the house cleaned,” said she. +“Let the woman you get to clean stay over until you come +home. She won't be afraid to go home alone afterwards. Those kind +of people never are. I suppose you will get Mrs. Addix?”</p> +<p>“They tell me she is about the best woman for +house-cleaning,” said Harry, rather helplessly. He was so +unaccustomed to even giving a thought to household details, that he +had a vague sense of self-pity because he was now obliged to do so. +His lost Abby occasionally, he believed, had employed this Mrs. +Addix, but she had never troubled him about it.</p> +<p>It thus happened that every evening little Maria Edgham sat +guarded, as it were, by Mrs. Addix. Mrs. Addix was of the +poor-white race, like the Manns—in fact, she was distantly +related to them. They were nearly all distantly related, which may +have accounted for their partial degeneracy. Mrs. Addix, however, +was a sort of anomaly. Coming, as she did, of a shiftless, indolent +family, she was yet a splendid worker. She seemed tireless. She +looked positively radiant while scrubbing, and also more +intelligent. The moment she stopped work, she looked like an +automatic doll which had run down: all consciousness of self, or +that which is outside self, seemed to leave her face; it was as if +her brain were in her toiling arms and hands. Moreover, she always +went to sleep immediately after Harry had gone and Maria was left +alone with her. She sat in her chair and breathed heavily, with her +head tipped idiotically over one shoulder.</p> +<p>It was not very lively for Maria during those evenings. She felt +afraid to go to bed and leave the house alone except for the +heavily sleeping woman, whom her father had hard work to rouse when +he returned, and who staggered out of the door, when she started +home, as if she were drunk. She herself never felt sleepy; it was +even hard for her to sleep when at last her father had returned and +she went to bed. Often after she had fallen asleep her heart seemed +to sting her awake.</p> +<p>Maria grew thinner than ever. Somebody called Harry Edgham's +attention to the fact, and he got some medicine for her to take. +But it was not medicine which she needed—that is, not +medicine for the body, but for the soul. What probably stung her +most keenly was the fact that certain improvements, for which her +mother had always longed but always thought she could not have, +were being made in the house. A bay-window was being built in the +parlor, and one over it, in the room which had been her father's +and mother's, and which Maria dimly realized was, in the future, to +be Miss Ida Slome's. Maria's mother had always talked a good deal +about some day having that bay-window. Maria reflected that her +father could have afforded it just as well in her mother's day, if +her mother had insisted upon it, like Miss Slome. Maria's mother +had been of the thrifty New England kind, and had tried to have her +husband save a little. Maria knew well enough that these savings +were going into the improvements, the precious dollars which her +poor mother had enabled her father to save by her own deprivations +and toil. Maria heard her father and Miss Slome talk about the maid +they were to have; Miss Slome would never dream of doing her own +work, as her predecessor had done. All these things the child dwelt +upon in a morbid, aged fashion, and, consequently, while her +evenings with Mrs. Addix were not enjoyable, they were not exactly +dull. Nearly every room in the house was being newly papered and +painted. Maria and Mrs. Addix sat first in one room, then in +another, as one after another was torn up in the process of +improvement. Generally the room which they occupied was chaotic +with extra furniture, and had a distracted appearance which grated +terribly upon the child's nerves. Only her own room was not +touched. “You shall have your room all fixed up next +year,” her father told her. “I would have it done now, +but father is going to considerable expense as it is.” Maria +assured him, with a sort of wild eagerness, that she did not want +her room touched. It seemed to her that if the familiar paper which +her mother had selected were changed for something else, and the +room altered, that the last vestige of home would disappear, that +she could not bear it.</p> +<p>“Well,” said Harry, easily, “your paper will +do very well, I guess, for a while longer; but father will have +your room fixed up another year. You needn't think you are going to +be slighted.”</p> +<p>That night, Maria and Mrs. Addix sat in Maria's room. The parlor +was in confusion, and so was the dining-room and the guest-chamber; +indeed, the house was at that time in the height of its repairs. +That very day Maria's mother's room had been papered with a +beautiful paper with a sheenlike satin, over which were strewn +garlands of pink roses. Pink was Miss Slome's favorite color. They +had a new hard-wood floor laid in that room, and there was to be a +pink rug, and white furniture painted with pink roses; Maria knew +that her father and Miss Slome had picked it out. That evening, +after her father had gone, and she sat there with the sleeping Mrs. +Addix, a sort of frenzy seized her, or, rather, she worked herself +up to it. She thought of what her mother would have said to that +beautiful new paper, and furniture, and bay-window. Her mother also +had liked pink. She thought of how much her mother would have liked +it, and how she had gone without, and not made any complaint about +her shabby old furnishings, which had that very day been sold to +Mrs. Addix for an offset to her wages, and which Maria had seen +carried away. She thought about it all, and a red flush deepened on +her cheeks, and her blue eyes blazed. For the time she was +abnormal. She passed the limit which separates perfect sanity from +mania. She had some fancy-work in her hands. Mrs. White had +suggested that she work in cross-stitch a cover for the dresser in +her new mother's room, and she was engaged upon that, performing, +as she thought, a duty, but her very soul rebelled against it. She +made some mistakes, and whenever she did she realized with a sort +of wicked glee that the thing would not be perfect, and she never +tried to rectify them.</p> +<p>Finally, Maria laid her work softly on the table, beside which +she was sitting. She glanced at Mrs. Addix, whose heavy, measured +breathing filled the room, then she arose. She took the lamp from +the table, and tiptoed out. Maria stole across the hall. The room +which had been her father's and mother's was entirely empty, and +the roses on the satiny wall-paper gleamed out as if they were +real. There was a white-and-silver picture-moulding. Maria set her +lamp on the floor. She looked at the great bay-window, she looked +at the roses on the walls. Then she did a mad thing. The paper was +freshly put on; it was hardly dry. Maria deliberately approached +the wall near the bay-window, where the paper looked somewhat damp; +she inserted her slender little fingers, with a scratching of her +nails under the edge, and she tore off a great, ragged strip. Then +she took up her lamp and returned to her room.</p> +<p>Mrs. Addix was still asleep. She had begun to snore, in an odd +sort of fashion, with deep, regular puffs of breath; it was like +the beating of a drum to peace and rest, after a day of weary and +unskilled labor unprofitable to the soul. Maria sat down again. She +took up her work. She felt very wicked, but she felt better.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter VIII</h4> +<p>When Maria's father returned that night, he came, as usual, +straight to the room wherein she and Mrs. Addix were sitting. Maria +regarded her father with a sort of contemptuous wonder, tinctured +with unwilling admiration. Her father, on his return from his +evenings spent with Miss Ida Slome, looked always years younger +than Maria had ever seen him. There was the humidity of youth in +his eyes, the flush of youth on his cheeks, the triumph of youth in +his expression. Harry Edgham, in spite of lines on his face, in +spite, even, of a shimmer of gray and thinness of hair on the +temples, looked as young as youth itself, in this rejuvenation of +his affection, for he was very much in love with the woman whom he +was to marry. He had been faithful to his wife while she lived, +even the imagination of love for another woman had not entered his +heart. His wife's faded face had not for a second disturbed his +loyalty; but now the beauty of this other woman aroused within him +long dormant characteristics, like some wonderful stimulant, not +only for the body, but for the soul. When he looked in Ida Slome's +beautiful face he seemed to drink in an elixir of life. And yet, +down at the roots of the man's heart slept the memory of his wife; +for Abby Edgham, with her sallow, faded face, had possessed +something which Ida Slome lacked, and which the man needed, to hold +him. And always in his mind, at this time, was the intention to be +more than kind to his motherless little daughter, not to let her +realize any difference in his feeling for her.</p> +<p>When he came to-night, he looked at the sleeping Mrs. Addix, and +at Maria, taking painful stitches in her dresser cover, at first +with a radiant smile, then with the deepest pity.</p> +<p>“Poor little soul,” he said. “You have had a +long evening to yourself, haven't you?”</p> +<p>“I don't mind,” replied Maria. She was thinking of +the torn wall-paper, and she did not look her father fully in the +eyes.</p> +<p>“Has she been asleep ever since I went?” inquired +Harry, in a whisper.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Poor little girl. Well, it will be livelier by-and-by for +you. We'll have company, and more going on.” Harry then went +close to Mrs. Addix, sitting with her head resting on her shoulder, +still snoring with those puffs of heavy breath. “Mrs. +Addix,” he said.</p> +<p>Mrs. Addix did not stir; she continued to snore.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Addix!” repeated Harry, in a louder tone, but +still the sleeping woman did not stir.</p> +<p>“Good Lord, what a sleeper!” said Harry, still +aloud. Then he shook her violently by the shoulder. “Come, +Mrs. Addix,” said he, in a shout; “I've got home, and I +guess you'll want to be going yourself.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Addix moved languidly, and glanced up with a narrow slit of +eye, as dull as if she had been drugged. Harry shook her again, and +repeated his announcement that he was home and that she must want +to go. At last he roused her, and she stood up with a dazed +expression. Maria got her bonnet and shawl, and she gazed at them +vaguely, as if she were so far removed from the flesh that the +garments thereof perplexed her. Maria put on her bonnet, standing +on tiptoe, and Harry threw the shawl over her shoulders. Then she +staggered out of the room with a mumbled good-night.</p> +<p>“Take care of the stairs, and do not fall,” Harry +said.</p> +<p>He himself held the light for her, until she was safely down, +and the outer door had closed after her.</p> +<p>“The fresh air will wake her up,” he said, laughing. +“Not very lively company, is she, dear?”</p> +<p>“No, sir,” replied Maria, simply.</p> +<p>Harry looked lovingly at her, then his eyes fell on the door of +the room which had been papered that day. It occurred to him to go +in and see how the new paper looked.</p> +<p>“Come in with father, and let's see the +improvements,” he said, in a gay voice, to Maria.</p> +<p>Maria followed him into the room. It would have been difficult +to say whether triumphant malice and daring, or fear, prevailed in +her heart.</p> +<p>Harry, carrying the lamp, entered the room, with Maria slinking +at his heels. The first thing he saw was the torn paper.</p> +<p>“Hullo!” said he. He approached the bay-window with +his lamp. “Confound those paperers!” he said.</p> +<p>For a minute Maria did not say a word. She was not exactly +struggling with temptation; she had inherited too much from her +mother's Puritan ancestry to make the question of a struggle +possible when the duty of truth stared her, as now, in the face. +She simply did not speak at once because the thing appeared to her +stupendous, and nobody, least of all a child, but has a threshold +of preparation before stupendous things.</p> +<p>“They haven't half put the paper on,” said her +father. “Didn't half paste it, I suppose. You can't trust +anybody unless you are right at their heels. Confound 'em! There, +I've got to go round and blow 'em up to-morrow, before I go to the +city.”</p> +<p>Then Maria spoke. “I tore that paper off, father,” +said she.</p> +<p>Harry turned and stared at her. His face went white. For a +second he thought the child was out of her senses.</p> +<p>“What?” he said.</p> +<p>“I tore that paper off,” repeated Maria.</p> +<p>“You? Why?”</p> +<p>The double question seemed to hit the child like a pistol-shot, +but she did not flinch.</p> +<p>“Mother never had paper as pretty as this,” she +said, “nor new furniture.” Her eyes met her father's +with indescribable reproach.</p> +<p>Harry looked at her with almost horror. For the moment the +child's eyes looked like her dead mother's, her voice sounded like +her's. He continued gazing at her.</p> +<p>“I couldn't bear it,” said Maria. “She” +[she meant Mrs. Addix] “was asleep. I was all alone. I got to +thinking. I came in here and tore it off.”</p> +<p>Harry heaved a deep sigh. He did not look nor was he in the +least angry.</p> +<p>“I know your poor mother didn't have much,” said he. +He sighed again. Then he put his arm around Maria and kissed her. +“You can have your room newly papered now, if you want +it,” said he, in a choking voice. “Father will send you +over to Ellisville to-morrow with Mrs. White, and you can pick out +some paper your own self, and father will have it put right +on.”</p> +<p>“I don't care about any,” said Maria, and she began +to sob.</p> +<p>“Father's baby,” said Harry.</p> +<p>She felt his chest heave, and realized that her father was +weeping as well as she.</p> +<p>“Oh, father, I don't want new paper,” she sobbed +out, convulsively. “Mother picked out that on my room, +and—and—I am sorry I tore this off.”</p> +<p>“Never mind, darling,” said Harry. He almost carried +the child back to her own room. “Now get to bed as soon as +you can, dear,” he said.</p> +<p>After Maria, trembling and tearful, had undressed and was in +bed, her father came back into the room. He held a small lamp in +one hand, and a tumbler with some wine in the other.</p> +<p>“Here is some of the wine your mother had,” said +Harry. “Now I want you to sit right up and drink +this.”</p> +<p>“I—don't want it, father,” gasped Maria.</p> +<p>“Sit right up and drink it.”</p> +<p>Maria sat up. The tumbler was a third full, and the wine was an +old port. Maria drank it. Immediately her head began to swim; she +felt in a sort of daze when her father kissed her, and bade her lie +still and go right to sleep, and went out of the room. She heard +him, with sharpened hearing, enter her mother's room. She +remembered about the paper, and the new furniture, and how she was +to have a new mother, and how she had torn the paper, and how her +own mother had never had such things, but she remembered through a +delicious haze. She felt a charming warmth pervade all her veins. +She was no longer unhappy. Nothing seemed to matter. She soon fell +asleep.</p> +<p>As for Harry Edgham, he entered the empty room which he had +occupied with his dead wife. He set the lamp on the floor and +approached the paper, which poor little Maria, in her fit of futile +rebellion, had torn. He carefully tore off still more, making a +clean strip of the paper where Maria had made a ragged one. When he +had finished, it looked as if the paper had in reality dropped off +because of carelessness in putting on. He gathered up the pieces of +paper and stood looking about the room.</p> +<p>There is something about an empty room, empty except of +memories, but containing nothing besides, no materialities, no +certainties as to the future, which is intimidating to one who +stops and thinks. Harry Edgham was not, generally speaking, of the +sort who stop to think; but now he did. The look of youth faded +from his face. Instead of the joy and triumph which had filled his +heart and made it young again, came remembrance of the other woman, +and something else, which resembled terror and dread. For the first +time he deliberated whether he was about to do a wise thing: for +the first time, the image of Ida Slome's smiling beauty, which was +ever evident to his fancy, produced in him something like doubt and +consternation. He looked about the room, and remembered the old +pieces of furniture which had that day been carried away. He looked +at the places where they had stood. Then he remembered his dead +wife, as he had never remembered her before, with an anguish of +loss. He said to himself that if he only had her back, even with +her faded face and her ready tongue, that old, settled estate would +be better for him than this joy, which at once dazzled and racked +him. Suddenly the man, as he stood there, put his hands before his +face; he was weeping like a child. That which Maria had done, +instead of awakening wrath, had aroused a pity for himself and for +her, which seemed too great to be borne. For the instant, the dead +triumphed over the living.</p> +<p>Then Harry took up the lamp and went to his own room. He set the +lamp on the dresser, and looked at his face, with the rays thrown +upward upon it, very much as Maria had done the night of her +mother's death. When he viewed himself in the looking-glass, he +smiled involuntarily; the appearance of youth returned. He curled +his mustache and moved his head this way and that. He thought about +some new clothes which he was to have. He owned to himself, with +perfect ingenuousness, that he was, in his way, as a man, as +good-looking as Ida herself. Suddenly he remembered how Abby had +looked when she was a young girl and he had married her; he had not +compared himself so favorably with her. The image of his dead wife, +as a young girl, was much fairer in his mind than that of Ida +Slome.</p> +<p>“There's no use talking, Abby was handsomer than Ida when +she was young,” he said to himself, as he began to undress. +He went to sleep thinking of Abby as a young girl, but when once +asleep he dreamed of Ida Slome.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter IX</h4> +<p>Harry and Ida Slome were to be married the Monday before +Thanksgiving. The school would close on the Friday before.</p> +<p>Ida Slome possessed, along with an entire self-satisfaction, a +vein of pitiless sense, which enabled her to see herself as others +might see her, and which saved her from the follies often incident +to the self-satisfied. She considered herself a beauty; she +thought, and with reason, that she would be well worth looking at +in her wedding-clothes, but she also told herself that it was quite +possible that some remarks might be made to her disparagement if +she had the wedding to which her inclination prompted her. She +longed for a white gown, veil, bridesmaids, and the rest, but she +knew better. She knew that more could be made of her beauty and her +triumph if she curtailed her wish. She realized that Harry's wife +had been dead only a little more than a year, and that, although +still a beauty, she was not a young girl, and she steered clear of +criticism and ridicule.</p> +<p>The ceremony was performed in the Presbyterian church Monday +afternoon. Ida wore a prune-colored costume, and a hat trimmed with +pansies. She was quite right in thinking that she was adorable in +it, and there was also in the color, with its shade of purple, a +delicate intimation of the remembrance of mourning in the midst of +joy. The church was filled with people, but there were no +bridesmaids. Some of Ida's scholars acted as ushers. Wollaston Lee +was among them. To Maria's utter astonishment, he did not seem to +realize his trying position as a rejected suitor. He was attired in +a new suit, and wore a white rosebud in his coat, and Maria glanced +at him with mingled admiration and disdain.</p> +<p>Maria sat directly in front of the pulpit, with Mrs. Jonas White +and Lillian. Mrs. White had a new gown of some thin black stuff, +profusely ornamented with jet, and Lillian had a new pink silk +gown, and wore a great bunch of roses. The situation, with regard +to Maria, in connection with the wedding ceremony and the bridal +trip, had been a very perplexing one. Harry had some western +cousins, far removed, both by blood and distance. Aunt Maria and +her brother were the only relatives on his former wife's side. Aunt +Maria had received an invitation, both from Harry and the +prospective bride, to be present at the wedding and remain in the +house with Maria until the return of the bridal couple from their +short trip. She had declined in a few stilted words, although Harry +had sent a check to cover the expenses of her trip, which was +returned in her letter.</p> +<p>“The fact is, I don't know what to do with Maria,” +Harry said to Ida Slome, a week before the wedding. “Maria +won't come, and neither will her brother's wife, and she can't be +left alone, even with the new maid. We don't know the girl very +well, and it won't do.”</p> +<p>Ida Slome solved the problem with her usual precision and +promptness.</p> +<p>“Then,” said she, “she will have to board at +Mrs. White's until we return. There is nothing else to +do.”</p> +<p>It was therefore decided that Maria was to board at Mrs. +White's, although it involved some things which were not altogether +satisfactory to Ida. Maria could not sit all alone in a pew, and +watch her father being married to his second wife, that was +obvious; and, since Mrs. Jonas White was going to take charge of +her, there was nothing else to do but to place herself and daughter +in a position of honored intimacy. Mrs. Jonas White said quite +openly that she was not in any need of taking boarders, that she +had only taken Mr. Edgham and Maria to oblige, and that she now was +to take poor little Maria out of pity. She, in reality, did pity +Maria, for a good many reasons. She was a shrewd woman, and she +gauged Miss Ida Slome pitilessly. However, she had to admit that +she had shown some consideration in one respect. In the midst of +her teaching, and preparations for her wedding, she had planned a +lovely dress for Maria. It was unquestionable but the realization +of her own loveliness, and her new attire had an alleviating +influence upon Maria. There was a faint buzz of admiration for her +when she entered the church. She looked as if enveloped in a soft +gray cloud. Ida had planned a dress of some gray stuff, and a soft +gray hat, tied under her chin with wide ribbons, and a long gray +plume floating over her golden-fleece of hair. Maria had never +owned such a gown, and, in addition, she had her first pair of +kid-gloves of gray, to match the dress, and long, gray coat, +trimmed with angora fur. She was charming in it, and, moreover, the +gray, as her step-mother's purple, suggested delicately, if one so +chose to understand a dim yet pleasing melancholy, a shade, as it +were, of remembrance.</p> +<p>Maria had been dressed at home, under Mrs. White's supervision. +Maria had viewed herself in the new long mirror in her mother's +room, which was now resplendent with its new furnishings, and she +admitted to herself that she was lovelier than she had ever been, +and that she had Miss Ida Slome to thank for it.</p> +<p>“I will say one thing,” said Mrs. White, “she +has looked out for you about your dress, and she has shown real +good taste, too.”</p> +<p>Maria turned herself about before the glass, which reflected her +whole beautiful little person, and she loved herself so much that +for the first time it seemed to her that she almost loved Ida. She +was blushing and smiling with pleasure.</p> +<p>Mrs. White sighed. “Well, maybe it is for the best,” +said she. “One never knows about such things, how they will +work out.”</p> +<p>Maria listened, with a degree of indignation and awe, to the +service. She felt her heart swelling with grief at the sight of +this other woman being made her father's wife and put in the place +of her own mother, and yet, as a musical refrain is the haunting +and ever-recurrent part of a composition, so was her own charming +appearance. She felt so sure that people were observing her, that +she blushed and dared not look around. She was, in reality, much +observed, and both admired and pitied.</p> +<p>People, both privately and outspokenly, did not believe that the +step-mother would be, in a way, good to the child by the former +marriage. Ida Slome was not exactly a favorite in Edgham. People +acquiesced in her beauty and brilliancy, but they did not entirely +believe in her or love her. She stood before the pulpit with her +same perfect, set smile, displaying to the utmost the sweet curves +of her lips. Her cheeks retained their lovely brilliancy of color. +Harry trembled, and his face looked pale and self-conscious, but +Ida displayed no such weakness. She replied with the utmost +self-poise to the congratulations which she received after the +ceremony. There was an informal reception in the church vestry. +Cake and ice-cream and coffee were served, and Ida and Harry and +Maria stood together. Ida had her arm around Maria most of the +time, but Maria felt as if it were an arm of wood which encircled +her. She heard Ida Slome addressed as Mrs. Edgham, and she wanted +to jerk herself away and run. She lost the consciousness of herself +in her new attire.</p> +<p>Once Harry looked around at her, and received a shock. Maria's +face looked to him exactly like her mother's, although the coloring +was so different. Maria was a blonde, and her mother had been dark. +There was something about the excitement hardly restrained in her +little face, which made the man realize that the dead wife yet +lived and reigned triumphant in her child. He himself was conscious +that he conducted himself rather awkwardly and foolishly. A red +spot burned on either cheek. He spoke jerkily, and it seemed to him +that everything he said was silly, and that people might repeat it +and laugh. He was relieved when it was all over and he and Ida were +in the cab, driving to the station. When they were rolling rapidly +through a lonely part of the road, he put his arm around his new +wife, and kissed her. She received his kiss, and looked at him with +her set smile and the set sparkle in her beautiful eyes. Again the +feeling of almost terror which he had experienced the night when +Maria had torn the paper off in her mother's room, came over him. +However, he made an effort and threw it off.</p> +<p>“Poor little Maria looked charming, thanks to you, +dearest,” he said, tenderly.</p> +<p>“Yes, I thought she did. That gray suit was just the thing +for her, wasn't it? I never saw her look so pretty before,” +returned Ida, and her tone was full of self-praise for her goodness +to Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, she will be a great deal happier,” said +Harry. “It was a lonesome life for a child to +lead.”</p> +<p>Harry Edgham had not an atom of tact. Any woman might have +judged from his remarks that she had been married on account of +Maria; but Ida only responded with her never-changing smile.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said she, “I think myself that she will +be much happier, dear.” Privately she rather did resent her +husband's speech, but she never lost sight of the fact that a smile +is more becoming than a frown.</p> +<p>Maria remained boarding at Mrs. Jonas White's until her father +and his new wife returned. She did not have a very happy time. In +the first place, the rather effusive pity with which she was +treated by the female portion of the White family, irritated her. +She began to consider that, now her father had married, his wife +was a member of her family, and not to be decried. Maria had a +great deal of pride when those belonging to her were concerned. One +day she retorted pertly when some covert remark, not altogether to +her new mother's laudation, had been made by Lillian.</p> +<p>“I think she is perfectly lovely,” said she, with a +toss of her head.</p> +<p>Lillian and her mother looked at each other. Then Lillian, who +was not her match for pertness, spoke.</p> +<p>“Have you made up your mind what to call her?” she +asked. “Mummer, or mother?”</p> +<p>“I shall call her whatever I please,” replied Maria; +“it is nobody's business.” Then she arose and went out +of the room, with an absurd little strut.</p> +<p>“Lord a-massy!” observed Mrs. Jonas White, after she +had gone.</p> +<p>“I guess Ida Slome will have her hands full with that +young one,” observed Lillian.</p> +<p>“I guess she will, too,” assented her mother. +“She was real sassy. Well, her mother had a temper of her +own; guess she's got some of it.”</p> +<p>Mr. Jonas White and Henry were a great alleviation of Maria's +desolate estate during her father's absence. Somehow, the men +seemed to understand better than the women just how she felt: that +she would rather be let alone, now it was all over, than condoled +with and pitied. Mr. Henry White took one of the market horses, +hitched him into a light buggy, and took Maria out riding two +evenings, when the market was closed. It was a warm November, and +the moon was full. Maria quite enjoyed her drive with Mr. Henry +White, and he never said one word about her father's marriage, and +her new mother—her pronoun of a mother—all the way. Mr. +Henry White had too long a neck, and too large a mouth, which was, +moreover, too firmly set, otherwise Maria felt that, with slight +encouragement, she might fall in love with him, since he showed so +much delicacy. She counted up the probable difference in their +ages, and estimated it as no more than was between her father +and Her. However, Mr. Henry White gave her so little +encouragement, and his neck was so much too long above his collar, +that she decided to put it out of her mind.</p> +<p>“Poor little thing,” Mr. Henry White said to his +father, next day, “she's about wild, with mother and Lill +harping on it all the time.”</p> +<p>“They mean well,” said Mr. White.</p> +<p>“Of course they do; but who's going to stand this eternal +harping? If women folks would only stop being so durned kind, and +let folks alone sometimes, they'd be a durned sight +kinder.”</p> +<p>“That's so,” said Mr. Jonas White.</p> +<p>Maria's father and his bride reached home about seven on the +Monday night after Thanksgiving. Maria re-entered her old home in +the afternoon. Miss Zella Holmes, who was another teacher of hers, +went with her. Ida had requested her to open the house. Ida's +former boarding-house mistress had cooked a large turkey, and made +some cakes and pies and bread. Miss Zella Holmes drove around for +Maria in a livery carriage, and all these supplies were stowed in +beside them. On the way they stopped at the station for the new +maid, whose train was due then. She was a Hungarian girl, with a +saturnine, almost savage visage. Maria felt an awe of her, both +because she was to be their maid, and they had never kept one, and +because of her personality.</p> +<p>When they reached home, Miss Zella Holmes, who was very lively +and quick in her ways, though not at all pretty, gave orders to the +maid in a way which astonished Maria. She was conscious of an +astonishment at everything, which had not before possessed her. She +looked at the kitchen, the dining-room, the sitting-room, the +parlor, all the old apartments, and it was exactly as if she saw +old friends with new heads. The sideboard in the dining-room +glittered with the wedding silver and cut-glass. New pictures hung +on the sitting-room and parlor walls, beside the new paper. Wedding +gifts lay on the tables. There had been many wedding gifts. Miss +Zella Holmes flew about the house, with the saturnine Hungarian in +attendance. Maria, at Miss Holmes's bidding, began to lay the +table. She got out some new table-linen, napkins, and table-cloth, +which had been a wedding present. She set the table with some new +china. She looked, with a numb feeling, at her mother's poor old +blue-and-white dishes, which were put away on the top shelves.</p> +<p>“I think it would be a very good idea to pack away those +dishes altogether, and put them in a box up in the garret,” +said Miss Holmes. Then she noticed Maria's face. “They will +come in handy for your wedding outfit, little girl,” she +added, kindly and jocosely, but Maria did not laugh.</p> +<p>Every now and then Maria looked at the clock on the parlor +shelf, that was also new. The old sitting-room clock had +disappeared; Maria did not know where, but she missed the face of +it as if it had been the face of a friend. Miss Holmes also glanced +frequently at the new clock. There arose a fragrant odor of warming +potatoes and gravy from the kitchen.</p> +<p>“It is almost time for them,” said Miss Holmes.</p> +<p>She was very much dressed-up, Maria thought. She wore a red silk +gown with a good many frills about the shoulders. She was very +slight, and affected frills to conceal it. Out of this mass of red +frills arose her little, alert head and face, homely, but full of +vivacity. Maria thought her very nice. She would have liked her +better for a mother than Ida. When Miss Zella Holmes smiled it +seemed to come from within.</p> +<p>At last a carriage came rapidly up to their door, and Miss +Holmes sprang to open it. Maria remained in the dining-room. +Suddenly an uncanny fancy had seized her and terrified her. Suppose +her father should look different, like everything else? Suppose it +should be to her as if he had a new head? She therefore remained in +the dining-room, trembling. She heard her father's voice, loud and +merry. “Where is Maria?” Still, Maria did not stir. +Then her father came hurrying into the room, and behind him she who +had been Ida Slome, radiant and triumphant, in her plum-colored +array, with the same smile with which she had departed on her +beautiful face. Harry caught Maria in his arms, rubbed his cold +face against her soft little one, and kissed her.</p> +<p>“How is father's little girl?” he asked, with a +break in his voice.</p> +<p>“Pretty well, thank you,” replied Maria. She gave a +helpless little cling to her father, then she stood away.</p> +<p>“Speak to your new mother, darling,” said Harry.</p> +<p>“How do <em>You do</em>?” said Maria, +obediently, and Ida said, “You darling,” and then +kissed her exactly as if she had been an uncommonly +well-constructed doll, with a clock-work system which fitted her to +take such a part with perfect accuracy.</p> +<p>Harry watched his wife and daughter rather anxiously. He seized +the first opportunity to ask Maria, aside, if she had been well, +and if she had been happy and comfortable at Mrs. White's. Then he +wound up with the rather wistful inquiry:</p> +<p>“You are going to love your new mother, aren't you, +darling? Don't you think she is lovely?”</p> +<p>Ida had gone up-stairs with Miss Holmes, to remove her +wraps.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir, I think She is lovely,” replied +Maria.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter X</h4> +<p>Ida Edgham was, in some respects, a peculiar personality. She +was as much stronger, in another way, than her husband, as her +predecessor had been. She was that anomaly: a creature of supreme +self-satisfaction, who is yet aware of its own limits. She was so +unemotional as to be almost abnormal, but she had head enough to +realize the fact that absolute unemotionlessness in a woman +detracts from her charm. She therefore simulated emotion. She had a +spiritual make-up, a panoply of paint and powder for the soul, as +truly as any actress has her array of cosmetics for her face. She +made no effort to really feel, she knew that was entirely useless, +but she observed all the outward signs and semblance of feeling +more or less successfully. She knew that to take up her position in +Harry Edgham's house like a marble bust of Diana, which had been +one of her wedding-presents, would not be to her credit. She +therefore put herself to the pace which she would naturally be +expected to assume in her position. She showed everybody who called +her new possessions, with a semblance of delight which was quite +perfect. She was, in reality, less deceptive in that respect than +in others. She had a degree of the joy of possession, or she would +not have been a woman at all, and, in fact, would not have married. +She had wanted a home and a husband; not as some women want them, +for the legitimate desire for love and protection, but because she +felt a degree of mortification on account of her single estate. She +had had many admirers, but, although no one ever knew it, not one +offer of marriage, the acceptance of which would not have been an +absurdity, before poor Harry Edgham. She was not quite contented to +accept him. She had hoped for something better; but he was +good-looking, and popular, and his social standing, in her small +world, was good. He was an electrical engineer, with an office in +the city, and had a tolerably good income, although his first +wife's New England thrift had compelled him to live +parsimoniously.</p> +<p>Ida made up her mind from the first that thrift, after the plan +of the first woman, should not be observed in her household. +Without hinting to that effect, or without Harry's recognizing it, +she so managed that within a few weeks after her marriage he put an +insurance on his life, which would insure her comfort in case she +outlived him. He owned his house, and she had herself her little +savings, well invested. She then considered that they could live up +to Harry's income without much risk, and she proceeded to do so. It +was not long before the saturnine Hungarian, who could have +provided a regiment of her own countrymen with the coarse food of +her race, but seemed absolutely incapable of carrying out American +ideas of good cookery, was dismissed, and a good cook, at a price +which at first staggered Harry, installed in her place. Then a +young girl was found to take care of the bedrooms, and wait on +table, attired in white gowns and aprons and caps.</p> +<p>Ida had a reception two weeks after her return from her bridal +trip, and an elaborate menu was provided by a caterer from New +York. Maria, in a new white gown, with a white bow on her hair, sat +at one end of the dining-table, shining with cut-glass and softly +lighted with wax-candles under rose-colored shades in silver +candlesticks, and poured chocolate, while another young girl +opposite dipped lemonade from a great cut-glass punch-bowl, which +had been one of the wedding-presents. The table was strewn with +pink-and-white carnations. Maria caught a glimpse now and then of +her new mother, in a rose-colored gown, with a bunch of pink roses +on her breast, standing with her father receiving their guests, and +she could scarcely believe that she was awake and it was really +happening. She began to take a certain pleasure in the excitement. +She heard one woman say to another how pretty she was, “poor +little thing,” and her heart throbbed with satisfaction. She +felt at once beautiful and appealing to other people, because of +her misfortunes. She turned the chocolate carefully, and put some +whipped-cream on top of each dainty cup; and, for the first time +since her father's marriage, she was not consciously unhappy. She +glanced across the table at the other little girl, Amy Long, who +was dark, and wore a pink bow on her hair, and she was sure that +she herself was much prettier. Then, too, Amy had not the sad +distinction of having lost her mother, and having a step-mother +thrust upon her in a year's time. It is true that once when Amy's +mother, large and portly in a blue satin which gave out pale white +lights on the curves of her great arms and back, and whose roseate +face looked forth from a fichu of real lace pinned with a great +pearl brooch, came up behind her little daughter and straightened +the pink bow on her hair, Maria felt a cruel little pang. There was +something about the look of loving admiration which Mrs. Long gave +her daughter that stung Maria's heart with a sense of loss. She +felt that if her new mother should straighten out her white bow and +regard her with admiration, it would be because of her own self, +and the credit which she, Maria, reflected upon her. Still, she +reflected how charming she looked. Self-love is much better than +nothing for a lonely soul.</p> +<p>That night Maria realized that she was in the second place, so +far as her father was concerned. Ida, in her rose-colored robes, +dispensing hospitality in his home, took up his whole attention. +She was really radiant. She sang and played twice for the company, +and her perfectly true high soprano filled the whole house. To +Maria it sounded as meaningless as the trill of a canary-bird. In +fact, when it came to music, Ida, although she had a good voice, +had the mortification of realizing that her simulation of emotion +failed her. Harry did not like his wife's singing. He felt like a +traitor, but he could not help realizing that he did not like it. +But the moment Ida stopped singing, he looked at her, and fairly +wondered that he had married such a beautiful creature. He felt +humble before her. Humility was not a salutary condition of mind +for him, but this woman inspired it now, and would still more in +the future. In spite of his first wife's scolding, her quick +temper, he had always felt himself as good as she was. The mere +fact of the temper itself had served to give him a sense of +equality and, perhaps, superiority, but this woman never showed +temper. She never failed to respond with her stereotyped smile to +everything that was said. She seemed to have no faults at all, to +realize none in herself, and not to admit the possibility of any +one else doing so.</p> +<p>Harry felt himself distinctly in the wrong beside such +unquestionable right. He even did not think himself so good-looking +as he had formerly done. It seemed to him that he looked much older +than Ida. When they went out together he felt like a lackey in +attendance on an empress. In his own home, it came to pass that he +seldom made a remark when guests were present without a covert +glance at his wife to see what she thought of it. He could always +tell what she thought, even if her face did not change and she made +no comment neither then nor afterwards, and she always made him +know, in some subtle fashion, when he had said anything wrong.</p> +<p>Maria felt very much in the same way at first, but she fought +involuntarily against it. She had a good deal of her mother in her. +Finally, she never looked at Ida when she said anything. She was +full of rebellion although she was quiet and obedient, and very +unobtrusive, in the new state of things.</p> +<p>Ida entertained every Tuesday evening. There was not a caterer +as at the first reception, but Ida herself cooked dainty messes in +a silver chafing-dish, and Maria and the white-capped little maid +passed things. It was not especially expensive, but people in +Edgham began to talk. They said Harry was living beyond his means; +but Ida kept within his income. She had too good a head for +reckless extravagance, although she loved admiration and show. When +there were no guests in the house, Maria used to go to her own room +early of an evening, and read until it was time to go to bed. She +realized that her father and Ida found her somewhat superfluous, +although Ida never made any especial effort to entertain her father +that Maria could see. She was fond of fancy-work, and was +embroidering a silk gown for herself. She embroidered while Harry +read the paper. She did not talk much. Maria used to wonder that +her father did not find it dull when he and She were alone +together of an evening. She looked at him reading his paper, with +frequent glances of admiration over it at his beautiful wife, and +thought that in his place, she should much prefer a woman like her +mother, who had kept things lively, even without company, and even +in a somewhat questionable fashion. However, Harry and Ida +themselves went out a good deal. People in Edgham aped city +society, they even talked about the “four hundred.” The +newly wedded pair were frequent guests of honor at dinners and +receptions, and Ida herself was a member of the Edgham's Woman's +Club, and that took her out a good deal. Maria was rather lonely. +Finally the added state and luxury of her life, which had at first +pleased her, failed to do so. She felt that she hated all the new +order of things, and her heart yearned for the old. She began to +grow thin; she did not sleep much nor sleep well. She felt tired +all the time. One day her father noticed her changed looks.</p> +<p>“Why, Maria is getting thin!” said he.</p> +<p>“I think it is because she is growing tall,” said +Ida. “Everybody seems thin when they are growing tall. I did +myself. I was much thinner than Maria at her age.” She looked +at Maria with her invariable smile as she spoke.</p> +<p>“She looks very thin to me,” Harry said, +anxiously.</p> +<p>He himself looked thin and older. An anxious wrinkle had +deepened between his eyes. It was June, and the days were getting +warm. He was anxious about Ida's health also. Ida was not at all +anxious. She was perfectly placid. It did not seem to her that an +overruling Providence could possibly treat her unkindly. She was +rather annoyed at times, but still never anxious, and utterly +satisfied with herself to that extent that it precluded any doubt +as to the final outcome of everything.</p> +<p>Maria continued to lose flesh. A sentimental interest in herself +and her delicacy possessed her. She used to look at her face, which +seemed to her more charming than ever, although so thin, in the +glass, and reflect, with a pleasant acquiescence, on an early +death. She even spent some time in composing her own epitaph, and +kept it carefully hidden away in a drawer of her dresser, under +some linen.</p> +<p>Maria felt a gloomy pride when the doctor, who came frequently +to see Ida, was asked to look at her; she felt still more +triumphant when he expressed it as his opinion that she ought to +have a change of air the moment school closed. The doctor said +Maria was running down, which seemed to her a very interesting +state of things, and one which ought to impress people. She told +Gladys Mann the next day at school.</p> +<p>“The doctor says I'm running down,” said she.</p> +<p>“You do look awful bad,” replied Gladys.</p> +<p>After recess Maria saw Gladys with her face down on her desk, +weeping. She knew that she was weeping because she looked so badly +and was running down. She glanced across at Wollaston Lee, and +wondered if he had noticed how badly she looked, and yet how +charming. All at once the boy shot a glance at her in return; then +he blushed and scowled and took up his book. It all comforted Maria +in the midst of her langour and her illness, which was negative and +unattended by any pain. If she felt any appetite she restrained it, +she became so vain of having lost it.</p> +<p>It was decided that Maria should go and visit her aunt Maria, in +New England, and remain there all summer. Her father would pay her +board in order that she should not be any restraint on her aunt, +with her scant income. Just before Maria went, and just before her +school closed, the broad gossip of the school came to her ears. She +ascertained something which filled her at once with awe, and shame, +and jealousy, and indignation. If one of the girls began to speak +to her about it, she turned angrily away. She fairly pushed Gladys +Mann one day. Gladys turned and looked at her with loving reproach, +like a chidden dog. “What did you expect?” said she. +Maria ran away, her face burning.</p> +<p>After she reached her aunt Maria's nothing was said to her about +it. Aunt Maria was too prudish and too indignant. Uncle Henry's +wife, Aunt Eunice, was away all summer, taking care of a sister who +was ill with consumption in New Hampshire; so Aunt Maria kept the +whole house, and she and Maria and Uncle Henry had their meals +together. Maria loved her uncle Henry. He was a patient man, with a +patience which at times turns to fierceness, of a man with a brain +above his sphere, who has had to stand and toil in a shoe-factory +for his bread and butter all his life. He was non-complainant +because of a sort of stern pride, and a sense of a just cause +against Providence, but he was very kind to Maria; he petted her as +if she had been his own child. Every pleasant night Uncle Henry +took Maria for a trolley-ride, or a walk, and he treated her to +ice-cream soda and candy. Aunt Maria also took good care of the +child. She showed a sort of vicious curiosity with regard to +Maria's step-mother and all the new household arrangements, which +Maria did not gratify. She had too much loyalty, although she +longed to say all that she thought to her aunt, being sure of a +violent sympathizer.</p> +<p>“Well, I'll say one thing, she has fixed your clothes +nice,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“She didn't do it, it was Miss Barnes,” replied +Maria. She could not help saying that much. She did not want Aunt +Maria to think her step-mother took better care of her wardrobe +than her own mother had done.</p> +<p>“Good land! She didn't hire all these things made?” +said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes'm.”</p> +<p>“Good land! I don't see how your father is going to stand +it. I'd like to know what your poor mother would have said?” +said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>Then Maria's loyalty came to the front. After all, she was +her father's wife, and to be defended.</p> +<p>“I guess maybe father is making more money now,” +said she.</p> +<p>“Well, I hope to the land he is,” said Aunt Maria. +“I guess if She (Aunt Maria also treated Ida like a +pronoun) had just one hundred dollars and no more to get along +with, she'd have to do different.”</p> +<p>Maria regained her strength rapidly. When she went home, a few +days before her school begun, in September, she was quite rosy and +blooming. She had also fallen in love with a boy who lived next to +Aunt Maria, and who asked her, over the garden fence, to correspond +with him, the week before she left.</p> +<p>It was that very night that Aunt Maria had the telegram. She +paid the boy, then she opened it with trembling fingers. Her +brother Henry and Maria were with her on the porch. It was a warm +night, and Aunt Maria wore an ancient muslin. The south wind +fluttered the ruffles on that and the yellow telegram as she read. +She was silent a moment, with mouth compressed.</p> +<p>“Well,” said her brother Henry, inquiringly.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria's face flushed and paled. She turned to Maria.</p> +<p>“Well,” she said, “you've got a little +sister.”</p> +<p>“Good!” said Uncle Henry. “Ever so much more +company for you than a little brother would have been, +Maria.”</p> +<p>Maria was silent. She trembled and felt cold, although the night +was so warm.</p> +<p>“Weighs seven pounds,” said Aunt Maria, in a hard +voice.</p> +<p>Maria returned home a week from that day. She travelled alone +from Boston, and her father met her in New York. He looked strange +to her. He was jubilant, and yet the marks of anxiety were deep. He +seemed very glad to see Maria, and talked to her about her little +sister in an odd, hesitating way.</p> +<p>“Her name is Evelyn,” said Harry.</p> +<p>Maria said nothing. She and her father were crossing the city to +the ferry in a cab.</p> +<p>“Don't you think that is a pretty name, dear?” asked +Harry, with a queer, apologetic wistfulness.</p> +<p>“No, father, I think it is a very silly name,” +replied Maria.</p> +<p>“Why, your mother and I thought it a very pretty name, +dear.”</p> +<p>“I always thought it was the silliest name in the +world,” said Maria, firmly. However, she sat close to her +father, and realized that it was something to have him to herself +without Her, while crossing the city. “I don't know as I +think Evelyn is such a very silly name, father,” she said, +presently, just before they reached the ferry.</p> +<p>Harry bent down and kissed her. “Father's own little +girl,” he said.</p> +<p>Maria felt that she had been magnanimous, for she had in reality +never liked Evelyn, and would not have named a doll that.</p> +<p>“You will be a great deal happier with a little sister. It +will turn out for the best,” said Harry, as the cab stopped. +Harry always put a colon of optimism to all his happenings of +life.</p> +<p>The next morning, when Ida was arrayed in a silk +negligée, and the baby was washed and dressed, Maria was +bidden to enter the room which had been her mother's. The first +thing which she noticed was a faint perfume of violet-scented +toilet-powder. Then she saw Ida leaning back gracefully in a +reclining-chair, with her hair carefully dressed. The nurse held +the baby: a squirming little bundle of soft, embroidered flannel. +The nurse was French, and she awed Maria, for she spoke no English, +and nobody except Ida could understand her. She was elderly, small, +and of a damaged blond type. Maria approached Ida and kissed her. +Ida looked at her, smiling. Then she asked if she had had a +pleasant summer. She told the nurse, in French, to show the baby to +her. Maria approached the nurse timidly. The flannel was carefully +laid aside, and the small, piteously inquiring and puzzled face, +the inquiry and the bewilderment expressed by a thousand wrinkles, +was exposed. Maria looked at it with a sort of shiver. The nurse +laid the flannel apart and disclosed the tiny feet seeming already +to kick feebly at existence. The nurse said something in French +which Maria could not understand. Ida answered also in French. Then +the baby seemed to experience a convulsion; its whole face seemed +to open into one gape of expostulation at fate. Then its feeble, +futile wail filled the whole room.</p> +<p>“Isn't she a little darling?” asked Ida, of +Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes'm,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>There was a curious air of aloofness about Ida with regard to +her baby, and something which gave the impression of wistfulness. +It is possible that she was capable of wishing that she had not +that aloofness. It did not in the least seem to Maria as if it were +Ida's baby. She had a vague impression, derived she could not tell +in what manner, of a rosebud laid on a gatepost. Ida did not seem +conscious of her baby with the woodeny consciousness of an +apple-tree of a blossom. When she gazed at it, it was with the same +set smile with which she had always viewed all creation. That smile +which came from without, not within, but now it was fairly +tragic.</p> +<p>“Her name is Evelyn. Don't you think it is a pretty +name?” asked Ida.</p> +<p>“Yes'm,” replied Maria. She edged towards the door. +The nurse, tossing the wailing baby, rose and got a bottle of milk. +Maria went out.</p> +<p>Maria went to school the next Monday, and all the girls asked +her if the baby was pretty.</p> +<p>“It looks like all the babies I ever saw,” replied +Maria guardedly. She did not wish to descry the baby which was, +after all, her sister, but she privately thought it was a terrible +sight.</p> +<p>Gladys Mann supported her. “Babies do all look +alike,” said she. “We've had nine to our house, and I +had ought to know.”</p> +<p>At first Maria used to dread to go home from school, on account +of the baby. She had a feeling of repulsion because of it, but +gradually that feeling disappeared and an odd sort of fascination +possessed her instead. She thought a great deal about the baby. +When she heard it cry in the night, she thought that her father and +Ida might have sense enough to stop it. She thought that she could +stop its crying herself, by carrying it very gently around the +room. Still she did not love the baby. It only appealed, in a +general way, to her instincts. But one day, when the baby was some +six weeks old, and Ida had gone to New York, she came home from +school, and she went up to her own room, and she heard the baby +crying in the room opposite. It cried and cried, with the insistent +cry of a neglected child. Maria said to herself that she did not +believe but the French nurse had taken advantage of Her +absence, and had slipped out on some errand and left the baby +alone.</p> +<p>The baby continued to wail, and a note of despair crept into the +wail. Maria could endure it no longer. She ran across the hall and +flung open the door. The baby lay crying in a little pink-lined +basket. Maria bent over it, and the baby at once stopped crying. +She opened her mouth in a toothless smile, and she held up little, +waving pink hands to Maria. Maria lifted the baby out of her basket +and pressed her softly, with infinite care, as one does something +very precious, to her childish bosom, and at once something strange +seemed to happen to her. She became, as it were, illuminated by +love.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XI</h4> +<p>Maria had fallen in love with the baby, and her first impulse, +as in the case of all true love, was secrecy. Why she should have +been ashamed of her affection, her passion, for it was, in fact, +passion, her first, she could not have told. It was the sublimated +infatuation half compounded of dreams, half of instinct, which a +little girl usually has for her doll. But Maria had never had any +particular love for a doll. She had possessed dolls, of course, but +she had never been quite able to rise above the obvious sham of +them, the cloth and the sawdust and the paint. She had wondered how +some little girls whom she had known had loved to sleep with their +dolls; as for her, she would as soon have thought of taking +pleasure in dozing off with any little roll of linen clasped in her +arms. It was rather singular, for she had a vivid imagination, but +it had balked at a doll. When, as sometimes happened, she saw a +little girl of her own age, wheeling with solemnity a doll in a +go-cart, she viewed her with amazement and contempt, and thought +privately that she was not altogether bright. But this baby was +different. It did not have to be laid on its back to make its eyes +close, it did not have to be shaken and squeezed to make it +vociferous. It was alive, and Maria, who was unusually alive in her +emotional nature, was keenly aware of that effect. This little, +tender, rosy thing was not stuffed with sawdust, it was stuffed +with soul and love. It could smile; the smile was not painted on +its face in a doll-factory. Maria was so thankful that this baby, +Ida's baby, did not have Her smile, unchanging and permanent +for all observers and all vicissitudes. When this baby smiled it +smiled, and when it cried it cried. It was honest from the crown of +its fuzzy head to the soles of its little pink worsted socks.</p> +<p>At the first reception which Ida gave after the baby came, and +when it was on exhibition in a hand-embroidered robe, it screamed +every minute. Maria was secretly glad, and proud of it. It meant +much to her that <em>her</em> baby should not smile at all the +company, whether it was smiling in its heart or not, the +way She did. Maria had no room in her heart for any other +love, except that for her father and the baby. She looked at +Wollaston Lee, and wondered how she could ever have had dreams +about him, how she could ever have preferred a boy to a baby like +her little sister, even in her dreams. She ceased haunting the +post-office for a letter from that other boy in New England, who +had asked her to correspond over the garden fence, and who had +either never written at all, or had misdirected his letter. She +wondered how she had thought for a moment of doing such a thing as +writing to a boy like that. She remembered with disgust how +overgrown that boy was, and how his stockings were darned at the +knees; and how she had seen patches of new cloth on his trousers, +and had heard her aunt Maria say that he was so hard on his clothes +on account of his passion for bird-nesting, that it was all his +mother could do to keep him always decent. How could she have +thought for a moment of a bird-nesting sort of boy? She was so +thankful that the baby was a girl. Maria, as sometimes happens, had +a rather inverted system of growth. With most, dolls come first, +then boys; with her, dolls had not come at all. Boys came first, +then her little baby sister, which was to her in the place of a +doll, and the boys got promptly relegated to the background.</p> +<p>Much to Maria's delight, the French nurse, whom she at once +disliked and stood in awe of, only remained until the baby was +about two months old, then a little nurse-girl was engaged. On +pleasant days the nurse-girl, whose name was Josephine, wheeled out +the baby in her little carriage, which was the daintiest thing of +the kind to be found, furnished with a white lace canopy lined with +rose-colored silk. It was on these occasions that Maria showed +duplicity. On Saturdays, when there was no school, she privately +and secretly bribed Josephine, who was herself under the spell of +the baby, to go home and visit her mother, and let her have the +privilege of wheeling it herself. Maria had a small sum every week +for her pocket-money, and a large part of it went to Josephine in +the shape of chocolates, of which she was inordinately fond; in +fact, Josephine, who came of the poor whites, like Gladys Mann, +might have been said to be a chocolate maniac. Maria used to +arrange with Josephine to meet her on a certain corner on +Saturdays, and there the transfer was made: Josephine became the +possessor of half a pound of chocolates, and Maria of the baby. +Josephine had sworn almost a solemn oath to never tell. She at once +repaired to her mother's, sucking chocolates on the way, and Maria +blissfully wheeled the baby. She stood in very little danger of +meeting Her on these occasions, because the Edgham Woman's +Club met on Saturday afternoon. It often happened, however, that +Maria met some of the school-girls, and then nothing could have +exceeded her pride and triumph. Some of them had little brothers or +sisters, but none of them such a little sister as hers.</p> +<p>The baby had, in reality, grown to be a beauty among babies. All +the inflamed red and aged puckers and creases had disappeared; +instead of that was the sweetest flush, like that of just-opened +rosebuds. Evelyn was a compact little baby, fat, but not +overlapping and grossly fat. It was such a matter of pride to Maria +that the baby's cheeks did not hang the least bit in the world, but +had only lovely little curves and dimples. She had become quite a +connoisseur in babies. When she saw a baby whose flabby cheeks hung +down and touched its bib, she was disgusted. She felt as if there +was something morally wrong with such a baby as that. Her baby was +wrapped in the softest white things: furs, and silk-lined +embroidered cashmeres, and her little face just peeped out from the +lace frill of a charming cap. There was only one touch of color in +all this whiteness, beside the tender rose of the baby's face, and +that was a little knot of pale pink baby-ribbon on the cap. Maria +often stopped to make sure that the cap was on straight, and she +also stopped very often to tuck in the white fur rug, and she also +stopped often to thrust her own lovely little girl-face into the +sweet confusion of baby and lace and embroidery and fur, with soft +kisses and little, caressing murmurs of love. She made up little +love phrases, which she would have been inexpressibly ashamed to +have had overheard. “Little honey love” was one of +them—“Sister's own little honey love.” Once, +when walking on Elm Street under the leafless arches of the elms, +where she thought she was quite alone, although it was a very +bright, warm afternoon, and quite dry—it was not a snowy +winter—she spoke more loudly than she intended, and looked up +to see another, bigger girl, the daughter of the Edgham lawyer, +whose name was Annie Stone. Annie Stone was large of her +age—so large, in fact, that she had a nickname of +“Fatty” in school. It had possibly soured her, or her +over-plumpness may have been due to some physical ailment which +rendered her irritable. At all events, Annie Stone had not that +sweetness and placidity of temperament popularly supposed to be +coincident with stoutness. She had a bitter and sarcastic tongue +for a young girl. Maria inwardly shuddered when she saw Annie +Stone's fat, malicious face surveying her from under her +fur-trimmed hat. Annie Stone was always very well dressed, but even +that did not seem to improve her mental attitude. Her large, +high-colored face was also distinctly pretty, but she did not +seemed to be cognizant of that to the result of any +satisfaction.</p> +<p>“Sister's little honey love!” she repeated after +Maria, with fairly a snarl of satire.</p> +<p>Maria had spirit, although she was for the moment dismayed.</p> +<p>“Well, she is—so there,” said she.</p> +<p>“You wait till you have a few more little honey +loves,” said Annie Stone, “and see how you +feel.”</p> +<p>With that Annie Stone went her way, with soft flounces of her +short, stout body, and Maria was left. She was still defiant; her +blood was up. “Sister's little honey love,” she said to +the baby, in a tone so loud that Annie Stone must have heard. +“Were folks that didn't have anything but naughty little +brothers jealous of her?” Annie Stone had, in fact, a +notorious little brother, who at the early age of seven was the +terror of his sisters and all law-abiding citizens; but Annie Stone +was not easily touched.</p> +<p>“Sister's little honey love,” she shouted back, +turning a malignant face over her shoulder. She had that very +morning had a hand-to-hand fight with her naughty little brother, +and finally come out victorious, by forcing him to the ground and +sitting on him until he said he was sorry. It was not very +reasonable that she should be at all sensitive with regard to +him.</p> +<p>After Annie Stone had gone out of sight, Maria went around to +the front of the little carriage, adjusted the white fur rug +carefully, secured a tiny, white mitten on one of the baby's hands, +and whispered to the baby alone. “You <em>are</em> sister's +little honey love, aren't you, precious?” and the baby smiled +that entrancing smile of honesty and innocence which sent the +dimples spreading to the lace frill of her cap, and reached out her +arms, thereby displacing both mittens, which Maria adjusted; then, +after a fervent kiss, she went her way.</p> +<p>However, she was not that afternoon to proceed on her way long +uninterrupted. For some time Josephine, the nurse-girl, had either +been growing jealous, or chocolates were palling upon her. +Josephine had also found her own home locked up, and the key +nowhere in evidence. There would be a good half-hour to wait at the +usual corner for Maria. The wind had changed, and blew cold from +the northwest. Josephine was not very warmly clad. She wore her +white gown and apron, which Mrs. Edgham insisted upon, and which +she resented. She had that day felt a stronger sense of injury with +regard to it, and counted upon telling her mother how mean and set +up she thought it was for any lady as called herself a lady to make +a girl wear a summer white dress in winter. She shivered on her +corner of waiting. Josephine got more and more wroth. Finally she +decided to start in search of Maria and the baby. She gave her +white skirts an angry switch and started. It was not very long +after she had turned her second corner before she saw Maria and the +baby ahead of her. Josephine then ran. She was a stout girl, and +she plunged ahead heavily until she came up with Maria. The first +thing Maria knew, Josephine had grabbed the handle of the +carriage—two red girl hands appeared beside her own small, +gloved ones.</p> +<p>“Here, gimme this baby to once,” gabbled Josephine +in the thick speech of her kind.</p> +<p>Maria looked at her. “The time isn't up, and you know it +isn't, Josephine,” said she. “I just passed by a clock +in Melvin & Adams's jewelry store, and it isn't time for me to +be on the corner.”</p> +<p>“Gimme the baby,” demanded Josephine. She attempted +to pull the carriage away from Maria, but Maria, although her +strength was inferior, had spirit enough to cope with any poor +white. Her little fingers clutched like iron. “I shall not +give her up until four o'clock,” said she. “Go back to +the corner.”</p> +<p>Josephine's only answer was a tug which dislodged Maria's +fingers and hurt her. But Maria came of the stock which believed in +trusting the Lord and keeping the powder dry. She was not yet +conquered. The right was clearly on her side. She and Josephine had +planned to meet at the corner at four o'clock, and it was not quite +half-past three, and she had given Josephine half a pound of +chocolates. She did not stop to reflect a moment. Maria's impulses +were quick, and lack of decision in emergencies was not a failing +of hers. She made one dart to the rear of Josephine. Josephine wore +her hair in a braided loop, tied with a bow of black ribbon. Maria +seized upon this loop of brown braids, and hung. She was enough +shorter than Josephine to render it effectual. Josephine's head was +bent backward and she was helpless, unless she let go of the +baby-carriage. Josephine, however, had good lungs, and she +screamed, as she was pulled backward, still holding to the little +carriage, which was also somewhat tilted by the whole +performance.</p> +<p>“Lemme be, you horrid little thing!” she screamed, +“or I'll tell your ma.”</p> +<p>“She isn't my mother,” said Maria in return. +“Let go of my baby.”</p> +<p>“She is your ma. Your father married her, and she's your +ma, and you can't help yourself. Lemme go, or I'll tell on +you.”</p> +<p>“Tell, if you want to,” said Maria, firmly, actually +swinging with her whole weight from Josephine's loop of braids. +“Let go my baby.”</p> +<p>Josephine screamed again, with her head bent backward, and the +baby-carriage tilted perilously. Then a woman, who had been +watching from a window near by, rushed upon the scene. She was +Gladys Mann's mother. Just as she appeared the baby began to cry, +and that accelerated her speed. The windows of her house became +filled with staring childish faces. The woman, who was very small +and lean but wiry, a bundle of muscles and nerve, ran up to the +baby-carriage, and pulled it back to its proper status, and began +at once quieting the frightened baby and scolding the girls.</p> +<p>“Hush, hush,” cooed she to the baby. “Did it +think it was goin' to get hurted?” Then to the girls: +“Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, two great girls fightin' +right in the street, and most tippin' the baby over. S'posin' you +had killed him?”</p> +<p>Then Josephine burst forth in a great wail of wrath and pain. +The bringing down of the carriage had increased her agony, for +Maria still clung to her hair.</p> +<p>“Oh, oh, oh!” howled Josephine, her head straining +back. “She's most killin' me.”</p> +<p>“An' I'll warrant you deserve it,” said the woman. +Then she added to Maria—she was entirely impartial in her +scolding—“Let go of her, ain't you shamed.” Then +to the baby, “Did he think he was goin' to get +hurted?”</p> +<p>“He's a girl!” cried Maria in a frenzy of +indignation. “He is not a boy, he is a girl.” She still +clung desperately to Josephine's hair, who in her turn clung to the +baby-carriage.</p> +<p>Then Gladys came out of the house, in a miserable, thin, dirty +gown, and she was Maria's ally.</p> +<p>“Let that baby go!” she cried to Josephine. She +tugged fiercely at Josephine's white skirt.</p> +<p>“Gladys Mann, you go right straight into the house. What +be you buttin' in for!” screamed her mother. “You let +that girl's hair alone. Josephine, what you been up to. You might +have killed this baby.”</p> +<p>The baby screamed louder. It wriggled around in its little, +white fur nest, and stretched out imploring pink paws from which +the mittens had fallen off. Its little lace hood was awry, the pink +rosette was cocked over one ear. Maria herself began to cry. Then +Gladys waxed fairly fierce. She paid no attention whatever to her +mother.</p> +<p>“You jest go round an' ketch on to the kid's wagin,” +said she, “an' I'll take care of her.” With that her +strong little hands made a vicious clutch at Josephine's +braids.</p> +<p>Maria sprang for the baby-carriage. She straightened the lace +hood, she tucked in the fur robe, and put on the mittens. The +baby's screams subsided into a grieved whimper. “Did great +wicked girls come and plague sister's own little precious?” +said Maria. But now she had to reckon with Gladys's mother, who had +recovered her equilibrium, lost for a second by her daughter's +manœuvre. She seized in her turn the handle of the +baby-carriage, and gave Maria a strong push aside. Then she looked +at all three combatants, like a poor-white Solomon.</p> +<p>“Who were sent out with him in the first place, that's +what I want to know?” she said.</p> +<p>“I were,” replied Josephine in a sobbing shout. Her +head was aching as if she had been scalped.</p> +<p>“Shet up!” said Gladys's mother inconsistently.</p> +<p>“Did your ma send her out with him?” she queried of +her.</p> +<p>“He is not a boy,” replied Maria shiftily.</p> +<p>“Yes, she did,” said Josephine, still rubbing her +head.</p> +<p>Gladys, through a wholesome fear of her mother, had released her +hold on her braids, and stood a little behind.</p> +<p>Mrs. Mann's scanty rough hair blew in the winter wind as she +took hold of the carriage. Maria again tucked in the white fur robe +to conceal her discomfiture. She was becoming aware that she was +being proved in the wrong.</p> +<p>“Shet up!” said Mrs. Mann in response to Josephine's +answer. There was not the slightest sense nor meaning in the +remark, but it was, so to speak, her household note, learned +through the exigency of being in the constant society of so many +noisy children. She told everybody, on general principles, to +“shet up,” even when she wished for information which +necessitated the reverse.</p> +<p>Mrs. Mann was thin and meagre, and wholly untidy. The wind +lashed her dirty cotton skirt around her, disclosing a dirtier +petticoat and men's shoes. The skin of her worn, blond face had a +look as if the soil of life had fairly been rubbed into it. All the +lines of this face were lax, displaying utter lassitude and no +energy. She, however, had her evanescent streaks of life, as now. +Once in a while a bubble of ancestral blood seemed to come to the +surface, although it soon burst. She had come, generations back, of +a good family. She was the run out weed of it, but still, at times, +the old colors of the blossom were evident. She turned to +Maria.</p> +<p>“If,” said she, “your ma sent her out with +this young one, I don't see why you went to pullin' her hair +fur?”</p> +<p>“I gave her a whole half-pound of chocolates,” +returned Maria, in a fine glow of indignation, “if she would +let me push the baby till four o'clock, and it isn't four o'clock +yet.”</p> +<p>“It ain't more than half-past three,” said +Gladys.</p> +<p>“Shet up!” said her mother. She stood looking rather +helplessly at the three little girls and the situation. Her +suddenly wakened mental faculties were running down like those of a +watch which has been shaken to make it go for a few seconds. The +situation was too much for her, and, according to her wont, she let +it drop. Just then a whiff of strong sweetness came from the house, +and her blank face lighted up.</p> +<p>“We are makin' 'lasses candy,” said she. “You +young ones all come in and hev' some, and I'll take the baby. He +can get warm, and a little of thet candy won't do him no harm, +nuther.” Mrs. Mann used the masculine pronoun from force of +habit; all her children with the exception of Gladys were boys.</p> +<p>Maria hesitated. She had a certain scorn for the Manns. She eyed +Mrs. Mann's dirty attire and face. But she was in fact cold, and +the smell of the candy was entrancing. “She said never to +take the baby in anywhere,” said she, doubtfully.</p> +<p>Josephine having tired of chocolate, realized suddenly an +enormous hunger for molasses candy. She sniffed like a hunting +hound. “She didn't say not to go into Mrs. Mann's,” +said she.</p> +<p>“She said anywhere; I heard her tell you,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Mann's ain't anywhere,” said Josephine, who +had a will of her own. She rushed around and caught up the baby. +“She's most froze,” said she. “She'll get the +croup if she don't get warmed up.”</p> +<p>With that, Josephine carrying the baby, Maria, Gladys, and Mrs. +Mann all entered the little, squalid Mann house, as hot as a +conservatory and reeking with the smell of boiled molasses.</p> +<p>When Josephine and Maria and the baby started out again, Maria +turned to Josephine.</p> +<p>“Now,” said she, “if you don't let me push her +as far as the corner of our street, I'll tell how you took her into +Mrs. Mann's. You know what She'll say.”</p> +<p>Josephine, whose face was smeared with molasses candy, and who +was even then sucking some, relinquished her hold on the carriage. +“You'll be awful mean if you do tell,” said she.</p> +<p>“I will tell if you don't do what you say you'll do +another time,” said she.</p> +<p>When they reached home, Ida had not returned, but she came in +radiant some few minutes later. She had read a paper on a famous +man, for the pleasure and profit of the Edgham Woman's Club, and +she had received much applause and felt correspondingly elated. +Josephine had taken the baby up-stairs to a little room which had +recently been fitted up for a nursery, and, not following her usual +custom, Ida went in there after removing her outer wraps. She stood +in her blue cloth dress looking at the child with her usual air of +radiant aloofness, seeming to shed her own glory, like a star, upon +the baby, rather than receive its little light into the loving +recesses of her own soul. Josephine and also Maria were in a state +of consternation. They had discovered a large, sticky splash of +molasses candy on the baby's white embroidered cloak. They had +washed the baby's sticky little face, but they did not know what +was to be done about the cloak, which lay over a chair. Josephine +essayed, with a dexterous gesture, to so fold the cloak over that +the stain would be for the time concealed. But Ida Edgham had not +been a school-teacher for nothing. She saw the gesture, and +immediately took up the cloak herself.</p> +<p>“Why, what is this on her cloak?” said she.</p> +<p>There was a miserable silence.</p> +<p>“It looks like molasses candy. It is molasses +candy,” said Ida. “Josephine, did you give this child +molasses candy?” Ida's voice was entirely even, but there was +something terrible about it.</p> +<p>Maria saw Josephine turn white. “She wouldn't have given +her the candy if it hadn't been for me,” said she.</p> +<p>Ida stood looking from one to the other. Josephine's face was +white and scared, Maria's impenetrable.</p> +<p>“If you ever give this child candy again, either of +you,” said Ida, “you will never take her out +again.” Then she went out, still smiling.</p> +<p>Josephine looked at Maria with enormous gratitude.</p> +<p>“Say,” said she, “you're a dandy.”</p> +<p>“You're a cheat!” returned Maria, with scorn.</p> +<p>“I'm awful sorry I didn't wait on the corner till four +o'clock, honest.”</p> +<p>“You'd better be.”</p> +<p>“Say, but you be a dandy,” repeated Josephine.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XII</h4> +<p>Maria began to be conscious of other and more vital seasons than +those of the old earth on which she lived—the seasons of the +human soul. Along with her own unconscious and involuntary budding +towards bloom, the warm rush of the blood in her own veins, she +realized the budding progress of the baby. When little Evelyn was +put into short frocks, and her little, dancing feet were shod with +leather instead of wool, Maria felt a sort of delicious wonder, +similar to that with which she watched a lilac-bush in the yard +when its blossoms deepened in the spring.</p> +<p>The day when Evelyn was put into short frocks, Maria glanced +across the school-room at Wollaston Lee, and her innocent passion, +half romance, half imagination, which had been for a time in +abeyance, again thrilled her. All her pulses throbbed. She tried to +work out a simple problem in her algebra, but mightier unknown +quantities were working towards solution in every beat of her +heart. Wollaston shot a sidelong glance at her, and she felt it, +although she did not see it. Gladys Mann leaned over her +shoulder.</p> +<p>“Say,” she whispered, “Wollaston Lee is jest +starin' at you!”</p> +<p>Maria gave a little, impatient shrug of her shoulders, although +a blush shot over her whole face, and Gladys saw distinctly the +back of her neck turn a roseate color.</p> +<p>“He's awful stuck on you, I guess,” Gladys said.</p> +<p>Maria shrugged her shoulders again, but she thought of Wollaston +and then of the baby in her short frock and she felt that her heart +was bursting with joy, as a bud with blossom.</p> +<p>Ida, meantime, was curiously impassive towards her child's +attainments. There was something pathetic about this impassiveness. +Ida was missing a great deal, and more because she did not even +know what she missed. However, she began to be conscious of a +settled aversion towards Maria. Her manner towards her was +unchanged, but she became distinctly irritated at seeing her about. +When anything annoyed Ida, she immediately entertained no doubt +whatever that it was not in accordance with the designs of an +overruling Providence. It seemed manifest to her that if anything +annoyed her, it should be removed. However, in this case, the way +of removal did not seem clear for a long time. Harry was +undoubtedly fond of Maria. That did not trouble Ida in the least, +although she recognized the fact. She was not a woman who was +capable of jealousy, because her own love and admiration for +herself made her impregnable. She loved herself so much more than +Harry could possibly love her that his feeling for Maria did not +ruffle her in the least. It was due to no jealousy that she wished +Maria removed, at least for a part of the time. It was only that +she was always conscious of a dissent, silent and helpless, still +persistent, towards her attitude as regarded herself. She knew that +Maria did not think her as beautiful and perfect as she thought +herself, and the constant presence of this small element of +negation irritated her. Then, too, while she was not in the least +jealous of her child, she had a curious conviction that Maria cared +more for her than she herself cared, and that in itself was a +covert reproach. When little Evelyn ran to meet her sister when she +returned from school, Ida felt distinctly disturbed. She had no +doubt of her ultimate success in her purpose of ridding herself of +at least the constant presence of Maria, and in the mean time she +continued to perform her duty by the girl, to that outward extent +that everybody in Edgham pronounced her a model step-mother. +“Maria Edgham never looked half so well in her own mother's +time,” they said.</p> +<p>Lillian White spoke of it to her mother one Sunday. She had been +to church, but her mother had remained at home on account of a +cold.</p> +<p>“I tell you she looked dandy,” said Lillian. Lillian +was still as softly and negatively pretty as ever. She was really +charming because she was not angular, because her skin was not +thick and coarse, because she did not look anæmic, but +perfectly well fed and nourished and happy.</p> +<p>“Who?” asked her mother.</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham. She was togged out to beat the band. +Everything looked sort of fadged up that she had before her own +mother died. I tell you she never had anything like the rig she +wore to-day.”</p> +<p>“What was it?” asked her mother interestedly, wiping +her rasped nose with a moist ball of handkerchief.</p> +<p>“Oh, it was the handsomest brown suit I ever laid my eyes +on, with hand-embroidery, and fur, and a big picture hat trimmed +with fur and chrysanthemums. She's an awful pretty little girl +anyhow.”</p> +<p>“She always was pretty,” said Mrs. White, dabbing +her nose again.</p> +<p>“If Ida don't look out, her step-daughter will beat her in +looks,” said Lillian.</p> +<p>“I never thought myself that Ida was anything to brag of, +anyway,” said Mrs. White. She still had a sense of wondering +injury that Harry Edgham had preferred Ida to her Lillian.</p> +<p>Lillian was now engaged to be married, but her mother did not +feel quite satisfied with the man. He was employed in a retail +clothing establishment in New York, and had only a small salary. +“Foster Simpkins” (that was the young man's name) +“ain't really what you ought to have,” she often said +to Lillian.</p> +<p>But Lillian took it easily. She liked the young man very much as +she would have liked a sugar-plum, and she thought it high time for +her to be married, although she was scarcely turned twenty. +“Oh, well, ma,” she said. “Men don't grow on +every bush, and Foster is real good-lookin', and maybe his salary +will be raised.”</p> +<p>“You ain't lookin' very high,” said her mother.</p> +<p>“No use in strainin' your neck for things out of your own +sky,” said Lillian, who had at times a shrewd sort of humor, +inherited from her father.</p> +<p>“Harry Edgham would have been a better match for +you,” her mother said.</p> +<p>“Lord, I'd a good sight rather have Foster than another +woman's leavin's,” replied Lillian. “Then there was +Maria, too. It would have been an awful job to dress her, and look +out for her.”</p> +<p>“That's so,” said her mother, “and then the +two sets of children, too.”</p> +<p>Lillian colored and giggled. “Oh, land, don't talk about +children, ma!” said she. “I'm contented as it is. But +you ought to have seen that young one to-day.”</p> +<p>“What did Ida wear?” asked Mrs. White.</p> +<p>“She wore her black velvet suit, that she had this winter, +and the way she strutted up the aisle was a caution.”</p> +<p>“I don't see how Harry Edgham lives the way he +does,” said Mrs. White. “Black velvet costs a lot. Do +you s'pose it is silk velvet?”</p> +<p>“You bet.”</p> +<p>“I don't see how he does it!”</p> +<p>“He looks sort of worn-out to me. He's grown awful old, I +noticed it to-day.”</p> +<p>“Well, all Ida cares for is herself. <em>She</em> don't +see he's grown old, you can be sure of that,” said Mrs. +White, with an odd sort of bitterness. Actually the woman was so +filled with maternal instincts that the bare dream of Harry as her +Lillian's husband had given her a sort of motherly solicitude for +him, which she had not lost. “It's a shame,” said +she.</p> +<p>“Oh, well, it's none of my funeral,” said Lillian, +easily. She took a chocolate out of a box which her lover had sent +her, and began nibbling it like a squirrel.</p> +<p>“Poor man,” said Mrs. White. Tears of emotion +actually filled her eyes and mingled with the rheum of her cold. +She took out her moist ball of handkerchief again and dabbed both +her eyes and nose.</p> +<p>Lillian looked at her half amusedly, half affectionately. +“Mother, you do beat the Dutch,” said she.</p> +<p>Mrs. White actually snivelled. “I can't help remembering +the time when his poor first wife died,” said she, “and +how he and little Maria came here to take their meals, poor souls. +Harry Edgham was just the one to be worked by a woman, poor +fellow.”</p> +<p>Lillian sucked her chocolate with a full sense of its sweetness. +“Ma, you can't keep track of all creation, nor cry over +it,” said she. “You've got to leave it to the Lord. +Have you taken your pink pellet?”</p> +<p>“Poor little Maria, too,” said Mrs. White.</p> +<p>“Good gracious, ma, don't you take to worryin' over +her,” said Lillian. “Here's your pink pellet. A young +one dressed up the way she was to-day!”</p> +<p>“Dress ain't everything, and nothin' is goin' to make me +believe that Ida Slome is a good mother to her, nor to her own +child neither. It ain't in her.”</p> +<p>Lillian, approaching her mother at the window with the pink +pellet and a glass of water, uttered an exclamation. “For the +land's sake, there she is now!” she said. “Look, ma, +there is Maria in her new suit, and she's got the baby in a little +carriage on runners. Just look at the white fur-tails hanging over +the back. Ain't that a handsome suit?”</p> +<p>Mrs. White gazed out eagerly. “It must have cost a +pile,” said she. “I don't see how he does +it.”</p> +<p>“She sees you at the window,” said Lillian.</p> +<p>Both she and her mother smiled and waved at Maria. Maria bowed, +and smiled with a sweet irradiation of her rosy face.</p> +<p>“She's a little beauty, anyhow,” said Lillian.</p> +<p>“Dear child,” said Mrs. White, and she snivelled +again.</p> +<p>“Ma, either your cold or the stuff you are takin' is +making you dreadful nervous,” said Lillian. “You cry at +nothin' at all. How straight she is! No stoop about her.”</p> +<p>Maria was, in fact, carrying herself with an extreme +straightness both of body and soul. She was conscious to the full +of her own beauty in her new suit, and of the loveliness of her +little sister in her white fur nest of a sledge. She was +inordinately proud. She had asked Ida if she might take the child +for a little airing before the early Sunday dinner, and Ida had +consented easily.</p> +<p>Ida also wished for an opportunity to talk with Harry about her +cherished scheme, and preferred doing so when Maria was not in the +house. For manifest reasons, too, Sunday was the best day on which +to approach her husband on a subject which she realized was a +somewhat delicate one. She was not so sure of his subservience when +Maria was concerned, as in everything else, and Sunday was the day +when his nerves were less strained, when he had risen late. Ida did +not insist upon his going to church, as his first wife had done. In +fact, if the truth was told, Harry wore his last winter's overcoat +this year, and she was a little doubtful about its appearance in +conjunction with her new velvet costume. He sat in the parlor when +Ida entered after Maria had gone out with Evelyn. Harry looked at +her admiringly.</p> +<p>“How stunning you do look in that velvet dress!” he +said.</p> +<p>Ida laughed consciously. “I rather like it myself,” +said she. “It's a great deal handsomer than Mrs. George +Henderson's, and I know she had hers made at a Fifth Avenue +tailor's, and it must have cost twice as much.”</p> +<p>Ida had filled Harry with the utmost faith in her financial +management. While he was spending more than he had ever done, and +working harder, he was innocently unconscious of it. He felt a +sense of gratitude and wonder that Ida was such a good manager and +accomplished such great results with such a small expenditure. He +was unwittingly disloyal to his first wife. He remembered the rigid +economy under her sway, and owned to himself, although with +remorseful tenderness, that she had not been such a financier as +this woman. “You ought to go on Wall Street,” he often +told Ida. He gazed after her now with a species of awe that he had +such a splendid, masterful creature for his wife, as she moved with +the slow majesty habitual to her out of the room, the black plumes +on her hat softly floating, the rich draperies of her gown trailing +in sumptuous folds of darkness.</p> +<p>When she came down again, in a rose-colored silk tea-gown +trimmed with creamy lace, she was still more entrancing. She +brought with her into the room an atmosphere of delicate perfume. +Harry had stopped smoking entirely nowadays. Ida had persuaded him +that it was bad for him. She had said nothing about the expense, as +his first wife had been accustomed to do. Therefore there was no +tobacco smoke to dull his sensibilities to this delicate perfume. +It was as if a living rose had entered the room. Ida sank +gracefully into a chair opposite him. She was wondering how she +could easily lead up to the subject in her mind. There was much +diplomacy, on a very small and selfish scale, about Ida. She +realized the expediency of starting from apparently a long +distance, to establish her sequences in order to maintain the +appearance of unpremeditativeness.</p> +<p>“Isn't it a little too warm here, dear?” said she, +presently, in the voice which alone she could not control. Whenever +she had an entirely self-centred object in mind, an object which +might possibly meet with opposition, as now, her voice rang harsh +and lost its singing quality.</p> +<p>Harry did not seem to notice it. He started up immediately. The +portières between the room and the vestibule were drawn. He +had, in fact, felt somewhat chilly. It was a cold day, and he had a +touch of the grip. “I will open the portières, +dear,” he said. “I dare say you are right.”</p> +<p>“I noticed it when I first came in,” said Ida. +“I meant to draw the portières apart myself, but going +out through the library I forgot it. Thank you, dear. How is your +cold?”</p> +<p>“It is nothing, dear,” replied Harry. “There +is only a little soreness in my throat.”</p> +<p>He resumed his seat, and noticed the fragrance of roasted +chicken coming through the parted portières from the +kitchen. Harry was very fond of roasted chicken. He inhaled that +and the delicate perfume of Ida's garments and hair. He regarded +her glowing beauty with affection which had no taint of sensuality. +Harry had more of a poetic liking for sweet odors and beauty than a +sensual one.</p> +<p>Harry Edgham in these days had a more poetic and spiritual look +than formerly. He had not lost his strange youthfulness of +expression; it was as if a child had the appearance of having been +longer on the earth. His hair had thinned, and receded from his +temples, and the bold, almost babyish fulness of his temples was +more evident. His face was thinner, too, and he had not much color. +His mouth was drawn down at the corner, and he frowned slightly, as +a child might, in helpless but non-aggressive dissent. His worn +appearance was very noticeable, in spite of his present happy mood, +of which his wife shrewdly took advantage.</p> +<p>Ida Edgham did not care for books, although she never admitted +that fact, but she could read with her cold feminine astuteness the +moods and souls of men, with unerring quickness. Those last were to +her advantage or disadvantage, and in anything of that nature she +was gifted by nature. Ida Edgham might have been, as her husband +might have been, a poet, an adventuress, who could have made the +success of her age had she not been hindered, as well as aided, by +her self-love. She had the shrewdness which prognosticates as well +as discerns, and saw the inevitableness of the ultimatum of all +irregularities in a world which, however irregular it is in +practice, still holds regularity as its model of conduct and +progression. Ida Edgham would, in the desperate state of the earth +before the flood, have made herself famous. As it was, her +irregular talents had a limited field; however, she did all she +could. It always seemed to her that, as far as the right and wrong +of things went, her own happiness was eminently right, and that it +was distinctly wrong for her, or any one else, to oppose any +obstacle to it. She allowed the pleasant influences of the passing +moment to have their full effect upon her husband, and she +continued her leading up to the subject by those easy and +apparently unrelated sequences which none but a diplomat could have +managed.</p> +<p>“Thank you, dear,” she said, when Harry resumed his +seat. “The air is cold but very clear and pleasant out +to-day,” she continued.</p> +<p>“It looks so,” said Harry.</p> +<p>“Still, if I were you, I think I would not go out; it +might make your cold worse,” said Ida.</p> +<p>“No, I think it would be full as well for me to stay in +to-day,” replied Harry happily. He hemmed a little as he +spoke, realizing the tickle in his throat with rather a pleasant +sense of importance than annoyance. He stretched himself +luxuriously in his chair, and gazed about the warm, perfumed, +luxurious apartment.</p> +<p>“You have to go out to-morrow, anyway,” said Ida, +and she increased his sense of present comfort by that remark.</p> +<p>“That is so,” said Harry, with a slight sigh.</p> +<p>Lately it had seemed harder than ever before for him to start +early in the black winter mornings and hurry for his train. Then, +too, he had what he had never had before, a sense of boredom, of +ennui, so intense that it was almost a pain. The deadly monotony of +it wearied him. For the first time in his life his harness of duty +chafed his spirit. He was so tired of seeing the same train, the +same commuters, taking the same path across the station to the +ferry-boat, being jostled by the same throng, going to the same +office, performing the same, or practically the same, duties, that +his very soul was irritated. He had reached a point where he not +only needed but demanded a change, but the change was as +impossible, without destruction, as for a planet to leave its +orbit.</p> +<p>Ida saw the deepening of the frown on his forehead and the +lengthening of the lines around his mouth.</p> +<p>“Poor old man!” said she. “I wish I had a +fortune to give you, so you wouldn't have to go.”</p> +<p>The words were fairly cooing, but the tone was still harsh. +However, Harry brightened. He regarded this lovely, blooming +creature and inhaled again the odor of dinner, and reflected with a +sense of gratitude upon his mercies. Harry had a grateful heart, +and was always ready to blame himself.</p> +<p>“Oh, I should be lost, go all to pieces, if I quit +work,” he said, laughing. “If I were left a fortune, I +should land in an insane asylum very likely, or take to drink. No, +dear, you can't teach such an old bird new tricks; he's been in one +tree too long, summer and winter.”</p> +<p>“Well, after all, you have not got to go out +to-day,” remarked Ida, skilfully, and Harry again stretched +himself with a sense of present comfort.</p> +<p>“That is so, dear,” he said.</p> +<p>“I have something you like for supper, too,” said +Ida, “and I think George Adams and Louisa may drop in and we +can have some music.”</p> +<p>Harry brightened still more. He liked George Adams, and the wife +had more than a talent for music, of which Harry was passionately +fond. She played wonderfully on Ida's well-tuned grand piano.</p> +<p>“I thought you might like it,” said Ida, “and +I spoke to Louisa as I was coming out of church.”</p> +<p>“You were very kind, sweetheart,” Harry said, and +again a flood of gratitude seemed to sweeten life for the man.</p> +<p>Ida took another step in her sequence.</p> +<p>“I think Maria had better stay up, if they do come,” +said she. “She enjoys music so much. She can keep on her new +gown. Maria is so careful of her gowns that I never feel any +anxiety about her soiling them.”</p> +<p>“She is just like—” began Harry, then he +stopped. He had been about to state that Maria was just like her +mother in that respect, but he had remembered suddenly that he was +speaking to his second wife.</p> +<p>However, Ida finished his remark for him with perfect +good-nature. She had not the slightest jealousy of Harry's first +wife, only a sort of contempt, that she had gotten so little where +she herself had gotten so much.</p> +<p>“Maria's own mother was very particular, wasn't she, +dear?” she said.</p> +<p>“Very,” replied Harry.</p> +<p>“Maria takes it from her, without any doubt,” Ida +said, smoothly. “She looked so sweet in that new gown to-day, +that I would like to have the Adamses see her without her coat +to-night; and Maria looks even prettier without her hat, too, her +hair grows so prettily on her temples. Maria grows lovelier every +day, it seems to me. I don't know how many I saw looking at her in +church this morning.”</p> +<p>“Yes, she is going to be pretty, I guess,” said +Harry, and again his very soul seemed warm and light with pleasure +and gratitude.</p> +<p>“She <em>is</em> pretty,” said Ida, conclusively. +“She is at the awkward age, too. But there is no awkwardness +about Maria. She is like a little fairy.”</p> +<p>Harry beamed upon her. “She is as proud as punch when she +gets a chance to take the little one out, and they made a pretty +picture going down the street,” said he, “but I hope +she won't catch cold. Is that new suit warm?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes! it is interlined. I looked out for +that.”</p> +<p>“You look out for my child as if she were your own, bless +you, dear,” Harry said, affectionately.</p> +<p>Then Ida thought that the time for her carefully-led-up-to coup +had arrived. “I try to,” said she, meekly.</p> +<p>“You <em>do</em>.”</p> +<p>Ida began to speak, then she hesitated, with timid eyes on her +husband's face.</p> +<p>“What is it, dear?” asked he.</p> +<p>“Well, I have been thinking a good deal lately about Maria +and her associates in school here.”</p> +<p>“Why, what is the matter with them?” Harry asked, +uneasily.</p> +<p>“Oh, I don't know that there is anything very serious the +matter with them, but Maria is at an age when she is very +impressible, and there are many who are not exactly desirable. +There is Gladys Mann, for instance. I saw Maria walking down the +street with her the other day. Now, Harry, you know that Gladys +Mann is not exactly the kind of girl whom Maria's own mother would +have chosen for an intimate friend for her.”</p> +<p>“You are right,” Harry said, frowning.</p> +<p>“Well, I have been thinking over the number of pupils of +both sexes in the school who can be called degenerates, either in +mind or morals, and I must say I was alarmed.”</p> +<p>“Well, what is to be done?” asked Harry, moodily. +“Maria must go to school, of course.”</p> +<p>“Yes, of course, Maria must have a good education, as good +as if her own mother had lived.”</p> +<p>“Well, what is to be done, then?”</p> +<p>Then Ida came straight to the point. “The only way I can +see is to remove her from doubtful associates.”</p> +<p>“Remove her?” repeated Harry, blankly.</p> +<p>“Yes; send her away to school. Wellbridge Hall, in +Emerson, where I went myself, would be a very good school. It is +not expensive.”</p> +<p>Harry stared. “But, Ida, she is too young.”</p> +<p>“Not at all.”</p> +<p>“You were older when you went there.”</p> +<p>“A little older.”</p> +<p>“How far is Emerson from here?”</p> +<p>“Only a night's journey from New York. You go to sleep in +your berth, and in the morning you are there. You could always see +her off. It is very easy.”</p> +<p>“Send Maria away! Ida, it is out of the question. Aside +from anything else, there is the expense. I am living up to my +income as it is.”</p> +<p>“Oh,” said Ida—she gave her head a noble toss, +and spoke impressively—“I am prepared to go without +myself to make it possible for you to meet her bills. You know I +spoke the other day of a new lace dress. Well, that would cost at +least a hundred; I will go without that. And I wanted some new +portières for my room; I will go without them. That means, +say, fifty more. And you know the dining-room rug looks very +shabby. I was thinking we must have an Eastern rug, which would +cost at least one hundred and fifty; I thought it would pay in the +end. Well, I am prepared to give that up and have a domestic, which +only costs twenty-five; that is a hundred and twenty-five more +saved. And I had planned to have my seal-skin coat made over after +Christmas, and you know you cannot have seal-skin touched under a +hundred; there is a hundred more. There are three hundred and +seventy-five saved, which will pay for Maria's tuition for a year, +and enough over for travelling expenses.” Nothing could have +exceeded the expression of lofty virtue of Ida Edgham when she +concluded her speech. As for her own selfish considerations, those, +as always, she thought of only as her duty. Ida established always +a clear case of conscience in all her dealings for her own +interests.</p> +<p>But Harry continued to frown. The childish droop of his handsome +mouth became more pronounced. “I don't like the idea,” +he said, quite sturdily for him.</p> +<p>“Suppose we leave it to Maria,” said Ida.</p> +<p>“I really think,” said Harry, in almost a fretful +tone, “that you exaggerate. I hardly think there is anything +so very objectionable about her associates here. I will admit that +many of the children come from what we call the poor whites, but +after all their main vice is shiftlessness, and Maria is not very +likely to become contaminated with that.”</p> +<p>“Why, Harry, my dear, that is the very least of their +vices.”</p> +<p>“What else?”</p> +<p>“Why, you know that they are notoriously +light-fingered.”</p> +<p>“My dear Ida, you don't mean to say that you think Maria—”</p> +<p>“Why, of course not, Harry, but aside from that, their +morals.”</p> +<p>Harry rose from his chair and walked across the room +nervously.</p> +<p>“My dear Ida,” he said, “you are exaggerating +now. Maria is simply not that kind of a girl; and, besides, I don't +know that she does see so much of those people, anyway.”</p> +<p>“Gladys Mann—”</p> +<p>“Well, I never heard any harm of that poor little runt. On +the other side, Ida, I should think Maria's influence over her for +good was to be taken into consideration.”</p> +<p>“I hope you don't mean Maria to be a home +missionary?” said Ida.</p> +<p>“She might go to school for a worse purpose,” +replied Harry, simply. “Maria has a very strong character +from her mother, if not from her father. I actually think the +chances are that the Mann girl will have a better chance of getting +good from Maria than Maria evil from her.”</p> +<p>“Well, dear, suppose we leave it to Maria herself,” +said Ida. “Nobody is going to force the dear child away +against her will, of course.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” said Harry. His face still retained a +slightly sulky, disturbed expression.</p> +<p>Ida, after a furtive glance at him, took up a sheet of the +Sunday paper, and began swaying back and forth gracefully in her +rocking-chair, as she read it.</p> +<p>“How foolish all this sentiment about that murderer in the +Tombs is,” said she presently. “They are actually going +to give him a Christmas-tree.”</p> +<p>“He is only a boy,” said Harry absently.</p> +<p>“I know that—but the idea!”</p> +<p>Just then Maria passed the window, dragging little Evelyn in her +white sledge. Ida rose with a motion of unusual quickness for her, +but Harry stopped her as she was about to leave the room.</p> +<p>“Don't go out, Ida,” he said, with a peremptoriness +which sat strangely upon him.</p> +<p>Ida stared at him. “Why, why not?” she asked. +“I wanted to take Evelyn out. You know Josephine is not +here.”</p> +<p>“She is getting out all right with Maria's help; sit down, +Ida,” said Harry, still with that tone of command which was +so foreign to him.</p> +<p>Ida hesitated a second, then she sat down. She realized the +grace and policy of yielding in a minor point, when she had a large +one in view. Then, too, she was in reality rather vulnerable to a +sudden attack, for a moment, although she was always as a rule sure +of ultimate victory. She was at a loss, moreover, to comprehend +Harry's manner, which was easily enough understood. He wished to be +the first to ascertain Maria's sentiments with regard to going away +to school. Without admitting it even to himself, he distrusted his +wife's methods and entire frankness.</p> +<p>Presently Maria entered, leading little Evelyn, who was +unusually sturdy on her legs for her age. She walked quite +steadily, with an occasional little hop and skip of exuberant +childhood.</p> +<p>She could talk a little, in disconnected sentences, with +fascinating mistakes in the sounds of letters, but she preferred a +gurgle of laughter when she was pleased, and a wail of woe when +things went wrong. She was still in the limbos of primitivism. She +was young with the babyhood of the world. To-day she danced up to +her father with her little thrill of laughter, at once as +meaningless and as full of meaning as the trill of a canary. She +pursed up her little lips for a kiss, she flung frantic arms of +adoration around his neck. She clung to him, when he lifted her, +with all her little embracing limbs; she pressed her lovely, cool, +rosy cheek against his, and laughed again.</p> +<p>“Now go and kiss mamma,” said Harry.</p> +<p>But the baby resisted with a little, petulant murmur when he +tried to set her down. She still clung to him. Harry whispered in +her ear.</p> +<p>“Go and kiss mamma, darling.”</p> +<p>But Evelyn shook her head emphatically against his face. Maria, +almost as radiant in her youth as the child, stood behind her. She +glanced uneasily at Ida. She held the white fur robes and wraps +which she had brought in from the sledge.</p> +<p>“Take those things out and let Emma put them away, +dear,” Ida said to her. She smiled, but her voice still +retained its involuntary harshness.</p> +<p>Maria obeyed with an uneasy glance at little Evelyn. She knew +that her step-mother was angry because the baby would not kiss her. +When she was out in the dining-room, giving the fluffy white things +to the maid, she heard a shriek, half of grief, half of angry +dissent, from the baby. She immediately ran back into the parlor. +Ida was removing the child's outer garments, smiling as ever, and +with seeming gentleness, but Maria had a conviction that her touch +on the tender flesh of the child was as the touch of steel. Little +Evelyn struggled to get to her sister when she saw her, but Ida +held her firmly.</p> +<p>“Stand still, darling,” she said. It was +inconceivable how she could say darling without the loving +inflection which alone gave the word its full meaning.</p> +<p>“Stand still and let mamma take off baby's things,” +said Harry, and there was no lack of affectionate cadences in his +voice. He privately thought that he himself could have taken off +the child's wraps better than his wife, but he recognized her +rights in the matter. Harry remembering his first wife, with her +child, was in a state of constant bewilderment at the sight of his +second with hers. He had always had the masculine opinion that +women, in certain primeval respects, were cut on one pattern, and +his opinion was being rudely shaken.</p> +<p>“Call Emma, please,” said Ida to Maria, and Maria +obeyed.</p> +<p>When the maid came in, Ida directed her to take the child +up-stairs and put on another frock.</p> +<p>Maria was about to follow, but Harry stopped her. +“Maria,” said he.</p> +<p>Maria stopped, and eyed her father with surprise.</p> +<p>“Maria,” said Harry, bluntly, “your mother and +I have been talking about your going away to school.”</p> +<p>Maria turned slightly pale and continued to stare at him, but +she said nothing.</p> +<p>“She thinks, and I don't know but she is right,” +said Harry, with painful loyalty, “that your associates here +are not just the proper ones for you, and that it would be much +better for you to go to boarding-school.”</p> +<p>“How much would it cost?” asked Maria, in a dazed +voice. The question sounded like her own mother.</p> +<p>“Father can manage that; you need not trouble yourself +about that,” replied Harry, hurriedly.</p> +<p>“Where?” said Maria, then.</p> +<p>“To a nice school where your mother was +educated.”</p> +<p>“My mother?”</p> +<p>“Ida—to Wellbridge Hall.”</p> +<p>“How often should I come home and see you and Evelyn? +Every week?”</p> +<p>“I am afraid not, dear,” said Harry, uneasily.</p> +<p>“How long are the terms?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“Only about twelve weeks,” said Ida.</p> +<p>Maria stood staring from one to the other. Her face had turned +deadly pale, and had, moreover, taken on an expression of despair +and isolation. Somehow, although the little girl was only a few +feet from the others, she had a look as if she were leagues off, as +if she were outside something vital, which removed her, in fact, to +immeasurable distances. And, in fact, Maria had a feeling which +never afterwards wholly left her, of being outside the love of life +in which she had hitherto dwelt with confidence.</p> +<p>“Maybe you would like it, dear,” Harry said, +feebly.</p> +<p>“I will go,” Maria said, in a choking voice. Then +she turned without another word and went out of the room, up-stairs +to her own little chamber. When there she sat down beside the +window. She did not think. She did not seem to feel her hands and +feet. It was as if she had fallen from a height. The realization +that her father and his new wife wanted to send her away, that she +was not wanted in her home, stunned her.</p> +<p>But in a moment the door was flung open and her father entered. +He knelt down beside Maria and pulled her head to his shoulder and +kissed her, and she felt with a sort of dull wonder his face damp +against her own.</p> +<p>“Father's little girl!” said Harry. “Father's +own little girl! Father's blessing! Did she think he wanted to send +her away? I rather guess he didn't. How would father get along +without his own precious baby, when he came home at night. She +shan't go one step. She needn't fret a bit about it.”</p> +<p>Maria turned and regarded him with a frozen look still on her +face. “It was She that wanted me to go?” she said, +interrogatively.</p> +<p>“She thought maybe it would be best for you, +darling,” said Harry. “She means to do right by you, +Maria; you must try to think so.”</p> +<p>Maria said nothing.</p> +<p>“But father isn't going to let you go,” said Harry. +“He can't do without his little girl.”</p> +<p>Then Maria's strange calm broke up. She clung, weeping, to her +father, as if he were her only stay. Harry continued to soothe +her.</p> +<p>“Father's blessing!” he whispered in her ear. +“She was the best little girl that ever was. She is just like +her own dear mother.”</p> +<p>“I wish mother was back,” Maria whispered, her +whisper stifled against his ear.</p> +<p>“Oh, my God, so do I!” Harry said, with a half sob. +For the minute the true significance of his position overwhelmed +him. He felt a regret, a remembrance, that was a passion. He +realized, with no disguise, what it all meant: that he a man with +the weakness of a child in the hands of a masterly woman, had +formerly been in the leading-strings of love for himself, for his +own best good, whereas he was now in the grasp of the self-love of +another who cared for him only as he promoted her own interests. In +a moment, however, he recovered himself. After all, he had a sense +of loyalty and duty which amounted to positive strength. He put +Maria gently from him with another kiss.</p> +<p>“Well, this won't bring your mother back, dear,” he +said, “and God took her away, you know, and what He does is +for the best; and She means to do her duty by you, you know, +dear. She thought it would be better for you, but father can't +spare you, that's all there is about it.”</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIII</h4> +<p>It was an utter impossibility for Ida Edgham to be entirely +balked of any purpose which she might form. There was something at +once impressive and terrible about the strength of this beautiful, +smiling creature's will, about its silence, its impassibility +before obstacles, its persistency. It was as inevitable and +unswervable as an avalanche or a cyclone. People might shriek out +against it and struggle, but on it came, a mighty force, +overwhelming petty things as well as great ones. It really seemed a +pity, taking into consideration Ida's tremendous strength of +character, that she had not some great national purpose upon which +to exert herself, instead of such trivial domestic ones.</p> +<p>Ida realized that she could not send Maria to the school which +she had proposed. Her strength had that subtlety which acknowledges +its limitations and its closed doors, and can look about for other +means and ways. Therefore, when Harry came down-stairs that Sunday +afternoon, his face working with emotion but his eyes filled with a +steady light, and said, with no preface, “It's no use +talking, Ida, that child does not want to go, and she shall never +be driven from under my roof, while I live,” Ida only smiled, +and replied, “Very well, dear, I only meant it for her +good.”</p> +<p>“She is not going,” Harry said doggedly.</p> +<p>Harry resumed his seat with a gesture of defiance which was +absurd, from its utter lack of any response from his wife. It was +like tilting with a windmill.</p> +<p>Ida continued to sway gently back and forth, and smile.</p> +<p>“I think if the Adamses do come in to-night we will have a +little salad, there will be enough left from the chicken, and some +cake and tea,” she observed presently. “We won't have +the table set, because both the maids have asked to go out, but +Maria can put on my India muslin apron and pass the things. I will +have the salad made before they go, and I will make the tea. We can +have it on the table in here.” Ida indicated, by a graceful +motion of her shoulder, a pretty little tea-table loaded with +Dresden china.</p> +<p>“All right,” replied Harry, with a baffled tone. He +felt baffled without knowing exactly why.</p> +<p>Ida took up another sheet of the <cite>Herald</cite>, a fashion +page was uppermost. She read something and smiled. “It says +that gowns made like Maria's new one are the most fetching ones of +the season,” she said. “I am so glad I have the skirt +plaited.”</p> +<p>Harry made a gesture of assent. He felt, without in the least +knowing why, like a man who had been completely worsted in a +hand-to-hand combat. He felt humiliated and unhappy. His first +wife, even with her high temper and her ready tongue, had never +caused him such a sense of abjectness. He had often felt angry with +her, but never with himself. She had never really attacked his +self-respect as this woman did. He did not dare look up from his +newspaper for a while, for he realized that he should experience +agony at seeing the beautiful, radiant face of his second wife +opposite him instead of the worn, stern, but altogether loving and +single-hearted face of his first. He was glad when Maria came +down-stairs, and looked up and greeted her with a smile of +reassuring confidence. Maria's pretty little face was still +tear-stained, although she had bathed it with cold water. She also +took up a sheet of the Sunday paper.</p> +<p>“Did you see Alice Lundy's new hat in church to-day, +dear?” Ida presently asked her, and her manner was exactly as +if nothing had occurred to disturb anybody.</p> +<p>Maria looked at her with a sort of wonder, which made her honest +face almost idiotic.</p> +<p>“No, ma'am,” said she.</p> +<p>Maria had been taught to say “yes, ma'am” and +“no, ma'am” by her own mother, whose ideas of etiquette +were old-fashioned, and dated from the precepts of her own +childhood.</p> +<p>“It is a little better not to say ma'am,” said Ida, +sweetly. “I think that expression is not used so much as +formerly.”</p> +<p>Maria looked at her with a quick defiance, which gave her an +almost startling resemblance to her own mother.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” said she.</p> +<p>Harry's mouth twitched behind his paper. Ida said no more. She +continued to smile, but she was not reading the paper which she +held. She was making new plans to gain her own ends. She was +seeking new doors of liberty for her own ways, in lieu of those +which she saw were closed to her, and by the time dinner was served +she was quite sure that she had succeeded.</p> +<p><br> +The next autumn, Maria began attending the Elliot Academy, in +Wardway. The Elliot Academy was an endowed school of a very high +standing, and Wardway was a large town, almost a city, about +fifteen miles from Edgham. When this plan was broached by Ida, +Maria did not make any opposition; she was secretly delighted. +Wollaston Lee was going to the Elliot Academy that autumn, and +there was another Edgham girl and her brother, besides Maria, who +were going.</p> +<p>“Now, darling, you need not go to the Elliot Academy any +more than to the other school she proposed, if you don't want +to,” Harry told Maria, privately, one Saturday afternoon in +September, shortly before the term began.</p> +<p>Ida had gone to her club, and Harry had come home early from the +city, and he and Maria were alone in the parlor. Evelyn was having +her nap up-stairs. A high wind was roaring about the house. A +cherry-tree beside the house was fast losing its leaves in a yellow +rain. In front of the window, a hydrangea bush, tipped with +magnificent green-and-rosy plumes, swayed in all its limbs like a +living thing. Somewhere up-stairs a blind banged.</p> +<p>“I think I would like to go,” Maria replied, +hurriedly. Then she jumped up. “That blind will wake +Evelyn,” she said, and ran out of the room.</p> +<p>She had colored unaccountably when her father spoke. When she +returned, she had a demure, secretive expression on her face which +made Harry stare at her in bewilderment. All his life Harry Edgham +had been helpless and bewildered before womenkind, and now his +little daughter was beginning to perplex him. She sat down and took +up a piece of fancy-work, and her father continued to glance at her +furtively over his paper. Presently he spoke of the academy +again.</p> +<p>“You need not go if you do not want to,” he +repeated.</p> +<p>Then again Maria's delicate little face and neck became suffused +with pink. Her reply was not as loud nor more intelligible than the +murmur of the trees outside in the wind.</p> +<p>“What did you say, darling?” asked Harry. +“Father did not understand.”</p> +<p>“I would like to go there,” Maria replied, in her +sweet, decisive little pipe. A fresh wave of color swept over her +face and neck, and she selected with great care a thread from a +skein of linen floss.</p> +<p>“Well, she thought you might like that,” Harry said, +with an air of relief.</p> +<p>“Maud Page is going, too,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Is she? That will be nice. You won't have to go back and +forth alone,” said Harry.</p> +<p>Maria said nothing; she continued her work.</p> +<p>Her father turned his paper and looked at the stock-list. Once +he had owned a hundred shares of one of the Industrials. He had +long since sold out, not at a loss, but the stock had risen since. +He always noted it with an odd feeling of proprietorship, in spite +of not owning any. He saw with pride that it had advanced half a +point.</p> +<p>Maria worked silently; and as she worked she dreamed, and the +dream was visible on her face, had any one been astute enough to +understand it. She was working a lace collar to wear with a certain +blue blouse, and upon that flimsy keystone was erecting an +air-castle. She was going to the Elliot Academy, wearing the blue +blouse and the lace collar, and looking so lovely that Wollaston +Lee worshipped her. She invented little love-scenes, love-words, +and caresses. She blushed, and dimples appeared at the corners of +her mouth, the blue light of her eyes under her downcast lids was +like the light of living gems. She viewed with complacency her +little, soft white hands plying the needle. Maria had hands like a +little princess. She cast a glance at the toe of her tiny shoe. She +remembered how somebody had told her to keep her shoulders +straight, and she threw them back with a charming motion, as if +they had been wings. She was entirely oblivious of her father's +covert glances. She was solitary, isolated in the crystal of her +own thoughts. Presently, Evelyn woke and cried, and Maria roused +herself with a start and ran up-stairs. Soon the two came into the +room, Evelyn dancing with the uncertain motion of a winged seed on +a spring wind. She was charming. One round cheek was more deeply +flushed than the other, and creased with the pillow. Her yellow +hair, fine and soft and full of electric life, tossed like a little +crest. She ran with both fat little hands spread palms outward, and +pounced violently upon her father. Harry rolled her about on his +knee, and played with her as if she had been a kitten. Maria stood +by laughing. The child was fairly screaming with mirth.</p> +<p>A graceful figure passed the window, its garments tightly +wrapped by the wind, flying out like a flag behind. Harry set the +little girl down at once.</p> +<p>“Here is mamma coming,” said he. “Go to sister +and she will show you the pictures in the book papa brought home +the other day.”</p> +<p>Evelyn obeyed. She was a docile little thing, and she had a fear +of her mother without knowing why. She was sitting beside Maria, +looking demurely at the pictures which her sister pointed out to +her, when Ida entered.</p> +<p>“See the horsey running away,” said Maria. Then she +added in a whisper, “Go and kiss mamma, baby.”</p> +<p>The child hesitated, then she rose, and ran to her mother, who +stooped her radiant face over her and kissed her coolly.</p> +<p>“Have you been a good little girl?” asked she. Ida +was looking particularly self-satisfied to day, and more disposed +consequently to question others as to their behavior.</p> +<p>“Yeth,” replied Evelyn, without the slightest +hesitation. A happy belief in her own merits was an inheritance +from her mother. As yet it was more charming than otherwise, for +the baby had unquestionable merits in which to believe. Harry and +Maria laughed.</p> +<p>“Mamma is very glad,” said Ida. She did not laugh; +she saw no humor in it. She turned to Harry. “I think I will +go in on the early train with you to-morrow, dear,” she said. +“I want to see about Maria's new dress.” Then she +turned to Maria. “I have been in to see Miss Keeler,” +said she, “and she says she can make it for you next week, so +you can have it when you begin school. I thought of brown with a +touch of blue and burnt-orange. How would you like that?”</p> +<p>“I think that would be perfectly lovely,” said Maria +with enthusiasm. She cast a grateful look at her step-mother, +almost a look of affection. She was always very grateful to Ida for +her new clothes, and just now clothes had a more vital interest for +her than ever. She took another stitch in her collar, with Evelyn +leaning against her and kicking out first one chubby leg, then the +other, and she immediately erected new air-castles, in which she +figured in her brown suit with the touches of burnt-orange and +blue.</p> +<p>A week later, when she started on the train for Wardway in her +new attire, she felt entirely satisfied with herself and life in +general. She was conscious of looking charming in her new suit of +brown, with the touches of blue and burnt-orange, and her new hat, +also brown with blue and burnt-orange glimpses in the trimmings. +Wollaston Lee got on the same car and sat behind her. Maud Page, +the other Edgham girl who was going to the academy, had a cousin in +Wardway, and had gone there the night before. There were only +Maria, Wollaston, and Edwin Shaw, who sat by himself in a corner, +facing the other passengers with a slightly shamed, sulky +expression. He was very tall, and had blacked his shoes well, and +the black light from them seemed to him obtrusive, the more so +because his feet were very large. He looked out of the window as +the train left the station, and saw a very pretty little child with +a fluff of yellow hair, carrying a big doll, climbing laboriously +on a train on the other track, with the tender assistance of a +brakeman. She was in the wake of a very stout woman, who stumbled +on her skirts going up the steps. Edwin Shaw thought that the child +looked like Maria's little sister, but that she could not be, +because the stout woman was a stranger to him. Then he thought no +more about it. He gazed covertly at Maria, with the black sparkles +of his shoes continuing to disturb him. He admired Maria. Presently +he saw Wollaston Lee lean over the back of her seat and say +something to her, and saw her half turn and dimple, and noticed how +the lovely rose flushed the curve of her cheek, and he scowled at +his shiny shoes.</p> +<p>As for Maria, when she felt the boy's warm breath on her neck, +her heart beat fast. She realized herself on the portals of an +air-castle.</p> +<p>“Well, glad you are going to leave this old town?” +said Wollaston.</p> +<p>“I am not going to leave it, really,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>“Oh, of course not, but you are going to leave the old +school, anyhow. I had got mighty tired of it, hadn't +you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I had, rather.”</p> +<p>“It's behind the times,” said the boy; and, as he +spoke he himself looked quite up to the times. He had handsome, +clearly cut features and black eyes, which seemed at the same time +to demand and question. He had something of a supercilious air, +although the expression of youthful innocence and honesty was still +evident on his face. He wore a new suit as well as Maria, only his +was gray instead of brown, and he wore a red carnation in his +button-hole. Maria inhaled the clovy fragrance of it. At the next +station more passengers got into the train, and Wollaston seized +upon that excuse to ask to share Maria's seat. They talked +incessantly—an utterly foolish gabble like that of young +birds. An old gentleman across the aisle cast an impatient glance +at them from time to time. Finally he arose stiffly and went into +the smoker. Their youth and braggadocio of innocence and ignorance, +and the remembrance of his own, irritated him. He did not in the +least regret his youth, but the recollection of the first stages of +his life, now that he was so near the end, was like looking +backward over a long road, which had led to absurdly different +goals from what he had imagined. It all seemed inconceivable, silly +and futile to him, what he had done, and what they were doing. He +cast a furious glance at them as he passed out, but neither noticed +it. Wollaston said something, and Maria laughed an inane little +giggle which was still musical, and trilled through the car. +Maria's cheeks were burning, and she seldom looked at the boy at +her side, but oftener at the young autumn landscape through which +they were passing. The trees had scarcely begun to turn, but here +and there one flamed out like a gold or red torch among the green, +and all the way-sides were blue and gold with asters and +golden-rod. It was a very warm morning for the season. When they +stopped at one of the stations, a yellow butterfly flew in through +an open window and flitted airily about the car. Maria removed her +coat, with the solicitous aid of her companion. She cast a +conscious glance at the orange and blue on her sleeves.</p> +<p>“Say, that dress is a stunner!” whispered +Wollaston.</p> +<p>Maria laughed happily. “Glad you like it,” said +she.</p> +<p>Before they reached Wardway, Wollaston's red carnation was +fastened at one side of her embroidered vest, making a discord of +color which, for Maria, was a harmony of young love and +romance.</p> +<p>“That is the academy,” said Wollaston, as the train +rolled into Wardway. He pointed to a great brick structure at the +right—a main building flanked by enormous wings. “Are +you frightened?” he asked.</p> +<p>“I guess not,” replied Maria, but she was.</p> +<p>“You needn't be a bit,” said the boy. “I know +some of the boys that go there, and I went to see the principal +with father. He's real pleasant. I know the Latin teacher, Miss +Durgin, too. My Uncle Frank married her cousin, and she has been to +my house. You'll be in her class.” Wollaston spoke with a +protective warmth for which Maria was very grateful.</p> +<p>She had a very successful although somewhat confused day. She +was asked this and that and led hither and yon, and so surrounded +by strange faces and sights that she felt fairly dizzy. She felt +more herself at luncheon, when she sat beside Maud Page in the +dining-hall, with Wollaston opposite. There was a restaurant +attached to the academy, for the benefit of the out-of-town +pupils.</p> +<p>When Maria went down to the station to take her train for home, +Maud Page was there, and Wollaston. There was a long time to wait. +They went out in a field opposite and picked great bunches of +golden-rod, and the girls pinned them on their coats. Edwin Shaw +was lingering about the station when they returned, but he was too +shy to speak to them. When the train at last came in, Maria, with a +duplicity which shamed her in thinking of it afterwards, managed to +get away from Maud, and enter the car at the same time with +Wollaston, who seated himself beside her as a matter of course. It +was still quite light, but it had grown cold. Everything had a cold +look—the clear cowslip sky, with its reefs of violet clouds; +even the trees tossed crisply, as if stiffened with cold.</p> +<p>“Hope we won't have a frost,” said Wollaston, as +they got off at Edgham.</p> +<p>“I hope not,” said Maria; and then Gladys Mann ran +up to her, crying out:</p> +<p>“Say, Maria, Maria, did you know your little sister was +lost?”</p> +<p>Maria turned deadly white. Wollaston caught hold of her little +arm in its brown sleeve.</p> +<p>“When was she lost?” he asked, fiercely, of Gladys. +“Don't you know any better than to rush right at anybody with +such a thing as that? Don't you be frightened, Maria. I'll find +her.”</p> +<p>A little knot of passengers from the train gathered around them. +Gladys was pale herself, and had a strong sense of the sadness of +the occasion, still she had a feeling of importance. Edwin Shaw +came lumbering up timidly, and Maud Page pressed quickly to Maria's +side with a swirl of her wide skirts.</p> +<p>“Gladys Mann, what on earth are you talking about?” +said she, sharply. “Who's lost?”</p> +<p>“Maria's little sister.”</p> +<p>“Hm! I don't believe a word of it.”</p> +<p>“She is, so there! Nobody has seen a sign of her since +morning, and Maria's pa's most crazy. He's been sending telegrams +all round. Maria's step-mother, she telegraphed for him to come +home, and he come at noon, and he sent telegrams all round, and +then he went himself an hour ago.”</p> +<p>“Went where?”</p> +<p>“Back to New York. Guess he's gone huntin' himself. Guess +he thought he could hunt better than policemen. Maria's step-mother +don't act scared, but I guess she is, awful. My mummer says that +folks that bear up the best are the ones that feel things most. My +mummer went over to see if she could do anything and see how she +took it.”</p> +<p>“When was she lost?” gasped Maria. She was shaking +from head to foot.</p> +<p>“Your step-mother went down to the store, and when she got +back the baby was gone. Josephine said she hadn't seen her after +you had started for Wardway. She took her doll with her.”</p> +<p>“Where?” gasped Maria.</p> +<p>“Nobody knows where,” said Gladys, severely, +although the tears were streaming down her own grimy cheeks. +“She wouldn't be lost, would she, if folks knew where she +was? Nothin' ain't never lost when you know where it is unless you +drop it down a well, and you 'ain't got no well, have you, Maria +Edgham?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria. She was conscious of an absurd +thankfulness and relief that she had no well.</p> +<p>“And there ain't no pond round here big enough to drown a +baby kitten, except that little mud-puddle up at Fisher's, and +they've dragged every inch of that. I see 'em.”</p> +<p>All this time Edwin Shaw had been teetering on uncertain toes on +the borders of the crowd. He remembered the child with the doll +whom he had seen climbing into the New York train in the morning, +and he was eager to tell of it, to make himself of importance, but +he was afraid. After all, the child might not have been Evelyn. +There were so many little, yellow-haired things with dolls to be +seen about, and then there was the stout woman to be accounted for. +Edwin never doubted that the child had been with the stout woman +whom he had seen stumbling over her voluminous skirts up the car +steps. At last he stepped forward and spoke, with a moist blush +overspreading his face, toeing in and teetering with +embarrassment.</p> +<p>“Say,” he began.</p> +<p>The attention of the whole company was at once riveted upon him. +He wriggled; the blood looked as if it would burst through his +face. Great drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead. He +stammered when he spoke. He caught a glimpse of Maria's +blue-and-orange trimmings, and looked down, and again the black +light of his shoes, which all the dust of the day had not seemed to +dim, flashed in his eyes. He came of a rather illiterate family +with aspirations, and when he was nervous he had a habit of +relapsing into the dialect in common use in his own home, +regardless of his educational attainments. He did so now.</p> +<p>“I think she has went to New York,” he said.</p> +<p>“Who?” demanded Wollaston, eagerly. His head was up +like a hunting hound; he kept close hold of Maria's little arm.</p> +<p>“Her.”</p> +<p>“Who?”</p> +<p>“Her little sister-in-law.” Edwin pointed to +Maria.</p> +<p>Gladys Mann went peremptorily up to Edwin Shaw, seized his +coat-collar, and shook him. “For goodness sake! when did she +went?” she demanded. “When did you see her? If you know +anythin', tell it, an' not stand thar like a fool!”</p> +<p>“I saw a little girl jest about her size, a-carryin' of a +doll, that clim on the New York train jest as we went out this +mornin',” replied Edwin with a gasp, as if the information +were wrung from him by torture. “And she was with a awful fat +woman. Leastways—”</p> +<p>“A fat woman!” cried Wollaston Lee. “Who was +the fat woman?”</p> +<p>“I hadn't never saw her afore. She was awful fat, and was +a steppin' on her dress.”</p> +<p>Wollaston was keen-witted, and he immediately grasped at the +truth of the matter.</p> +<p>“You idiot!” he said. “What makes you think +she was with the stout woman—just because she was climbing +into the train after her?”</p> +<p>“Little girls don't never go to New York alone with +dolls,” vouchsafed Edwin, more idiotically than ever. +“Leastways—”</p> +<p>“If you don't stop saying leastways, I'll punch your +head,” said Wollaston. “Are you sure the child was +Maria's little sister?”</p> +<p>“Looked like her,” said Edwin, shrinking back a +little. “Leastways—”</p> +<p>“What was she dressed in?” asked Maria, eagerly.</p> +<p>“I didn't see as she had nothin' on.”</p> +<p>“You great gump!” said Gladys, shaking him +energetically. “Of course she had something on.”</p> +<p>“She had a big doll.”</p> +<p>“What did she have on? You answer me this minute!” +said Gladys.</p> +<p>“She might have had on a blue dress,” admitted +Edwin, with a frantic grasp at his memory, “but she didn't +have nothin' on her, nohow. Leastways—”</p> +<p>“Oh!” sobbed Maria, “she did wear her little +blue dress this morning. She did! Was her hair light?”</p> +<p>“Yes, it were,” said Edwin, quite positively. +“Leastways—”</p> +<p>“It was Evelyn,” sobbed Maria. “Oh, poor +little Evelyn, all alone in New York! She never went but once +with Her and me, and she wouldn't know where to go. Oh, +oh!”</p> +<p>“Where did she go when she went with your step-ma and +you?” demanded Gladys, who seemed to have suddenly developed +unusual acumen. Her face was streaming with tears but her voice was +keen.</p> +<p>“She went to Her cousin's, who lives in an apartment +in West Forty-ninth Street,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“She'd try to go there again,” said Gladys. +“Did she know the woman's name?”</p> +<p>“Yes, she did.”</p> +<p>“You bet she did. She was an awful bright kid,” said +Gladys. “Now, I tell you what, Maria, I shouldn't a mite +wonder if your step-ma had had a telegram from her cousin by this +time, that she was to her house. You'd better jest run home an' +see.”</p> +<p>“She was only her third cousin,” said Maria, +“and She hardly ever heard from her. It was only the +other day I heard Her say that she didn't know but she had +left New York. I don't think Her cousin liked her very +well.”</p> +<p>“What was the cousin's name?”</p> +<p>“She called her Alice, but her name was Mrs. George B. +Edison.”</p> +<p>“That's jest where the kid has went,” said Gladys. +“You go right home, M'ria. We'll go with you, and I'll bet a +cooky you'll find that your step-ma has had a telegram.”</p> +<p>Maria hesitated a moment; then she started, Wollaston Lee still +keeping close hold of her arm. Gladys was on the other side.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIV</h4> +<p>When Maria reached home, she pushed open the front door, which +was unlocked, and rushed violently in. Wollaston and Gladys +followed her, after a slight hesitation, but remained standing in +the vestibule. When Maria had come in sight of the house, she had +perceived the regular motion of a rocking female head past the +parlor light, and she knew that it was Ida. Ida nearly always +occupied a rocking-chair, and was fond of the gentle, swaying +motion.</p> +<p>“There she is, rocking just as if the baby wasn't +lost,” Maria thought, with the bitterest revulsion and +sarcasm. When she opened the door she immediately smelled tea, the +odor of broiling beefsteak and fried potatoes. “Eating just +as if the baby wasn't lost,” she thought. She rushed into the +parlor, and there was Ida swaying back and forth in her +rocking-chair, and there were three ladies with her. One was Mrs. +Jonas White; one was a very smartly dressed woman, Mrs. Adams, +perhaps the most intimate friend whom Ida had in Edgham; one was +the wife of the minister whose church the Edghams attended, Mrs. +Applegate, or, as she was called, Mrs. Dr. Applegate—her +husband had a degree. Her sister had just died and she was dressed +in the deepest mourning; sitting in the shade in a corner, she +produced a curious effect of a vacuum of grief. Mrs. Adams, who was +quite young and very pretty, stout and blond, was talking eagerly; +Mrs. Jonas White was sniffing quietly; Mrs. Applegate, who was +ponderously religious, asked once in a while, in a subdued manner, +if Mrs. Edgham did not think it would be advisable to unite in +prayer.</p> +<p>Ida made no reply. She continued to rock, and she had a curious +set expression. Her lips were resolutely compressed, as if to +restrain that radiant smile of hers, which had become habitual with +her. She looked straight ahead, keeping her eyes fastened upon a +Tiffany vase which stood on a little shelf, a glow of pink and gold +against a skilful background of crimson velvet. It was as if she +were having her photograph taken and had been requested by the +photographer to keep her eyes fixed upon that vase.</p> +<p>“The detective system of New York is so lax,” said +Mrs. Adams. “I do wish there was more system among them and +among the police. One would feel—” She heaved a deep +sigh.</p> +<p>Mrs. Jonas White sobbed audibly.</p> +<p>“Do you not think, dear friends, that it would be a good +plan to offer up our voices at the Throne of Grace for the dear +child's return?” asked Mrs. Applegate in a solemn voice, +albeit somewhat diffidently. She was a corpulent woman, and was +richly dressed, in spite of her deep mourning. A jet brooch rimmed +with pearls, gleamed out of the shadow where she sat.</p> +<p>Ida continued to rock.</p> +<p>“But,” said Mrs. Adams, “a great many children +are lost every year and found. Sometimes the system does really +work in a manner to astonish any one. I should not be surprised at +any minute to see Mr. Edgham or a policeman walking in with her. +But—well—there is so much to be done. The other night, +when Mr. Adams and I went in to hear Mrs. Fiske, we drove eight +blocks after the performance without seeing one +policeman.”</p> +<p>“I suppose, though, if you had been really attacked, a +dozen would have sprung out from somewhere,” said Mrs. White, +in a tearful voice. Mrs. White could not have heard Satan himself +assailed without a word in his defence, such was the maternal pity +of her heart.</p> +<p>“That was what Mr. Adams said,” retorted Mrs. Adams, +with some asperity, “and I told him that I would rather the +dozen policemen were in evidence before I was shot and robbed than +after. I had on all my rings, and my diamond sunburst.”</p> +<p>“Do you not think, dear friend, that it would be a good +plan to offer up our voices at the Throne of Grace for the safe +restoration of the dear child?” asked Mrs. Applegate again. +Her voice was sonorous, very much like her husband's. She felt +that, so far as in her lay, she was taking his place. He was out of +town.</p> +<p>It was then that Maria rushed into the room. She ran straight up +to her step-mother. The other women started. Ida continued to rock, +and look at the Tiffany vase. It seemed as if she dared not take +her eyes from it for fear of losing her expression. Then Maria +spoke, and her voice did not sound like her own at all. It was +accusatory, menacing.</p> +<p>“Where is my little sister?” she cried. “Where +is she?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Jonas White rose, approached Maria, and put her arms around +her caressingly. “You poor, dear child,” she sobbed, +“I guess you do feel it. You did set a heap by that blessed +little thing, didn't you?”</p> +<p>“She is in the hands of the Lord,” said Mrs. +Applegate.</p> +<p>“If the police of New York were worth anything, she would +be in the police station by this time,” said Mrs. Adams, with +a fierce toss of her pretty blond head.</p> +<p>“We know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in +air; we only know we cannot drift beyond His love and care,” +said Mrs. Applegate, with a solemn aside. Tears were in her own +eyes, but she resolutely checked her impulse to weep. She felt that +it would show a lack of faith. She was entirely in earnest.</p> +<p>“Mebbe she <em>is</em> in the police-station,” +sobbed Mrs. White, continuing to embrace Maria. But Maria gave her +a forcible push away, and again addressed herself to her +step-mother.</p> +<p>“Where is she?” she demanded.</p> +<p>“Oh, you poor, dear child! Your ma don't know where she +is, and she is so awful upset, she sets there jest like +marble,” said Mrs. White.</p> +<p>“She isn't upset at all. You don't know her as well as I +do,” said Maria, mercilessly. “She thinks she ought to +act upset, so she sits this way. She isn't upset.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria!” gasped Mrs. White.</p> +<p>“The child is out of her head,” said Mrs. Adams, and +yet she looked at Maria with covert approval. She was Ida's +intimate friend, but in her heart of hearts she doubted her grief. +She had once lost by death a little girl of her own. She kept +thinking of her little Alice, and how she should feel in a similar +case. It did not seem to her that she should rock, and look at a +Tiffany vase. She inveighed against the detectives and police with +a reserve meaning of indignation against Ida. It seemed to her that +any woman whose child was lost should be up and generally making a +tumult, if she were doing nothing else.</p> +<p>The Maria, standing before the beautiful woman swaying gently, +with her eyes fixed upon the pink and gold of the vase, spoke out +for the first time what was in her heart of hearts with regard to +her.</p> +<p>“You are a wicked woman,” said she; “that is +what you are. I don't know as you can help being wicked. I guess +you were made wicked; but you <em>are</em> a wicked woman. Your +mouth smiles, but your heart never does. You act now as if you were +sorry,” said she, “but you are not sorry, the way my +mother would have been sorry if she had lost me, the way she would +have been sorry if Evelyn had been her little girl instead of +yours. You are a wicked woman. I have always known it, but I have +never told you so before. Now I am going to tell you. Your own +child is lost, you let her be lost. You didn't look out for her. +Yes, your own child is lost, and you sit there and rock!”</p> +<p>Ida for a moment made no reply. The other women, and Gladys and +Wollaston in the vestibule, listened with horror.</p> +<p>“You have had beefsteak and fried potatoes cooked, +too,” continued Maria, sniffing, “and you have eaten +them. You have been eating beefsteak and fried potatoes when your +own child was lost and you did not know where she was!” It +might have been ridiculous, this last accusation in the thin, +sweet, childish voice, but it was not. It was even more terrible +than anything else.</p> +<p>Ida turned at last. “I hate you,” she said slowly. +“I have always hated you. You have hated me ever since I came +into this house,” she said, “though I have done more +than your own mother ever did for you.”</p> +<p>“You have not!” cried Maria. “You have got +nice clothes for me, but my own mother loved me. What are nice +clothes to love? You have not even loved Evelyn. You have only got +her nice clothes. You have never loved her. Poor papa and I were +the only ones that loved her. You never even loved poor papa. You +saw to it that he had things to eat, but you never loved him. You +are not made right. All the love in your heart is for your own +self. You are turned the wrong way. I don't know as you can help +it, but you are a dreadful woman. You are wicked. You never loved +the baby, and now you have let her be lost. She is my own little +sister, and papa's child, a great deal more than she is anything to +you. Where is she?” Maria's voice rang wild. Her face was +blazing. She had an abnormal expression in her blue eyes fixed upon +her step-mother.</p> +<p>Ida, after her one outburst, gazed upon her with a sort of fear +as well as repulsion. She again turned to the Tiffany vase.</p> +<p>Mrs. White, sobbing aloud like a child, again put her arms +around Maria.</p> +<p>“Come, come,” she said soothingly, “you poor +child, I know how you feel, but you mustn't talk so, you mustn't, +dear! You have no right to judge. You don't know how your mother +feels.”</p> +<p>“I know how She doesn't feel!” Maria burst out, +“and She isn't my mother. My mother loves me more way +off in heaven than that woman loves Her own child on earth. + She doesn't feel. She just rocks, and thinks +how She looks. I hate Her! Let me go!” With that +Maria was out of the room, and ran violently up-stairs.</p> +<p>When she had gone, the three visiting women looked at one +another, and the same covert expression of gratified malice, at +some one having spoken out what was in their inmost hearts, was +upon all three faces. Ida was impassive, with her smiling lips +contracted. Mrs. Applegate again murmured something about uniting +in prayer.</p> +<p>Maria came hurrying down-stairs. She had in her hand her purse, +which contained ten dollars, which her father had given her on her +birthday, also a book of New York tickets which had been a present +from Ida, and which Ida herself had borrowed several times since +giving them to Maria. Maria herself seldom went to New York, and +Ida had a fashion of giving presents which might react to her own +benefit. Maria, as she passed the parlor door, glanced in and saw +her step-mother rocking and staring at the vase. Then she was out +of the front-door, racing down the street with Wollaston Lee and +Gladys hardly able to keep up with her. Wollaston reached her +finally, and again caught her arm. The pressure of the hard, warm +boy hand was grateful to the little, hysterical thing, who was +trembling from head to foot, with a strange rigidity of tremors. +Gladys also clutched her other sleeve.</p> +<p>“Say, M'ria Edgham, where be you goin'?” she +demanded.</p> +<p>“I'm going to find my little sister,” gasped out +Maria. She gave a dry sob as she spoke.</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys.</p> +<p>“Now, Maria, hadn't you better go back home?” +ventured Wollaston.</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria, and she ran on towards the +station.</p> +<p>“Come home with me to my mother,” said Wollaston, +pleadingly, but a little timidly. A girl in such a nervous strait +as this was a new experience for him.</p> +<p>“She can go home with me,” said Gladys. “My +mother's a heap better than Ida Slome. Say, M'ria, all them things +you said was true, but land! how did you darse?”</p> +<p>Maria made no reply. She kept on.</p> +<p>“Say, M'ria, you don't mean you're goin' to New +York?” said Gladys.</p> +<p>“Yes, I am. I am going to find my little +sister.”</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys.</p> +<p>“Now, Maria, don't you think you had better go home with +me, and see mother?” Wollaston said again.</p> +<p>But Maria seemed deaf. In fact, she heard nothing but the sound +of the approaching New York train. She ran like a wild thing, her +little, slim legs skimming the ground like a bird's, almost as if +assisted by wings.</p> +<p>When the train reached the station, Maria climbed in, Wollaston +and Gladys after her. Neither Wollaston nor Gladys had the +slightest premeditation in the matter; they were fairly swept along +by the emotion of their companion.</p> +<p>When the train had fairly started, Gladys, who had seated +herself beside Maria, while Wollaston was in the seat behind them, +heaved a deep sigh of bewilderment and terror. “My!” +said she.</p> +<p>Wollaston also looked pale and bewildered. He was only a boy, +and had never been thrown much upon his own responsibility. All +that had been uppermost in his mind was the consideration that +Maria could not be stopped, and she must not go alone to New York. +But he did not know what to think of it all. He felt chaotic. The +first thing which seemed to precipitate his mentality into anything +like clearness was the entrance of the conductor. Then he thought +instinctively about money. Although still a boy, money as a prime +factor was already firmly established in his mind. He reflected +with dismay that he had only his Wardway tickets, and about three +dollars beside. It was now dark. The vaguest visions of what they +were to do in New York were in his head. The fare to New York was a +little over a dollar; he had only enough to take them all in, then +what next? He took out his pocket-book, but Gladys looked around +quickly.</p> +<p>“She's got a whole book of tickets,” she said.</p> +<p>However, Wollaston, who was proud, started to pay the conductor, +but he had reached Maria first, and she had said +“Three,” peremptorily. Then she handed the book to +Wollaston, with the grim little ghost of a smile. “You please +keep this,” said she. “I haven't got any +pocket.”</p> +<p>Wollaston was so bewildered that the possession of pockets +seemed instantly to restore his self-respect. He felt decidedly +more at his ease when he had Maria's ticket-book in his innermost +pocket. Then she gave him her purse also.</p> +<p>“I wish you would please take this,” said she. +“There are ten dollars in it, and I haven't any +pocket.” Wollaston took that.</p> +<p>“All right,” he said. He buttoned his gray vest +securely over Maria's pretty little red purse. Then he leaned over +the seat, and began to speak, but he absolutely did not know what +to say. He made an idiotic remark about the darkness. “Queer +how quick it grows dark, when it begins,” said he.</p> +<p>Maria ignored it, but Gladys said: “Yes, it is awful +queer.”</p> +<p>Gladys's eyes looked wild. The pupils were dilated. She had been +to New York but once before in her life, and now to be going in the +evening to find Maria's little sister was almost too much for her +intelligence, which had its limitations.</p> +<p>However, after a while, Wollaston Lee spoke again. He was in +reality a keen-witted boy, only this was an emergency into which he +had been surprised, and which he had not foreseen, and Maria's own +abnormal mood had in a measure infected him. Presently he spoke to +the point.</p> +<p>“What on earth are you going to do when you get to New +York, anyhow?” said he to Maria.</p> +<p>“Find her,” replied Maria, laconically.</p> +<p>“But New York is a mighty big city. How do you mean to go +to work? Now I—”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“But what would make the child want to go there, +anyhow?”</p> +<p>“It was the only place she had ever been in New +York,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“I don't know,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Maria turned upon him with indignation. “Go to a +police-station to find my little sister!” said she. +“What would I go there for?”</p> +<p>“Yes, what do you suppose that kid has did?” asked +Gladys.</p> +<p>“What would I go there for?” demanded Maria, +flashing the light of her excited, strained little face upon the +boy.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>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 Saturday. Ida +had no wish to have a grown-up step-daughter quite yet, whom people +might take for her own.</p> +<p>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 impassible.</p> +<p>“Ain't you most baked in here?” asked Gladys.</p> +<p>“No,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“We've jest got to stick close to her,” she +whispered, in an alarmed cadence. The boy nodded.</p> +<p>Then they both glanced again at Maria, who seemed quite +oblivious of their attention. When they reached the other side, +Wollaston, with an effort, asserted himself.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“I don't know,” said the man, who had been watching +them. “I thought there was something unusual.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Yes, a queer combination,” said the man.</p> +<p>“It wasn't altogether that, but they looked so desperately +in earnest.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys, but she followed Wollaston and +Maria inside.</p> +<p>Wollaston began searching the names above the rows of bells on +the wall of the vestibule.</p> +<p>“What did you say the name was?” he asked of +Maria.</p> +<p>“Edison. Mrs. George B. Edison.”</p> +<p>“There is no such name here.”</p> +<p>“There must be.”</p> +<p>“There isn't.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Now, Maria, do you think—” began +Wollaston.</p> +<p>But Maria began climbing the stairs. There was no elevator.</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys, but she followed Maria.</p> +<p>Wollaston pushed by them both. “See here, you don't know +what you are getting into,” said he, sternly. “You let +<em>me</em> go first.”</p> +<p>When they reached the third floor, Maria pointed to a door. +“That is the door,” she whispered, breathlessly.</p> +<p>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 cock of a black +pointed beard, and a tremendous wiriness of gesture, appeared.</p> +<p>“Oh, Tom!” gasped the young woman. +“Oh!”</p> +<p>“What on earth is the matter, Stella?” asked the +man. Then he looked fiercely at the three. “Who are these +people?” he asked.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“I don't know who these people are,” the young woman +said, faintly, to the man. “I think they must be +burglars.”</p> +<p>“Burglars, nothin'!” said Gladys, who had suddenly +assumed the leadership of the party. Opposition and suspicion +stimulated her. She loved a fight. “Be you her ma-in-law's +cousin, and have you got her little sister?”</p> +<p>Wollaston looked inquiringly at Maria, who was very pale.</p> +<p>“It isn't Her cousin,” she gasped. “I +don't know who she is. I never saw her.”</p> +<p>Then Wollaston spoke, hat in hand, and speaking up like a man. +“Pardon us, sir,” he said, “we did not intend to +intrude, but—”</p> +<p>“Get out of this,” said the man, with a sudden dart +towards the door.</p> +<p>His wife screamed again, and put her hand over a little diamond +brooch at her throat. “I just know they are +sneak-thieves,” she gasped. “Do send them away, +Tom!”</p> +<p>Wollaston tried to speak again. “We merely wished to +ascertain,” said he, “if a lady by the name of Mrs. +George A.—”</p> +<p>“B.” interrupted Gladys.</p> +<p>“B. Edison lived here. This young lady's little sister is +lost, and Mrs. Edison is a relative, and we thought—”</p> +<p>The man made another dart. “Don't care what you +thought,” he shouted. “Keep your thoughts to yourself! +Get out of here!”</p> +<p>“Do you know where Mrs. George B. Edison lives now?” +asked Wollaston, courteously, but his black eyes flashed at the +man.</p> +<p>“No, I don't.”</p> +<p>“No, we don't,” said the young woman in pink. +“Do make them go, Tom.”</p> +<p>“We are perfectly willing to go,” said Wollaston. +“We have no desire to remain any longer where people are not +willing to answer civil questions.”</p> +<p>Maria all this time had said nothing. She was perfectly overcome +with the conviction that Ida's cousin was not there, and +consequently not Evelyn. Moreover, she was frightened at the little +man's fierce manner. She clung to Wollaston's arm as they +retreated, but Gladys turned around and deliberately stuck her +tongue out at the man and the young woman in rose. The man slammed +the door.</p> +<p>The three met on the stoop of the house two people in gay +attire.</p> +<p>“Go up and see your friends that don't know how to treat +folks decent,” said Gladys. The woman looked wonderingly at +her from under the shade of a picture hat. Her escort opened the +door. “Ten chances to one they had the kid hid +somewhere,” said Gladys, so loudly that both turned and +looked at her.</p> +<p>“Hush up,” said Wollaston.</p> +<p>“Well, what be you goin' to do now?” asked +Gladys.</p> +<p>“I am going to a drug-store, and see if I can find out +where Maria's relatives have moved to,” replied Wollaston. He +walked quite alertly now. Maria's discomfiture had reassured +him.</p> +<p>They walked along a few blocks until they saw the lights of a +drug-store on the corner. Then Wollaston led them in and marched up +to the directory chained to the counter.</p> +<p>“What's that?” Gladys asked. “A +Bible?”</p> +<p>“No, it's a directory,” Maria replied, in a dull +voice.</p> +<p>“What do they keep it chained for? Books don't run +away.”</p> +<p>“I suppose they are afraid folks will steal it.”</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys, eying the big volume. “I +don't see what on earth they'd do with it when they got it +stole,” she remarked, in a low, reflective voice.</p> +<p>Maria leaned against the counter and waited.</p> +<p>Finally, Wollaston turned to her with an apologetic air. +“I can't find any George B. here,” he said. “You +are sure it was B?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, there's no use,” said Wollaston. “There +is no George B. Edison in this book, anyhow.”</p> +<p>He came forward, and stood looking at Maria. Maria gazed +absently at the crowds passing on the street. Gladys watched them +both.</p> +<p>“Well,” said Gladys, presently, “you ain't +goin' to stand here all night, be you? What be you goin' to do +next? Go to the police-station?”</p> +<p>“I don't see that there is any use,” replied +Wollaston. “Maria's father must have been there by this time. +This is a wild-goose chase anyhow.” Wollaston's tone was +quite vicious. He scowled superciliously at the salesman who +stepped forward and asked if he wanted anything. “No, we +don't, thank you,” he said.</p> +<p>“What be you goin' to do?” asked Gladys, again. She +looked at the soda-fountain.</p> +<p>“I don't see anything to do but to go home,” said +Wollaston. “There is no sense in our chasing around New York +any longer, that I can see.”</p> +<p>“You can't go home to-night, anyhow,” Gladys said, +quite calmly. “They've took off that last train, and there +ain't more'n ten minutes to git down to the station.”</p> +<p>Wollaston turned pale, and looked at her with horror. +“What makes you think they've taken off that last +train?” he demanded.</p> +<p>“Ain't my pa brakeman when he's sober, and he's been real +sober for quite a spell now.”</p> +<p>Wollaston seized Maria by the arm. “Come, quick!” he +said, and leaving the drug-store he broke into a run for the +Elevated, with Gladys following.</p> +<p>“There ain't no use in your runnin',” said she. +“You know yourself you can't git down to Cortlandt Street, +and walk to the ferry in ten minutes. I never went but oncet, but I +know it can't be did.”</p> +<p>Wollaston slackened his pace. “That is so,” he said. +Then he looked at Maria in a kind of angry despair. He felt, in +spite of his romantic predilection for her, that he wished she were +a boy, so he could say something forcible. He realized his utter +helplessness with these two girls in a city where he knew no one, +and he again thought of the three dollars in his pocket-book. He +did not suppose that Maria had more than fifty cents in hers. Then, +too, he was worldly wise enough to realize the difficulty of the +situation, the possible danger even. It was ten o'clock at night, +and here he was with two young girls to look out for.</p> +<p>Then Gladys, who had also worldly wisdom, although of a crude +and vulgar sort, spoke. “Folks are goin' to talk like the old +Harry if we stay in here all night,” said she, “and +besides, there's no knowin' what is a safe place to go +into.”</p> +<p>“That is so,” said Wollaston, gloomily, “and +I—have not much money with me.”</p> +<p>“I've got money enough,” Maria said, suddenly. +“There are ten dollars in my pocket-book I gave you to +keep.”</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys.</p> +<p>Wollaston brightened for a moment, then his face clouded again. +“Well, I don't know as that makes it much better,” said +he. “I don't quite see how to manage. They are so particular +in hotels now, that I don't know as I can get you into a decent +one. As for myself, I don't care. I can look out for myself, but I +don't know what to do with you, Maria.”</p> +<p>Gladys made a little run and stepped in front of them. +“There ain't but one thing you can do, so Maria won't git +talked about all the rest of her life, and I kin tell you what it +is,” said she.</p> +<p>“What is it?” asked Wollaston, in a burst of anger. +“I call it a pretty pickle we are in, for my part. Ten +chances to one, Mr. Edgham has got the baby back home safe and +sound by this time, anyway, and here we are, here is +Maria!”</p> +<p>“There ain't but one thing you can do,” said Gladys. +Her tone was forcible. She was full of the vulgar shrewdness of a +degenerate race, for the old acumen of that race had sharpened her +wits.</p> +<p>“What! in Heaven's name?” cried Wollaston.</p> +<p>The three had been slowly walking along, and had stopped near a +church, which was lighted. As they were talking the lights went +out. A thin stream of people ceased issuing from the open doors. A +man in a clerical dress approached them, walking quite rapidly. He +was evidently bound, from the trend of his steps, to a near-by +house, which was his residence.</p> +<p>“Git married,” said Gladys, abruptly. Then, before +the others realized what she was doing, she darted in front of the +approaching clergyman. “They want to git married,” said +she.</p> +<p>The clergyman stopped and stared at her, then at the couple +beyond, who were quite speechless with astonishment. He was +inconceivably young for his profession. He was small, and had a +round, rollicking face, which he was constantly endeavoring to draw +down into lines of asceticism.</p> +<p>“Who wants to get married?” asked the clergyman.</p> +<p>“Them two,” replied Gladys, succinctly. She pointed +magisterially at Wollaston and Maria.</p> +<p>Wollaston was tall and manly looking for his age, Maria's dress +touched the ground. The clergyman had not, at the moment, a doubt +as to their suitable age. He was not a brilliant young man, +naturally. He had been pushed through college and into his +profession by wealthy relatives, and, moreover, with his stupidity, +he had a certain spirit of recklessness and sense of humor which +gave life a spice for him.</p> +<p>“Want to get married, eh?” he said.</p> +<p>Then Wollaston spoke. “No, we do not want to get +married,” he said, positively. Then he said to Gladys, +“I wish you would mind your own business.”</p> +<p>But he had to cope with the revival of a wonderful feminine wit +of a fine old race in Gladys. “I should think you would be +plum ashamed of yourself,” she said, severely, “after +you have got that poor girl in here; and if she stays and you ain't +married, she'll git talked about.”</p> +<p>The clergyman approached Wollaston and Maria. Maria had begun to +cry. She was trembling from head to foot with fear and confusion. +Wollaston looked sulky and angry.</p> +<p>“Is that true—did you induce this girl to come to +New York to be married?” he inquired, and his own boyish +voice took on severe tones. He was very strong in moral reform.</p> +<p>“No, I did not,” replied Wollaston.</p> +<p>“He did,” said Gladys. “She'll get talked +about if she ain't, too, and the last train has went, and we've got +to stay in New York all night.”</p> +<p>“Where do you come from?” inquired the young +clergyman, and his tone was more severe still.</p> +<p>“From Edgham, New Jersey,” replied Gladys.</p> +<p>“Who are you?” inquired the clergyman.</p> +<p>“I ain't no account,” replied Gladys. “All our +folks git talked about, but she's different.”</p> +<p>“I suppose you are her maid,” said the clergyman, +noting with quick eye the difference in the costumes of the two +girls.</p> +<p>“Call it anything you wanter,” said Gladys, +indifferently. “I ain't goin' to have her talked about, +nohow.”</p> +<p>“Come, Maria,” said Wollaston, but Maria did not +respond even to his strong, nervous pull on her arm. She sobbed +convulsively.</p> +<p>“No, that girl does not go one step, young man,” +said the clergyman. He advanced closely, and laid a hand on Maria's +other arm. Although small in body and mind, he evidently had +muscle. “Come right in the house,” said he, and Maria +felt his hand on her arm like steel. She yielded, and began +following him, Wollaston in vain trying to hold her back.</p> +<p>Gladys went behind Wollaston and pushed vigorously. “You +git right in there, the way he says, Wollaston Lee,” said +she. “You had ought to be ashamed of yourself.”</p> +<p>Before the boy well knew what he was doing he found himself in a +small reception-room lined with soberly bound books. All that was +clear in his mind was that he could not hinder Maria from entering, +and that she must not go into the house alone with Gladys and this +strange man.</p> +<p>A man had been standing in the doorway of the house, waiting the +entrance of the clergyman. He was evidently a servant, and his +master beckoned him.</p> +<p>“Call Mrs. Jerrolds, Williams,” he said.</p> +<p>“What is your name?” he asked Maria, who was sobbing +more wildly than ever.</p> +<p>“Her name is Maria Edgham,” replied Gladys, +“and his is Wollaston Lee. They both live in +Edgham.”</p> +<p>“How old are you?” the clergyman asked of Wollaston; +but Gladys cut in again.</p> +<p>“He's nineteen, and she's goin' on,” she replied, +shamelessly.</p> +<p>“We are neither of us,” began Wollaston, whose mind +was in a whirl of anger of confusion.</p> +<p>But the clergyman interrupted him. “I am ashamed of you, +young man,” he said, “luring an innocent young girl to +New York and then trying to lie out of your +responsibility.”</p> +<p>“I am not,” began Wollaston again; but then the man +who had stood in the door entered with a portly woman in a black +silk tea-gown. She looked as if she had been dozing, or else was +naturally slow-witted. Her eyes, under heavy lids, were dull; her +mouth had a sleepy, although good-natured pout, like a child's, +between her fat cheeks.</p> +<p>“I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Jerrolds,” said the +clergyman, “but I need you and Williams for witnesses.” +Then he proceeded.</p> +<p>Neither Wollaston nor Maria were ever very clear in their minds +how it was done. Both had thought marriage was a more complicated +proceeding. Neither was entirely sure of having said anything. +Indeed, Wollaston was afterwards quite positive that Gladys Mann +answered nearly all the clergyman's questions; but at all events, +the first thing he heard distinctly was the clergyman's pronouncing +him and Maria man and wife. Then the clergyman, who was zealous to +the point of fanaticism, and who honestly considered himself to +have done an exceedingly commendable thing, invited them to have +some wedding-cake, which he kept ready for such emergencies, and +some coffee, but Wollaston replied with a growl of indignation and +despair. This time Maria followed his almost brutally spoken +command to follow him, and the three went out of the house.</p> +<p>“See that you treat your wife properly, young man,” +the clergyman called out after him, in a voice half jocular, half +condemnatory, “or there will be trouble.”</p> +<p>Wollaston growled an oath, the first which he had ever uttered, +under his breath, and strode on. He had released his hold on +Maria's arm. Ahead of them, a block distant, was an Elevated +station, and Maria, who seemed to suddenly recover her faculties, +broke into a run for it.</p> +<p>“Where be you goin'?” called out Gladys.</p> +<p>“I am going down to the Jersey City station, quick,” +replied Maria, in a desperate voice.</p> +<p>“I thought you'd go to a hotel. There ain't no harm, now +you're married, you know,” said Gladys, “and then we +could have some supper. I'm awful hungry. I ain't eat a thing sence +noon.”</p> +<p>“I am going right down to the station,” repeated +Maria.</p> +<p>“The last train has went. What's the use?”</p> +<p>“I don't care. I'm going down there.”</p> +<p>“What be you goin' to do when you git there?”</p> +<p>“I am going to sit there, and wait till +morning.”</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys.</p> +<p>However, she went on up the Elevated stairs with Maria and +Wollaston. Wollaston threw down the fares and got the tickets, and +strode on ahead. His mouth was set. He was very pale. He probably +realized to a greater extent than any of them what had taken place. +It was inconceivable to him that it had taken place, that he +himself had been such a fool. He felt like one who has met with +some utterly unexplainable and unaccountable accident. He felt as +he had done once when, younger, he had stuck his own knife, with +which he was whittling, into his eye, to the possible loss of it. +It seemed to him as if something had taken place without his +volition. He was like a puppet in a show. He looked at Maria, and +realized that he hated her. He wondered how he could ever have +thought her pretty. He looked at Gladys Mann, and felt murderous. +He had a high temper. As the train approached, he whispered in her +ear,</p> +<p>“Damn you, Gladys Mann, it's a pretty pickle you have got +us into.”</p> +<p>Gladys was used to being sworn at. She was not in the least +intimidated.</p> +<p>“Do you s'pose I was goin' to have M'ria talked +about?” she said. “You can cuss all you want +to.”</p> +<p>They got into the train. Wollaston sat by himself, Gladys and +Maria together. Maria was no longer weeping, but she looked +terrified beyond measure, and desperate. A horrible imagination of +evil was over her. She never glanced at Wollaston. She thought that +she wished there would be an accident on the train and he might be +killed. She hated him more than he hated her.</p> +<p>They were just in time for a boat at Cortlandt Street. When they +reached the Jersey City side Wollaston went straight to the +information bureau, and then returned to Gladys and Maria, seated +on a bench in the waiting-room.</p> +<p>“Well, there <em>is</em> a train,” he said, +curtly.</p> +<p>“'Ain't it been took off?” asked Gladys.</p> +<p>“No, but we've got to wait an hour and a half.” Then +he bent down and whispered in Gladys's ear, “I wish to God +you'd been dead before you got us into this, Gladys +Mann!”</p> +<p>“My father said it had been took off,” said Gladys. +“You sure there is one?”</p> +<p>“Of course I'm sure!”</p> +<p>“My!” said Gladys.</p> +<p>Wollaston went to a distant seat and sat by himself. The two +girls waited miserably. Gladys had suffered a relapse. Her +degeneracy of wit had again overwhelmed her. She looked at Maria +from time to time, then she glanced around at Wollaston, and her +expression was almost idiotic. The people who were on the seat with +them moved away. Maria turned suddenly to Gladys.</p> +<p>“Gladys Mann,” said she, “if you ever tell of +this—”</p> +<p>“Then you ain't goin' to—” said Gladys.</p> +<p>“Going to what?”</p> +<p>“Live with him?”</p> +<p>“Live with him! I hate him enough to wish he was dead. +I'll never live with him; and if you tell, Gladys Mann, I'll tell +you what I'll do.”</p> +<p>“What?” asked Gladys, in a horrified whisper.</p> +<p>“I'll go and drown myself in Fisher's Pond, that's what +I'll do.”</p> +<p>“I never will tell, honest, M'ria,” said Gladys.</p> +<p>“You'd better not.”</p> +<p>“Hope to die, if I do.”</p> +<p>“You <em>will</em> die if you do,” said Maria, +“for I'll leave a note saying you pushed me into the pond, +and it will be true, too. Oh, Gladys Mann! it's awful what you've +done!”</p> +<p>“I didn't mean no harm,” said Gladys.</p> +<p>“And there's a train, too.”</p> +<p>“Father said there wasn't.”</p> +<p>“Your father!”</p> +<p>“I know it. There ain't never tellin' when father +lies,” said Gladys. “I guess father don't know what +lies is, most of the time. I s'pose he's always had a little, if he +'ain't had a good deal. But I'll never tell, Maria, not as long as +I live.”</p> +<p>“If you do, I'll drown myself,” said Maria.</p> +<p>Then the two sat quietly until the train was called out, when +they went through the gate, Maria showing her tickets for herself +and Gladys. Wollaston had purchased his own and returned Maria's. +He kept behind the two girls as if he did not belong to their party +at all. On the train he rode in the smoking-car.</p> +<p>The car was quite full at first, but the passengers got off at +the way-stations. When they drew near Edgham there were only a few +left. Wollaston had not paid the slightest attention to the +passengers. He could not have told what sort of a man occupied the +seat with him, nor even when he got off. He was vaguely conscious +of the reeking smoke of the car, but that was all. When the +conductor came through he handed out his ticket mechanically, +without looking at him. He stared out of the window at the +swift-passing, shadowy trees, at the green-and-red signal-lights, +and the bright glare from the lights of the stations through which +they passed. Once they passed by a large factory on fire, +surrounded by a shouting mob of men, and engines. Even that did not +arrest his attention, although it caused quite a commotion in the +car. He sat huddled up in a heap, staring out with blank eyes, all +his consciousness fixed upon his own affairs. He felt as if he had +made an awful leap from boyhood to manhood in a minute. He was full +of indignation, of horror, of shame. He was conscious of wishing +that there were no girls in the world. After they had passed the +last station before reaching Edgham he looked wearily away from the +window, and recognized, stupidly, Maria's father in a seat in the +forward part of the car. Harry was sitting as dejectedly hunched +upon himself as was the boy. Wollaston recognized the fact that he +could not have found little Evelyn, and realized wickedly and +furiously that he did not care, that a much more dreadful +complication had come into his own life. He turned again to the +window.</p> +<p>Maria, in the car behind the smoker, sat beside Gladys, and +looked out of the window very much as Wollaston was doing. She also +was conscious of an exceeding horror and terror, and a vague shame. +It was, to Maria, as if she had fallen through the fairy cobweb of +romance and struck upon the hard ground of reality with such force +that her very soul was bleeding. Wollaston, in the smoker, wished +no more devoutly that there were no girls in the world, than Maria +wished there were no boys. Her emotions had been, as it were, +thrust back down her own throat, and she was choked and sickened +with them. She would not look at nor speak to Gladys. Once, when +Gladys addressed a remark to her, Maria thrust out an indignant +shoulder towards her.</p> +<p>“You needn't act so awful mad,” whispered Gladys. +“I ain't goin' to tell, and I was doin' it on your account. +My mother will give it to me when I git home.”</p> +<p>“What are you going to tell her?” asked Maria, with +sudden interest.</p> +<p>“I'm goin' to tell her I've been out walkin' with Ben +Jadkins. She's told me not to, and she'll lick me for all she's +wuth,” said Gladys, angrily. “But I don't care. It's +lucky father 'ain't been through this train. It's real lucky to +have your father git drunk sometimes. I'll git licked, but I don't +care.”</p> +<p>Maria, sitting there, paid no more attention. The shock of her +own plight had almost driven from her mind the thought of Evelyn, +but when a woman got on the train leading a child about her age, +the old pain concerning her came back. She began to weep again +quietly.</p> +<p>“I don't see what you are cryin' for,” said Gladys, +in an accusing voice. “You might have been an old +maid.”</p> +<p>“I don't believe she is found,” Maria moaned, in a +low voice.</p> +<p>“Oh, the kid! You bet your life she'll turn up. Your pa +'ll find her all right. I didn't know as you were cryin' about +that.”</p> +<p>When they reached Edgham, Maria and Gladys got off the train, +Wollaston Lee also got off, and Harry Edgham, and from a rear car a +stout woman, yanking, rather than leading, by the hand, a little +girl with a fluff of yellow hair. The child was staggering with +sleep. The stout woman carried on her other arm a large wax-doll +whose face smiled inanely over her shoulder.</p> +<p>Suddenly there was a rush and cry, and Maria had the little girl +in her arms. She was kneeling beside her on the dusty platform, +regardless of her new suit.</p> +<p>“Sister! Sister!” screamed the child.</p> +<p>“Sister's own little darling!” said Maria, then she +began to sob wildly.</p> +<p>“It's her little sister. Where did you get her?” +Gladys asked, severely, of the stout woman, who stood holding the +large doll and glowering, while Harry Edgham came hurrying up. Then +there was another scream from the baby, and she was in her father's +arms. There were few at the station at that hour, but a small crowd +gathered around. On the outskirts was Wollaston Lee, looking on +with his sulky, desperate face.</p> +<p>The stout woman grasped Harry vehemently by the arm. “Look +at here,” said she. “I want to know, an' I ain't got no +time to fool around, for I want to take the next train back. Is +that your young one? Speak up quick.”</p> +<p>Harry, hugging the child to his breast, looked at the stout +woman.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he replied, “she is mine, and I have +been looking for her all day. Where—Did you?”</p> +<p>“No, I didn't,” said the stout woman, emphatically. +“<em>She</em> did. I don't never meddle with other folks' +children. I 'ain't never been married, and I 'ain't never wanted to +be. And I 'ain't never cared nothin' about children; always thought +they was more bother than they were worth. And when I changed cars +here this mornin', on my way from Lawsons, where I've been to visit +my married sister, this young one tagged me onto the train, and +nothin' I could say made anybody believe she wa'n't mine. I told +'em I wa'n't married, but it didn't make no difference. I call it +insultin'. There I was goin' up to Tarrytown to-day to see my aunt +'Liza. She's real feeble, and they sent for me, and there I was +with this young one. I had a cousin in New York, and I took her to +her house, and she didn't know any better what to do than I did. +She was always dreadful helpless. We waited till her husband got +home. He runs a tug down the harbor, and he said take her to the +police-station, and mebbe I'd find out somebody had been tryin' to +find her. So my cousin's husband and me went to the station, and he +was so tuckered out and mad at the whole performance that I could +hear him growlin' cuss words under his breath the whole way. We +took her and this great doll down to the station, and we found out +there who she was most likely, and who she belonged to. And my +cousin's husband said I'd got to take her out here. He looked it up +and found out I could git back to New York to-night. He said he +wouldn't come nohow.” Suddenly a light flashed on the woman. +“Say,” she said, “you don't mean to say you've +been on the train yourself all the way out from New +York?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I came out on the train,” admitted Harry, +meekly. “I am sorry—”</p> +<p>“Well, you'd better be,” said the woman. “Here +I've traipsed out here for nothin' this time of night. I call you +all a set of numskulls. I don't call the young one very bright, +either. Couldn't tell where she lived, nor what her father's name +was. Jest said it was papa, and her name was peshious, or some such +tomfoolery. I advise you to tag her if she is in the habit of +runnin' away. Here I ought to have been up in Tarrytown, and I've +been foolin' round in New York all day with your young one and this +big doll.” With that the stout woman thrust the doll at +Maria. “Here, take this thing,” said she. “I've +had enough of it! There ain't any sense in lettin' a child of her +size lug around a doll as big as that, anyhow. When does my train +come? Hev I got to cross to the other side? My cousin's husband +said it would be about twenty minutes I'd have to wait.”</p> +<p>“I'll take you round to the other side, and I cannot be +grateful enough for your care,” began Harry, but the woman +stopped him again.</p> +<p>“I suppose you'll be willin' to pay my fare back to New +York; that's all I want,” said she. “I don't want no +thanks. I 'ain't no use for children, but I ain't a +heathen.”</p> +<p>“I'll be glad to give you a great deal more than your fare +to New York,” Harry said, in a broken voice. Evelyn was +already fast asleep on his shoulder. He led the way down the stairs +towards the other track.</p> +<p>“I don't want nothin' else, except five cents for my +car-fare. I can get a transfer, and it won't be more'n that,” +said the woman, following. “I've got enough to git along +with, and I ain't a heathen.”</p> +<p>Harry, with Evelyn asleep in his arms, and Maria and Gladys, +waited with the stout woman until the train came. The station was +closed, and the woman sat down on a bench outside and immediately +fell asleep herself.</p> +<p>When the train came, Harry thrust a bank-note into the woman's +hand, having roused her with considerable difficulty, and she +stumbled on to the train over her skirts just as she had done in +the morning.</p> +<p>Harry knew the conductor. “Look out for that woman,” +he called out to him. “She found my little girl that was +lost.”</p> +<p>The conductor nodded affably as the train rolled out.</p> +<p>Wollaston Lee had gone home when the others descended the stairs +and crossed to the other track. When Harry, with Evelyn in his +arms, her limp little legs dangling, and Maria and Gladys, were on +their way home, the question, which he in his confusion had not +thought to put before, came.</p> +<p>“Why, Maria, where did you come from?” he asked.</p> +<p>“From New York,” replied Maria, meekly.</p> +<p>“Her and me went up to her ma-in-law's cousin's, on +Forty-ninth Street, to find the kid,” Gladys cut in, glibly, +“but the cousin had moved.”</p> +<p>Harry stared at them. “Why, how happened you to do such a +thing?” he asked.</p> +<p>“I couldn't wait home and not do anything,” Maria +sobbed, nervously.</p> +<p>“Her ma-in-law's cousin had moved,” said Gladys.</p> +<p>“How did you find your way?”</p> +<p>“I had been there before,” sobbed Maria. She felt +for her father's hand, and grasped it with a meaning of trust and +fear which he did not understand.</p> +<p>“Well, you must never do such a thing again, no matter +what happens,” he said, and held the poor little girl's hand +firmly. “Thank God father's got you both back safe and +sound.”</p> +<p>Gladys made an abrupt departure on a corner.</p> +<p>“Good-night, M'ria!” she sung out, and was gone, a +slim, flying figure in the gloom.</p> +<p>“Are you afraid to go alone?” Harry called after +her, in some uncertainty.</p> +<p>“Land, no!” came cheerily back.</p> +<p>“How happened she to be with you?” asked Harry.</p> +<p>“She was down at the station when I came home from +Wardway,” replied Maria, faintly. Her strength was almost +gone. She could hardly stagger up the steps of the house with her +father, he bearing his recovered child, she bearing her secret.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XV</h4> +<p>Ida was still to be seen rocking when Harry, with Evelyn and +Maria, came in sight of the house. The visiting ladies had gone. +Josephine, with her face swollen and tear-stained, was standing +watching at a window in the dark dining-room. When she saw the +three approaching she screamed:</p> +<p>“Oh, Mis' Edgham, they've found her! They're comin'! +They've got her!” and rushed to open the door.</p> +<p>Ida rose, and came gracefully to meet them with a sinuous +movement and a long sweep of her rose-colored draperies. Her +radiant smile lit up her face again. She looked entirely herself +when Harry greeted her.</p> +<p>“Well, Ida, our darling is found,” he said, in a +broken voice.</p> +<p>Ida reached out her arms, from which hung graceful pendants of +lace and ribbons, but the sleepy child clung to her father and +whimpered crossly.</p> +<p>“She is all tired out, poor little darling! Papa's poor +little darling!” said Harry, carrying her into the +parlor.</p> +<p>“Josephine, tell Annie to heat some milk at once,” +Ida said, sharply.</p> +<p>Annie, whose anxious face had been visible peeping through the +dark entrance of the dining-room, hastened into the kitchen.</p> +<p>“Josephine, go right up-stairs and get Miss Evelyn's bed +ready,” ordered Ida. Then she followed Harry into the parlor +and began questioning him, standing over him, and now and then +touching the yellow head of the child, who always shrank crossly at +her touch.</p> +<p>Harry told his story. “I had the whole police force of New +York on the outlook, although I did not really think myself she was +in the city, and there papa's precious darling was all the time +right on the train with him and he never knew it. And here was poor +little Maria,” added Harry, looking at Maria, who had sunk +into a corner of a divan—“here was poor little Maria, +Ida, and she had gone hunting her little sister on her own account. +She thought she might be at your cousin Alice's. If I had known +that both my babies were wandering around New York I should have +been crazy. When I got off the train, there was Maria and that +little Mann girl. She was down at the station when she got home +from Wardway, Maria says, and those two children went right off to +New York.”</p> +<p>“Did they?” said Ida, in a listless voice. She had +resumed her seat in her rocking-chair.</p> +<p>“Edwin Shaw said he thought he saw Evelyn getting on the +New York train this morning,” said Maria, faintly.</p> +<p>“She is all used up,” Harry said. “You had +better drink some hot milk yourself, Maria. Only think of that +child and that Mann girl going off to New York on their own +accounts, Ida!”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Ida.</p> +<p>“Wollaston Lee went, too,” Maria said, suddenly. A +quick impulse for concealment in that best of hiding-places, utter +frankness and openness, came over her. “He got off the train +here. You know he began school, too, at Wardway this morning, and +he and Gladys both went.”</p> +<p>“Well, I'm thankful you had him along,” said Harry. +“The Lord only knows what you two girls would have done alone +in a city like New York. You must never do such a thing again, +whatever happens, Maria. You might as well run right into a den of +wild beasts. Only think of that child going to New York, and coming +out on the last train, with that Mann girl; and Wollaston is only a +boy, though he's bright and smart. And your cousin has moved, +Ida.”</p> +<p>“I thought she had,” said Ida.</p> +<p>“And to think of what those children might have got +into,” said Harry, “in a city like New York, which is +broken out all over with plague spots instead of having them in one +place! Only think of it, Ida!”</p> +<p>Harry's voice was almost sobbing. It seemed as if he fairly +appealed to his wife for sympathy, with his consciousness of the +dangers through which his child had passed. But Ida only said, +“Yes.”</p> +<p>“And the baby might have fallen into the worst +hands,” said Harry. “But, thank God, a good woman, +although she was coarse enough, got hold of her.”</p> +<p>“Yes, we can't be thankful enough,” Ida said, +smoothly, and then Josephine came in with a tray and a silver cup +of hot milk for Evelyn.</p> +<p>“Is that all the milk Annie heated?” asked +Harry.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Well, tell Annie to go to the sideboard and get that +bottle of port-wine and pour out a glass for Miss Maria; and, +Josephine, you had better bring her something to eat with it. You +haven't had any supper, have you, child?”</p> +<p>Maria shook her head. “I don't want any, thank you, +papa,” said she.</p> +<p>“Is there any cold meat, Josephine, do you +know?”</p> +<p>Josephine said there was some cold roast beef.</p> +<p>“Well, bring Miss Maria a plate, with a slice of +bread-and-butter, and some beef.”</p> +<p>“Have you had any supper yourself, dear?” Ida +asked.</p> +<p>“I declare I don't know, dear,” replied Harry, who +looked unutterably worn and tired. “No, I think not. I don't +know when I could have got it. No, I know I have not.”</p> +<p>“Josephine,” said Ida, “tell Annie to broil a +piece of beefsteak for Mr. Edgham, and make a cup of +tea.”</p> +<p>“Thank you, dear,” poor Harry said, gratefully. Then +he said to Maria, “Will you wait and have some hot beefsteak +and tea with papa, darling?”</p> +<p>Maria shook her head.</p> +<p>“I think she had better eat the cold beef and bread, and +drink the wine, and go at once to bed, if she is to start on that +early train to-morrow,” Ida said.</p> +<p>“Maybe you are right, dear,” Harry said. +“Hurry with the roast beef and bread and wine for Miss Maria, +Josephine, and Annie can see to my supper afterwards.”</p> +<p>All this time Harry was coaxing the baby to imbibe spoonfuls of +the hot milk. It was hard work, for Evelyn was not very hungry. She +had been given a good deal of cake and pie from a bakery all +day.</p> +<p>However, at last she was roused sufficiently to finish her +little meal, and Maria drank her glass of wine and ate a little of +the bread and meat, although it seemed to her that it would choke +her. She was conscious of her father's loving, anxious eyes upon +her as she ate, and she made every effort.</p> +<p>Little Evelyn had recently had her own little room fitted up. It +was next to Maria's; indeed, there was a connecting door between +the two rooms. Evelyn's room was a marvel. It was tiny, but +complete. Ida had the walls hung with paper with a satin gloss, on +which were strewn garlands of rose-buds. There was a white matting +and a white fur rug. The small furniture was white, with rose-bud +decorations. There was a canopy of rose silk over the tiny bed, and +a silk counterpane of a rose-bud pattern.</p> +<p>After Evelyn had finished her hot milk, her father carried her +up-stairs into this little nest, and Josephine undressed her and +put her to bed. The child's head drooped as helplessly as a baby's +all the time, she was so overcome with sleep. When she was in bed, +Ida came in and kissed her. She was so fast asleep that she did not +know. She and Harry stood for a moment contemplating the little +thing, with her yellow hair spread over the white pillow and her +round rose of a face sunken therein. Harry put his arm around his +wife's waist.</p> +<p>“We ought to be very thankful, dear,” he said, and +he almost sobbed.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Ida. To do her justice, she regarded the +little rosy-and-white thing sunk in slumber with a certain +tenderness. She was even thankful. She had been exceedingly +disturbed the whole day. She was very glad to have this happy +termination, and to be able to go to rest in peace. She bent again +over the child, and touched her lips lightly to the little face, +and when she looked up her own was softened. “Yes,” she +whispered, with more of womanly feeling than Harry had ever seen in +her—“yes, you are right, we have a great deal to be +thankful for.”</p> +<p>Maria, in the next room, heard quite distinctly what Ida said. +It would once have aroused in her a contemptuous sense of her +step-mother's hypocrisy, but now she felt too humbled herself to +blame another, even to realize any fault in another. She felt as if +she had undergone a tremendous cataclysm of spirit, which had cast +her forever from her judgment-seat as far as others were concerned. +Was she not deceiving as never Ida had deceived? What would Ida +say? What would her father say if he knew that she was—? She +could not say the word even to herself. When she was in bed and her +light out, she was overcome by a nervous stress which almost +maddened her. Faces seemed to glower at her out of the blackness of +the night, faces which she knew were somehow projected out of her +own consciousness, but which were none the less terrific. She even +heard her name shouted, and strange, isolated words, and fragments +of sentences. She lay in a deadly fear. Now was the time when, if +her own mother had been alive, she would have screamed aloud for +some aid. But now she could call to no one. She would have spoken +to her father. She would not have told him—she was gripped +too fast by her sense of the need of secrecy—but she would +have obtained the comfort and aid of his presence and soothing +words; but there was Ida. She remembered how she had talked to Ida, +and her father was with her. A dull wonder even seized her as to +whether Ida would tell her father, and she should be allowed to +remain at home after saying such dreadful things. There was no one +upon whom she could call. All at once she thought of the maid +Annie, whose room was directly over hers. Annie was kindly. She +would slip up-stairs to her, and make some excuse for doing +so—ask her if she did not smell smoke, or something. It +seemed to her that if she did not hear another human voice, come in +contact with something human, she should lose all control of +herself.</p> +<p>Maria, little, slender, trembling girl, with all the hysterical +fancies of her sex crowding upon her, all the sufferings of her sex +waiting for her in the future, and with no mother to soften them, +slipped out of bed, stole across her room, and opened the door with +infinite caution. Then she went up the stairs which led to the +third story. Both maids had rooms on the third story. Josephine +went home at night, and Hannah, the cook, had gone home with her +after the return of the wanderers, and was to remain. She was +related to Josephine's mother. She knocked timidly at Annie's door. +She waited, and knocked again. She was trembling from head to foot +in a nervous chill. She got no response to her knock. Then she +called, “Annie,” very softly. She waited and called +again. At last, in desperation, she opened the door, which was not +locked. She entered, and the room was empty. Suddenly she +remembered that Annie, kind-hearted as she was, and a good servant, +had not a character above suspicion. She remembered that she had +heard Gladys intimate that she had a sweetheart, and was not +altogether what she should be. She gazed around the empty, forlorn +little room, with one side sloping with the slope of the roof, and +an utter desolation overcame her, along with a horror of Annie. She +felt that if Annie were there she would be no refuge.</p> +<p>Maria turned, and slipped as silently as a shadow down the +stairs back to her room. She looked at her bed, and it seemed to +her that she could not lie down again in it. Then suddenly she +thought of something else. She thought of little Evelyn asleep in +the next room. She opened the connecting door softly and stole +across to the baby's little bed. It was too small, or she would +have crept in beside her. Maria hesitated a moment, then she slid +her arms gently under the little, soft, warm body, and gathered the +child up in her arms. She was quite heavy. At another time Maria, +who had slender arms, could scarcely have carried her. Now she bore +her with entire ease into her own room and laid her in her own bed. +Then she got in beside her and folded her little sister in her +arms. Directly a sense of safety and peace came over her when she +felt the little snuggling thing, who had wakened just enough to +murmur something unintelligible in her baby tongue, and cling close +to her with all her little, rosy limbs, and thrust her head into +the hollow of Maria's shoulder. Then she gave a deep sigh and was +soundly asleep again. Maria lay awake a little while, enjoying that +sense of peace and security which the presence of this little human +thing she loved gave her. Then she fell asleep herself.</p> +<p>She waked early. The thought of the early train was in her mind, +and Maria was always one who could wake at the sub-recollection of +a need. Evelyn was still asleep, curled up like a flower. Maria +raised her and carried her back to her own room and put her in her +bed without waking her. Then she dressed herself in her school +costume and went down-stairs. She had smelled coffee while she was +dressing, and knew that Hannah had returned. Her father was in the +dining-room when she entered. He usually took an earlier train, but +this morning he had felt utterly unable to rise. Maria noticed, +with a sudden qualm of fear, how ill and old and worn-out he +looked, but Harry himself spoke first with concern for her.</p> +<p>“Papa's poor little girl!” he said, kissing her. +“She looks tired out. Did you sleep, darling?”</p> +<p>“Yes, after a while. Are you sick, papa?”</p> +<p>“No, dear. Why?”</p> +<p>“Because you did not go on the other train.”</p> +<p>“No, dear, I am all right, just a little tired,” +replied Harry. Then he added, looking solicitously at Maria, +“Are you sure you feel able to go to school +to-day?—because you need not, you know.”</p> +<p>“I am all right,” said Maria.</p> +<p>She and her father had seated themselves at the table. Harry +looked at his watch.</p> +<p>“We shall neither of us go if we don't get our breakfast +before long,” he said.</p> +<p>Then Hannah came in, with a lowering look, bringing the +coffee-pot and the chops and rolls.</p> +<p>“Where is Annie?” asked Harry.</p> +<p>“I don't know,” replied Hannah, with a toss of her +head and a compression of her lips. She was a large, solid woman, +with a cast in her eyes. She had never been married.</p> +<p>“You don't know?” said Harry, helping Maria to a +chop and a roll, while Hannah poured the coffee.</p> +<p>“No,” said Hannah again, and this time her face was +fairly malicious. “I don't know how long I can stand such +doin's, and that's the truth,” she said.</p> +<p>Hannah had come originally from New England, and had principles, +in which she took pride, perhaps the more because they had never in +one sense been assailed. Annie was a Hungarian, and considered by +Hannah to have no principles. She was also pretty, in a rough, +half-finished sort of fashion, and had no cast in her eyes. Hannah +privately considered that as against her.</p> +<p>Harry began sipping his coffee, which Hannah had set down with +such impetus that she spilled a good deal in the saucer, and he +looked uneasily at her.</p> +<p>“What do you mean, Hannah?” he asked.</p> +<p>“I mean that I am not used to being throwed in with girls +who stays out all night, and nobody knows where they be, and that's +the truth,” said Hannah, with emphasis.</p> +<p>“Do you mean to say that Annie—”</p> +<p>“Yes, I do. She wa'n't in, and they do say she's married, +and—”</p> +<p>“Hush, Hannah, we'll talk about this another time,” +Harry said, with a glance at Maria.</p> +<p>Just then a step was heard in the kitchen.</p> +<p>“There she is now, the trollop,” said Hannah, but +she whispered the last word under her breath, and she also gave a +glance at Maria, as one might at any innocent ignorance which must +be shielded even from knowledge itself.</p> +<p>Annie came in directly. Her pretty, light hair was nicely +arranged; she was smiling, but she looked doubtful.</p> +<p>Hannah went with a flounce into the kitchen. Annie had removed +her hat and coat and tied on a white apron in a second, and she +began waiting exactly as if she had come down the back stairs after +a night spent in her own room. Indeed, she did not dream that +either Harry or Maria knew that she had not, and she felt quite +sure of Hannah's ignorance, since Hannah herself had been away all +night.</p> +<p>Maria from time to time glanced at Annie, and, although she had +always liked her, a feeling of repulsion came over her. She shrank +a little when Annie passed the muffins to her. Harry gave one keen, +scrutinizing glance at the girl's face, but he said nothing. After +breakfast he went up-stairs to bid Ida, who had a way of rising +late, good-bye, and he whispered to her, “Annie was out all +last night.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well,” replied Ida, sleepily, with a little +impatience, “it does not happen very often. What are we going +to do about it?”</p> +<p>“Hannah is kicking,” said Harry, “and—”</p> +<p>“I can't help it if she is,” said Ida. “Annie +does her work well, and it is so difficult to get a maid nowadays; +and I cannot set up as a moral censor, I really cannot, +Harry.”</p> +<p>“I hate the example, that is all,” said Harry. +“There Hannah said, right before Maria, that Annie had been +out.”</p> +<p>“It won't hurt Maria any,” Ida replied, with a +slight frown. “Maria wouldn't know what she meant. She is not +only innocent, but ignorant. I can't turn off Annie, unless I see +another maid as good in prospect. Good-bye, dear.”</p> +<p>Harry and Maria walked to the station together. Their trains +reached Edgham about the same time, although going in opposite +directions. It was a frosty morning. There had been a slight frost +the night before. A light powder of glistening white lay over +everything. The roofs were beginning to smoke as it melted. Maria +inhaled the clear air, and her courage revived a +little—still, not much. Nobody knew how she dreaded the day, +the meeting Wollaston. She could not yet bring herself to call him +her husband. It seemed at once horrifying and absurd. The frosty +air brought a slight color to the girl's cheeks, but she still +looked wretched. Harry, who himself looked more than usually worn +and old, kept glancing at her, as they hastened along.</p> +<p>“See here, darling,” he said, “hadn't you +better not go to school to-day? I will write a note of explanation +myself to the principal, at the office, and mail it in New York. +Hadn't you better turn around and go home and rest +to-day?”</p> +<p>“Oh no,” replied Maria. “I would much rather +go, papa.”</p> +<p>“You look as if you could hardly stand up, much less go to +school.”</p> +<p>“I am all right,” said Maria; but as she spoke she +realized that her knees fairly bent under her, and her heart beat +loudly in her ears, for they had come in sight of the station.</p> +<p>“You are sure?” Harry said, anxiously.</p> +<p>“Yes, I am all right. I want to go to school.”</p> +<p>“Well, look out that you eat a good luncheon,” said +Harry, as he kissed her good-bye.</p> +<p>Maria had to go to the other side to take her Wardway train. She +left her father and went under the bridge and mounted the stairs. +When she gained the platform, the first person whom she saw, with a +grasp of vision which seemed to reach her very heart, although she +apparently did not see him at all, was Wollaston Lee. He also saw +her, and his boyish face paled. There were quite a number waiting +for the train, which was late. Maud Page was among them. Maria at +once went close to her. Maud asked about her little sister. She had +heard that she was found, although it was almost inconceivable how +the news had spread at such an early hour.</p> +<p>“I am real glad she's found,” said Maud. Then she +stared curiously at Maria. “Say, was it so?” she +asked.</p> +<p>“Was what true?” asked Maria, trembling.</p> +<p>“Was it true that you and Wollaston Lee and Gladys Mann +all went to New York looking for your sister, and came out on the +last train?”</p> +<p>“Yes, it is true,” replied Maria, quite +steadily.</p> +<p>“What ever made you?”</p> +<p>“I thought she might have gone to a cousin of Hers +who used to live on Forty-ninth Street, but we found the cousin had +moved when we got there.”</p> +<p>“Gracious!” said Maud. “And you didn't come +out till that last train?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“I should think you would be tired to death, and you don't +look any too chipper.” Maud turned and stared at Wollaston, +who was standing aloof. “I declare, he looks as if he had +been up a week of Sundays, too,” said she. Then she called +out to him, in her high-pitched treble, which sounded odd coming +from her soft circumference of throat. Maud's voice ought, by good +rights, to have been a rich, husky drone, instead of bearing a +resemblance to a parrot's. “Say, Wollaston Lee,” she +called out, and the boy approached perforce, lifting his +hat—“say,” said Maud, “I hear you and Maria +eloped last night.” Then she giggled.</p> +<p>The boy cast a glance of mistrust and doubt at Maria. His face +turned crimson.</p> +<p>“You are telling awful whoppers, Maud Page,” Maria +responded, promptly, and his face cleared. “We just went in +to find Evelyn.”</p> +<p>“Oh!” said Maud, teasingly.</p> +<p>“You are mean to talk so,” said Maria.</p> +<p>Maud laughed provokingly.</p> +<p>“What made Wollaston go for, then?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Do you suppose anybody would let a girl go alone to New +York on a night train?” said Maria, with desperate spirit. +“He went because he was polite, so there.”</p> +<p>Wollaston said nothing. He tried to look haughty, but succeeded +in looking sheepish.</p> +<p>“Gladys Mann went, too,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“I don't see what makes you go with a girl like that +anywhere?” said Maud.</p> +<p>“She's as good as anybody,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Maybe she is,” returned Maud. Then she glanced at +Wollaston, who was looking away, and whispered in Maria's ear: +“They talk like fury about her, and her mother, +too.”</p> +<p>“I don't care,” Maria said, stoutly. “She was +down at the station and told me how Evelyn was lost, and then she +went in with me.”</p> +<p>Maud laughed her aggravating laugh again.</p> +<p>“Well, maybe it was just as well she did,” she said, +“or else they would have said you and Wollaston had eloped, +sure.”</p> +<p>Maria began to speak, but her voice was drowned by the rumble of +the New York train on the other track. The Wardway train was late. +Usually the two trains met at the station.</p> +<p>However, the New York train had only just pulled out of sight +before the Wardway train came in. As Maria climbed on the train she +felt a paper thrust forcibly into her hand, which closed over it +instinctively. She sat with Maud, and had no opportunity to look at +it all the way to Wardway. She slipped it slyly into her +Algebra.</p> +<p>Maud's eyes were sharp. “What's that you are putting in +your Algebra?” she asked.</p> +<p>“A marker,” replied Maria. She felt that Maud's +curiosity was such that it justified a white lie.</p> +<p>She had no chance to read the paper which Wollaston had slipped +into her hand until she was fairly in school. Then she read it +under cover of a book. It was very short, and quite manly, although +manifestly written under great perturbation of spirit.</p> +<p>Wollaston wrote: “Shall I tell your folks +to-night?”</p> +<p>Wollaston was not in Maria's classes. He was older, and had +entered in advance. She had not a chance to reply until noon. Going +into the restaurant, she in her turn slipped a paper forcibly into +his hand.</p> +<p>“Good land! look out!” said Maud Page. “Why, +Maria Edgham, you butted right into Wollaston Lee and nearly +knocked him over.”</p> +<p>What Maria had written was also short, but desperate. She +wrote:</p> +<p>“If you ever tell your folks or my folks, or anybody, I +will drown myself in Fisher's Pond.”</p> +<p>A look of relief spread over the boy's face. Maria glanced at +him where he sat at a distant table with some boys, and he gave an +almost imperceptible nod of reassurance at her. Maria understood +that he had not told, and would not, unless she bade him.</p> +<p>On the train going home that night he found a chance to speak to +her. He occupied the seat behind her, and waited until a woman who +sat with Maria got off the train at a station, and also a man who +had occupied the seat with him. Then he leaned over and said, +ostentatiously, so he could be heard half the length of the car, +“It is a beautiful day, isn't it?”</p> +<p>Maria did not turn around at all, but her face was deadly white +as she replied, “Yes, lovely.”</p> +<p>Then the boy whispered, and the whisper seemed to reach her +inmost soul. “Look here, I want to do what is right, +and—honorable, you know, but hang me if I know what is. It is +an awful pickle.”</p> +<p>Maria nodded, still with her face straight ahead.</p> +<p>“I don't know how it happened, for my part,” the boy +whispered.</p> +<p>Maria nodded again.</p> +<p>“I didn't say anything to my folks, because I didn't know +how you would feel about it. I thought I ought to ask you first. +But I am not afraid to tell, you needn't think that, and I mean to +be honorable. If you say so, I will go right home with you and tell +your folks, and then I will tell mine, and we will see what we can +do.”</p> +<p>Maria made no answer. She was in agony. It seemed to her that +the whisper was deafening her.</p> +<p>“I will leave school, and go to work right away,” +said the boy, and his voice was a little louder, and full of +pathetic manliness; “and I guess in a year's time I could get +so I could earn enough to support you. I mean to do what is right. +All is I want to do what you want me to do. I didn't know how you +felt about it.”</p> +<p>Then Maria turned slightly. He leaned closer.</p> +<p>“I told you how I felt,” she whispered back.</p> +<p>“You mean what you wrote?”</p> +<p>“Yes, what I wrote.”</p> +<p>“You don't want me to tell at all?”</p> +<p>“Never, as long as you live.”</p> +<p>“How about her?”</p> +<p>“Gladys?”</p> +<p>“Yes, confound her!”</p> +<p>“She won't tell. She won't dare to.”</p> +<p>Wollaston was silent for a moment, then he whispered again. +“Well,” he said, “I want to do what you want me +to and what is honorable. Of course, we are both young, and I +haven't any money except what father gives me, but I am willing to +quit school to-morrow and go to work. You needn't think I mean to +back out and show the white feather. I am not that kind. We have +got into this, and I am ready and willing to do all I +can.”</p> +<p>“I meant what I wrote,” whispered Maria again. +“I never want you to tell, and—”</p> +<p>“And what?”</p> +<p>“I wish you would go and sit somewhere else, and not speak +to me again. I hate the very sight of you.”</p> +<p>“All right,” said the boy. There was a slight echo +of rancor in his own voice, still it was patient, with the patience +of a man with a woman and her unreason. All his temper of the night +before had disappeared. He was quite honest in saying that he +wished to do what was right and honorable. He was really much more +of a man than he had been the day before. He was conscious of not +loving Maria—his budding boy-love for her had been shocked +out of life. He was even repelled by her, but he had a strong sense +of his duty towards her, and he was full of pity for her. He saw +how pale and nervous and frightened she was. He got up to change +his seat, but before he went, he leaned over her and whispered +again: “You need not be a mite afraid, Maria. All I want is +what will please you and what is right. I will never tell, unless +you ask me to. You need not worry. You had better put it all out of +your mind.”</p> +<p>Maria nodded. She felt very dizzy. She was glad when Wollaston +not only left his seat, but the car, going into the smoker. She +heard the door slam after him with a sense of relief. She felt a +great relief at his assurance that he would keep their secret. +Wollaston Lee was a boy whose promises had weight. She looked out +of the window and a little of her old-time peace seemed to descend +upon her. She saw how lovely the landscape was in the waning light. +She saw the new moon with a great star attendant, and reflected +that it was over her right shoulder. After all, youth is hard to +down, and hope finds a rich soil in it. Then, too, a temporization +to one who is young means eternity. If Wollaston did not tell, and +Gladys did not tell, and she did not tell, it might all come right +somehow in the end.</p> +<p>She looked at the crescent of the moon, and the great depth of +light of the star, and her own affairs seemed to quiet her with +their very littleness. What was little Maria Edgham and her +ridiculous and tragic matrimonial tangle compared with the eternal +light of those strange celestial things yonder? She would pass, and +they would remain. She became comforted. She even reflected that +she was hungry. She had not obeyed her father's injunction, and had +eaten very little luncheon. She thought with pleasure of the good +dinner which would be awaiting her. Then suddenly she remembered +how she had talked to Her. How would she be treated? But she +remembered that Ida could not have said anything against her to her +father, or, if she had done so, it had made no difference to him. +She considered Ida's character, and it seemed to her quite probable +that she would make no further reference to the subject. Ida was +averse even to pursuing enmities, because of the inconvenience +which they might cause her. It was infinitely less trouble to allow +birds which had pecked at her to fly away than to pursue them; +then, too, she always remained unshaken in her belief in herself. +Maria's tirade would not in the least have disturbed her self-love, +and it is only a wound in self-love which can affect some people. +Maria was inclined to think that Ida would receive her with the +same coldly radiant smile as usual, and she was right. That night, +when she entered the bright parlor, glowing with soft lights under +art-shades, Ida, in her pretty house-gown—scarlet cashmere +trimmed with medallions of cream lace—greeted her in the same +fashion as she had always done. Evelyn ran forward with those +squeals of love which only a baby can accomplish. Maria, hugging +her little sister, saw that Ida's countenance was quite +unchanged.</p> +<p>“So you have got home?” said she. “Is it very +cold?”</p> +<p>“Not very,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“I have not been out, and I did not know,” Ida said, +in her usual fashion of making commonplaces appear like +brilliances.</p> +<p>“There may be a frost, I don't know,” Maria said. +She was actually confused before this impenetrability. Remembering +the awful things she had said to Her, she was suddenly +conscience-stricken as she saw Ida's calm radiance of demeanor. She +began to wonder if she had not been mistaken, if Ida was not really +much better than she herself. She knew that is she had had such +things said to her she could not have appeared so forgiving. Such +absolute self-love, and self-belief, was incomprehensible to her. +She had accused Ida of more than she could herself actually +comprehend. She began to think Ida had a forgiving heart, and that +she herself had been the wicked one, not She. She responded to +everything which Ida said with a conciliatory air. Presently Harry +came in. He was late. He looked very worn and tired. Ida sent +Josephine up-stairs to get his smoking-jacket and slippers, and +Maria thought She was very kind to her father. Evelyn climbed +into his arms, but he greeted even her rather wearily. Ida noticed +it.</p> +<p>“Come away, darling,” she said. “Papa is +tired, and you are a heavy little lump of honey,” Ida smiled, +entrancingly.</p> +<p>Harry looked at her with loving admiration, then at Maria.</p> +<p>“I tell you what it is, I feel pretty thankful to-night, +when I think of last night—when I realize I have you all +home,” said he.</p> +<p>Ida smiled more radiantly. “Yes, we ought to be very +thankful,” she said.</p> +<p>Maria made up her mind that she would apologize to her if she +had a chance. She did not wish to speak before her father, not +because she did not wish him to know, but because she did not wish +to annoy him, he looked so tired. She had a chance after dinner, +when Josephine was putting Evelyn to bed, and Harry had been called +to the door to speak to a man on business.</p> +<p>“I am sorry I spoke as I did to you,” she said, in a +low voice, to Ida.</p> +<p>They were both in the parlor. Maria had a school-book in her +hand, and Ida was embroidering. The rosy shade of the lamp +intensified the glow on her beautiful face. She looked smilingly at +Maria.</p> +<p>“Why, my dear,” she said, “I don't know what +you said. I have forgotten.”</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVI</h4> +<p>Now commenced an odd period of her existence for Maria Edgham. +She escaped a transition stage which comes to nearly every girl by +her experience in New York, the night when Evelyn was lost. There +is usually for a girl, if not for a boy, a stage of existence when +she flutters, as it were, over the rose of life, neither lighting +upon it nor leaving it, when she is not yet herself, when she does +not comprehend herself at all, except by glimpses of emotions, as +one may see one facet of a diamond but never the complete stone. +Maria had, in a few hours, become settled, crystallized, and she +gave evidence of it indisputably in one way—she had lost her +dreams. When a girl no longer dreams of her future she has found +herself. Maria had always been accustomed to go to sleep lulled by +her dreams of innocent romance. Now she no longer had them, it was +as if a child missed a lullaby. She was a long time in getting to +sleep at all, and she did not sleep well. She no longer stared over +the page of a lesson-book into her own future, as into a crystal +well wherein she saw herself glorified by new and strange +happiness. She studied, and took higher places in her classes, but +she did not look as young or as well. She grew taller and thinner, +and she looked older. People said Maria Edgham was losing her +beauty, that she would not be as pretty a woman as she had promised +to make, after all. Maria no longer dwelt so long and pleasurably +upon her reflection in the glass. She simply arranged her hair and +neck-gear tidily and went her way. She did not care so much for her +pretty clothes. A girl without her dreams is a girl without her +glory of youth. She did not quite realize what was the matter, but +she knew that she was no longer so fair to see, and that the +combination of herself and a new gown was not what it had been. She +felt as if she had reached the last page of her book of life, and +the <i>ennui</i> of middle age came over her. She had not reached +the last page; she was, of course, mistaken; but she had reached a +paragraph so tremendous that it seemed to her the climax, as if +there could be nothing beyond it. She was married—that is, +she had been pronounced a wife! There was, there could be, nothing +further. She was both afraid of, and disliked, the boy who had +married her. There was nothing ahead that she could see but a +commonplace existence without romance and without love. She as yet +did not dwell upon the possible complications which might arise +from her marriage. It simply seemed to her that she should always +live a spinster, although the marriage ceremony had been pronounced +over her. She began to realize that in order to live in this way +she must take definite steps. She knew that her father was not +rich. The necessity for work and earning her own living in the +future began to present itself. She made up her mind to fit herself +for a teacher.</p> +<p>“Papa, I am going to teach,” she told her father one +afternoon.</p> +<p>Ida had gone out. It was two years after her marriage, and Maria +looked quite a woman. She and her father were alone. Evelyn had +gone to bed. Maria had tucked her in and kissed her good-night. +Josephine was no longer a member of the family. In a number of ways +expenses had been retrenched. Harry would not admit it, and Ida did +not seem aware of it, but his health was slowly but surely failing. +That very day he had consulted a specialist in New York, taking his +turn in the long line of waiting applicants in the office. When he +came out he had a curious expression on his face, which made more +than one of the other patients, however engrossed in their own +complaints, turn around and look after him. He looked paler than +when he had entered the office, but not exactly cast down. He had +rather a settled expression, as of one who had come in sight, not +of a goal of triumph, but of the end of a long and wearisome +journey. In these days Harry Edgham was so unutterably weary, he +drove himself to his work with such lashes of spirit, that he was +almost incapable of revolt against any sentence of fate. There +comes a time to every one, to some when young, to some when old, +that too great a burden of labor, or of days, renders the thought +of the last bed of earth unterrifying. The spirit, overcome with +weariness of matter, droops earthward with no rebellion. Harry, who +had gotten his death-sentence, went out of the doctor's office and +hailed his ferry-bound car, and realized very little difference in +his attitude from what he had done before. He had still time before +him, possibly quite a long time. He thought of leaving Ida and the +little one and Maria, but he had a feeling as if he were beginning +the traversing of a circle which would in the end bring him back, +rather than of departure. It was as if he were about to +circumnavigate life itself. Suddenly, however, his forehead +contracted. Material matters began to irritate him. He thought of +Maria, and how slight a provision he had made for her. His life was +already insured for the benefit of Ida. Ida would have that and her +widow's share. Little Evelyn would also have her share of his tiny +estate, which consisted of nothing more than his house and lot in +Edgham and a few hundreds in the bank, and poor Maria would have +nothing except the paltry third remaining. When Maria, sitting +alone with him in the parlor, announced her intention of fitting +herself for a teacher, he viewed her with quick interest. It was +the evening of the very day on which he had consulted the +specialist.</p> +<p>“Let me see, dear,” he returned; “how many +years more have you at the academy?”</p> +<p>“I can graduate next year,” Maria replied, with +pride. This last year she had been taking enormous strides, which +had placed her ahead of her class. “At least, I can if I work +hard,” she added.</p> +<p>“I don't want you to work too hard,” Harry said, +anxiously.</p> +<p>“I am perfectly well,” said Maria. And she did in +reality look entirely well, in spite of her thinness and expression +of premature maturity. There was a wiriness about her every +movement which argued, if not actual robustness, the elasticity of +bending and not breaking before the stresses of life.</p> +<p>“Let me see, you will be pretty young to teach, +then,” said Harry.</p> +<p>“I think I can get a school,” Maria said.</p> +<p>“Where?”</p> +<p>“Aunt Maria said she thought I could get that little +school near her in Amity. The teacher is engaged, and she said she +thought she would get married before so very long. She said she +thought she must have almost enough money for her wedding outfit. +That is what she has been working for.”</p> +<p>Harry smiled a little.</p> +<p>“Aunt Maria said she was to marry a man with means, and +she was working quite a while in order to buy a nice +trousseau,” said Maria. “Aunt Maria said she was a very +high-spirited young lady. But she said she thought she had been +engaged so long that she would probably not wait more than a year +longer, and she could get the school for me. Uncle Henry is one of +the committee, you know.”</p> +<p>“You are pretty young to begin teaching,” Harry +said, thoughtfully.</p> +<p>“Aunt Maria said she thought I did not look as young as I +really was, and there wouldn't be any difficulty about it,” +said Maria. “She said she thought I would have good +government, and Uncle Henry thought so, too, and Aunt +Eunice.”</p> +<p>Aunt Eunice was Maria's Uncle Henry's wife. Maria had paid a +visit to Amity the summer before, renewing her acquaintance with +her relatives.</p> +<p>“Well, we will see,” said Harry, after a pause. Then +he added, somewhat pitifully: “Father wishes there was no +need for his little girl to work. He wishes he had been able to put +more by, but if—”</p> +<p>Maria looked at her father with quick concern.</p> +<p>“Father, what is the matter with you?” she asked. +“I don't care about the working part. I want to work. I shall +like to go to Amity, and board with Aunt Maria, and teach, except +for leaving you and Evelyn, but—what is the matter with you, +father?”</p> +<p>“Nothing is the matter. Why?” asked Harry; and he +tried to smile.</p> +<p>“What made you speak so, father?”</p> +<p>Maria had sprung to her feet, and was standing in front of her +father, with pale face and dilated eyes. Her father looked at her +and hesitated.</p> +<p>“Tell me, father; I ought to know,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“There is nothing immediate, as far as I know,” said +Harry, “but—”</p> +<p>“But what?”</p> +<p>“Well, dear, nobody can live always, and of course you +can't realize it, young as you are, and with no responsibilities; +but father is older, and sometimes he can't help thinking. He +wishes he had been able to save a little more, in case anything +happened to him, and he can't help planning what you would do +if—anything happened to him. You know, dear,” Harry +hesitated a little, then he continued—“you know, dear, +that father had his life insured for—Ida, and I doubt +if—I am older, you know, now, and those companies don't like +to take chances. I doubt if I could, or I would have an additional +insurance put on my life for you. Then Ida would have by law her +share of this property, and Evelyn her share, and all you would +have would be a very little, and—Well, father can't help +thinking that perhaps it would be wise for you to make some plans +so you can help yourself a little, but—it almost breaks +father's heart to think that—his—little girl—” Poor Harry fairly broke down and sobbed.</p> +<p>Maria's arm was around his neck in a moment, and his poor gray +head, which had always been, in a way, the head of an innocent boy, +was on her young girl breast. She did not ask him any more +questions. She knew. “Poor father!” she said. Her own +voice broke, then she steadied it again with a resolute effort of +her will. There was a good deal of her mother in Maria. The sight +of another's weakness always aroused her own strength. +“Father,” she said, “now you just listen to me. I +won't hear any more talk of anything happening to you. You have not +eaten enough lately. I have noticed it. That is all that ails you. +You have not had enough nourishment. I want you to go to-morrow to +Dr. Wells and get some of that tonic that helped you so much +before, and, father, I want you to stop worrying about me. I +honestly want to teach. I want to be independent. I should, if you +were worth a million. It does not worry me at all to think I am not +going to have enough money to live on without working, not at all. +I want you to remember that, and not fret any more about +it.”</p> +<p>For answer, Harry sobbed against the girl's shoulder. “It +seems as if I might have saved more,” he said, pitifully, +“but—I have had heavy expenses, and somehow I didn't +seem to have the knack that some men have. I made one or two +investments that didn't turn out well. I didn't say anything about +them to—Ida.”</p> +<p>“I sha'n't say a word, father,” Maria responded, +quickly.</p> +<p>“Well, I thought maybe—if they turned out all right, +I might have something to leave you, but—they didn't. There's +never any counting on those things, and I wasn't on the inside of +the market. I thought they were all right. I meant it for the +best.”</p> +<p>Maria stroked the gray head, as her mother might have done. +“Of course you did, father,” said she. “Now, +don't you worry one bit more about it. You get that tonic. You +don't look just right, and you need something to give you an +appetite; and don't you ever have another thought as far as I am +concerned. I have always wanted to teach, or do something to make +myself independent.”</p> +<p>“You may marry somebody who will look out for you after +father has gone,” half whimpered Harry. His disease and his +distress were making him fairly childish, now he realized a +supporting love beside him.</p> +<p>Maria quivered a little. “I shall never marry, +father,” she said.</p> +<p>Harry laughed a little, even in the midst of his distress. +“Well, dear, we won't worry about that now,” he said; +“only, if you ever do marry, I hope you will marry a good, +honest man who can take care of you.”</p> +<p>“I never shall marry,” Maria said again. There was +an odd inflection in her voice which her father did not understand. +Her cheeks burned hot against his, but it was not due to the +modesty of young girlhood, which flees even that which it secretly +desires. Maria was reflecting upon her horrible deception, how +every day and every minute of her life she was deceiving her +father, but she dared not tell him. She dared less now than ever, +in the light of her sudden conviction concerning his ill-health. +Maria had been accustomed so long to seeing her father look tired +and old that the true significance of it had not struck her. She +had not reflected that her father was not in reality an old +man—but scarcely past middle age—and that there must be +some disease to account for his appearance. Now she knew; but along +with the knowledge came the conviction that he must not know that +she had it, that it would only add to his distress. She kissed him, +and took up the evening paper which had fallen from his knees to +the floor.</p> +<p>“Suppose I read to you, father?” she said.</p> +<p>Harry looked gratefully at her. “But you have to learn +your lesson.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I can finish that in school to-morrow. I don't feel +like working any more to-night, and I do feel like reading the +paper.”</p> +<p>“Won't it tire you, dear?”</p> +<p>“Tire me? Now, father, what do you take me for?” +Maria settled herself in a chair. Harry leaned back his head +contentedly; he had always like to be read to, and lately reading +to himself had hurt his eyes. “Now, what shall I read, +father?” she said.</p> +<p>Poor Harry, remembering his own futile investments, asked for +the stock-list, and Maria read it very intelligently for a young +girl who knew nothing about stocks.</p> +<p>“Once I owned some of that stock,” said Harry, +proudly.</p> +<p>“Did you, father?” Maria responded, admiringly.</p> +<p>“Yes, and only look where it is now! If I could only have +held on to it, I might have been quite a rich man.”</p> +<p>Harry spoke, oddly enough, with no regret. Such was the +childishness of the man that a possession once his never seemed +wholly lost to him. It seemed to him that he had reason to be proud +of having made such a wise investment, even if he had never +actually reaped any benefit from it.</p> +<p>“I don't see how you knew what to invest in,” Maria +said, fostering his pride.</p> +<p>“Oh, I had to study the stock-lists and ask +brokers,” Harry replied. He looked brighter. This little +reinstatement in his self-esteem acted like a tonic. In some +fashion Ida always kept him alive to his own deficiencies, and that +was not good for a man who was naturally humble-minded. Harry sat +up straighter. He looked at Maria with brighter eyes as she +continued reading. “Now <em>that</em> is a good +investment,” said he—“that bond. If I had the +money to spare I would buy one of those bonds to-morrow +morning.”</p> +<p>“Are bonds better than stocks, father?” asked +Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Harry, importantly. “Always +remember that, if you have any money to invest. A man can afford to +buy stocks, because he has better opportunities of judging of the +trend of the market, but bonds are always safer for a +woman.”</p> +<p>Maria regarded her father again with that innocent admiration +for his wisdom, which seemed to act like a nerve stimulant. A +subtle physician might possibly have reached the conclusion, had he +been fully aware of all the circumstances, that Ida, with her +radiant superiority, her voiceless but none the less positive +self-assertion over her husband, was actually a means of spiritual +depression which had reacted upon his physical nature. Nobody knows +exactly to what extent any of us are responsible for the lives of +others, and how far our mere existences may be derogatory to our +fellow-beings. Harry was visibly brighter.</p> +<p>“You don't look half as tired as you did, father,” +Maria said.</p> +<p>“I don't feel so tired,” replied Harry. “It +has rested me to hear you read. Remember what I have told you, +dear, about bonds—always bonds, and never stocks, for a +woman.”</p> +<p>“Yes, father,” said Maria. Then she added, “I +am going to save all I can when I begin to earn.”</p> +<p>“Your aunt Maria will only ask you enough board to make it +possible for her to pay the bills? You know she has only a hundred +a year to live on. Of course your uncle Henry lets her have her +rent free, or she couldn't do it, but she is a fine manager. She +manages very much as your mother did.” As he spoke, Harry +looked around the luxurious apartment and reflected that, had his +first wife lived, he himself could have saved, and there might have +been no need for this little, delicate girl to earn her own living. +He sighed, and the weary look settled over his face again.</p> +<p>Maria rose. “Father,” said she, “Annie has +gone out, and so has Hannah, and I am going out in the kitchen and +make a cup of that thick chocolate that you like, for +you.”</p> +<p>“It is too much trouble, dear.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” said Maria. “I would like to do +it, and it won't take a minute. There is a good fire in the +range.”</p> +<p>While Maria was gone, Harry sat gazing out of the window. He had +always now, when he looked out of a window, the sensation of a man +who was passing in rapid motion all the old familiar objects, all +the landmarks of his life, or rather—for one never rids one's +self of that particular optical delusion—it was as if they +were passing. The conviction of one's own transit is difficult to +achieve. Harry gazed out of the window, and it was to him as if the +familiar trees which bordered the sidewalk, the shrubs in the yard, +the houses which were within view, were flitting past him in a mad +whirl. He was glad when Maria entered with the chocolate, in his +own particular cup, and a dainty plate of cheese sandwiches.</p> +<p>“I thought perhaps you could eat a sandwich, +father,” she said. “I don't believe you had anything +decent for lunch in New York.”</p> +<p>“I didn't have much,” said Harry. He did not add, +what was the truth, that lately he had been stinting himself on his +luncheons in the effort to save a little more of his earnings. He +ate nearly all the sandwiches, and drank two cups of chocolate, and +really looked much better.</p> +<p>“You need more nourishment, father,” said Maria, +with a wise, maternal air, which was also half accusatory, and +which made Harry think so strongly of his first wife that he +regarded Maria as he might have regarded her mother.</p> +<p>“You grow more and more like your own mother, dear,” +he said.</p> +<p>“Well, I am glad of that,” replied Maria. +“Mother was a good woman. If I can only be half as good as +mother was.”</p> +<p>“Your mother <em>was</em> a good woman,” said Harry, +reflectively; and as he spoke he seemed to feel the arms of strong, +almost stern, feminity and faithfulness which had encompassed his +childlike soul for so many years. He owned to himself that Maria's +mother had been a much more suitable wife for him than this other +woman. Then he had a little qualm of remorse, for Ida came in +sight, richly dressed and elegant, as usual, with Evelyn dancing +along beside her. Mrs. Adams was with her. Mrs. Adams was talking +and Ida was smiling. It was more becoming to Ida to smile than to +talk. She had discovered long since that she had not so very much +to say, and that her smiles were better coin of her little realm; +she therefore generally employed them in preference.</p> +<p>Maria got up hastily and took the tray and the chocolate-cups. +“I guess Mrs. Adams is coming in,” said she.</p> +<p>“You didn't make enough chocolate to give them?” +Harry said, hesitatingly.</p> +<p>“No,” replied Maria, and her tone was a little curt +even to her father. “And I used up the last bit of chocolate +in the house, too.” Then she scudded out of the room with her +tray and passed the front door as the sound of Ida's latch-key was +heard in the lock. Maria set her tray on the kitchen-table and +hurried up the back stairs to her own room. She entered it and +locked both doors, the one communicating with the hall and the one +which connected it with Evelyn's room. She had no sooner done so +than she heard the quick patter of little feet, and the door +leading into Evelyn's room was tried, then violently shaken. +“Let me in, sister; let me in,” cried the sweet little +flute of a voice on the other side. Evelyn could now talk plainly, +but she still kept to her baby appellation for her sister.</p> +<p>“No, darling, sister can't let you in now,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>“Why not? Let me in, sister.”</p> +<p>“Sister is going to study,” said Maria, in a firm +voice. “She can't have Evelyn. Run down-stairs, darling; run +down to mamma.”</p> +<p>“Evelyn don't want mamma. Evelyn wants sister.”</p> +<p>“Papa is down there, too. Put on your clothes, like a nice +girl, and show papa how smart you can be; then run down.”</p> +<p>“Evelyn can't button up her dress.”</p> +<p>“Put everything on but that, then run down, and mamma can +do it for you.”</p> +<p>“Let me in, sister.”</p> +<p>“No, dear,” Maria said again. “Evelyn can't +come in now.”</p> +<p>There came a little whimper of grief and anger which cut Maria's +heart, but she was firm. She could not have even Evelyn then. She +had to be alone with the knowledge she had just gained of her +father's state of health. She sat down in her little chair by the +window; it was her own baby chair, which she had kept all these +years, and in which she could still sit comfortably, she was so +slender. Then she put her face in her hands and began to weep. She +had never wept as she did then, not even when her mother died. She +was so much younger when her mother died that her sensibilities had +not acquired their full acumen; then, too, she had not had at that +time the awful foretaste of a desolate future which tinctured with +bitter her very soul. Somehow, although Maria had noticed for a +long time that her father did not look as he had done, it had never +occurred to her that that which had happened to her mother could +happen to her father. She had been like one in a house which has +been struck by lightning, and had been rendered thereby incredulous +of a second stroke. It had not occurred to her that whereas she had +lost her mother, she could also lose her father. It seemed like too +heavy a hammer-stroke of Providence to believe in and keep her +reason. She had thought that her father was losing his youth, that +his hair turning gray had much to do with his altered looks. She +had never thought of death. It seemed to her monstrous. A rage +against Providence, like nothing which she had known before, was +over her. Why should she lose everything? What had she done? She +reviewed her past life, and she defended herself like Job, with her +summary of self-righteousness. She had always done right, so far as +she knew. Her sins had been so petty as hardly to deserve the name +of sins. She remembered how she had once enjoyed seeing her face in +her looking-glass, how she had liked pretty, new dresses, and she +could not make that seem very culpable. She remembered how, +although she had never loved her step-mother, she had observed, +except on that one occasion when Evelyn was lost, the utmost +respect and deference for her—how she had been, after the +first, even willing to love her had she met with the slightest +encouragement. She could not honestly blame herself for her +carefully concealed attitude of disapproval towards Ida, for she +said to herself, with a subtlety which was strange for a girl so +young, that she had merited it, that she was a cold, hard, +self-centred woman, not deserving love, and that she had in reality +been injurious for her father. She was convinced that, had her own +mother lived, with her half-censorious yet wholly loving care for +him, he might still have preserved his youth and his handsome +boyishness and health. She thought of the half-absurd, half-tragic +secret which underlay her life, and she could not honestly think +herself very much to blame for that. She always thought of that +with bewilderment, as one might think of some dimly remembered +vagary of delirium. Sometimes it seemed to her now that it could +not be true. Maria realized that she was full of +self-righteousness, but she was also honest. She saw no need for +her to blame herself for faults which she had not committed. She +thought of the doctrine which she had heard, that children were +wholly evil from their birth, and it did not seem to her true. She +could <em>say</em> that she had been wholly evil from her birth, +but she felt that she should, if she did say so, tell a lie to God +and herself. She honestly could not see why, for any fault of hers, +her father should die. Then suddenly her mind gave a leap from her +own standing-point to that of her father. She suddenly reflected +that it was not wholly her own grief for his loss which was to be +considered, but her father's grief at quitting the world wherein he +had dwelt so long, and his old loves of life. She reflected upon +his possible fear of the Unknown into which he was to go. There was +in Maria's love for her father, as there had been in her mother's, +a strong element of the maternal. She thought of her father with +infinite pity, as one might think of a little child about to go on +a long, strange journey to an unknown place, all alone by himself. +It seemed to her an awful thing for God to ask one like her father +to die a lingering death, to realize it all fully, what he had to +do, then to go off by himself, alone. She remembered what she had +heard from the pulpit on Sundays, but somehow that Unknown seemed +so frightfully wide and vast for a soul like her father's, which +had always been so like the soul of a child, to find her mother in. +Then she got some comfort from the memory of her mother, of her +great strength. It seemed to her that her mother, wherever she was, +would not let her father wander alone very long. That she would +meet him with that love and chiding which is sometimes the very +concert-pitch of love itself, its key-note, and lead him into those +green pastures and beside those still waters of the Psalmist. +Maria, at that moment, got more comfort from her memory of the +masterliness of her mother, whom she had known, than from her +conception of God, towards whom her soul reached out, it is true, +but whom it no more comprehended than a flower comprehends the sun. +The very love of God needs a human trellis whereby His creatures +can reach Him, and Maria now climbed towards a trust in Him, by the +reflection of her mother's love, and strength in spite of love.</p> +<p>Then racking pity for herself and her own loss, and rage because +of it, and a pity for her father which almost roused her to a fury +of rebellion, again swept away every other consideration.</p> +<p>“Poor father! poor father!” she sobbed, under her +breath. “There he is going to die, and he hasn't got mother +to take care of him! <em>She</em> won't do anything. She will try +not to smile, that is all. And I can't do anything, the way mother +could. Father don't want me to even act as if I knew it; but if +mother were alive he would tell her, and she would help him.” +Then Maria thought of herself, poor, solitary, female thing +travelling the world alone, for she never thought, at that time, of +her marriage being anything which would ever be a marriage in +reality, but as of something which cast her outside the pale of +possibilities and made her more solitary still, and she wept +silently, or as silently as she could; once in awhile a murmur of +agony or a sob escaped her. She could not help it. She got up out +of her little chair and flung herself on the floor, and fairly +writhed with the pain of her awful grief and sense of loss. She +became deaf to any sound; all her senses seemed to have failed her. +She was alive only to that sense of grief which is the primeval +sense of the world—the grief of existence itself and the +necessity of death and loss.</p> +<p>All at once she felt a little, soft touch, and another little, +weeping, human thing, born like herself to all the awful chances of +love and grief, flung itself down beside her.</p> +<p>Maria had locked her doors, but she had forgotten her window, +which opened on an upper balcony, and was easily accessible to any +one climbing out of the hall window. Evelyn had been listening at +her door and had heard her sobs. Knowing from experience that her +sister meant what she said, she had climbed out of the hall window, +scudded along the little balcony, and into Maria's window. She +flung herself down on the floor, and wept so violently that Maria +was alarmed.</p> +<p>“Why, baby, darling, what is it? Tell sister,” she +said, hushing her own sobs.</p> +<p>The child continued to sob. Her whole little frame was shaken +convulsively.</p> +<p>“Tell sister,” whispered Maria.</p> +<p>“I'm cryin' 'cause—'cause—” panted the +child.</p> +<p>“Because what, darling?”</p> +<p>“Because you are crying, and—and—”</p> +<p>“And what?”</p> +<p>“'Cause I 'ain't got anything to cry for.”</p> +<p>“Why, you precious darling!” said Maria. She hugged +the child close, and all at once a sense of peace and comfort came +over her, even in the face of approaching disaster. She sensed the +love and pity which holds the world, through this little human +key-note of it which had struck in her ears.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVII</h4> +<p>Harry Edgham's disease proved to be one of those concerning +which no physician can accurately calculate its duration or +termination. It had, as diseases often have, its periods of such +utter quiescence that it seemed as if it had entirely disappeared. +It was not a year after Harry had received his indeterminate death +sentence before he looked better than he had done for a long while. +The color came back to his cheeks, his expression regained its +youthful joyfulness. Everybody said that Harry Edgham was quite +well again. He had observed a certain diet and taken remedies; +then, in the summer, he took, for the first time for years, an +entire vacation of three weeks, and that had its effect for the +better.</p> +<p>Maria began to be quite easy with regard to her father's health. +It seemed to her that, since he looked so well, he must be well. +Her last winter at the Lowe Academy was entirely free from that +worriment. Then, too, Wollaston Lee had graduated and begun his +college course, and she no longer had him constantly before her +eyes, bringing to memory that bewildering, almost maddening +experience of theirs that night in New York. She was almost happy, +in an odd, middle-aged sort of fashion, during her last term at the +academy before her graduation. She took great pride in her progress +in her studies. She was to graduate first of her class. She did not +even have to work very hard to accomplish it. Maria had a mind of +marvellous quickness of grasp. Possibly her retentive powers were +not entirely in proportion, but, at all events, she accomplished +much with comparatively little labor.</p> +<p>Harry was very proud of her. The evening before her graduation +Ida had gone to New York to the theatre and Evelyn was in bed, and +Maria dressed herself in her graduation gown, which was +charming—Ida had never neglected her, in respect to dress, at +least—and came down to show herself to her father. He would +not be able to be present at the graduation on account of an +unusual press of business. Maria came so lightly that she almost +seemed to float into the room, with her fine white draperies +trailing behind her and her knots of white ribbon fluttering, and +stood before her father.</p> +<p>“Father,” said she, “I want you to see the way +I'll look to-morrow. Isn't this dress pretty?”</p> +<p>“Lovely,” said Harry. “It is very becoming, +too,” he added.</p> +<p>Indeed, Maria really looked pretty again in this charming +costume. During the last few months her cheeks had filled out and +she had gotten some lovely curves of girlhood. Her eyes shone with +a peculiar brilliancy, her red lips trembled into a smile, her +hair, in a fluff above her high forehead, caught the light.</p> +<p>Maria laughed gayly. “Take care, father, or you will make +me vain,” she said.</p> +<p>“You have some reason to be,” Harry said, honestly. +“You are going to graduate first in your class, +and—well, you are pretty, dear—at least you are to +father, and, I guess, to other folks.”</p> +<p>Maria blushed. “Only to father, because he is +partial,” she said. Then she went up to him and rubbed her +blooming cheek against his. “Do you know what makes me +happier than anything else?” she said—“happier +than graduating first, happier than my pretty dress, happier than +anything?”</p> +<p>“No. What, dear?”</p> +<p>“Feeling that you are well again.”</p> +<p>There was an almost imperceptible pause before Harry replied. +Then he said, in his pleasant voice, which had never grown old, +“Yes, dear; I am better, dear, I think.”</p> +<p>“Think,” Maria said, gayly. “Why, you are +well, father. Don't you know you are well?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I think I am better, dear.”</p> +<p>“Better? You are well. Nobody can look as young and +handsome as you do and be ill, possibly. You are well, father. I +know you can't quite get what that horrid old croaking doctor told +you out of your mind, but doctors don't know everything. You are +well, and that makes me happier than anything else in the +world.”</p> +<p>Harry laughed a little faintly. “Well, I dare say you are +right, dear,” he said.</p> +<p>“Right?—of course I am right,” said Maria. +Then she danced off to change her gown.</p> +<p>After she had gone, Harry rose from the chair; he had been +sitting beside the centre-table with the evening paper. He walked +over to the window and looked out at the night. It was bright +moonlight. The trees were in full leaf, and the shadows were of +such loveliness that they fairly seemed celestial. Harry gazed out +at the night scene, at the moon riding through the unbelievable and +unfathomable blue of the sky, like a crystal ball, with a slight +following of golden clouds; he gazed at the fairy shadows which +transformed the familiar village street into something beyond +earth, and he sighed. The conviction of his approaching dissolution +had never been so strong as at that moment. He seemed fairly to see +his own mortality—that gate of death which lay wide open for +him. Yet, all at once, a sense of peace and trust almost ineffable +came over him. Death seemed merely the going-out into the true +open, the essence of the moonlight and the beauty. It seemed the +tasting and absorbing the food for his own spiritual hunger, which +had been upon him from birth, that which had always been just out +of his reach. When Maria returned in her pink gingham school-gown, +she found her father seated beside the table as he had been when +she left. He looked up at her with a bright smile which somehow +chilled her, although she tried to drive the conviction of the +chill from her mind. She got a new book from the case, and proposed +reading aloud to him.</p> +<p>“Hadn't you better go to bed, dear?” said Harry. +“You will have a hard day to-morrow.”</p> +<p>“No; I am going to sit up with you till She comes +home,” said Maria, “and we might as well amuse +ourselves.” She began to read, and Harry listened happily. +But Maria, whenever she glanced over her book at her father's happy +face, felt the same undefinable chill.</p> +<p>However, when Ida came home and they had a little supper of +sardines and crackers, she did not think any more of it. She went +to bed with her head full of the morrow and her new gown and the +glories awaiting her. She tried not to be vain, but was +uncomfortably conscious that she was glad that she was first in her +class, instead of some other girl or instead of a boy. Maria felt +especially proud of ranking ahead of the boys.</p> +<p>The next day was, as she had anticipated, one of happy triumph +for her. She stood on the stage in her lovely dress and read her +valedictory, which, although trite enough, was in reality rather +better in style than most valedictories. She received a number of +presents, a tiny gold watch from her father among them, and a ring +with a turquoise stone from Ida, and quantities of flowers. The day +after the graduation Maria had her photograph taken, with all her +floral offerings around her, with a basket of roses on her arm and +great bouquets in her lap and on a little photographic table beside +her. The basket of roses was an anonymous offering. It came with no +card. If Maria had dreamed that Wollaston Lee had sent it, she +would never have sat for her photograph with it on her arm. But she +did not think of Wollaston at all that day. He was completely out +of her mind for the time, swallowed up in her sense of personal joy +and triumph. Wollaston had not graduated first in his class in the +academy the year before. A girl had headed that class also. Maria +had felt a malicious joy at the fact, at the time, and it was +entirely beyond her imagination now that Wollaston, who had seemed +to dislike her, although she was forced to admit that he had been +exceedingly honorable, had sent roses to her. She suspected that +one of the teachers, a young man who had paid, in a covert and +shamefaced way, a little attention to her, had sent the basket. She +thought the roses lovely, and recognized the inadvisability of +thanking this teacher, since he had not enclosed his card. She did +not like him very well—indeed, she felt a certain repugnance +to him—but roses were roses, and she was a young girl.</p> +<p>“Who gave you the basket of roses, dear?” her father +asked when she was displaying her trophies the day after her +graduation.</p> +<p>Maria blushed. “I don't know,” said she; +“there wasn't any card with them.” As she spoke she +seemed to see the face of the young history teacher, Mr. Latimer, +with his sparse, sandy beard, and she felt how very distasteful he +was to her, even if gilded, so to speak, by roses.</p> +<p>“I think some enamoured boy in her class who was too shy +to send his card with his floral offering was the one,” Ida +said to Harry when Maria had gone out. She laughed a softly +sarcastic laugh.</p> +<p>Harry looked at her uneasily.</p> +<p>“Maria is too young to get such ideas into her +head,” he said.</p> +<p>“My dear,” said Ida, “you forget that such +ideas do not get into girls' heads; they are born in +them.”</p> +<p>“I presume one of the other girls sent them,” said +Harry, almost angrily.</p> +<p>“Perhaps,” replied Ida, and again she laughed her +soft, sarcastic laugh, which grated terribly on Harry. It irritated +him beyond measure that any boy should send roses to this little, +delicate, fair girl of his. For all he had spoken of her marriage, +the very idea of confiding her to any other man than himself made +him furious. Especially the idea of some rough school-boy, who knew +little else than to tumble about in a football game and was not his +girl's mental equal, irritated him. He went over in his mind all +the boys in her class. The next morning, going to New York, Edwin +Shaw, who had lost much of his uncouthness and had divorced himself +entirely from his family in the matter of English, was on the +train, and he scowled at him with such inscrutable fierceness that +the boy fairly trembled. He always bowed punctiliously to Maria's +father, and this morning Maria was with her father. She was to have +a day off: sit in her father's office and read a book until noon, +then go to lunch with him at a French restaurant, then go to the +matinée. She wore a festive silk waist, and looked +altogether lovely, the boy thought.</p> +<p>“Who is that great gawk of a fellow?” asked Harry of +Maria.</p> +<p>“Edwin Shaw. He was in my class,” replied Maria, and +she blushed, for no earthly reason except that her father expected +her to do so. Young girls are sometimes very ready, even to deceit, +to meet the emotional expectations of their elders. Harry then and +there made up his mind that Edwin Shaw was the sender of the basket +of roses.</p> +<p>“He comes of a family below par, and he shows it,” +he said, viciously, to Maria. He scowled again at Edwin's neck, +which was awkwardly long above his collar, but the boy did not see +it. He sat on the opposite side of the car a seat in advance.</p> +<p>Harry said again to Maria, when they had left the train, and +Edwin, conscious of his back, which he was straightening, was +striding in front of them, what a great gawk of a fellow he was, +and how he came of a family below par. Maria assented +indifferently. She did not dream of her father's state of mind, +and, as for Edwin Shaw, he was no more to her than a set of +car-steps, not so much, because the car-steps were of obvious +use.</p> +<p>That very night, when Maria and her father reached home after a +riotous day in the city, there was a letter in the post-office from +Aunt Maria, to the effect that there was no doubt that Maria could +have the school in Amity in the fall. The teacher who had held the +position was to be married in a few weeks. The salary was not +much—Amity was a poor little country village—but Maria +felt as if she had expectations of untold wealth. She was sorry at +the prospect of leaving her father and Evelyn, but the idea of +self-support and independence, and taking a little of the burden +from her father, intoxicated her. Maria had the true spirit of the +women of her race. She liked the feel of her own muscles and nerves +of individuality and self-reliance. She felt a head taller after +she had read her aunt's letter.</p> +<p>“She says she will board me for four dollars a +week,” she said. “I shall have quite a lot of money +clear.”</p> +<p>“Well, four dollars a week will recompense her, and help +her, too,” said Harry, a little gloomily. To tell the truth, +he did not in the least like the idea of Maria's going to Amity to +teach. Nothing except the inner knowledge of his own failing health +could have led him to consent to it. Ida was delighted at the news, +but she concealed her delight as well as her annoyance under her +smiling mask, and immediately began to make plans for Maria's +wardrobe.</p> +<p>“Whatever I have new I am going to pay you back, father, +now I am going to earn money,” Maria said, proudly.</p> +<p>After she went up-stairs to bed that night, Evelyn, who was now +a slim, beautiful little girl, rather tall for her age, and going +to a private school in the village, came into her room, and Maria +told Evelyn how much she was going to do with the money which she +was to earn. Maria, at this time, was wholly mercenary. She had not +the least ambition to benefit the young. She was, in fact, young +herself, but her head was fairly turned with the most selfish of +considerations. It was true that she planned to spend the money +which she would earn largely upon others, but that was, in itself, +a subtle, more rarefied form of selfishness.</p> +<p>“I remember Aunt Maria's parlor carpet was worn almost +threadbare, and I mean to buy her a new one with the very first +money I earn,” Maria said to little Evelyn; and she thought, +as she met Evelyn's beautiful, admiring eyes, how very kind and +thoughtful she, Maria, would be with her wealth.</p> +<p>“I suppose Aunt Maria is very poor,” Evelyn +remarked, in her charming little voice.</p> +<p>“Oh, very. She lives on a hundred dollars a +year.”</p> +<p>“Will you get enough to eat?” asked Evelyn, +anxiously.</p> +<p>“Oh yes. I shall pay her four dollars a week, and if she +got along with only a hundred a year, only think what she can do +with that. I know Aunt Eunice, Uncle Henry's wife, hasn't a good +dress, either. I think I shall buy a brown satin for +her.”</p> +<p>“How awful good you are, sister!” said little +Evelyn, and Maria quite agreed with her. The conviction of her own +goodness, and her forthcoming power to exercise it, filled her soul +with a gentle, stimulating warmth after she was in bed. The +moonlight shone brightly into her room. She gazed at the bright +shaft of silver it made across all her familiar possessions, and, +notwithstanding her young girl dreams were gone, she realized that, +although she had lost all the usual celestial dreams and rafters of +romance which go to make a young girl's air-castle, she had still +left some material, even if of less importance.</p> +<p>She spent, on the whole, a very happy summer. Her father looked +entirely well; she was busy in preparations for her life in Amity; +and, what relieved her the most, Wollaston Lee was not at home for +more than five days during the entire vacation. He went camping-out +with a party of college-boys. Maria was, therefore, not subjected +to the nervous strain of seeing him. During the few days he was at +home he had his chum with him, and Maria only saw him +twice—once on the street, when she returned his bow distantly +and heard with no pleasure the other boy ask who that pretty girl +was, and once in church. She gave only the merest side-glance at +him in church, and she was not sure that he looked at her at all, +but she went home pale and nervous. A secret of any kind is a hard +thing for a girl to bear about with her, and Maria's, which was +both tragic and absurd, was severer than most. At times it seemed +to her, when she looked in her glass, that all she saw was the +secret; it seemed to her, when other people looked at her, that it +was all they saw. It was one reason for her readiness to go to +Amity. She would there be out of reach of people who could in any +way have penetrated her secret. She would not run the risk of +meeting Wollaston; of meeting his father and mother, and wondering +if he had, after all, told; of meeting Gladys Mann, and wondering +if she had told, and knowing that she knew.</p> +<p>Maria, in these last months, saw very little of Gladys, who had +sunken entirely into the lower stratum of society in which she +belonged. Gladys had left school, where she had not learned much, +and she went out cleaning and doing house-work, at seventy-five +cents a day. Sometimes Maria met her going to and fro from a place +of employment, and at such times there was fear in Maria's face and +a pathetic admiration and reassurance in the other girl's. Gladys +had grown hard and large as to her bones and muscles, but she did +not look altogether well. She had a half-nourished, spiritually and +bodily, expression, which did not belie the true state of affairs +with her. She had neither enough meat nor enough ideality. She was +suffering, and the more because she did not know. Gladys was of the +opinion that she was, on the whole, enjoying life and having a +pretty good time. She earned enough to buy herself some showy +clothes, and she had a lover, a “steady,” as she called +him. It is true that she was at times a little harassed by jealousy +concerning another girl who had a more fully blown beauty than she, +and upon whom she sometimes suspected her lover was casting +admiring eyes.</p> +<p>It was at this time that Gladys, whose whole literature +consisted of the more pictorial of the daily papers, wrote some +badly spelled and very pathetic little letters, asking advice as to +whether a girl of her age, who had been keeping steady company with +a young man of her lover's age, whom she dearly loved, should make +advances if he seemed to exhibit a preference for another girl, and +she inquired pitifully of the editor, as of some deity, as to +whether she thought her lover did really prefer the other girl to +her. These letters, and the answers, were a source of immense +comfort to Gladys. Sometimes, when she met Maria, they made her +feel almost on terms of equality with her. She doubted if Maria, +smart as she was, had ever really appeared in the papers. She wrote +her letters under different names, and even sent them from +neighboring towns, and walked long distances, when she felt that +she wanted to save car-fare, to post them. Once Maria met her as +she was walking along with an evening paper in her hand, reading +the reply to one of her letters, and Maria wondered at the +expression on Gladys's face. She at once pitied, feared, and +detested Gladys. She doubted if she were a good girl; she herself, +like a nun without even dreams, seemed living in another sphere, +she felt so far removed. She was in reality removed, although +Gladys, if the truth were told, was not so bad, and she got some +good advice from the answers in response to her letters, which +restrained her. Still, her view of everything was different. She +was different. Black was not as black to her as to Maria; a spade +was not so truly a spade. She recognized immorality as a fact, but +it did not seem to her of so much importance. In one sense she was +more innocent even than Maria, for she had never felt the true +living clutch of vice on her soul, even in imagination; she could +not. The devil to her was not of enough consequence to enable her +to sin in the truest sense of the word. All her family were +immoral, and a constant living in an atmosphere of immorality may, +in one sense, make one incapable of spiritual sin. One needs to +fully sense a sin in order to actually commit it. Gladys could +hardly sense sin as Maria could. Still she had a sense of proud +virtue after reading the paragraphs of good advice in reply to her +letters to the paper, and she felt that it placed her nearer +Maria's level. On the occasion when Maria met her reading the +paper, she even spoke.</p> +<p>“Hullo, M'ria!” said she.</p> +<p>“Good-evening,” Maria replied, politely and +haughtily.</p> +<p>But Gladys did not seem to notice the haughtiness. She pressed +close to Maria.</p> +<p>“Say!” said she.</p> +<p>“What?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“Ain't you ever goin' to—?”</p> +<p>“No, I am not,” replied Maria, deadly pale, and +trembling from head to foot.</p> +<p>“Why don't you write to this paper and ask what you had +better do?” said Gladys. “It's an awful good plan. You +do git awful good advice.”</p> +<p>“I don't wish to,” replied Maria, trying to pass, +but Gladys stood in her way.</p> +<p>“But say, M'ria, you be in an awful box,” said she. +“You can't never marry nobody else without you get locked up, +you know.”</p> +<p>“I don't want to,” Maria said, shortly.</p> +<p>“Mebbe you will.”</p> +<p>“I never shall.”</p> +<p>“Well, if you do, you had better write to this paper, then +you can find out just what to do. It won't tell you to do nothin' +wrong, and it's awful sensible. Say, M'ria.”</p> +<p>“Well, what?”</p> +<p>“I 'ain't never told a living soul, and I never shall, but +I don't see what you are goin' to do if either you or him wants to +git married to anybody else.”</p> +<p>“I am not worrying about getting married,” said +Maria. This time she pushed past Gladys. Her knees fairly knocked +together.</p> +<p>Gladys looked at her with sympathy and the old little-girl love +and adoration. “Well, don't you worry about me +tellin',” said she.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVIII</h4> +<p>Maria began her teaching on a September day. It was raining +hard, but there was all about an odd, fictitious golden light from +the spray of maple-leaves which overhung the village. Amity was a +typical little New England village—that is, it had departed +but little from its original type, although there was now a large +plant of paper-mills, which had called in outsiders. The outsiders +were established by themselves on a sort of Tom Tidler's ground +called “Across the River.” The river was little more +than a brook, except in spring, when, after heavy snows, it +sometimes verified its name of the Ramsey River. Ramsey was an old +family name in Amity, as Edgham was in Edgham. Once, indeed, the +little village had been called Ramsey Four Corners. Then the old +Ramsey family waned and grew less in popular esteem, and one day +the question of the appropriateness of naming the village after +them came up. There was another old family, by the name of +Saunders, between whom and the Ramseys had always been a dignified +New England feud. The Saunders had held their own much better than +the Ramseys. There was one branch especially, to which Judge Josiah +Saunders belonged, which was still notable. Judge Josiah had served +in the State legislature, he was a judge of the superior court, and +he occupied the best house in Amity, a fine specimen of the old +colonial mansion house, which had been in the Saunders family for +generations. Judge Saunders had made additions to this old mansion, +conservative, modern colonial additions, and it was really a noble +building. It was shortly after he had made the additions to his +house, and had served his first term as judge of the superior +court, that the question of changing the name of the village from +Ramsey Four Corners to Saunders had been broached. Meetings had +been held, in which the name of our celebrated townsman, the +Honorable Josiah Saunders, had been on every tongue. The Ramsey +family obtained scant recognition for past merits, but a becoming +silence had been maintained as to their present status. The only +recognized survivors of the old house of Ramsey at that time were +the widow, Amelia Ramsey, the wife of Anderson Ramsey, deceased, as +she appeared in the minutes of the meetings, and her son George, a +lad of sixteen, and the same who, in patched attire, had made love +to Maria over the garden fence when she was a child. It was about +that time that the meetings were taking place, and the name of the +village had been changed to Amity. It had been held to be a happy, +even a noble and generous thought, on the part of Josiah Saunders. +“Would that in such wise, by a combination of poetical +aspirations and practical deeds, all differences might be adjusted +upon this globe,” said the <cite>Amity Argus</cite>, in an +account of the meeting. Thenceforth, Ramsey Four Corners became +Amity, and the most genteel of the ladies had Amity engraved on +their note-paper.</p> +<p>Mrs. Amelia Ramsey and George, who had suffered somewhat in +their feelings, in spite of the poetical adjustment of the +difference, had no note-paper. They were poor, else Amity might +never have been. They lived in a house which had been, in its day, +as pretentious as the Saunders mansion. At the time of Maria's +first visit to Amity it had been a weather-beaten old structure, +which had not been painted for years, and had a curious effect as +of a blur on the landscape, with its roof and walls of rain and sun +stained shingles and clapboards, its leaning chimneys, and its +Corinthian pillars widely out of the perpendicular, supporting +crazily the roofs of the double veranda. When Maria went to Amity +to begin teaching, the old house had undergone a transformation. +She gazed at it with amazement out of the sitting-room window, +which faced it, on the afternoon of her arrival.</p> +<p>“Why, what has happened to the old Ramsey house?” +she asked her aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, in the first place, a cousin died and left them +some money,” replied Aunt Maria. “It was a matter of +ten thousand dollars. Then Amelia and George went right to work and +fixed up the house. It was none of my business, but it seemed +dreadful silly to me. If I had been in their place, I'd have let +that old ramshackle of a place go to pot and bought a nice little +new house. There was one they could have got for fifteen hundred +dollars, on this side of the river; but no, they went to work, and +they must have laid out three thousand clear on that old +thing.”</p> +<p>“It is beautiful!” said Maria, regarding it with +admiration.</p> +<p>“Well, I don't think it's very beautiful, but everybody to +their liking,” replied Aunt Maria, with a sniff of her high, +transparent nostrils. “For my part, I'd rather have a little, +clean new house before all the old ones, that folks have died in +and worried in, in creation.”</p> +<p>But Maria continued to regard the renovated Ramsey house with +admiration. It stood close to the street, as is the case with so +many old houses in rural New England. It had a tiny brick strip of +yard in front, on which was set, on either side of the stoop, a +great century-plant in a pot. Above them rose a curving flight of +steps to a broad veranda, supported with Corinthian pillars, which +were now upright and glistening with white paint, as was the entire +house.</p> +<p>“They had it all fixed up, inside and out,” said +Aunt Maria. “There wasn't a room but was painted and papered, +and a good many had to be plastered. They did not get much new +furniture, though. I should have thought they'd wanted to. All +they've got is awful old. But I heard George Ramsey say he wouldn't +swap one of those old mahogany pieces for the best new thing to be +bought. Well, everybody to their taste. If I had had my house all +fixed up that way, I should have wanted new furniture to +correspond.”</p> +<p>“What is George Ramsey doing?” asked Maria, with a +little, conscious blush of which she was ashamed. Maria, all her +life, would blush because people expected it of her. She knew as +plainly as if she had spoken, that her aunt Maria was considering +suddenly the advantages of a possible match between herself and +George Ramsey. What Aunt Maria said immediately confirmed this +opinion. She spoke with a sort of chary praise of George. Aunt +Maria had in reality never liked the Ramseys; she considered that +they felt above her, and for no good reason; still, she had an eye +for the main chance. It flashed swiftly across her mind that her +niece was pretty, and George might lose his heart to her and marry +her, and then Mrs. Amelia Ramsey might have to treat her like an +equal and no longer hold her old, aristocratic head so high.</p> +<p>“Well,” said she, “I suppose George Ramsey is +pretty smart. They say he is. I guess he favors his grandfather. +His father wasn't any too bright, if he was a Ramsey. George +Ramsey, they say, worked his way through college, used to be +bell-boy or waiter or something in a hotel summers, unbeknown to +his mother. Amelia Ramsey would have had a conniption fit if she +had known that her precious boy was working out. She used to talk +as grand as you please about George's being away on his vacation. +Maybe she did know, but if she did she never let on. I don't know +as she let on even to herself. Amelia Ramsey is one of the kind who +can shut their eyes even when they look at themselves. There never +was a lookin'-glass made that could show Amelia Ramsey anything she +didn't want to see. I never had any patience with her. I believe in +being proud if you've got anything to be proud of, but I don't see +any sense in it otherwise. Anyhow, I guess George is doing pretty +well. A distant relation of his mother, an Allen, not a Ramsey, got +a place in a bank for him, they say, and he gets good pay. I heard +it was three thousand a year, but I don't believe it. He ain't much +over twenty, and it ain't likely. I don't know jest how old he is. +He's some older than you.”</p> +<p>“He's a good deal older than I,” said Maria, +remembering sundry confidences with the tall, lanky boy over the +garden fence.</p> +<p>“Well, I don't know but he is,” said Aunt Maria, +“but I don't believe he gets three thousand a year, +anyhow.”</p> +<p>The next morning Maria, on her way to school in the rain, +passing under the unconquerable golden glow of the maples, cast a +surreptitious glance at the old Ramsey house as she passed. It had +been wonderfully changed for the better. Even the garden at the +side next her aunt's house was no longer a weedy enclosure, but +displayed an array of hardy flowers which the frost had not yet +affected. Marigolds tossed their golden and russet balls through +the misty wind of the rain, princess-feathers waved bravely, and +chrysanthemums showed in gorgeous clumps of rose and yellow and +white. As she passed, a tidy maid emerged from the front door and +began sweeping out the rain which had lodged in the old hollows of +the stone stoop, worn by the steps of generations. The rain flew +before her plying broom in a white foam. The maid wore a cap and a +wide, white apron. Maria reflected that the Ramseys had indeed come +into palmier days, since they kept a maid so attired. She thought +of George Ramsey with his patched trousers, and again the old +feeling of repulsion and wonder at herself that she could have had +romantic dreams about him came over her. Maria felt unutterably old +that morning, and yet she had a little, childish dread of her new +duties. She was in reality afraid of the school-children, although +she did not show it. She got through the day very creditably, +although that night she was tired as she had never been in her +life, and, curiously enough, her sense of smell seemed to be the +most affected. Many of her pupils came from poor families, the +families of operatives in the paper-mills, and their garments were +shabby and unclean. Soaked with rain, they gave out pungent odors. +Maria's sense of smell was very highly developed. It seemed to her +that her very soul was permeated, her very thoughts and +imagination, with the odor of damp, unclean clothing, of draggled +gowns and wraps and hats and wet leather. She could not eat her +supper; she could not eat the luncheon which her aunt had put up +for her, since the school being a mile away, it was too far to walk +home for the noonday dinner in the rain.</p> +<p>“You 'ain't eat hardly a mite of luncheon,” Aunt +Maria said when she opened the box.</p> +<p>“I did not feel very hungry,” Maria replied, +apologetically.</p> +<p>“If you don't eat, you'll never hold out school-teaching +in the world,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>She repeated it when Maria scarcely tasted her supper, although +it was a nice one—cold ham, and scrambled eggs, scrambled +with cream, and delicious slabs of layer-cake. “You'll never +hold out in the world if you don't eat,” said she.</p> +<p>“To tell the truth,” replied Maria, “I can +smell those poor children's wet clothes so that it has taken away +all my appetite.”</p> +<p>“Land! you'll have to get over that,” said Aunt +Maria.</p> +<p>“It seems to me that everything smells and tastes of wet, +dirty clothes and shoes,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“You'll have to learn not to be so particular,” said +Aunt Maria, and she spoke with the same affectionate severity that +Maria remembered in her mother. “Put it out of your +mind,” she added.</p> +<p>“I can't,” said Maria, and a qualm of nausea came +over her. It was as if the damp, unclean garments and the wet shoes +were pressed close under her nostrils. She looked pale.</p> +<p>“Well, drink your tea, anyhow,” said Aunt Maria, +with a glance at her.</p> +<p>After supper Aunt Maria, going into the other side of the house +to borrow some yeast, said to her brother Henry that she did not +believe that Maria would hold out to teach school. “She has +come home sick on account of the smells the very first day,” +said she, “and she hasn't eat her supper, and she scarcely +touched her luncheon.”</p> +<p>Henry Stillman laughed, a bitter, sardonic laugh which he had +acquired of late years. “Oh, well, she will get used to +it,” he replied. “Don't you worry, Maria. She will get +used to it. The smell of the poor is the smell of the world. Heaven +itself must be full of it.”</p> +<p>His wife eyed him with a half-frightened air. “Why, don't +talk so, Henry!” she said.</p> +<p>Henry Stillman laughed, half sardonically, half tenderly. +“It is so, my dear,” he said, “but don't you +worry about it.”</p> +<p>In these days Henry Stillman, although always maintaining his +gentle manner towards children and women, had become, in the depths +of his long-suffering heart, a rebel against fate. He had borne too +long that burden which is the heaviest and most ignoble in the +world, the burden of a sense of injury. He knew that he was fitted +for better things than he had. He thought that it was not his own +personal fault that he did not have them, and his very soul was +curdling with a conviction of wrong, both at the hands of men and +God. In these days he ceased going to church. He watched his wife +and sister set out every Sunday, and he stayed at home. He got a +certain satisfaction out of that. All who realize an injury have an +amount of childishness in acts of retaliation. He, Henry Stillman, +actually had a conviction that he was showing recrimination and +wounding fate, which had so injured him, if only with a pin-prick, +by staying away from church. After Maria came to live with them, +she, too, went to church, but he did not view her with the same +sardonic air that he did the older women, who had remained true to +their faith in the face of disaster. He looked at Maria, in her +pretty little best gowns and hats, setting forth, and a sweet +tenderness for her love of God and belief sweetened his own +agnosticism. He would not for the world have said a word to weaken +the girl's faith nor to have kept her away from church. He would +have urged her to go had she manifested the slightest inclination +to remain at home. He was in a manner jealous of the girl's losing +what he had himself lost. He tried to refrain from airing his +morbid, bitter views of life to his wife, but once in a while he +could not restrain himself as now. However, he laughed so +naturally, and asked Maria, who presently came in, how many pupils +had been present, and how she liked school-teaching, that his wife +began to think that he had not been in earnest.</p> +<p>“They are such poor, dirty little things,” Maria +said, “and their clothes were wet, and—and—” A look of nausea overspread her face.</p> +<p>“You will get used to that,” said her uncle, +laughing pleasantly. “Eunice, haven't we got some cologne +somewhere?”</p> +<p>Eunice got a bottle of cologne, which was seldom used, being a +luxury, from a closet in the sitting-room, and put some on Maria's +handkerchief. “You won't think anything about it after a +little,” said she, echoing her husband.</p> +<p>“I suppose the scholars in Lowe Academy were a different +class,” said Aunt Maria, who had seated herself as primly as +ever, with her hands crossed but not touching the lap of her black +gown. The folds of the skirt were carefully arranged, and she did +not move after having once seated herself, for fear of creasing +it.</p> +<p>“They were clean, at least,” said Maria, with a +little grimace of disgust. “It does seem as if people might +be clean, if they are poor.”</p> +<p>“Some folks here are too poor to buy soap and wash-cloths +and towels,” her uncle said, still not bitterly. “You +must take that into account, Maria. It takes a little extra money +even to keep clean; people don't get that into their heads, +generally speaking, but it is so.”</p> +<p>“Well, I haven't had much money,” said Aunt Maria, +“but I must say I have kept myself in soap and wash-rags and +towels.”</p> +<p>“You might not have been able to if you had had half a +dozen children and a drinking husband, or one who was out of work +half the time,” her brother said.</p> +<p>An elderly blush spread over his sister's face. “Well, the +Lord knows I'd rather have the soap and towels and wash-rags than a +drunken husband and half a dozen dirty children,” she +retorted, sharply.</p> +<p>“Lucky for you and the children that you have,” said +Henry. Then he turned again to his niece, of whom he was very fond. +“It won't rain every day, dear,” he said, “and +the smells won't be so bad. Don't worry.”</p> +<p>Maria smiled back at him bravely. “I shall get used to +it,” she said, sniffing at the cologne, which was cheap and +pretty bad.</p> +<p>Maria was in reality dismayed. Her experience with +children—that is, her personal experience—had been +confined to her sister Evelyn. She compared dainty little Evelyn +with the rough, uncouth, half-degenerates which she had encountered +that morning, sitting before her with gaping mouths of stupidity or +grins of impish impudence, in their soiled, damp clothing, and her +heart sank. There was nothing in common except youth between these +children, the offspring of ignorance and often drunken sensuality, +and Evelyn. At first it seemed to her that there was absolutely no +redeeming quality in the whole. However, the next morning the sun +shone through the yellow maple boughs, and was reflected from the +golden carpet of leaves which the wind and rain of the day before +had spread beneath. The children were dry; some of them had become +ingratiating, even affectionate. She discovered that there were a +number of pretty little girls and innocent, honest little boys, +whose mothers had made pathetic attempts to send them clean and +whole to school. She also discovered that some of them had +reasonably quick intelligence, especially one girl, by name Jessy +Ramsey. She was of a distant branch of the old Ramseys, and had a +high, spiritual forehead, from which the light hair was smoothly +combed in damp ridges, and a delicate face with serious, intent +blue eyes, under brows strangely pent for a child. Maria +straightway took a fancy to Jessy Ramsey. When, on her way home at +night, the child timidly followed in her wake, she reached out and +grasped her tiny hand with a warm pressure.</p> +<p>“You learned your lessons very well, Jessy,” she +said, and the child's face, as she looked up at her, grew +positively brilliant.</p> +<p>When Maria got home she enthused about her.</p> +<p>“There is one child in the school who is a wonder,” +said she.</p> +<p>“Who?” asked Aunt Maria. She was in her heart an +aristocrat. She considered the people of Amity—that is, the +manufacturing people (she exempted her own brother as she might +have exempted a prince of the blood drawn into an ignoble pursuit +from dire necessity)—as distinctly below par. Maria's school +was across the river. She regarded all the children below par. +“I do wish you could have had a school this side of the +river,” she added, “but Miss Norcross has held the +other ten years, and I don't believe she will ever get married, she +is so mortal homely, and they like her. Who is the child you are +talking about?”</p> +<p>“Her name is Ramsey, Jessy Ramsey.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria sniffed. “Oh!” said she. “She +belongs to that Eugene Ramsey tribe.”</p> +<p>“Any relation to the Ramseys next door?” asked +Maria.</p> +<p>“About a tenth cousin, I guess,” replied Aunt Maria. +“There was a Eugene Ramsey did something awful years ago, +before I was born, and he got into state-prison, and then when he +came out he married as low as he could. They have never had +anything to do with these Ramseys. They are just as low as they can +be—always have been.”</p> +<p>“This little girl is pretty, and bright,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria sniffed again. “Well, you'll see how she'll +turn out,” she said. “Never yet anything good came of +that Eugene Ramsey tribe. That child's father drinks like a fish, +and he's been in prison, and her mother's no better than she should +be, and she's got a sister that everybody talks about—has +ever since she was so high.”</p> +<p>“This seems like a good little girl,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“Wait and see,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>But for all that Maria felt herself drawn towards this poor +little offspring of the degenerate branch of the Ramseys. There was +something about the child's delicate, intellectual, fairly noble +cast of countenance which at once aroused her affection and pity. +It was in December, on a bitterly cold day, when Maria had been +teaching in Amity some two months, when this affection and pity +ripened into absolute fondness and protection. The children were +out in the bare school-yard during the afternoon recess, when +Maria, sitting huddled over the stove for warmth, heard such a +clamor that she ran to the window. Out in the desolate yard, a +parallelogram of frozen soil hedged in with a high board fence +covered with grotesque, and even obscene, drawings of pupils who +had from time to time reigned in district number six, was the +little Ramsey girl, surrounded by a crowd of girls who were fairly +yelping like little mongrel dogs. The boys' yard was on the other +side of the fence, but in the fence was a knot-hole wherein was +visible a keen boy-eye. One girl after another was engaged in +pulling to the height of her knees Jessy Ramsey's poor, little, +dirty frock, thereby disclosing her thin, naked legs, absolutely +uncovered to the freezing blast. Maria rushed bareheaded out in the +yard and thrust herself through the crowd of little girls.</p> +<p>“Girls, what are you doing?” she asked, sternly.</p> +<p>“Please, teacher, Jessy Ramsey, she 'ain't got nothin' at +all on under her dress,” piped one after another, in accusing +tones; then they yelped again.</p> +<p>Tears of pity and rage sprang to Maria's eyes. She caught hold +of the thin little shoulder, which was, beyond doubt, covered by +nothing except her frock, and turned furiously upon the other +girls.</p> +<p>“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” said she; +“great girls like you making fun of this poor +child!”</p> +<p>“She had ought to be ashamed of herself goin' round +so,” retorted the biggest girl in school, Alice Sweet, +looking boldly at Maria. “She ain't no better than her ma. My +ma says so.”</p> +<p>“My ma says I mustn't go with her,” said another +girl.</p> +<p>“Both of you go straight into the school-house,” +said Maria, at a white heat of anger as she impelled poor little +Jessy Ramsey out of the yard.</p> +<p>“I don't care,” said Alice Sweet, with quite audible +impudence.</p> +<p>The black eye at the knot-hole in the fence which separated the +girls' yard from the boys' was replaced by a blue one. Maria's +attention was attracted towards it by an audible titter from the +other side.</p> +<p>“Every one of you boys march straight into the +school-house,” she called. Then she led Jessy into a little +room which was dedicated to the teacher's outside wraps. The room +was little more than a closet, and very cold. Maria put her arm +around Jessy and felt with horror the little, naked body under the +poor frock.</p> +<p>“For Heaven's sake, child, why are you out with so little +on such a day as this?” she cried out.</p> +<p>Jessy began to cry. She had heretofore maintained a sullen +silence of depression under taunts, but a kind word was too much +for her.</p> +<p>“I 'ain't got no underclothes, teacher; I 'ain't, +honest,” she sobbed. “I'd outgrowed all my last year's +ones, and Mamie she's got 'em; and my mother she 'ain't got no +money to buy any more, and my father he's away on a drunk. I can't +help it; I can't, honest, teacher.”</p> +<p>Maria gazed at the little thing in a sort of horror. “Do +you mean to say that you have actually nothing to put on but your +dress, Jessy Ramsey?” said she.</p> +<p>“I can't help it, honest, teacher,” sobbed Jessy +Ramsey.</p> +<p>Maria continued to gaze at her, then she led her into the +school-room and rang the bell furiously. When the scholars were all +in their places, she opened her lips to express her mind to them, +but a second's reflection seemed to show her the futility of it. +Instead, she called the geography class.</p> +<p>After school that night, Maria, instead of going home, went +straight to Jessy Ramsey's home, which was about half a mile from +the school-house. She held Jessy, who wore a threadbare little cape +over her frock, by the hand. Franky Ramsey and Mamie Ramsey, +Jessy's younger brother and sister, tagged timidly behind her. +Finally, Maria waited for them to come up with her, which they did +with a cringing air.</p> +<p>“I want to know,” said Maria to Mamie, “if you +are wearing all your sister's underclothes this winter?”</p> +<p>Mamie whimpered a little as she replied. Mamie had a habitual +whimper and a mean little face, with a wisp of flaxen hair tied +with a dirty blue ribbon.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” she replied. “Jessy she growed +so she couldn't git into 'em, and mummer—”</p> +<p>The boy, who was very thin, almost to emaciation, and looked +consumptive, but who was impishly pert, cut in.</p> +<p>“I had to wear Jessy's shirts,” he said. +“Mamie she couldn't wear them 'ere.”</p> +<p>“So you haven't any flannel shirts?” Maria asked of +Mamie.</p> +<p>“I'm wearin' mummer's,” said Mamie. “Mummer's +they shrunk so she couldn't wear 'em, and Jessy couldn't +nuther.”</p> +<p>“What is your mother wearing?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“Mr. John Dorsey he bought her some new ones,” +replied Mamie, and a light of evil intelligence came into the mean +little face.</p> +<p>“Who is Mr. John Dorsey?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“Oh, he's to our house considerable,” replied Mamie, +still with that evil light, which grew almost confidential, upon +her face.</p> +<p>The boy chuckled a little and dug his toes into the frozen +earth, then he whistled.</p> +<p>The Ramsey house was the original old homestead of the family. +It was unspeakably decrepit and fallen from a former high estate. +The old house presented to Maria's fancy something in itself +degraded and loathsome. It seemed to partake actually of the +character of its inmates—to be stained and swollen and out of +plumb with unmentionable sins of degeneration. It was a very +poisonous fungus of a house, with blotches of paint here and there, +with its front portico supported drunkenly on swaying pillars, with +its roof hollowed about the chimney, with great stains here and +there upon the walls, which seemed like stains of sin rather than +of old rains. Maria marched straight to the house, leading Jessy, +with Mamie and Franky at her heels. She knocked on the door; there +was no bell, of course. But Franky pushed past her and opened the +door, and sang out, in his raucous voice:</p> +<p>“Hullo, mummer! Mummer!”</p> +<p>Mamie echoed him in her equally raucous voice, full of +dissonances. “Mummer! Mummer!”</p> +<p>A woman, large and dirty, but rather showily clad, with a brave +display of cheap jewelry, appeared in the doorway of a room on the +right, from which also issued a warm, spirituous odor, mingled with +onions and boiling meat. The woman, who had at one time been weakly +pretty, and even now was not bad-looking, stared with a sort of +vacant defiance at Maria.</p> +<p>“It's teacher, mummer,” volunteered Mamie.</p> +<p>Franky chuckled again, and again whistled. Franky's chuckles and +whistles were characteristic of him. He often disturbed the school +in such fashion.</p> +<p>Maria had a vision of a man in his shirt-sleeves, smoking beside +a red-hot stove, on which boiled the meat and onions. She began at +once upon her errand.</p> +<p>“How do you do, Mrs. Ramsey?” said she.</p> +<p>The woman mumbled something inarticulate and backed a little. +The man in the room leaned forward and rolled bloodshot eyes at +her. Maria began at once. She had much of her mother's spirit, +which, when it was aroused, balked at nothing. She pointed at +Jessy, then she extended her small index-finger severely at Mrs. +Ramsey.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Ramsey,” said she, and she stood so straight +that she looked much taller, her blue eyes flashed like steel at +the slinking ones of the older woman, “I want to inquire why +you sent this child to school such a day as this in such a +condition?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Ramsey again murmured something inarticulate and backed +still farther. Maria followed her quite into the room. A look of +insolent admiration became evident in the bloodshot eyes of the man +beside the stove. Maria had no false modesty when she was +righteously incensed. She would have said just the same before a +room full of men.</p> +<p>“That child,” she said, and she again pointed at +Jessy, shivering in her little, scanty frock—“that +child came to school to-day without any clothing under her dress; +one of the coldest days of the year, too. I don't see what you are +thinking of, you, her own mother, to let a child go out in such a +condition! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”</p> +<p>Then the woman crimsoned with wrath and she found speech, the +patois of New England, instead of New Jersey, to which Maria was +accustomed, and which she understood. This woman, instead of half +speaking, ran all her words together in a coarse, nasal +monotone.</p> +<p>“Hadn't nothin' to put on her,” she said. +“She'd outgrowed all she had, hadn't nothin', mind your own +business, go 'long home, where you b'long.”</p> +<p>Maria understood the last words, and she replied, fiercely, +“I am not going home one step until you promise me you'll get +decent underwear for this child to wear to school,” said she, +“and that you won't allow her to go out-of-doors in this +condition again. If you do, I'll have you arrested.”</p> +<p>The woman's face grew redder. She made a threatening movement +towards Maria, but the man beside the stove unexpectedly arose and +slouched between them, grinning and feeling in his pocket, whence +he withdrew two one-dollar notes.</p> +<p>“Here,” he said, in a growling voice, which was +nevertheless intended to be ingratiating. “Go 'n' buy the +young one somethin' to go to school in. Don't yer mind.”</p> +<p>Maria half extended her hand, then she drew it back. She looked +at the man, who exhaled whiskey as a fungus an evil perfume. She +glanced at Mrs. Ramsey.</p> +<p>“Is this man your father?” she asked of Jessy.</p> +<p>Immediately the boy burst into a peal of meaning laughter. The +man himself chuckled, then looked grave, with an effort, as he +stood extending the money.</p> +<p>“Better take 'em an' buy the young one some +clothes,” he said.</p> +<p>“Who is this man?” demanded Maria, severely, of the +laughing boy.</p> +<p>“It's Mr. John Dorsey,” replied Franky.</p> +<p>Then a light of the underneath evil fire of the world broke upon +Maria's senses. She repelled the man haughtily.</p> +<p>“I don't want your money,” said she. +“But”—she turned to the woman—“if you +send that child to school again, clothed as she is to-day, I will +have you arrested. I mean it.” With that she was gone, with a +proud motion. Laughter rang out after her, also a scolding voice +and an oath. She did not turn her head. She marched straight on out +of the yard, to the street, and home.</p> +<p>She could not eat her supper. She had a sick, shocked +feeling.</p> +<p>“What is the matter?” her aunt Maria asked. +“It's so cold you can't have been bothered with the smells +to-day.”</p> +<p>“It's worse than smells,” replied Maria. Then she +told her story.</p> +<p>Her aunt stared at her. “Good gracious! You didn't go to +that awful house, a young girl like you?” she said, and her +prim cheeks burned. “Why, that man's livin' right there with +Mrs. Ramsey, and her husband winking at it! They are awful +people!”</p> +<p>“I would have gone anywhere to get that poor child clothed +decently,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“But you wouldn't take his money!”</p> +<p>“I rather guess I wouldn't!”</p> +<p>“Well, I don't blame you, but I don't see what is going to +be done.”</p> +<p>“I don't,” said Maria, helplessly. She reflected how +she had disposed already of her small stipend, and would not have +any more for some time, and how her own clothing no more than +sufficed for her.</p> +<p>“I can't give her a thing,” said Aunt Maria. +“I'm wearin' flannels myself that are so patched there isn't +much left of the first of 'em, and it's just so with the rest of my +clothes. I'm wearin' a petticoat made out of a comfortable my +mother made before Henry was married. It was quilted fine, and had +a small pattern, if it is copperplate, but I don't darse hold my +dress up only just so. I wouldn't have anybody know it for the +world. And I know Eunice ain't much better off. They had that big +doctor's bill, and I know she's patched and darned so she'd be +ashamed of her life if she fell down on the ice and broke a bone. I +tell you what it is, those other Ramseys ought to do something. I +don't care if they are such distant relations, they ought to do +something.”</p> +<p>After supper Maria and her aunt went into the other side of the +house, and Aunt Maria, who had been waxing fairly explosive, told +the tale of poor little Jessy Ramsey going to school with no +undergarments.</p> +<p>“It's a shame!” said Eunice, who was herself nervous +and easily aroused to indignation. She sat up straight and the +hollows on her thin cheeks blazed, and her thin New England mouth +tightened.</p> +<p>“George Ramsey ought to do something if he is earning as +much as they say he is,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“That is so,” said Eunice. “It doesn't make +any difference if they are so distantly related. It is the same +name and the same blood.”</p> +<p>Henry Stillman laughed his sardonic laugh. “You can't +expect the flowers to look out for the weeds,” he said. +“George Ramsey and his mother are in full blossom; they have +fixed up their house and are holding up their heads. You can't +expect them to look out for poor relations who have gone to the +bad, and done worse—got too poor to buy clothes enough to +keep warm.”</p> +<p>Maria suddenly sprang to her feet. “I know what I am going +to do,” she announced, with decision, and made for the +door.</p> +<p>“What on earth are you going to do?” asked her aunt +Maria.</p> +<p>“I am going straight in there, and I am going to tell them +how that poor little thing came to school to-day, and tell them +they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”</p> +<p>Before the others fairly realized what she was doing, Maria was +out of the house, running across the little stretch which +intervened. Her aunt Maria called after her, but she paid no +attention. She was at that moment ringing the Ramsey bell, with her +pretty, uncovered hair tossing in the December wind.</p> +<p>“She will catch her own death of cold,” said Aunt +Maria, “running out without anything on her head.”</p> +<p>“She will just get patronized for her pains,” said +Eunice, who had a secret grudge against the Ramseys for their +prosperity and their renovated house, a grudge which she had not +ever owned to her inmost self, but which nevertheless existed.</p> +<p>“She doesn't stop to think one minute; she's just like her +father about that,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>Henry Stillman said nothing. He took up his paper, which he had +been reading when Maria and his sister entered.</p> +<p>Meantime, Maria was being ushered into the Ramsey house by a +maid who wore a white cap. The first thing which she noticed as she +entered the house was a strong fragrance of flowers. That redoubled +her indignation.</p> +<p>“These Ramseys can buy flowers in midwinter,” she +thought, “while their own flesh and blood go almost +naked.”</p> +<p>She entered the room in which the flowers were, a great bunch of +pink carnations in a tall, green vase. The room was charming. It +was not only luxurious, but gave evidences of superior qualities in +its owners. It was empty when Maria entered, but soon Mrs. Ramsey +and her son came in. Maria recognized with a start her old +acquaintance, or rather she did not recognize him. She would not +have known him at all had she not seen him in his home. She had not +seen him before, for he had been away ever since she had come to +Amity. He had been West on business for his bank. Now he at once +stepped forward and spoke to her.</p> +<p>“You are my old friend, Miss Edgham, I think,” he +said. “Allow me to present my mother.”</p> +<p>Maria bowed perforce before the very gentle little lady in a +soft lavender cashmere, with her neck swathed in laces, but she did +not accept the offered seat, and she utterly disregarded the glance +of astonishment which both mother and son gave at her uncovered +shoulders and head. Maria's impetuosity had come to her from two +sides. When it was in flood, so to speak, nothing could stop +it.</p> +<p>“No, thank you, I can't sit down,” she said. +“I came on an errand. You are related, I believe, to the +other Ramseys. The children go to my school. There are Mamie and +Franky and Jessy.”</p> +<p>“We are very distantly related, and, on the whole, proud +of the distance rather than the relationship,” said George +Ramsey, with a laugh.</p> +<p>Then Maria turned fiercely upon him. “You ought to be +ashamed of yourself,” said she.</p> +<p>The young man stared at her.</p> +<p>Maria persisted. “Yes, you ought,” she said. +“I don't care how distant the relationship is, the same blood +is in your veins, and you bear the same name.”</p> +<p>“Why, what is the matter?” asked George Ramsey, +still in a puzzled, amused voice.</p> +<p>Maria spoke out. “That poor little Jessy Ramsey,” +said she, “and she is the prettiest and brightest scholar I +have, too, came to school to-day without a single stitch of +clothing under her dress. It is a wonder she didn't die. I don't +know but she will die, and if she does it will be your +fault.”</p> +<p>George Ramsey's face suddenly sobered; his mother's flushed. She +looked at him, then at Maria, almost with fright. She felt really +afraid of this forcible girl, who was so very angry and so very +pretty in her anger. Maria had never looked prettier than she did +then, with her cheeks burning and her blue eyes flashing with +indignation and defiance.</p> +<p>“That is terrible, such a day as this,” said George +Ramsey.</p> +<p>“Yes; I had no idea they were quite so badly off,” +murmured his mother.</p> +<p>“You ought to have had some idea,” flashed out +Maria.</p> +<p>“We had not, Miss Edgham,” said George, gently. +“You must remember how very distant the relationship is. I +believe it begins with the fourth generation from myself. And there +are other reasons—”</p> +<p>“There ought not to be other reasons,” Maria +said.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ramsey looked with wonder and something like terror and +aversion at this pretty, violent girl, who was espousing so +vehemently, not to say rudely, the cause of the distant relatives +of her husband's family. The son, however, continued to smile +amusedly at Maria.</p> +<p>“Won't you sit down, Miss Edgham?” he said.</p> +<p>“Yes, won't you sit down?” his mother repeated, +feebly.</p> +<p>“No, thank you,” said Maria. “I only came +about this. I—I would do something for the poor little thing +myself, but I haven't any money now, and Aunt Maria would, and +Uncle Henry, and Aunt Eunice, but they—”</p> +<p>All at once Maria, who was hardly more than a child herself, and +who had been in reality frightfully wrought up over the piteous +plight of the other child, lost control of herself. She began to +cry. She put her handkerchief to her face and sobbed +helplessly.</p> +<p>“The poor little thing! oh, the poor little thing!” +she panted, “with nobody in the world to do anything for her, +and her own people so terribly wicked. I—can't bear +it!”</p> +<p>The first thing she knew, Maria was having a large, soft cloak +folded around her, and somebody was leading her gently to the door. +She heard a murmured good-night, to which she did not respond +except by a sob, and was led, with her arm rather closely held, +along the sidewalk to her own door. At the door George Ramsey took +her hand, and she felt something pressed softly into it.</p> +<p>“If you will please buy what the poor little thing needs +to make her comfortable,” he whispered.</p> +<p>“Thank you,” Maria replied, faintly. She began to be +ashamed of her emotion.</p> +<p>“You must not think that my mother and I were knowing to +this,” George Ramsey said. “We are really such very +distant relations that the name alone is the only bond between us; +still, on general principles, if the name had been different, I +would do what I could. Such suffering is terrible. You must not +think us hard-hearted, Miss Edgham.”</p> +<p>Maria looked up at the young fellow's face, upon which an +electric light shone fully, and it was a good face to see. She +could not at all reconcile it with her memory of the rather silly +little boy with the patched trousers, with whom she had discoursed +over the garden fence. This face was entirely masterly, dark and +clean-cut, with fine eyes, and a distinctly sweet expression about +the mouth which he had inherited from his mother.</p> +<p>“I suppose I was very foolish,” Maria said, in a low +voice. “I am afraid I was rude to your mother. I did not mean +to be, but the poor little thing, and this bitter day, and I went +home with her, and there was a dreadful man there who offered me +money to buy things for her—”</p> +<p>“I hope you did not take it,” George Ramsey said, +quickly.</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“I am glad of that. They are a bad lot. I don't know about +this little girl. She may be a survival of the fittest, but take +them all together they are a bad lot, if they are my relatives. +Good-night, Miss Edgham, and I beg you not to distress yourself +about it all.”</p> +<p>“I am very sorry if I was rude,” Maria said, and she +spoke like a little girl.</p> +<p>“You were not rude at all,” George responded, +quickly. “You were only all worked up over such suffering, +and it did you credit. You were not rude at all.” He shook +hands again with Maria. Then he asked if he might call and see her +sometime. Maria said yes, and fled into the house.</p> +<p>She went into her aunt Maria's side of the house, and ran +straight up-stairs to her own room. Presently she heard doors +opening and shutting and knew that her aunt was curiously following +her from the other side. She came to Maria's door, which was +locked. Aunt Maria was not surprised at that, as Maria always +locked her door at night—she herself did the same.</p> +<p>“Have you gone to bed?” called Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Maria, who had, indeed, hurriedly +hustled herself into bed.</p> +<p>“Gone to bed early as this?” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“I am dreadfully tired,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“Did they give you anything? Why didn't you come into the +other side and tell us about it?”</p> +<p>“Mr. George Ramsey gave me ten dollars.”</p> +<p>“Gracious!” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>Presently she spoke again. “What did they say?” she +asked.</p> +<p>“Not much of anything.”</p> +<p>“Gave you ten dollars?” said Aunt Maria. +“Well, you can get enough to make her real comfortable with +that. Didn't you get chilled through going over there without +anything on?”</p> +<p>“No,” replied Maria, and as she spoke she realized, +in the moonlit room, a mass of fur-lined cloak over a chair. She +had forgotten to return it to George Ramsey. “I had Mrs. +Ramsey's cloak coming home,” she called.</p> +<p>“Well, I'm glad you did. It's awful early to go to bed. +Don't you want something?”</p> +<p>“No, thank you.”</p> +<p>“Don't you want me to heat a soapstone and fetch it up to +you?”</p> +<p>“No, thank you.”</p> +<p>“Well, good-night,” said Aunt Maria, in a puzzled +voice.</p> +<p>“Good-night,” said Maria. Then she heard her aunt go +away.</p> +<p>It was a long time before Maria went to sleep. She awoke about +two o'clock in the morning and was conscious of having been +awakened by a strange odor, a combined odor of camphor and +lavender, which came from Mrs. Ramsey's cloak. It disturbed her, +although she could not tell why. Then all at once she saw, as +plainly as if he were really in the room, George Ramsey's face. At +first a shiver of delight came over her; then she shuddered. A +horror, as of one under conviction of sin, came over her. It was as +if she repelled an evil angel from her door, for she remembered all +at once what had happened to her, and that it was a sin for her +even to dream of George Ramsey; and she had allowed him to come +into her waking dreams. She got out of bed, took up the soft cloak, +thrust it into her closet, and shut the door. Then she climbed +shivering back into bed, and lay there in the moonlight, entangled +in the mystery of life.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIX</h4> +<p>The very next day, which was Saturday, and consequently a +holiday, Maria went on the trolley to Westbridge, which was a +provincial city about six miles from Amity. She proposed buying +some clothing for Jessy Ramsey with the ten dollars which George +Ramsey had given her. Her aunt Eunice accompanied her.</p> +<p>“George Ramsey goes over to Westbridge on the +trolley,” said Eunice, as they jolted along—the cars +were very well equipped, but the road was rough—“and I +shouldn't wonder if he was on our car coming back.”</p> +<p>Maria colored quickly and looked out of the window. The cars +were constructed like those on steam railroads, with seats facing +towards the front, and Maria's aunt had insisted upon her sitting +next to the window because the view was in a measure new to her. +She had not been over the road many times since she had come to +Amity. She stared out at the trimly kept country road, lined with +cheap Queen Anne houses and the older type of New England cottages +and square frame houses, and it all looked strange to her after the +red soil and the lapse towards Southern ease and shiftlessness of +New Jersey. But nothing that she looked upon was as strange as the +change in her own heart. Maria, from being of an emotional nature, +had many times considered herself as being in love, young as she +was, but this was different. When her aunt Eunice spoke of George +Ramsey she felt a rigid shiver from head to foot. It seemed to her +that she could not see him nor speak to him, that she could not +return to Amity on the same car. She made no reply at first to her +aunt's remark, but finally she said, in a faint voice, that she +supposed Mr. Ramsey came home after bank hours at three +o'clock.</p> +<p>“He comes home a good deal later than that, as a general +thing,” said Eunice. “Oftener than not I see him get +off the car at six o'clock. I guess he stays and works after bank +hours. George Ramsey is a worker, if there ever was one. He's a +real likely young man.”</p> +<p>Maria felt Eunice's eyes upon her, and realized that she was +thinking, as her aunt Maria had done, that George Ramsey would be a +good match for her. A sort of desperation seized upon her.</p> +<p>“I don't know what you mean by likely,” Maria said, +impertinently, in her shame and defiance.</p> +<p>“Don't know what I mean by likely?”</p> +<p>“No, I don't. People in New Jersey don't say +likely.”</p> +<p>“Why, I mean he is a good young man, and likely to turn +out well,” responded Eunice, rather helplessly. She was a +very gentle woman, and had all her life been more or less +intimidated by her husband's and sister-in-laws' more strenuous +natures; and, if the truth were told, she stood in a little awe of +this blooming young niece, with her self-possession and clothes of +the New York fashion.</p> +<p>“I don't see why he is more <em>likely</em>, as you call +it, than any other young man,” Maria returned, pitilessly. +“I should call him a very ordinary young man.”</p> +<p>“He isn't called so generally,” Eunice said, +feebly.</p> +<p>They were about half an hour reaching Westbridge. Eunice by that +time had plucked up a little spirit. She reflected that Maria knew +almost nothing about the shopping district, and she herself had +shopped there all her life since she had been of shopping age. +Eunice had a great respect for the Westbridge stores, and +considered them distinctly superior to those of Boston. She was +horrified when Maria observed, shortly before they got off the car, +that she supposed they could have done much better in Boston.</p> +<p>“I guess you will find that Adams & Wood's is as good +a store as any you could go to in New York,” said Eunice. +“Then there is the Boston Store, too, and Collins & +Green's. All of them are very good, and they have a good +assortment. Hardly anybody in Amity goes anywhere else shopping, +they think the Westbridge stores so much better.”</p> +<p>“Of course it is cheaper to come here,” said Maria, +as they got off the car in front of Adams & Wood's.</p> +<p>“That isn't the reason,” said Eunice, eagerly. +“Why, Mrs. Judge Saunders buys 'most everything here; says +she can do enough sight better than she can anywhere +else.”</p> +<p>“If the dress Mrs. Saunders had on at the church supper +was a sample, she dresses like a perfect guy,” said Maria, as +they entered the store, with its two pretentious show-windows +filled with waxen ladies dressed in the height of the fashion, +standing in the midst of symmetrically arranged handkerchiefs and +rugs.</p> +<p>Maria knew that she was even cruelly pert to her aunt, but she +felt like stinging—like crowding some of the stings out of +her own heart. She asked herself was ever any girl so horribly +placed as she was, married, and not married; and now she had seen +some one else whom she must shun and try to hate, although she +wished to love him. Maria felt instinctively, remembering the old +scenes over the garden fence, and remembering how she herself had +looked that very day as she started out, with her puffy blue velvet +turban rising above the soft roll of her fair hair and her face +blooming through a film of brown lace, and also remembering George +Ramsey's tone as he asked if he might call, that if she were free +that things might happen with her as with other girls; that she and +George Ramsey might love each other, and become engaged; that she +might save her school money for a trousseau, and by-and-by be +married to a man of whom she should be very proud. The patches on +George Ramsey's trousers became very dim to her. She admired him +from the depths of her heart.</p> +<p>“I guess we had better look at flannels first,” +Eunice said. “It won't do to get all wool, aside from the +expense, for with that Ramsey woman's washing it wouldn't last any +time.”</p> +<p>She and her aunt made most of their purchases in Adams & +Wood's. They succeeded in obtaining quite a comfortable little +outfit for Jessy Ramsey, and at last boarded a car laden with +packages. Eunice had a fish-net bag filled to overflowing, but +Maria, who, coming from the vicinity of New York, looked down on +bags, carried her parcels in her arms.</p> +<p>Directly they were seated in the car Eunice gave Maria a violent +nudge with her sharp elbow. “He's on this car,” she +whispered in her ear, with a long hiss which seemed to penetrate +the girl's brain.</p> +<p>Maria made an impatient movement.</p> +<p>“Don't you think you ought to just step over and thank +him?” whispered Eunice. “I'll hold your bundles. He's +on the other side, a seat farther back. He raised his hat to +me.”</p> +<p>“Hush! I can't here.”</p> +<p>“Well, all right, but I thought it would look sort of +polite,” said Eunice. Then she subsided. Once in a while she +glanced back at George Ramsey, then uneasily at her niece, but she +said nothing more.</p> +<p>The car was crowded. Workmen smelling of leather clung to the +straps. One, in the aisle next Maria, who sat on the outside this +time, leaned fairly against her. He was a good-looking young +fellow, but he had a heavy jaw. He held an unlighted pipe in his +mouth, and carried a two-story tin dinner-pail. Maria kept +shrinking closer to her aunt, but the young man pressed against her +all the more heavily. His eyes were fixed with seeming +unconsciousness ahead, but a furtive smile lurked around his +mouth.</p> +<p>George Ramsey was watching. All at once he arose and quietly and +unobtrusively came forward, insinuated himself with a gentle force +between Maria and the workman, and spoke to her. The workman +muttered something under his breath, but moved aside. He gave an +ugly glance at George, who did not seem to see him at all. +Presently he sat down in George's vacated seat beside another man, +who said something to him with a coarse chuckle. The man growled in +response, and continued to scowl furtively at George, who stood +talking to Maria. He said something about the fineness of the day, +and Maria responded rather gratefully. She was conscious of an +inward tumult which alarmed her, and made her defiant both at the +young man and herself, but she could not help responding to the +sense of protection which she got from his presence. She had not +been accustomed to anything like the rudeness of the young workman. +In New Jersey caste was more clearly defined. Here it was not +defined at all. An employé in a shoe-factory had not the +slightest conception that he was not the social equal of a +school-teacher, and indeed in many cases he was. There were by no +means all like this one, whose mere masculine estate filled him +with entire self-confidence where women were concerned. In a sense +his ignorance was pathetic. He had honestly thought that the +pretty, strange girl must like his close contact, and he felt +aggrieved that this other young man, who did not smell of leather +and carried no dinner-pail, had ousted him. He viewed Maria's +delicate profile with a sort of angry tenderness.</p> +<p>“Say, she's a beaut, ain't she?” whispered the man +beside him, with a malicious grin, and again got a surly growl in +response.</p> +<p>Maria finally, much to her aunt's delight, said to George that +they had been shopping, and thanked him for the articles which his +money had enabled them to buy.</p> +<p>“The poor little thing can go to school now,” said +Maria. There was gratitude in her voice, and yet, oddly enough, +still a tinge of reproach.</p> +<p>“If mother and I had dreamed of the true state of affairs +we would have done something before,” George Ramsey said, +with an accent of apology; and yet he could not see for the life of +him why he should be apologetic for the poverty of these degenerate +relatives of his. He could not see why he was called upon to be his +brother's keeper in this case, but there was something about +Maria's serious, accusing gaze of blue eyes, and her earnest voice, +that made him realize that he could prostrate himself before her +for uncommitted sins. Somehow, Maria made him feel responsible for +all that he might have done wrong as well as his actual +wrong-doing, although he laughed at himself for his mental +attitude. Suddenly a thought struck him. “When are you going +to take all these things (how you ever managed to get so much for +ten dollars I don't understand) to the child?” he asked, +eagerly.</p> +<p>Maria replied, unguardedly, that she intended to take them after +supper that night. “Then she will have them all ready for +Monday,” she said.</p> +<p>“Then let me go with you and carry the parcels,” +George Ramsey said, eagerly.</p> +<p>Maria stiffened. “Thank you,” she said, “but +Uncle Henry is going with me, and there is no need.”</p> +<p>Maria felt her aunt Eunice give a sudden start and make an +inarticulate murmur of remonstrance, then she checked herself. +Maria knew that her uncle walked a mile from his factory to save +car-fare; she knew also that she was telling what was practically +an untruth, since she had made no agreement with her uncle to +accompany her.</p> +<p>“I should be happy to go with you,” said George +Ramsey, in a boyish, abashed voice.</p> +<p>Maria said nothing more. She looked past her aunt out of the +window. The full moon was rising, and all at once all the girl's +sweet light of youthful romance appeared again above her mental +horizon. She felt that it would be almost heaven to walk with +George Ramsey in that delicious moonlight, in the clear, frosty +air, and take little Jessy Ramsey her gifts. Maria was of an almost +abnormal emotional nature, although there was little that was +material about the emotion. She dreamed of that walk as she might +have dreamed of a walk with a fairy prince through fairy-land, and +her dream was as innocent, but it unnerved her. She said again, in +a tremulous voice, that she was very much obliged, and murmured +something again about her uncle Henry; and George Ramsey replied, +with a certain sober dignity, that he should have been very +happy.</p> +<p>Soon after that the car stopped to let off some passengers, and +George moved to a vacant seat in front. He did not turn around +again. Maria looked at his square shoulders and again gazed past +her aunt at the full orb of the moon rising with crystalline +splendor in the pale amber of the east. There was a clear gold +sunset which sent its reflection over the whole sky.</p> +<p>Presently, Eunice spoke in her little, deprecating voice, which +had a slight squeak.</p> +<p>“Did you speak to your uncle Henry about going with you +this evening?” she asked.</p> +<p>“No, I didn't,” admitted Maria, reddening, +“but I knew he would be willing.”</p> +<p>“I suppose he will be,” said Eunice. “But he +does get home awful tuckered out Saturday nights, and he always +takes his bath Saturday nights, too.”</p> +<p>Eunice looked out of the window with a slight frown. She adored +her husband, and the thought of that long walk for him on his weary +Saturday evening, and the possible foregoing of his bath, troubled +her.</p> +<p>“I don't believe George Ramsey liked it,” she +whispered, after a little.</p> +<p>“I can't help it if he didn't,” replied Maria. +“I can't go with him, Aunt Eunice.”</p> +<p>As they jolted along, Maria made up her mind that she would not +ask her uncle to go with her at all; that she would slip out +unknown to Aunt Maria and ask the girl who lived in the house on +the other side, Lily Merrill, to go with her. She thought that two +girls need not be afraid, and she could start early.</p> +<p>As she parted from her aunt Eunice at the door of the house, +after they had left the car (Eunice's door was on the side where +the Ramseys lived, and Maria's on the Merrill side), she told her +of her resolution.</p> +<p>“Don't say anything to Uncle Henry about going with +me,” said she.</p> +<p>“Why, what are you going to do?”</p> +<p>“I'll get Lily Merrill. I know she won't mind.”</p> +<p>Maria and Lily Merrill had been together frequently since Maria +had come to Amity, and Eunice accounted them as intimate. She +looked hesitatingly a second at her niece, then she said, with an +evident air of relief:</p> +<p>“Well, I don't know but you can. It's bright moonlight, +and it's late in the season for tramps. I don't see why you two +girls can't go together, if you start early.”</p> +<p>“We'll start right after supper,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“I would,” said Eunice, still with an air of +relief.</p> +<p>Maria took her aunt's fish-net bag, as well as her own parcels, +and carried them around to her aunt Maria's side of the house, and +deposited them on the door-step. There was a light in the kitchen, +and she could see her aunt Maria's shadow moving behind the +curtain, preparing supper. Then she ran across the yard, over the +frozen furrows of a last year's garden, and knocked at the +side-door of the Merrill house.</p> +<p>Lily herself opened the door, and gave a little, loving cry of +surprise. “Why, is it you, dear?” she said.</p> +<p>“Yes. I want to know if you can go over the river with me +to-night on an errand?”</p> +<p>“Over the river? Where?”</p> +<p>“Oh, only to Jessy Ramsey's. Aunt Eunice and I have been +to Westbridge and bought these things for her, and I want to carry +them to her to-night. I thought maybe you would go with +me.”</p> +<p>Lily hesitated. “It's a pretty lonesome walk,” said +she, “and there are an awful set of people on the other side +of the river.”</p> +<p>“Oh, nonsense!” cried Maria. “You aren't +afraid—we two together—and it's bright moonlight, as +bright as day.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I know it is,” replied Lily, gazing out at the +silver light which flooded everything, but she still hesitated. A +light in the house behind gave her a background of light. She was a +beautiful girl, prettier than Maria, taller, and with a timid, +pliant grace. Her brown hair tossed softly over her big, brown +eyes, which were surmounted by strongly curved eyebrows, her nose +was small, and her mouth, and she had a fascinating little way of +holding her lips slightly parted, as if ready for a loving word or +a kiss. Everybody said that Lily Merrill had a beautiful +disposition, albeit some claimed that she lacked force. Maria +dominated her, although she did not herself know it. Lily continued +to hesitate with her beautiful, startled brown eyes on Maria's +face.</p> +<p>“Aren't you afraid?” she said.</p> +<p>“Afraid? No. What should I be afraid of? Why, it's bright +moonlight! I would just as soon go at night as in the daytime when +the moon is bright.”</p> +<p>“That is an awful man who lives at the +Ramseys'!”</p> +<p>“Nonsense! I guess if he tried to bother us, Mrs. Ramsey +would take care of him,” said Maria. “Come along, Lily. +I would ask Uncle Henry, but it is the night when he takes his +bath, and he comes home tired.”</p> +<p>“Well, I'll go if mother will let me,” said +Lily.</p> +<p>Then Lily called to her mother, who came to the sitting-room +door in response.</p> +<p>“Mother,” said Lily, “Maria wants me to go +over to the Ramseys', those on the other side of the river, after +supper, and carry these things to Jessy.”</p> +<p>“Aren't you afraid?” asked Lily's mother, as Lily +herself had done. She was a faded but still pretty woman who had +looked like her daughter in her youth. She was a widow with some +property, enough for her Lily and herself to live on in +comfort.</p> +<p>“Why, it's bright moonlight, Mrs. Merrill,” said +Maria, “and the Ramseys live just the other side of the +river.”</p> +<p>“Well, if Lily isn't afraid, I don't care,” said +Mrs. Merrill. She had an ulterior motive for her consent, of which +neither of the two girls suspected her. She was smartly dressed, +and her hair was carefully crimped, and she had, as always in the +evening, hopes that a certain widower, the resident physician of +Amity, Dr. Ellridge, might call. He had noticed her several times +at church suppers, and once had walked home with her from an +evening meeting. Lily never dreamed that her mother had aspirations +towards a second husband. Her father had been dead ten years; the +possibility of any one in his place had never occurred to her; +then, too, she looked upon her mother as entirely too old for +thoughts of that kind. But Mrs. Merrill had her own views, which +she kept concealed behind her pretty, placid exterior. She always +welcomed the opportunity of being left alone of an evening, because +she realized the very serious drawback that the persistent presence +of a pretty, well-grown daughter might be if a wooer would wish to +woo. She knew perfectly well that if Dr. Ellridge called, Lily +would wonder why he called, and would sit all the evening in the +same room with her fancy-work, entirely unsuspicious. Lily might +even think he came to see her. Mrs. Merrill had a measure of +slyness and secrecy which her daughter did not inherit. Lily was +not brilliant, but she was as entirely sweet and open as the flower +for which she was named. She was emotional, too, with an innocent +emotionlessness, and very affectionate. Mrs. Merrill made almost no +objection to Lily's going with Maria, but merely told her to wrap +up warmly when she went out. Lily looked charming, with a great fur +boa around her long, slender throat, and red velvet roses nestling +under the brim of her black hat against the soft puff of her brown +hair. She bent over her mother and kissed her.</p> +<p>“I hope you won't be very lonesome, mother dear,” +she said.</p> +<p>Mrs. Merrill blushed a little. To-night she had confident hopes +of the doctor's calling; she had even resolved upon a coup. +“Oh no, I shall not be lonesome,” she replied. +“Norah isn't going out, you know.”</p> +<p>“We shall not be gone long, anyway,” Lily said, as +she went out. She had not even noticed her mother's blush. She was +not very acute. She ran across the yard, the dry grass of which +shone like a carpet of crisp silver in the moonlight, and knocked +on Maria's door. Maria answered her knock. She was all ready, and +she had her aunt Eunice's fish-net bag and her armful of +parcels.</p> +<p>“Here, let me take some of them, dear,” said Lily, +in her cooing voice, and she gathered up some of the parcels under +her long, supple arm.</p> +<p>Maria's aunt Maria followed her to the door. “Now, mind +you don't go into that house,” said she. “Just leave +the things and run right home; and if you see anybody who looks +suspicious, go right up to a house and knock. I don't feel any too +safe about you two girls going, anyway.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria spoke in a harsh, croaking voice; she had a cold. +Maria seized her by the shoulders and pushed her back, +laughingly.</p> +<p>“You go straight in the house,” said she. “And +don't you worry. Lily and I both have hat-pins, and we can both +run, and there's nothing to be afraid of, anyway.”</p> +<p>“Well, I don't half like the idea,” croaked Aunt +Maria, retreating.</p> +<p>Lily and Maria went on their way. Lily looked affectionately at +her companion, whose pretty face gained a singular purity of beauty +from the moonlight.</p> +<p>“How good you are, dear,” she said.</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” replied Maria. Somehow all at once the +consciousness of her secret, which was always with her, like some +hidden wound, stung her anew. She thought suddenly how Lily would +not think her good at all if she knew what an enormous secret she +was hiding from her, of what duplicity she was guilty.</p> +<p>“Yes, you are good,” said Lily, “to take all +this trouble to get that poor little thing clothes.”</p> +<p>“Oh, as for that,” said Maria, “Mr. George +Ramsey is the one to be thanked. It was his money that bought the +things, you know.”</p> +<p>“He is good, too,” said Lily, and her voice was like +a song with cadences of tenderness.</p> +<p>Maria started and glanced at her, then looked away again. A +qualm of jealousy, of which she was ashamed, seized her. She gave +her head a toss, and repeated, with a sort of defiance, “Yes, +he is good enough, I suppose.”</p> +<p>“I think you are real sweet,” said Lily, “and +I do think George Ramsey is splendid.”</p> +<p>“I don't see anything very remarkable about him,” +said Maria.</p> +<p>“Don't you think he is handsome?”</p> +<p>“I don't know. I don't suppose I ever think much about a +man being handsome. I don't like handsome men, anyway. I don't like +men, anyway, when it comes to that.”</p> +<p>“George Ramsey is very nice,” said Lily, and there +was an accent in her speech which made the other girl glance at +her. Lily's face was turned aside, although she was clinging close +to Maria's arm, for she was in reality afraid of being out in the +night with another girl.</p> +<p>They walked along in silence after that. When they came to the +covered bridge which crossed the river, Lily forced Maria into a +run until they reached the other side.</p> +<p>“It is awful in here,” she said, in a fearful +whisper.</p> +<p>Maria laughed. She herself did not feel the least fear, although +she was more imaginative than the other girl. At that time a kind +of rage against life itself possessed her which made her insensible +to ordinary fear. She felt that she had been hardly used, and she +was, in a measure, at bay. She knew that she could fight anything +until she died, and beyond that there was nothing certainly to +fear. She had become abnormal because of her strained situation as +regarded society. However, she ran because Lily wished her to do +so, and they soon emerged from the dusty tunnel of the bridge, with +its strong odor of horses, and glimpses between the sides of the +silver current of the river, into the moon-flooded road.</p> +<p>After the bridge came the school-house, then, a half-mile beyond +that, the Ramsey house. The front windows were blazing with light, +and the sound of a loud, drunken voice came from within.</p> +<p>Lily shrank and clung closely to Maria.</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria, I am awfully afraid to go to the door,” +she whispered. “Just hear that. Eugene Ramsey must be home +drunk, and—and perhaps the other man, too. I am afraid. Don't +let's go there.”</p> +<p>Maria looked about her. “You see that board fence, +then?” she said to Lily, and as she spoke she pointed to a +high board fence on the other side of the street, which was +completely in shadow.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Well, if you are afraid, just go and stand straight +against the fence. You will be in shadow, and if you don't move +nobody can possibly see you. Then I will go to the door and leave +the things.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria, aren't you afraid?”</p> +<p>“No, I am not a bit afraid.”</p> +<p>“You won't go in, honest?”</p> +<p>“No, I won't go in. Run right over there.”</p> +<p>Lily released her hold of Maria's arm and made a fluttering +break for the fence, against which she shrank and became actually +invisible as a shadow. Maria marched up to the Ramsey door and +knocked loudly. Mrs. Ramsey came to the door, and Maria thrust the +parcels into her hands and began pulling them rapidly out of the +fish-net bag. Mrs. Ramsey cast a glance behind her at the lighted +room, through which was visible the same man whom Maria had seen +before, and also another, and swung the door rapidly together, so +that she stood in the dark entry, only partly lighted by the +moonlight.</p> +<p>“I have brought some things for Jessy to wear to school, +Mrs. Ramsey,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Thank you,” Mrs. Ramsey mumbled, doubtfully, with +still another glance at the closed door, through which shone lines +and chinks of light.</p> +<p>“There are enough for her to be warmly clothed, and you +will see to it that she has them on, won't you?” said Maria. +Her voice was quite sweet and ingratiating, and not at all +patronizing.</p> +<p>Suddenly the woman made a clutch at her arm. “You are a +good young one, doin' so much for my young one,” she +whispered. “Now you'd better git up and git. They've been +drinkin'. Git!”</p> +<p>“You will see that Jessy has the things to wear Monday, +won't you?” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Sure.” Suddenly the woman wiped her eyes and gave a +maudlin sob. “You're a good young one,” she whimpered. +“Now, git.”</p> +<p>Maria ran across the road as the door closed after her. She did +not know that Mrs. Ramsey had given the parcels which she had +brought a toss into another room, and when she entered the room in +which the men were carousing and was asked who had come to the +door, had replied, “The butcher for his bill,” to be +greeted with roars of laughter. She did, indeed, hear the roars of +laughter. Lily slunk along swiftly beside the fence by her side. +Maria caught her by the arm. Curiously enough, while she was not +afraid for herself, she did feel a little fear now for her +companion. The two girls hurried until they reached the bridge, and +ran the whole length. On the other side, coming into the lighted +main street of Amity, they felt quite safe.</p> +<p>“Did you see any of those dreadful men?” gasped +Lily.</p> +<p>“I just caught a glimpse of them, then Mrs. Ramsey shut +the door,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“They were drunk, weren't they?”</p> +<p>“I shouldn't wonder.”</p> +<p>“I do think it was an awful place to go to,” said +Lily, with a little sigh of relief that she was out of it.</p> +<p>The girls went along the street until they reached the Ramsey +house, next the one where Maria lived. Suddenly a man's figure +appeared from the gate. It was almost as if he had been +watching.</p> +<p>“Good-evening,” he said, and the girls saw that he +was George Ramsey.</p> +<p>“Good-evening, Mr. Ramsey,” responded Maria. She +felt Lily's arm tremble in hers. George walked along with them. +“I have been to carry the presents which I bought with your +money,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Good heavens! You don't mean that you two girls have been +all alone up there?” said George.</p> +<p>“Why, yes,” said Maria. “Why not?”</p> +<p>“Weren't you afraid?”</p> +<p>“Maria isn't afraid of anything,” Lily's sweet, +little, tremulous voice piped on the other side.</p> +<p>George was walking next Maria. There was a slight and very +gentle accusation in the voice.</p> +<p>“It wasn't safe,” said George, soberly, “and I +should have been glad to go with you.”</p> +<p>Maria laughed. “Well, here we are, safe and sound,” +she said. “I didn't see anything to be much afraid +of.”</p> +<p>“All the same, they are an awful set there,” said +George. They had reached Maria's door, and he added, “Suppose +you walk along with me, Miss Edgham, and I will see Lily +home.” George had been to school with Lily, and had always +called her by her first name.</p> +<p>Maria again felt that little tremor of Lily's arm in hers, and +did not understand it. “All right,” she said.</p> +<p>The three walked to Lily's door, and had said good-night, when +Lily, who was, after all, the daughter of her mother, although her +little artifices were few and innocent, had an inspiration. She +discovered that she had lost her handkerchief.</p> +<p>“I think I took it out when we reached your gate, Mr. +Ramsey,” she said, timidly, for she felt guilty.</p> +<p>It was quite true that the handkerchief was not in her muff, in +which she had carried it, but there was a pocket in her coat which +she did not investigate.</p> +<p>They turned back, looking along the frozen ground.</p> +<p>“Never mind,” Lily said, cheerfully, when they had +reached the Ramsey gate and returned to the Edgham's, and the +handkerchief was not forthcoming, “it was an old one, anyway. +Good-night.”</p> +<p>She knew quite well that George Edgham would do what he +did—walk home with her the few steps between her house and +Maria's, and that Maria would not hesitate to say good-night and +enter her own door.</p> +<p>“I guess I had better go right in,” said Maria. +“Aunt Maria has a cold, and she may worry and be staying +up.”</p> +<p>Lily was entirely happy at walking those few steps with George +Ramsey. He had pulled her little hand through his arm in a +school-boy sort of fashion. He left her at the door with a friendly +good-night, but she had got what she wanted. He had not gone those +few steps alone with Maria. Lily loved Maria, but she did not want +George Ramsey to love her.</p> +<p>When Lily entered the house, to her great astonishment she found +Dr. Ellridge there. He was seated beside her mother, who was lying +on the sofa.</p> +<p>“Why, mother, what is it—are you sick?” Lily +cried, anxiously, while the doctor looked with admiration at her +face, glowing with the cold.</p> +<p>“I had one of my attacks after supper, and sent Norah for +Dr. Ellridge. I thought I had better,” Mrs. Merrill +explained, feebly. She sighed and looked at the doctor, who +understood perfectly, but did not betray himself. He was, in fact, +rather flattered.</p> +<p>“Yes, your mother has been feeling quite badly, but she +will be all right now,” he said to Lily.</p> +<p>“I am sorry you did not feel well, mother,” Lily +said, sweetly. Then she got her fancy-work from her little silk bag +on the table and seated herself, after removing her wraps.</p> +<p>Her mother sighed. The doctor's mouth assumed a little, humorous +pucker.</p> +<p>Lily looked at her mother with affectionate interest. She was +quite accustomed to slight attacks of indigestion which her mother +often had, and was not much alarmed, still she felt a little +anxious. “You are sure you are better, mother?” she +said.</p> +<p>“Oh yes, she is much better,” the doctor answered +for her. “There is nothing for you to be alarmed +about.”</p> +<p>“I am so glad,” said Lily.</p> +<p>She took another stitch in her fancy-work, and her beautiful +face took on an almost seraphic expression; she was thinking of +George Ramsey. She hardly noticed when the doctor took his leave, +and she did not in the least understand her mother's sigh when the +door closed. For her the gates of love were wide open, but she had +no conception that for her mother they were not shut until she +should go to heaven to join her father.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XX</h4> +<p>The next evening Maria, as usual, went to church with her two +aunts. Henry Stillman remained at home reading the Sunday paper. He +took a certain delight in so doing, although he knew, in the depths +of his soul, that his delight was absurd. He knew perfectly well +that it did not make a feather's weight of difference in the +universal scheme of things that he, Henry Stillman, should remain +at home and read the columns of scandal and politics in that paper, +instead of going to church, and yet he liked to think that his +small individuality and its revolt because of its injuries at the +hands of fate had its weight, and was at least a small sting of +revenge.</p> +<p>He watched his wife adjust her bonnet before the looking-glass +in the sitting-room, and arrange carefully the bow beneath her +withered chin, and a great pity for her, because she was no longer +as she had been, but was so heavily marked by time, and a great +jealousy that she should not lose the greatest of all things, which +he himself had lost, came over him. As she—a little, prim, +mild woman, in her old-fashioned winter cape and her bonnet, with +its stiff tuft of velvet pansies—passed him, he caught her +thin, black-gloved hand and drew her close to him.</p> +<p>“I'm glad you are going to church, Eunice,” he +said.</p> +<p>Eunice colored, and regarded him with a kind of abashed +wonder.</p> +<p>“Why don't you come, too, Henry?” she said, +timidly.</p> +<p>“No, I've quit,” replied Henry. “I've quit +begging where I don't get any alms; but as for you, if you get +anything that satisfies your soul, for God's sake hold on to it, +Eunice, and don't let it go.” Then he pulled her bonneted +head down and kissed her thin lips, with a kind of tenderness which +was surprising. “You've been a good wife, Eunice,” he +said.</p> +<p>Eunice laid her hand on his shoulder and looked at him a second. +She was almost frightened. Outward evidences of affection had not +been frequent between them of late years, or indeed ever. They were +New-Englanders to the marrow of their bones. Anything like an +outburst of feeling or sentiment, unless in case of death or +disaster, seemed abnormal. Henry realized his wife's feeling, and +he smiled up at her.</p> +<p>“We are getting to be old folks,” he said, +“and we've had more bitter than sweet in life, and we have +neither of us ever said much as to how we felt to each other, +but—I never loved you as much as I love you now, Eunice, and +I've taken it into my head to say it.”</p> +<p>Eunice's lips quivered a little and her eyes reddened. +“There ain't a woman in Amity who has had so good a husband +as I have all these years, if you don't go to meeting,” she +replied. Then she added, after a second's pause: “I didn't +know as you did feel just as you used to, Henry. I didn't know as +any man did. I know I've lost my looks, and—”</p> +<p>“I can seem to see your looks, brighter than ever they +were, in your heart,” said Henry. He colored himself a little +at his own sentiment. Then he pulled her face down to his again and +gave her a second kiss. “Now run along to your +meeting,” he said. “Have you got enough on? The wind +sounds cold.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Eunice. “This cape's real thick. I put +a new lining in it this winter, you know, and, besides, I've got my +crocheted jacket under it. I'm as warm as toast.”</p> +<p>Eunice, after she had gone out in the keen night air with her +sister-in-law and her niece, reflected with more uneasiness than +pleasure upon her husband's unwonted behavior.</p> +<p>“Does it seem to you that Henry looks well lately?” +she asked the elder Maria, as they hurried along.</p> +<p>“Yes; why not?” returned Maria.</p> +<p>“I don't know. It seems to me he's been losing +flesh.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” said Maria. “I never saw him +looking better than he does now. I was thinking only this morning +that he was making a better, healthier old man than he was as a +young man. But I do wish he would go to meeting. I don't think his +mind is right about some things. Suppose folks do have troubles. +They ought to be led to the Lord by them, instead of pulling back. +Henry hasn't had anything more to worry him, nor half as much, as +most men. He don't take things right. He ought to go to +meeting.”</p> +<p>“I guess he's just as good as a good many who do go to +meeting,” returned Eunice, with unwonted spirit.</p> +<p>“I don't feel competent to judge as to that,” +replied Maria, with a tone of aggravating superiority. Then she +added, “‘By their works ye shall know +them.’”</p> +<p>“I would give full as much for Henry's chances as for some +who go to meeting every Sunday of their lives,” said Eunice, +with still more spirit. “And as for trials, they weigh +heavier on some than on others.”</p> +<p>Then young Maria, who had been listening uneasily, broke in. She +felt herself a strong partisan of her Aunt Eunice, for she adored +her uncle, but she merely said that she thought Uncle Henry did +look a little thin, and she supposed he was tired Sunday, and it +was the only day he had to rest; then she abruptly changed the +whole subject by wondering if the Ramseys across the river would +let Jessy go to church if she trimmed a hat for her with some red +velvet and a feather which she had in her possession.</p> +<p>“No, they wouldn't!” replied her aunt Maria, +sharply, at once diverted. “I can tell you just exactly what +they would do, if you were to trim up a hat with that red velvet +and that feather and give it to that young one. Her +good-for-nothing mother would have it on her own head in no time, +and go flaunting out in it with that man that boards +there.”</p> +<p>Nothing could excel the acrimonious accent with which Aunt Maria +weighed down the “man who boards there,” and the +acrimony was heightened by the hoarseness of her voice. Her cold +was still far from well, but Aunt Maria stayed at home from church +for nothing short of pneumonia.</p> +<p>The church was about half a mile distant. The meeting was held +in a little chapel built out like an architectural excrescence at +the side of the great, oblong, wooden structure, with its piercing +steeple. The chapel windows blazed with light. People were flocking +in. As they entered, a young lady began to play on an out-of-tune +piano, which Judge Josiah Saunders had presented to the church. She +played a Moody-and-Sankey hymn as a sort of prologue, although +nobody sang it. It was a curious custom which prevailed in the +Amity church. A Moody-and-Sankey hymn was always played in evening +meetings instead of the morning voluntary on the great organ.</p> +<p>Maria and her two aunts moved forward and seated themselves. +Maria looked absently at the smooth expanse of hair which showed +below the hat of the girl who was playing. The air was played very +slowly, otherwise the little audience might have danced a jig to +it. Maria thought of the meetings which she used to attend in +Edgham, and how she used to listen to the plaint of the +whippoorwill on the river-bank while the little organ gave out its +rich, husky drone. This, somehow, did not seem so religious to her. +She remembered how she had used to be conscious of Wollaston Lee's +presence, and how she had hoped he would walk home with her, and +she reflected with what shame and vague terror she now held him +constantly in mind. Then she thought of George Ramsey, and +directly, without seeing him, she became aware that he was seated +on her right and was furtively glancing at her. A wild despair +seized her at the thought that he might offer to accompany her +home, and how she must not allow it, and how she wanted him to do +so. She kept her head steadfastly averted. The meeting dragged on. +Men rose and spoke and prayed, at intervals the out-of-tune piano +was invoked. A woman behind Maria sang contralto with a curious +effect, as if her head were in a tin-pail. There were odd, dull, +metallic echoes about it which filled the whole chapel. The woman's +daughter had some cheap perfume on her handkerchief, and she was +incessantly removing it from her muff. A man at the left coughed a +good deal. Maria saw in front of her Lily Merrill's graceful brown +head, in a charming hat with red roses under the brim, and a long, +soft, brown feather. Lily's mother was not with her. Dr. Ellridge +did not attend evening meetings, and Mrs. Merrill always remained +at home in the hope that he might call.</p> +<p>After church was over, Maria stuck closely to her aunts. She +even pushed herself between them, but they did not abet her. Both +Eunice and Aunt Maria had seen George Ramsey, and they had their +own views. Maria could not tell how it happened, but at the door of +the chapel she found herself separated from both her aunts, and +George Ramsey was asking if he might accompany her home. Maria +obeyed her instincts, although the next moment she could have +killed herself for it. She smiled, and bowed, and tucked her little +hand into the crook of the young man's offered arm. She did not see +her aunts exchanging glances of satisfaction.</p> +<p>“It will be a real good chance for her,” said +Eunice.</p> +<p>“Hush, or somebody will hear you,” said Maria, in a +sharp, pleased tone, as she and her sister-in-law walked together +down the moonlit street.</p> +<p>Maria did not see Lily Merrill's start and look of piteous +despair as she took George's arm. Lily was just behind her. Maria, +in fact, saw nothing. She might have been walking in a vacuum of +emotion.</p> +<p>“It is a beautiful evening,” said George Ramsey, and +his voice trembled a little.</p> +<p>“Yes, beautiful,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>Afterwards, thinking over their conversation, she could not +remember that they had talked about anything else except the beauty +of the evening, but had dwelt incessantly upon it, like the theme +of a song.</p> +<p>The aunts lagged behind purposely, and Maria went in Eunice's +door. She thought that her niece would ask George to come in and +she would not be in the way. Henry looked inquiringly at the two +women, who had an air of mystery, and Maria responded at once to +his unspoken question.</p> +<p>“George Ramsey is seeing her home,” she said, +“and the front-door key is under the mat, and I thought Maria +could ask him in, and I would go home through the cellar, and not +be in the way. Three is a company.” Maria said the last +platitude with a silly simper.</p> +<p>“I never saw anything like you women,” said Henry, +with a look of incredulous amusement. “I suppose you both of +you have been making her wedding-dress, and setting her up +house-keeping, instead of listening to the meeting.”</p> +<p>“I heard every word,” returned Maria, with dignity, +“and it was a very edifying meeting. It would have done some +other folks good if they had gone, and as for Maria, she can't +teach school all her days, and here is her father with a second +wife.”</p> +<p>“Well, you women do beat the Dutch,” said her +brother, with a tenderly indulgent air, as if he were addressing +children.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria lingered in her brother's side of the house, talking +about various topics. She hesitated even about her stealthy going +through the cellar, lest she should disturb Maria and her possible +lover. Now and then she listened. She stood close to the wall. +Finally she said, with a puzzled look to Eunice, who was smoothing +out her bonnet-strings, “It's queer, but I can't hear them +talking.”</p> +<p>“Maybe he didn't come in,” said Eunice.</p> +<p>“If they are in the parlor, you couldn't hear them,” +said Henry, still with his half-quizzical, half-pitying air.</p> +<p>“She would have taken him in the parlor—I should +think she would have known enough to,” said Eunice; +“and you can't always hear talking in the parlor in this +room.”</p> +<p>Maria made a move towards her brother's parlor, on the other +side of the tiny hall.</p> +<p>“I guess you are right,” said she, “and I know +she would have taken him in there. I started a fire in there on +purpose before I went to meeting. It was borne in upon me that +somebody might come home with her.”</p> +<p>Maria tiptoed into the parlor, with Eunice, still smoothing her +bonnet-strings, at her heels. Both women stood close to the wall, +papered with white-and-gold paper, and listened.</p> +<p>“I can't hear a single thing,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“I can't either,” said Eunice. “I don't +believe he did come in.”</p> +<p>“It's dreadful queer, if he didn't,” said Maria, +“after the way he eyed her in meeting.”</p> +<p>“Suppose you go home through the cellar, and see,” +said Eunice.</p> +<p>“I guess I will,” said Maria. “I'll knock low +on the wall when I get home, if he isn't there.”</p> +<p>The cellar stairs connected with the kitchen on either side of +the Stillman house. Both women flew out into the kitchen, and Maria +disappeared down the cellar stairs, with a little lamp which Eunice +lit for her. Then Eunice waited. Presently there came a muffled +knock on the wall.</p> +<p>“No, he didn't come in,” Eunice said to her husband, +as she re-entered the sitting-room.</p> +<p>Suddenly Eunice pressed her ear close to the sitting-room wall. +Two treble voices were audible on the other side, but not a word of +their conversation. “Maria and she are talking,” said +Eunice.</p> +<p>What Aunt Maria was saying was this, in a tone of sharp +wonder:</p> +<p>“Where is he?”</p> +<p>“Who?” responded Maria.</p> +<p>“Why, you know as well as I do—George Ramsey.” +Aunt Maria looked sharply at her niece. “I hope you asked him +in, Maria Edgham?” said she.</p> +<p>“No, I didn't,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Why didn't you?”</p> +<p>“I was tired, and I wanted to go to bed.”</p> +<p>“Wanted to go to bed? Why, it's only a little after nine +o'clock!”</p> +<p>“Well, I can't help it, I'm tired.” Maria spoke with +a weariness which was unmistakable. She looked away from her aunt +with a sort of blank despair.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria continued to regard her. “You do act the +queerest of any girl I ever saw,” said she. “There was +a nice fire in the parlor, and I thought you could offer him some +refreshments. There is some of that nice cake, and some oranges, +and I would have made some cocoa.”</p> +<p>“I didn't feel as if I could sit up,” Maria said +again, in her weary, hopeless voice. She went out into the kitchen, +got a little lamp, and returned. “Good-night,” she said +to her aunt.</p> +<p>“Good-night,” replied Aunt Maria. “You are a +queer girl. I don't see what you think.”</p> +<p>Maria went up-stairs, undressed, and went to bed. After she was +in bed she could see the reflection of her aunt's sitting-room lamp +on the ground outside, in a slanting shaft of light. Then it went +out, and Maria knew that her aunt was also in bed in her little +room out of the sitting-room. Maria could not go to sleep. She +heard the clock strike ten, then eleven. Shortly after eleven she +heard a queer sound, as of small stones or gravel thrown on her +window. Maria was a brave girl. Her first sensation was one of +anger.</p> +<p>“What is any one doing such a thing as that for?” +she asked herself. She rose, threw a shawl over her shoulders, and +went straight to the window next the Merrill house, whence the +sound had come. She opened it cautiously and peered out. Down on +the ground below stood a long, triangle-shaped figure, like a +night-moth.</p> +<p>“Who is it?” Maria called, in a soft voice. She was +afraid, for some reason which she could not define, of awakening +her aunt. She was more afraid of that than anything else.</p> +<p>A little moan answered her; the figure moved as if in +distress.</p> +<p>“Who is it? What do you want?” Maria asked +again.</p> +<p>A weak voice answered her then, “It's I.”</p> +<p>“Who's I? Lily?”</p> +<p>“Yes. Oh, do let me in, Maria.” Lily's voice ended +in a little, hysterical sob.</p> +<p>“Hush,” said Maria, “or Aunt Maria will hear +you. Wait a minute.” Maria unlocked her door with the +greatest caution, opened it, and crept down-stairs. Then she +unlocked and opened the front door. Luckily Aunt Maria's room was +some feet in the rear. “Come quick,” Maria whispered, +and Lily came running up to her. Then Maria closed and locked the +front door, while Lily stood trembling and waiting. Then she led +her up-stairs in the dark. Lily's slender fingers closed upon her +with a grasp of ice. When they were once in Maria's room, with the +door closed and locked, Maria took hold of Lily violently by the +shoulders. She felt at once rage and pity for her.</p> +<p>“What on earth is the matter, Lily Merrill, that you come +over here this time of night?” she asked. Then she added, in +a tone of horror, “Lily Merrill, you haven't a thing on but a +skirt and your night-gown under your shawl. Have you got anything +on your feet?”</p> +<p>“Slippers,” answered Lily, meekly. Then she clung to +Maria and began to sob hysterically.</p> +<p>“Come, Lily Merrill, you just stop this and get into +bed,” said Maria. She unwound Lily's shawl, pulled off her +skirt, and fairly forced her into bed. Then she got in beside her. +“What on earth is the matter?” she asked again.</p> +<p>Lily's arm came stealing around her and Lily's cold, wet cheek +touched her face. “Oh, Maria!” she sobbed, under her +breath.</p> +<p>“Well, what is it all about?”</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria, are—are you—”</p> +<p>“Am I what?”</p> +<p>“Are you going with him?”</p> +<p>“With whom?”</p> +<p>“With George—with George Ramsey?” A long, +trembling sob shook Lily.</p> +<p>“I am going with nobody,” answered Maria, in a hard +voice.</p> +<p>“But he came home with you. I saw him; I did, +Maria.” Lily sobbed again.</p> +<p>“Well, what of it?” asked Maria, impatiently. +“I didn't care anything about his going home with +me.”</p> +<p>“Didn't he come in?”</p> +<p>“No, he didn't.”</p> +<p>“Didn't you—ask him?”</p> +<p>“No, I didn't.”</p> +<p>“Maria.”</p> +<p>“Well, what?”</p> +<p>“Maria, aren't you going to marry him if he asks +you?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria, “I am never going to marry +him, if that is what you want to know. I am never going to marry +George Ramsey.”</p> +<p>Lily sobbed.</p> +<p>“I should think you would be ashamed of yourself. I should +think any girl would, acting so,” said Maria. Her voice was a +mere whisper, but it was cruel. She felt that she hated Lily. Then +she realized how icy cold the girl was and how she trembled from +head to feet in a nervous chill. “You'll catch your +death,” she said.</p> +<p>“Oh, I don't care if I do!” Lily said, in her +hysterical voice, which had now a certain tone of comfort.</p> +<p>Maria considered again how much she despised and hated her, and +again Lily shook with a long tremor. Maria got up and tiptoed over +to her closet, where she kept a little bottle of wine which the +doctor had ordered when she first came to Amity. It was not half +emptied. A wineglass stood on the mantel-shelf, and Maria filled it +with the wine by the light of the moon. Then she returned to +Lily.</p> +<p>“Here,” she said, still in the same cruel voice. +“Sit up and drink this.”</p> +<p>“What is it?” moaned Lily.</p> +<p>“Never mind what it is. Sit up and drink it.”</p> +<p>Lily sat up and obediently drank the wine, every drop.</p> +<p>“Now lie down and keep still, and go to sleep, and behave +yourself,” said Maria.</p> +<p>Lily tried to say something, but Maria would not listen to +her.</p> +<p>“Don't you speak another word,” said she. +“Keep still, or Aunt Maria will be up. Lie still and go to +sleep.”</p> +<p>It was not long before, warmed by the wine and comforted by +Maria's assertion that she was never going to marry George Ramsey, +that Lily fell asleep. Maria lay awake hearing her long, even +breaths, and she felt how she hated her, how she hated herself, how +she hated life. There was no sleep for her. Just before dawn she +woke Lily, bundled her up in some extra clothing, and went with her +across the yard, home.</p> +<p>“Now go up to your own room just as still as you +can,” said she, and her voice sounded terrible even in her +own ears. She waited until she heard the key softly turn in the +door of the Merrill house. Then she sped home and up to her own +room. Then she lay down in bed again and waited for broad +daylight.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXI</h4> +<p>When Maria dressed herself the next morning, she had an odd, +shamed expression as she looked at herself in her glass while +braiding her hair. It actually seemed to her as if she herself, and +not Lily Merrill, had so betrayed herself and given way to an +unsought love. She felt as if she saw Lily instead of herself, and +she was at once humiliated and angered. She had to pass Lily's +house on her way to school, and she did not once look up, although +she had a conviction that Lily was watching her from one of the +sitting-room windows. It was a wild winter day, with frequent gusts +of wind swaying the trees to the breaking of the softer branches, +and flurries of snow. It was hard work to keep the school-house +warm. Maria, in the midst of her perturbation, had a comforted +feeling at seeing Jessy Ramsey in her warm clothing. She passed her +arm around the little girl at recess; it was so cold that only a +few of the boys went outside.</p> +<p>“Have you got them on, dear?” she whispered.</p> +<p>“Yes'm,” said Jessy. Then, to Maria's consternation, +she caught her hand and kissed it, and began sobbing. +“They're awful warm,” sobbed Jessy Ramsey, looking at +Maria with her little, convulsed face.</p> +<p>“Hush, child,” said Maria. “There's nothing to +cry about. Mind you keep them nice. Have you got a bureau-drawer +you can put them in?—those you haven't on? Don't cry. That's +silly.”</p> +<p>“I 'ain't got no bureau,” sobbed Jessy. “But—”</p> +<p>“Haven't any,” corrected Maria.</p> +<p>“Haven't any bureau-drawer,” said the child. +“But I got a box what somethin'—”</p> +<p>“That something,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“That something came from the store in, an' I've got 'em—”</p> +<p>“Them.”</p> +<p>“Them all packed away. They're awful warm.”</p> +<p>“Don't cry, dear,” said Maria.</p> +<p>The other children did not seem to be noticing them. Suddenly +Maria, who still had her arm around the thin shoulders of the +little girl, stooped and kissed her rather grimy but soft little +cheek. As she did so, she experienced the same feeling which she +used to have when caressing her little sister Evelyn. It was a sort +of rapture of tenderness and protection. It was the maternal +instinct glorified and rendered spiritual by maidenhood, and its +timid desires. Jessy Ramsey's eyes looked up into Maria's like blue +violets, and Maria noticed with a sudden throb that they were like +George Ramsey's. Jessy, coming as she did from a degenerate, +unbeautiful branch of the family-tree, had yet some of the true +Ramsey features, and, among others, she had the true Ramsey eyes. +They were large and very dark blue, and they were set in deep, +pathetic hollows. As she looked up at Maria, it was exactly as if +George were looking at her with pleading and timid love. Maria took +her arm sudden away from the child.</p> +<p>“Be you mad?” asked Jessy, humbly.</p> +<p>“No, I am not,” replied Maria. “But you should +not say ‘be you mad’; you should say are you +angry.”</p> +<p>“Yes'm,” said Jessy Ramsey.</p> +<p>Jessy withdrew, still with timid eyes of devotion fixed upon her +teacher, and Maria seated herself behind her desk, took out some +paper, and began to write an exercise for the children to copy upon +the black-board. She was trembling from head to foot. She felt +exactly as if George Ramsey had been looking at her with eyes of +love, and she remembered that she was married, and it seemed to her +that she was horribly guilty.</p> +<p>Maria never once looked again at Jessy Ramsey, at least not +fully in the eyes, during the day. The child's mouth began to +assume a piteous expression. After school that afternoon she +lingered, as usual, to walk the little way before their roads +separated, so to speak, in her beloved teacher's train. But Maria +spoke quite sharply to her.</p> +<p>“You had better run right home, Jessy,” she said. +“It is snowing, and you will get cold. I have a few things to +see to before I go. Run right home.”</p> +<p>Poor little Jessy Ramsey, who was as honestly in love with her +teacher as she would ever be with any one in her life, turned +obediently and went away. Maria's heart smote her.</p> +<p>“Jessy,” she called after her, and the child turned +back half frightened, half radiant. Maria put her arm around her +and kissed her. “Wash your face before you come to school +to-morrow, dear,” she said. “Now, good-bye.”</p> +<p>“Yes'm,” said Jessy, and she skipped away quite +happy. She thought teacher had rebuffed her because her face was +not washed, and that did not trouble her in the least. Lack of +cleanliness or lack of morals, when brought home to them, could +hardly sting any scion of that branch of the Ramseys. Lack of +affection could, however, and Jessy was quite happy in thinking +that teacher loved her, and was only vexed because her face was +dirty. Jessy had not gone a dozen paces from the school-house +before she stopped, scooped up some snow in a little, grimy hand, +and rubbed her cheeks violently. Then she wiped them on her new +petticoat. Her cheeks tingled frightfully, but she felt that she +was obeying a mandate of love.</p> +<p>Maria did not see her. She in reality lingered a little over +some exercises in the school-house before she started on her way +home. It was snowing quite steadily, and the wind still blew. The +snow made the wind seem as evident as the wings of a bird. Maria +hurried along. When she reached the bridge across the Ramsey River +she saw a girl standing as if waiting for her. The girl was all +powdered with snow and she had on a thick veil, but Maria +immediately knew that she was Lily Merrill. Lily came up to her as +she reached her with almost an abject motion. She had her veiled +face lowered before the storm, and she carried herself as if her +spirit also was lowered before some wind of fate. She pressed +timidly close to Maria when she reached her.</p> +<p>“I've been waiting for you, Maria,” she said.</p> +<p>“Have you?” returned Maria, coldly.</p> +<p>“Yes, I wanted to see you, and I didn't know as I could, +unless I met you. I didn't know whether you would have a fire in +your room to-night, and I thought your aunt would be in the +sitting-room, and I thought you wouldn't be apt to come over to my +house, it storms so.”</p> +<p>“No, I shouldn't,” Maria said, shortly.</p> +<p>Then Lily burst out in a piteous low wail, a human wail piercing +the wail of the storm. The two girls were quite alone on the +bridge.</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria,” said Lily, “I did want you to +know how dreadfully ashamed I was of what I did last +night.”</p> +<p>“I should think you would be,” Maria said, +pitilessly. She walked on ahead, with her mouth in a straight line, +and did not look at the other girl.</p> +<p>Lily came closer to her and passed one of her arms through +Maria's and pressed against her softly. “I wanted to tell +you, too,” she said, “that I made an excuse +about—that handkerchief the other night. I thought it was in +my coat-pocket all the time. I did it just so he would go home with +me last.”</p> +<p>Maria looked at her. “I never saw such a girl as you are, +Lily Merrill,” she said, contemptuously, but in spite of +herself there was a soft accent in her voice. It was not in Maria's +nature to be hard upon a repentant sinner.</p> +<p>Lily leaned her face against Maria's snow-powdered shoulder. +“I was dreadfully ashamed of it,” said she, “and +I thought I must tell you, Maria. You don't think so very badly of +me, do you? I know I was awful.” The longing for affection +and approbation in Lily's voice gave it almost a singing quality. +She was so fond of love and approval that the withdrawal of it +smote her like a frost of the spirit.</p> +<p>“I think it was terribly bold of you, if you want to know +just what I think,” Maria said; “and I think you were +very deceitful. Before I would do such a thing to get a young man +to go home with me, I would—” Maria paused. Suddenly +she remembered that she had her secret, and she felt humbled before +this other girl whom she was judging. She became conscious to such +an extent of the beam in her own eye that she was too blinded to +see the mote in that of poor Lily, who, indeed, was not to blame, +being simply helpless before her own temperament and her own +emotions.</p> +<p>“I know I did do a dreadful thing,” moaned Lily.</p> +<p>Then Maria pressed the clinging arm under her own.</p> +<p>“Well,” said she, as she might have spoken to a +child, “if I were you I would not think any more about it, +Lily, I would put it out of my mind. Only, I would not, if I were +you, and really wanted a young man to care for me, let him think I +was running after him.”</p> +<p>As she said the last, Maria paled. She glanced at Lily's +beautiful face under the veil, and realized that it might be very +easy for any young man to care for such a girl, who had, in +reality, a sweet nature, besides beauty, if she only adopted the +proper course to win him, and that it was obviously her (Maria's) +duty to teach her to win him.</p> +<p>“I know it. I won't again,” Lily said, humbly.</p> +<p>The two girls walked on; they had crossed the bridge. Suddenly +Lily plucked up a little spirit.</p> +<p>“Say, Maria,” said she.</p> +<p>“What is it, dear?”</p> +<p>“I just happened to think. Mother was asked to tea to Mrs. +Ralph Wright's to-night, but she isn't going. Is your aunt +going?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I believe she is,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“She won't be home before eight o'clock, will +she?”</p> +<p>“No, I don't suppose she will. They are to have tea at +six, I believe.”</p> +<p>“Then I am coming over after mother and I have tea. I have +something I want to tell you.”</p> +<p>“All right, dear,” replied Maria, hesitatingly.</p> +<p>When Maria got home she found her aunt Maria all dressed, except +for her collar-fastening. She was waiting for Maria to attend to +that. Her thin gray-blond hair was beautifully crimped, and she +wore her best black silk dress. She was standing by the +sitting-room window when Maria entered.</p> +<p>“I am glad you have come, Maria,” said she. “I +have been standing quite awhile. You are late.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I am rather late,” replied Maria. “But +why on earth didn't you sit down?”</p> +<p>“Do you suppose I am going to sit down more than I can +help in this dress?” said her aunt. “There is nothing +hurts a silk dress more than sitting down in it. Now if you will +hook my collar, Maria. I can do it, but I don't like to strain the +seams by reaching round, and I didn't want to trail this dress down +the cellar stairs to get Eunice to fasten it up.” Aunt Maria +bewailed the weather in a deprecating fashion while Maria was +fastening the collar at the back of her skinny neck. “I never +want to find fault with the weather,” said she, +“because, of course, the weather is regulated by Something +higher than we are, and it must be for our best good, but I do hate +to wear this dress out in such a storm, and I don't dare wear my +cashmere. Mrs. Ralph Wright is so particular she would be sure to +think I didn't pay her proper respect.”</p> +<p>“You can wear my water-proof,” said Maria. “I +didn't wear it to-day, you know. I didn't think the snow would do +this dress any harm. The water-proof will cover you all +up.”</p> +<p>“Well, I suppose I can, and can pin my skirt up,” +said Aunt Maria, in a resigned tone. “I don't want to find +fault with the weather, but I do hate to pin up a black silk +skirt.”</p> +<p>“You can turn it right up around your waist, and fasten +the braid to your belt, and then it won't hurt it,” said +Maria, consolingly.</p> +<p>“Well, I suppose I can. Your supper is all ready, Maria. +There's bread and butter, and chocolate cake, and some oysters. I +thought you wouldn't mind making yourself a little stew. I couldn't +make it before you came, because it wouldn't be fit to eat. You +know how. Be sure the milk is hot before you put the oysters in. +There is a good fire.”</p> +<p>“Oh yes, I know how. Don't you worry about me,” said +Maria, turning up her aunt's creaseless black silk skirt gingerly. +It was rather incomprehensible to her that anybody should care so +much whether a black silk skirt was creased or not, when the +terrible undertone of emotions which underline the world, and are +its creative motive, were in existence, but Maria was learning +gradually to be patient with the small worries of others which +seemed large to them, and upon which she herself could not place +much stress. She stood at the window, when her aunt at last emerged +from the house, and picked her way through the light snow, and her +mouth twitched a little at the absurd, shapeless figure. Her Aunt +Eunice had joined her, and she was not so shapeless. She held up +her dress quite fashionably on one side, with a rather generous +display of slender legs. Aunt Maria did not consider that her +sister-in-law was quite careful enough of her clothes. “Henry +won't always be earning,” she often said to Maria. To-day she +had eyed with disapproval Eunice's best black silk trailing from +under her cape, when she entered the sitting-room. She had come +through the cellar.</p> +<p>“Are you going that way, in such a storm, in your best +black silk?” she inquired.</p> +<p>“I haven't any water-proof,” replied Eunice, +“and I don't see what else I can do.”</p> +<p>“You might wear my old shawl spread out.”</p> +<p>“I wouldn't go through the street cutting such a +figure,” said Eunice, with one of her occasional bursts of +spirit. She was delighted to go. Nobody knew how this meek, elderly +woman loved a little excitement. There were red spots on her thin +cheeks, and she looked almost as if she had used rouge. Her eyes +snapped.</p> +<p>“I should think you would turn your skirt up, +anyway,” said Aunt Maria. “You've got your black +petticoat on, haven't you?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Eunice. “But if you think I am +going right through the Main Street in my petticoat, you are +mistaken. Snow won't hurt the silk any. It's a dry snow, and it +will shake right off.”</p> +<p>So Eunice, at the side of Aunt Maria, went with her dress kilted +high, and looked as preternaturally slim as her sister-in-law +looked stout. Maria, watching them, thought how funny they were. +She herself was elemental, and they, in their desires and +interests, were like motes floating on the face of the waters. +Maria, while she had always like pretty clothes, had come to a pass +wherein she relegated them to their proper place. She recognized +many things as externals which she had heretofore considered as +essentials. She had developed wonderfully in a few months. As she +turned away from the window she caught a glimpse of Lily Merrill's +lovely face in a window of the opposite house, above a mass of +potted geraniums. Lily nodded, and smiled, and Maria nodded back +again. Her heart sank at the idea of Lily's coming that evening, a +sickening jealous dread of the confidence which she was to make to +her was over her, and yet she said to herself that she had no right +to have this dread. She prepared her supper and ate it, and had +hardly cleared away the table and washed the dishes before Lily +came flying across the yard before the storm-wind. Maria hurried to +the door to let her in.</p> +<p>“Your aunt went, didn't she?” said Lily, entering, +and shaking the flakes of snow from her skirts.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“I don't see why mother wouldn't go. Mother never goes out +anywhere, and she isn't nearly as old as your aunts.”</p> +<p>Lily and Maria seated themselves in the sitting-room before the +stove. Lily looked at Maria, and a faint red overspread her cheeks. +She began to speak, then she hesitated, and evidently said +something which she had not intended.</p> +<p>“How pretty that is!” she said, pointing to a great +oleander-tree in flower, which was Aunt Maria's pride.</p> +<p>“Yes, I think it is pretty.”</p> +<p>“Lovely. The very prettiest one I ever saw.” Lily +hesitated again, but at last she began to speak, with the red on +her cheeks brighter and her eyes turned away from Maria. “I +wanted to tell you something, Maria,” said she.</p> +<p>“Well?” said Maria. Her own face was quite pale and +motionless. She was doing some fancy-work, embroidering a +centre-piece, and she continued to take careful stitches.</p> +<p>“I know you thought I was awful, doing the way I did last +night,” said Lily, in her sweet murmur. She drooped her head, +and the flush on her oval cheeks was like the flush on a wild rose. +Lily wore a green house-dress, which set her off as the leaves and +stem set off a flower. It was of some soft material which clung +about her and displayed her tender curves. She wore at her throat +an old cameo brooch which had belonged to her grandmother, and +which had upon its onyx background an ivory head as graceful as her +own. Maria, beside Lily, although she herself was very pretty, +looked ordinary in her flannel blouse and black skirt, which was +her school costume.</p> +<p>Maria continued taking careful stitches in the petals of a daisy +which she was embroidering. “I think we have talked enough +about it,” she said.</p> +<p>“But I want to tell you something.”</p> +<p>“Why don't you tell it, then?”</p> +<p>“I know you thought I did something awful, running across +the yard and coming here in the night the way I did, and showing +you that I—I, well, that I minded George Ramsey's coming home +with you; but—look here, Maria, I—had a little +reason.”</p> +<p>Maria paled perceptibly, but she kept on steadily with her +work.</p> +<p>Lily flushed more deeply. “George Ramsey has been home +with me from evening meeting quite a number of times,” she +said.</p> +<p>“Has he?” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes. Of course we were walking the same way. He may not +really have meant to see me home.” There was a sort of innate +honesty in Lily which always led her to retrieve the lapses from +the strict truth when in her favor. “Maybe he didn't really +mean to see me home, and sometimes he didn't offer me his +arm,” she added, with a childlike wistfulness, as if she +desired Maria to reassure her.</p> +<p>“I dare say he meant to see you home,” said Maria, +rather shortly.</p> +<p>“I am not quite sure,” said Lily. “But he did +walk home with me quite a number of times, first and last, and you +know we used to go to the same school, and a number of times then, +when we were a good deal younger, he really did see me home, +and—he kissed me good-night then. Of course he hasn't done +that lately, because we were older.”</p> +<p>“I should think not, unless you were engaged,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“Of course not, but he has said several things to me. +Maybe he didn't mean anything, but they sounded—I thought I +would like to tell you, Maria. I have never told anybody, not even +mother. Once he said my name just suited me, and once he asked me +if I thought married people were happier, and once he said he +thought it was a doubtful experiment for a man to marry and try to +live either with his wife's mother or his own. You know, if he +married me, it would have to be one way or the other. Do you think +he meant anything, Maria?”</p> +<p>“I don't know,” said Maria. “I didn't hear +him.”</p> +<p>“Well, I thought he spoke as if he meant it, but, of +course, a girl can never be sure. I suppose men do say so many +things they don't mean. Don't you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I suppose they do.”</p> +<p>“Do you think he did, Maria?” asked Lily, +piteously.</p> +<p>“My dear child, I told you I didn't hear him, and I don't +see how I can tell,” repeated Maria, with a little +impatience. It did seem hard to her that she should be so forced +into a confidence of this kind, but an odd feeling of protective +tenderness for Lily was stealing over her. She reached a certain +height of nobility which she had never reached before, through this +feeling.</p> +<p>“I know men so often say things when they mean nothing at +all,” Lily said again. “Perhaps he didn't mean +anything. I know he has gone home with Agnes Sears several times, +and he has talked to her a good deal when we have been at parties. +Do you think she is pretty, Maria?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I think she is quite pretty,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>“Do you think—she is better-looking than—I +am?” asked Lily, feebly.</p> +<p>“No, of course I don't,” said Maria. “You are +a perfect beauty.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria, do you think so?”</p> +<p>“Of course I do! You know it yourself as well as I +do.”</p> +<p>“No, honest, I am never quite sure, Maria. Sometimes it +does seem to me when I am dressed up that I am really +better-looking than some girls, but I am never quite sure that it +isn't because it is I who am looking at myself. A girl wants to +think she is pretty, you know, Maria, especially if she wants +anybody to like her, and I can't ever tell.”</p> +<p>“Well, you can rest easy about that,” said Maria. +“You are a perfect beauty. There isn't a girl in Amity to +compare with you. You needn't have any doubt at all.”</p> +<p>An expression of quite innocent and naïve vanity overspread +Lily's charming face. She cast a glance at herself in a glass which +hung on the opposite wall, and smiled as a child might have done at +her own reflection. “Do you think this green dress is +becoming to me?” said she.</p> +<p>“Very.”</p> +<p>“But, Maria, do you suppose George Ramsey thinks I am so +pretty?”</p> +<p>“I should think he must, if he has eyes in his +head,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“But you are pretty yourself, Maria,” said Lily, +with the most open jealousy and anxiety, “and you are smarter +than I am, and he is so smart. I do think he cares a great deal +more for you than for me. I think he must, Maria.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” said Maria. “Just because a young +man walks home with me once you think he is in love with me.” +Maria tried to speak lightly and scornfully, but in spite of +herself there was an accent of gratification in her tone. In spite +of herself she forgot for the moment.</p> +<p>“I think he does, all the same,” said Lily, +dejectedly.</p> +<p>“Nonsense! He doesn't; and if he did, he would have to +take it out in caring.”</p> +<p>“Then you were in earnest about what you said last +night?” said Lily, eagerly. “You really mean you +wouldn't have George Ramsey if he asked you?”</p> +<p>“Not if he asked every day in the year for a hundred +years.”</p> +<p>“I guess you must have seen somebody else whom you +liked,” said Lily, and Maria colored furiously. Then Lily +laughed. “Oh, you have!” she cried, with sudden glee. +“You are blushing like anything. Do tell me, +Maria.”</p> +<p>“I have nothing to tell.”</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham, you don't dare tell me you are not in love +with anybody?”</p> +<p>“I should not answer a question of that kind to any other +girl, anyway,” Maria replied, angrily.</p> +<p>“You are. I know it,” said Lily. “Don't be +angry, dear. I am real glad.”</p> +<p>“I didn't say I was in love, and there is nothing for you +to be glad about,” returned Maria, fairly scarlet with shame +and rage. She tangled the silk with which she was working, and +broke it short off. Maria was as yet not wholly controlled by +herself.</p> +<p>“Why, you'll spoil that daisy,” Lily said, +wonderingly. She herself was incapable of any such retaliation upon +inanimate objects. She would have carefully untangled her silk, no +matter how deeply she suffered.</p> +<p>“I don't care if I do!” cried Maria.</p> +<p>“Why, Maria!”</p> +<p>“Well, I don't care. I am fairly sick of so much talk and +thinking about love and getting married, as if there were nothing +else.”</p> +<p>“Maybe you are different, Maria,” admitted Lily, in +a humiliated fashion.</p> +<p>“I don't want to hear any more about it,” Maria +said, taking a fresh thread from her skein of white silk.</p> +<p>“But do you mean what you said?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I do, once for all. That settles it.”</p> +<p>Lily looked at her wistfully. She did not find Maria as +sympathetic as she wished. Then she glanced at her beautiful visage +in the glass, and remembered what the other girl had said about her +beauty, and again she smiled her childlike smile of gratified +vanity and pleasure. Then suddenly the door-bell rang.</p> +<p>Lily gave a great start, and turned white as she looked at +Maria. “It's George Ramsey,” she whispered.</p> +<p>“Nonsense! How do you know?” asked Maria, laying her +work on the table beside the lamp, and rising.</p> +<p>“I don't know. I do know.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” Still Maria stood looking irresolutely +at Lily.</p> +<p>“I know,” said Lily, and she trembled +perceptibly.</p> +<p>“I don't see how you can tell,” said Maria. She made +a step towards the door.</p> +<p>Lily sprang up. “I am going home,” said she.</p> +<p>“Going home? Why?”</p> +<p>“He has come to see you, and I won't stay. I won't. I know +you despised me for what I did the other night, and I won't do such +a thing as to stay when he has come to see another girl. I am not +quite as bad as that.” Lily started towards her cloak, which +lay over a chair.</p> +<p>Maria seized her by the shoulders with a nervous grip of her +little hands. “Lily Merrill,” said she, “if you +stir, if you dare to stir to go home, I will not go to the door at +all!”</p> +<p>Lily gasped and looked at her.</p> +<p>“I won't!” said Maria.</p> +<p>The bell rang a second time.</p> +<p>“You have got to go to the door,” said Maria, with a +sudden impulse.</p> +<p>Lily quivered under her hands.</p> +<p>“Why? Oh, Maria!”</p> +<p>“Yes, you have. You go to the door, and I will run +up-stairs the back way to my room. I don't feel well to-night, +anyway. I have an awful headache. You go to the door, and if it +is—George Ramsey, you tell him I have gone to bed with a +headache, and you have come over to stay with me because Aunt Maria +has gone away. Then you can ask him in.”</p> +<p>A flush of incredulous joy came over Lily's face.</p> +<p>“You don't mean it, Maria?” she whispered, +faintly.</p> +<p>“Yes, I do. Hurry, or he'll go away.”</p> +<p>“Have you got a headache, honest?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I have. Hurry, quick! If it is anybody else do as +you like about asking him in. Hurry!”</p> +<p>With that Maria was gone, scudding up the back stairs which led +out of the adjoining room. She gained her chamber as noiselessly as +a shadow. The room was very dark except for a faint gleam on one +wall from a neighbor's lamp. Maria stood still, listening, in the +middle of the floor. She heard the front door opened, then she +heard voices. She heard steps. The steps entered the sitting-room. +Then she heard the voices in a steady flow. One of them was +undoubtedly a man's. The bass resonances were unmistakable. A peal +of girlish laughter rang out. Maria noiselessly groped her way to +her bed, threw herself upon it, face down, and lay there shaking +with silent sobs.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXII</h4> +<p>Maria did not hear Lily laugh again, although the conversation +continued. In reality, Lily was in a state of extreme shyness, and +was, moreover, filled with a sense of wrong-doing. There had been +something about Maria's denial which had not convinced her. In her +heart of hearts, the heart of hearts of a foolish but loving girl, +who never meant anybody any harm, and, on the contrary, wished +everybody well, although naturally herself first, she was quite +sure that Maria also loved George Ramsey. She drooped before him +with this consciousness when she opened the door, and the young man +naturally started with a little surprise at the sight of her.</p> +<p>“Maria has gone to bed with a headache,” she +faltered, before George had time to inquire for her. Then she +added, in response to the young man's look of astonishment, the +little speech which Maria had prepared for her. “Her aunt has +gone out, and so I came over to stay with her.” Lily was a +born actress. It was not her fault that a little accent of tender +pity for Maria in her lonely estate, with her aunt away, and a +headache, crept into her voice. She at the moment almost believed +what she said. It became quite real to her.</p> +<p>“I am sorry Miss Edgham has a headache,” said +George, after a barely perceptible second of hesitation, +“but, as long as she has, I may as well come in and make you +a little call, Lily.”</p> +<p>Lily quivered perceptibly. She tried to show becoming pride, but +failed. “I should be very happy to have you,” she said, +“but—”</p> +<p>“Well, it <em>is</em> asking you to play second fiddle, +and no mistake,” laughed George Ramsey, “for I did +think I would make Miss Edgham a little call. But, after all, the +second fiddle is an indispensable thing, and you and I are old +friends, Lily.”</p> +<p>He could not help the admiration in his eyes as he looked at +Lily. She carried a little lamp, and the soft light was thrown upon +her lovely face, and her brown hair gleamed gold in it. No man +could have helped admiring her. Lily had never been a very +brilliant scholar, but she could read admiration for herself. She +regained her self-possession.</p> +<p>“I don't mind playing second fiddle,” said she. +“I should be glad if I could play any fiddle. Come in, Mr. +Ramsey.”</p> +<p>“How very formal we have grown!” laughed George, as +he took off his coat and hat in the icy little hall. “Why, +don't you remember we went to school together? What is the +use?”</p> +<p>“George, then,” said Lily. Her voice seemed to +caress the name.</p> +<p>The young man colored. He was of a stanch sort, but he was a +man, and the adulation of such a beautiful girl as this touched +him. He took the lamp out of her hand.</p> +<p>“Come in, then,” he said; “but it is rather +funny for me to be calling on you here, isn't it?”</p> +<p>“Funnier than it would be for you to call on me at my own +house,” said Lily, demurely, with a faint accent of +reproach.</p> +<p>“Well, I must admit I am not very neighborly,” +George replied, with an apologetic air. “But, you see, I am +really busy a good many evenings with accounts, and I don't go out +very much.”</p> +<p>Lily reflected that he had come to call on Maria, in spite of +being busy, but she said nothing. She placed Maria's vacant chair +for him beside the sitting-room stove.</p> +<p>“It is a hard storm,” she said.</p> +<p>“Very. It is a queer night for Miss Edgham's aunt to go +out, it seems to me.”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Ralph Wright has a tea-party,” said Lily. +“Maria's aunt Eunice has gone, too. My mother was invited, +but mother never goes out in the evening.”</p> +<p>After these commonplace remarks, Lily seated herself opposite +George Ramsey, and there was a little silence. Again the expression +of admiration came into the young man's face, and the girl read it +with delight. Sitting gracefully, her slender body outlined by the +soft green of her dress, her radiant face showing above the ivory +cameo brooch at her throat, she was charming. George Ramsey owned +to himself that Lily was certainly a great beauty, but all the same +he thought regretfully of the other girl, who was not such a +beauty, but who had somehow appealed to him as no other girl had +ever done. Then, too, Maria was in a measure new. He had known Lily +all his life; the element of wonder and surprise was lacking in his +consciousness of her beauty, and she also lacked something else +which Maria had. Lily meant no more to him—that is, her +beauty meant no more to him—than a symmetrical cherry-tree in +the south yard, which was a marvel of scented beauty, humming with +bees every spring. He had seen that tree ever since he could +remember. He always looked upon it with pleasure when it was in +blossom, yet it was not to him what a new tree, standing forth +unexpectedly with its complement of flowers and bees, would have +been. It was very unfortunate for Lily that George had known her +all his life. In order really to attract him it would be necessary +for him to discover something entirely new in her.</p> +<p>“It was very good of you to come in and stay with Miss +Edgham while her aunt was gone,” said George.</p> +<p>He felt terribly at a loss for conversation. He had, without +knowing it, a sense of something underneath the externals which put +a constraint upon him.</p> +<p>Lily had one of the truth-telling impulses which redeemed her +from the artifices of her mother.</p> +<p>“Oh,” said she, “I wanted to come. I proposed +coming myself. It is dull evenings at home, and I did not know that +Maria would go to bed or that you would come in.”</p> +<p>“Well, mother has gone to that tea-party, too,” said +George, “and I looked over here and saw the light, and I +thought I would just run in a minute.”</p> +<p>For some unexplained reason tears were standing in Lily's eyes +and her mouth quivered a little. George could not see, for the life +of him, why she should be on the verge of tears. He felt a little +impatient, but at the same time she became more interesting to him. +He had never seen Lily weeping since the time when she was a child +at school, and used to conceal her weeping little face in a ring of +her right arm, as was the fashion among the little girls.</p> +<p>“This light must shine right in your sitting-room +windows,” said Lily, in a faint voice. She was considering +how pitiful it was that George had not had the impulse to call upon +her, Lily, when she was so lovely and loving in her green gown; and +how even this little happiness was not really her own, but another +girl's. She had not the least realization of how Maria was +suffering, lying in her room directly overhead.</p> +<p>Maria suffered as she had never suffered before. George Ramsey +was her first love; the others had been merely childish playthings. +She was strangling love, and that is a desperate deed, and the +strangler suffers more than love. Maria, with the memory of that +marriage which was, indeed, no marriage, but the absurd travesty of +one, upon her, was in almost a suicidal frame of mind. She knew +perfectly well that if it had not been for that marriage secret +which she held always in mind, that George Ramsey would continue to +call, that they would become engaged, that her life might be like +other women's. And now he was down there with Lily—Lily, in +her green gown. She knew just how Lily would look at him, with her +beautiful, soft eyes. She hated her, and yet she hated herself more +than she hated her. She told herself that she had no good reason +for hating another girl for doing what she herself had +done—for falling in love with George Ramsey. She knew that +she should never have made a confidant of another girl, as Lily had +made of her. She realized a righteous contempt because of her +weakness, and yet she felt that Lily was the normal girl, that nine +out of ten would do exactly what she had done. And she also had a +sort of pity for her. She could not quite believe that a young man +like George Ramsey could like Lily, who, however beautiful she was, +was undeniably silly. But then she reflected how young men were +popularly supposed not to mind a girl's being silly if she was +beautiful. Then she ceased to pity Lily, and hated her again. She +became quite convinced that George Ramsey would marry her.</p> +<p>She had locked her door, and lay on her bed fully dressed. She +made up her mind that when Aunt Maria came she would pretend to be +asleep. She felt that she could not face Aunt Maria's wondering +questions. Then she reflected that Aunt Maria would be home soon, +and a malicious joy seized her that Lily would not have George +Ramsey long to herself. Indeed, it was scarcely half-past eight +before Maria heard the side-door open. Then she heard, quite +distinctly, Aunt Maria's voice, although she could not distinguish +the words. Maria laughed a little, smothered, hysterical laugh at +the absurdity of the situation.</p> +<p>It was, in fact, ludicrous. Aunt Maria entered the sitting-room, +a grotesque figure in her black skirt bundled up under Maria's +waterproof, which was powdered with snow. She wore her old black +bonnet, and the wind had tipped that rakishly to one side. She +stared at Lily and George Ramsey, who both rose with crimson +faces.</p> +<p>“Good-evening,” Lily ventured, feebly.</p> +<p>“Good-evening, Miss Stillman,” George said, +following the girl's lead. Then, as he was more assured, he added +that it was a very stormy night.</p> +<p>George had been sitting on one side of the stove, Lily on the +other, in the chairs which Maria and Lily had occupied before the +young man's arrival. They had both sprung up with a guilty motion +when Aunt Maria entered. Aunt Maria stood surveying them. She did +not return their good-evenings, nor George's advance with regard to +the weather. Her whole face expressed severe astonishment. Her thin +lips gaped slightly, her pale eyes narrowed. She continued to look +at them, and they stood before her like culprits.</p> +<p>“Where's Maria gone?” said Aunt Maria, finally, in a +voice which seemed to have an edge to it.</p> +<p>Then Lily spoke with soft and timid volubility. “Maria +said her head ached so she thought she had better go to bed, Miss +Stillman,” she said.</p> +<p>“I didn't hear anything about any headache before I went +away. Must have come on mighty sudden,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“She said it ached very hard,” repeated Lily. +“And when the door-bell rang, when Mr. Ramsey came—”</p> +<p>“It's mighty queer she should have had a headache when +George Ramsey rang the door-bell,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“I guess it must have ached before,” said Lily, +faintly.</p> +<p>“I should suppose it must have,” Aunt Maria said, +sarcastically. “I don't see any reason why Maria's head +should begin to ache when the door-bell rang.”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said Lily. “I suppose she just +felt she couldn't talk, that was all.”</p> +<p>“It's mighty queer,” said Aunt Maria. She stood +quite immovable. She was so stern that even her rakishly tipped +bonnet did not seem at all funny. She looked at Lily and George +Ramsey, and did not make a movement to remove her wraps.</p> +<p>Lily took a little, faltering step towards her. “You are +all covered with snow, Miss Stillman,” she said, in her sweet +voice.</p> +<p>“I don't mind a little snow,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“Won't you take this chair?” asked George Ramsey, +pointing to the one which he had just vacated.</p> +<p>“No, thank you,” replied Aunt Maria. “I ain't +going to sit down. I've got on my best black silk, and I don't ever +sit down in it when I can help it. I'm going to take it off and go +to bed.”</p> +<p>Then George Ramsey immediately made a movement towards his coat +and hat, which lay on the lounge beside Lily's wraps. +“Well,” he said, with an attempt to laugh and be easy, +“I must be going. I have to take an early car +to-morrow.”</p> +<p>“I must go, too,” said Lily.</p> +<p>They both hustled on their outer garments. They said +good-evening when they went out, but Aunt Maria did not reply. She +immediately took off Maria's water-proof and her bonnet, and +slipped off her best black silk gown. Then she took the little lamp +which was lighted in the kitchen and went up-stairs to Maria's +room. She had an old shawl over her shoulders, otherwise she was in +her black quilted petticoat. She stepped softly, and entered the +spare room opposite Maria's. It was icy cold in there. She set the +lamp on the bureau and went out, closing the door softly. It was +then quite dark in the little passageway between the spare room and +Maria's. Aunt Maria stood looking sharply at Maria's door, +especially at the threshold, which was separated from the floor +quite a space by the shrinkage of the years. The panels, too, had +their crevices, through which light might be seen. It was entirely +dark. Aunt Maria opened the door of the spare room very softly and +got the little lamp off the bureau, and tiptoed down-stairs. Then +she sat down before the sitting-room stove and pulled up her +quilted petticoat till her thin legs were exposed, to warm herself +and not injure the petticoat. She looked unutterably stern and +weary. Suddenly, as she sat there, tears began to roll over her +ascetic cheeks.</p> +<p>“Oh, Lord!” she sighed to herself; “to think +that child has got to go through the world just the way I have, +when she don't need to!”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria rose and got a handkerchief out of her bureau-drawer +in her little bedroom. She did not take the one in the pocket of +her gown because that was her best one, and very fine. Then she sat +down again, pulled up her petticoat again, put the handkerchief +before her poor face, and wept for herself and her niece, because +of a conviction which was over her that for both the joy of life +was to come only from the windows of others.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIII</h4> +<p>Lily Merrill, going home across the yard through the storm, +leaning on George Ramsey's arm, gave a little, involuntary sob. It +was a sob half of the realization of slighted affection, half of +shame. It gave the little element of strangeness which was lacking +to fascinate the young man. He had a pitiful heart towards women, +and at the sound of the little, stifled sob he pressed Lily's arm +more closely under his own.</p> +<p>“Don't, Lily,” he said, softly.</p> +<p>Lily sobbed again; she almost leaned her head towards George's +shoulder. She made a little, irresistible, nestling motion, like a +child.</p> +<p>“I can't help it,” she said, brokenly. “She +did look at me so.”</p> +<p>“Don't mind her one bit, Lily,” said George. He half +laughed at the memory of Aunt Maria's face, even while the tender +tone sounded in his voice. “Don't mind that poor old maid. +Neither of us were to blame. I suppose it did look as if we had +taken possession of her premises, and she was astonished, that was +all. How funny she looked, poor thing, with her bonnet +awry!”</p> +<p>“I know she must think I have done something +dreadful,” sobbed Lily.</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” George said again, and his pressure of +her arm tightened. “I was just going when she came in, +anyway. There is nothing at all to be ashamed of, only—” He hesitated.</p> +<p>“What?” asked Lily.</p> +<p>“Well, to tell you the truth, Lily,” he said then, +“it does look to me as if Miss Edgham's headache was only +another way of telling me she did not wish to see me.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I guess not,” said Lily.</p> +<p>“For some reason or other she does not seem to like +me,” George said, with rather a troubled voice; but he +directly laughed.</p> +<p>“I don't see any reason why she shouldn't like you,” +Lily said.</p> +<p>They had reached Lily's door, and the light from the +sitting-room windows shone on her lovely face, past which the snow +drifted like a white veil.</p> +<p>“Well, I think she doesn't,” George said, +carelessly, “but you are mighty good to say you see no reason +why she shouldn't. You and I have always been good friends, haven't +we, Lily, ever since we went to school together?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Lily, eagerly, although she did not +like the word friends, which seemed to smite on the heart. She +lifted her face to the young man's, and her lips pouted almost +imperceptibly. It could not have been said that she was inviting a +kiss, but no man could have avoided kissing her. George Ramsey +kissed her as naturally as he breathed. There seemed to be nothing +else to do. It was one of the inevitables of life. Then Lily opened +the door and slid into the house with a tremulous good-night.</p> +<p>George himself felt tremulous, and also astonished and vexed +with himself. He had certainly not meant to kiss Lily Merrill. But +it flashed across his mind that she would not think anything of it, +that he had kissed her often when they were children, and it was +the same thing now. As he went away he glanced back at the lighted +windows, and a man's shadow was quite evident. He wondered who was +calling on Lily's mother, and then wondered, with a slight shadow +of jealousy, if it could be some one who had come to see Lily +herself. He reflected, as he went homeward through the storm, that +a girl as pretty as Lily ought to have some one worthy of her. He +went over in his mind, as he puffed his cigar, all the young men in +Amity, and it did not seem to him that any one of them was quite +the man for her.</p> +<p>When he reached home he found his mother already there, warming +herself by the sitting-room register. She had gone to the tea-party +in a carriage (George would not have her walk), but she was +chilled. She was a delicate, pretty woman. She looked up, +shivering, as George entered.</p> +<p>“Where have you been, dear?” she asked.</p> +<p>George laughed, and colored a little. “Well, mother, I +went to see one young lady and saw another,” he replied.</p> +<p>Just then the maid came in with some hot chocolate, which Mrs. +Ramsey always drank before she went to bed, and she asked no more +questions until the girl had gone; then she resumed the +conversation.</p> +<p>“What do you mean, dear?” she inquired, looking over +the rim of the china cup at her son, with a slight, anxious +contraction of her forehead.</p> +<p>“Well, I felt a little lonely after you went, mother, and +I had nothing especial to do, and it occurred to me that I would go +over and call on our neighbor.”</p> +<p>“On young Maria Edgham?”</p> +<p>“Yes, mother.”</p> +<p>“Well, I suppose it was a polite thing for you to +do,” said his mother, mildly, “but I don't quite care +for her has I do for some girls. She is so very vehement. I do like +a young girl to be gentle.”</p> +<p>“Well, I didn't see her, mother, in either a gentle or +vehement mood,” said George. “As nearly as I can find +out, she had a premonition who it was when I rang the door-bell, +and said she had a headache, and ran up-stairs to bed.”</p> +<p>“Why, how do you know?” asked his mother, staring at +him. “Her aunt was at the tea. Who told you?”</p> +<p>“Lily Merrill was there,” replied George, and again +he was conscious of coloring. “She had come to stay with +Maria because her aunt was going out. She answered my ring, and so +I made a little call on her until Miss Stillman returned, and was +so surprised to see her premises invaded and her niece missing that +I think she inferred a conspiracy or a burglar. At all events, Lily +and I were summarily dismissed. I have just seen Lily +home.”</p> +<p>“Lily Merrill is pretty, and I think she is a nice, +lady-like girl,” said Mrs. Ramsey, and she regarded her son +more uneasily than before, “but I don't like her mother, +George.”</p> +<p>“Why, what is the matter with Lily's mother?”</p> +<p>“She isn't genuine. Adeline Merrill was never genuine. She +has always had her selfish ends, and she has reached them by crooks +and turns.”</p> +<p>“I think Lily is genuine enough,” said George, +carelessly, putting another lump of sugar in his cup of chocolate. +“I have seen more brilliant girls, but she is a beauty, and I +think she is genuine.”</p> +<p>“Well, perhaps she is,” Mrs. Ramsey admitted. +“I don't know her very well, but I do know her mother. I know +something now.”</p> +<p>“What?”</p> +<p>“I know you don't like gossip, but if ever a woman +was—I know it is a vulgar expression—but if ever a +woman was setting her cap for a man, she is setting hers for Dr. +Ellridge. She never goes anywhere evenings, in the hope that he may +call, and she sends for him when there is nothing whatever the +matter with her, if he doesn't. I know, because Dr. Ellridge's +wife's sister, Miss Emmons, who has kept house for him since his +wife died, told me so. He goes home and tells her, and laughs, but +I know she isn't quite sure that the doctor won't marry +her.”</p> +<p>“Miss Emmons is jealous, perhaps,” said George. +“Perhaps Mrs. Merrill is really ill.”</p> +<p>“No, the doctor says she is not, and Miss Emmons is not +jealous. She told me that as far as she was concerned, although she +would lose her home, she should be glad to see the doctor married, +if he chose a suitable woman; but I don't think she likes Mrs. +Merrill. I don't see how anybody can like a woman who so openly +proclaims her willingness to marry a man before he has done her the +honor to ask her. It seems shameless to me.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps she doesn't,” George said again. Then he +added, “It would be rather hard for Lily if her mother did +marry the doctor. He is a good man enough, but with his own three +girls, the oldest older than Lily, she would have a hard +time.”</p> +<p>George looked quite sober, reflecting upon the possible sad lot +of poor Lily if her mother married the second time.</p> +<p>“Adeline Merrill wouldn't stop for such a thing as the +feelings of her own daughter, if she had her mind set on +anything,” said his mother, in her soft voice, which seemed +to belie the bitterness of her words. She was not in reality bitter +at all, not even towards Mrs. Merrill, but she had clearly defined +rules of conduct for gentlewomen, and she mentioned it when these +rules were transgressed.</p> +<p>“Well, mother dear, I can't see that it is likely to make +much difference to either you or me, anyway,” said George, +and his mother felt consoled. She told herself that it was not +possible that George thought seriously of Lily, or he would not +speak so.</p> +<p>“Miss Stillman is very eccentric,” she remarked, +departing from the subject. “I offered to bring her home with +me in the carriage. I knew you would not mind the extra money. She +has such a cold that I really wondered that she came at all in such +a storm; but, no, she seemed fairly indignant at the idea. I never +saw any one so proud. I asked Mrs. Henry Stillman, but she did not +like to have her sister-in-law to go alone, so she would not +accept, either; but Miss Stillman walked herself, and made her +sister walk, too, and I am positive it was because she was proud. +Do you really mean you think young Maria did not want to see you, +George?”</p> +<p>“It looked like it,” George replied, laughing.</p> +<p>“Why?” asked his mother.</p> +<p>“How do I know, mother dear? I don't think Miss Edgham +altogether approves of me for some reason.”</p> +<p>“I should like to know what reason she has for not +approving of you,” cried his mother, jealously. She looked +admiringly at her son, who was handsome, with a sort of rugged +beauty, and whose face displayed strength, and honesty not to be +questioned. “I would like to know who Maria Edgham thinks she +is. She is rather pretty, but she cannot compare with Lily Merrill +as far as that goes, and she is teaching a little district school, +and from what I have seen of her, her manners are subject to +criticism. She is not half as lady-like as other girls in Amity. +When I think of the way she flew in here and attacked us for not +clothing those disreputable people across the river, just because +they have the same name, I can't help being indignant. I never +heard of a young girl's doing such a thing. And I think that if she +ran off when the bell rang, because she thought it was you, it was +certainly very rude. I think she virtually ascribed more meaning to +your call than there was.”</p> +<p>“Lily said she had a headache,” said George, but his +own face assumed an annoyed expression. That version of Maria's +flight had not occurred to him, and he was a very proud fellow. +When he went up-stairs to his own room he continued wondering +whether it was possible that Maria, remembering their childish +love-affair, could have really dreamed that he had called that +evening with serious intentions, and he grew more and more +indignant at the idea. Then the memory of that soft, hardly +returned kiss which he had given Lily came to him, and now he did +not feel vexed with himself because of it. He was quite certain +that Lily was too gentle and timid to think for a minute that he +meant anything more than their old childish friendship. The memory +of the kiss became very pleasant to him, and he seemed to feel +Lily's lips upon his own like a living flower which thrilled the +heart. The next morning, when he took the trolley-car in front of +his house, Maria was just passing on her way to school. She was +wading rather wearily, yet still sturdily, through the snow. It had +cleared during the night, and there were several inches of drifted +snow in places, although some portions of the road were as bare as +if swept by a broom of the winds.</p> +<p>Maria, tramping through the snow, which was deep just there, +merely glanced at George Ramsey, and said good-morning. She had +plenty of time, if she had chosen to do so, to express her regrets +at not seeing him the evening before, for the car had not yet +reached him. But she said nothing except good-morning, and George +responded rather curtly, raising his hat, and stepping forward +towards the car. He felt it to be unmistakable that Maria wished +him to understand that she did not care for his particular +acquaintance, and the sting which his mother had suggested the +evening before, that she must consider that his attentions were +significant, or she would not take so much trouble to repulse them, +came over him again. He boarded the car, which was late, and moving +sluggishly through the snow. It came to a full stop in front of the +Merrill house, and George saw Lily's head behind a stand of ferns +in one of the front windows. He raised his hat, and she bowed, and +he could see her blush even at that distance. He thought again, +comfortably, that Lily, remembering their childish caresses, could +attach no importance to what had happened the night before, and yet +a thrill of tenderness and pleasure shot through him, and he seemed +to feel again the flower-like touch of her lips. It was a solace +for any man, after receiving such an unmistakable rebuff as he had +just received from Maria Edgham. He had no conception of the girl +plodding through the snow to her daily task. He did not dream that +she saw, instead of the snowy road before, a long stretch of dreary +future, brought about by that very rebuff. But she was quite +merciless with herself. She would not yield for a moment to +regrets. She accepted that stretch of dreary future with a defiant +acquiescence. She bowed pleasantly to the acquaintances whom she +met. They were not many that morning, for the road was hardly +passable in places, being overcurved here and there with blue, +diamond-crested, snowlike cascades, and now presenting ridges like +graves. Half-way to the school-house, Maria saw the village +snow-plough, drawn by a struggling horse and guided by a red-faced +man. She stood aside to let it pass. The man did not look at her. +He frowned ahead at his task. He was quite an old man, and bent, +but with the red of youth brought forth in his cheeks by the frosty +air.</p> +<p>“Everybody has to work in some way,” Maria thought, +“and very few get happiness for their labor.”</p> +<p>She reflected how soon that man would be lying stiff and stark +under the wintry snows and the summer heats, and how nothing which +might trouble him now would matter. She reflected that, although +she herself was younger and had presumably longer to live, that the +time would inevitably come when even such unhappiness as weighed +her down this morning would not matter. She continued in the +ineffectual track which the snow-plough had made, with a certain +pleasure in the exertion. All Maria's heights of life, her +mountain-summits which she would agonize to reach, were spiritual. +Labor in itself could never daunt her. Always her spirit, the finer +essence of her, would soar butterfly-like above her toiling +members.</p> +<p>It was a beautiful morning; the trees were heavily bent with +snow, which gave out lustres like jewels. The air had a very purity +of life in it. Maria inhaled the frosty, clear air, and regarded +the trees as one might have done who was taking a stimulant. She +kept her mind upon them, and would not think of George Ramsey. As +she neared the school-house, the first child who ran to meet her, +stumbling through the snow, was little Jessy Ramsey. Maria forced +herself to meet smilingly the upward, loving look of those blue +Ramsey eyes. She bent down and kissed Jessy, and the little thing +danced at her side in a rapture.</p> +<p>“They be awful warm, my close, teacher,” said +she.</p> +<p>“My clothes are very warm, teacher,” corrected +Maria, gravely.</p> +<p>“My clothes are very warm, teacher,” said Jessy, +obediently.</p> +<p>Maria caught the child up in her arms (she was a tiny, half-fed +little thing), and kissed her again. Somehow she got a measure of +comfort from it. After all, love was love, in whatever guise it +came, and this was an innocent love which she could admit with no +question.</p> +<p>“That's a good little girl, dear,” she said, and set +Jessy down.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIV</h4> +<p>Maria did not go home for the Christmas holidays. She was very +anxious to do so, but she received a letter from Ida Edgham which +made her resolve to remain where she was.</p> +<p>“We should be so very glad to have you come home for the +holidays, dear,” wrote Ida, “but of course we know how +long the journey is, and how little you are earning, and we are all +well. Your father seems quite well, and so we shall send you some +little remembrance, and try to console ourselves as best we can for +your absence.”</p> +<p>Maria read the letter to her aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“You won't go one step?” said Aunt Maria, +interrogatively.</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria. She was quite white. Nobody knew +how she had longed to see her father and little Evelyn, and she had +planned to go, and take Aunt Maria with her, defraying the expenses +out of her scanty earnings.</p> +<p>“I wouldn't go if you were to offer me a thousand +dollars,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“I would not, either,” responded Maria. She opened +the stove door and thrust the letter in, and watched it burn.</p> +<p>“How your father ever came to marry that woman—” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“There's no use talking about that now,” said Maria, +arousing to defence of her father. “She was very +pretty!”</p> +<p>“Pretty enough,” said Aunt Maria, “and I miss +my guess if she didn't do most of the courting. Well, as you say, +there is no use talking it over now. What's done is +done.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria watched Maria's pitiful young face with covert +glances. Maria was finishing a blouse which she had expected to +wear on her journey. She continued her work with resolution, but +every line on her face took a downward curve.</p> +<p>“You don't need to hurry so on that waist now,” said +Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“I want the waist, anyway,” replied her niece. +“I may as well get it done.”</p> +<p>“You will have to send the Christmas presents,” said +Aunt Maria. “I don't very well see how you can pack some of +them.”</p> +<p>“I guess I can manage,” said Maria.</p> +<p>The next day her week of vacation began. She packed the gifts +which she had bought for her father and Evelyn and Ida, and took +them to the express office. The day after that she received the +remembrances of which Ida spoke. They were very pretty. Aunt Maria +thought them extravagant. Ida had sent her a tiny chatelaine watch, +and her father a ring set with a little diamond. Maria knew +perfectly well how her father's heart ached when he sent the ring. +She never for one moment doubted him. She wrote him a most loving +letter, and even a deceptive letter, because of her affection. She +repeated what Ida had written, that it was a long journey, and +expensive, and she did not think it best for her to go home, +although she had longed to do so.</p> +<p>Ida sent Aunt Maria a set of Shakespeare. When it was unpacked, +Aunt Maria looked shrewdly at her niece.</p> +<p>“How many sets of Shakespeare has she got?” she +inquired. “Do you know, Maria?”</p> +<p>Maria admitted that she thought she had two.</p> +<p>“I miss my guess but she has another exactly just like +this,” said Aunt Maria. “Well, I don't mean to be +ungrateful, and I know Shakespeare is called a great writer, and +they who like him can read him. I would no more sit down and read +all those books through, myself, than I would read Webster's +Dictionary.”</p> +<p>Maria laughed.</p> +<p>“You can take this set of books up in your room, if you +want them,” said Aunt Maria. “For my part I consider it +an insult for her to send Shakespeare to me. She must have known I +had never had anything to do with Shakespeare. She might just as +well have sent me a crown. Now, your father he has more sense. He +sent me this five-dollar gold-piece so I could buy what I wanted +with it. He knew that he didn't know what I wanted. Your father's a +good man, Maria, but he was weak when he married her; I've got to +say it.”</p> +<p>“I don't think father was weak at all!” Maria +retorted, with spirit.</p> +<p>“Of course, I expect you to stand up for your father, that +is right. I wouldn't have you do anything else,” Aunt Maria +said approvingly. “But he was weak.”</p> +<p>“She could have married almost anybody,” said Maria, +gathering up the despised set of books. She was very glad of them +to fill up the small bamboo bookcase in her own room, and, beside, +she did not share her aunt's animosity to Shakespeare. She +purchased some handkerchiefs for her aunt, with the covert view of +recompensing her for the loss of Ida's present, and Aunt Maria was +delighted with them.</p> +<p>“If she had had the sense to send me half a dozen +handkerchiefs like these,” said she, “I should have +thanked her. Anybody in their senses would rather have half a dozen +nice handkerchiefs than a set of Shakespeare. That is, if they said +just what they meant. I know some folks would be ashamed of not +thinking much of Shakespeare. As for me, I say what I mean.” +Aunt Maria tossed her head as she spoke.</p> +<p>She grew daily more like her brother Henry. The family traits in +each became more accentuated. Each posed paradoxically as not being +a poser. Aunt Maria spoke her mind so freely and arrogantly that +she was not much of a favorite in Amity, although she commanded a +certain measure of respect from her strenuous exertions at her own +trumpet, which more than half-convinced people of the accuracy of +her own opinion of herself. Sometimes Maria herself was irritated +by her aunt, but she loved her dearly. She was always aware, too, +of Aunt Maria's unspoken, but perfect approbation and admiration +for herself, Maria, and of a certain sympathy for her, which the +elder woman had the delicacy never to speak of. She had become +aware that Maria, while she repulsed George Ramsey, was doing so +for reasons which she could not divine, and that she suffered +because of it.</p> +<p>One afternoon, not long after Christmas, when Maria returned +from school, almost the first words which her aunt said to her +were, “I do hate to see a young man made a fool +of.”</p> +<p>Maria turned pale, and looked at her aunt.</p> +<p>“George Ramsey went past here sleigh-riding with Lily +Merrill a little while ago,” said Aunt Maria. “That +girl's making a fool of him!”</p> +<p>“Lily is a nice girl, Aunt Maria,” Maria said, +faintly.</p> +<p>“Nice enough, but she can't come up to him. She never can. +And when one can't come up, the other has to go down. I've seen it +too many times not to know. There's sleigh-bells now. I guess it's +them coming back. Yes, it is.”</p> +<p>Maria did not glance out of the window, and the sleigh, with its +singing bells, flew past. She went wearily up to her own room, and +removed her wraps before supper. Maria had a tiny coal-stove in her +room now, and that was a great comfort to her. She could get away +by herself, when she chose, and sometimes the necessity for so +doing was strong upon her. She wished to think, without Aunt +Maria's sharp eyes upon her, searching her thoughts. Emotion in +Maria was reaching its high-water mark; the need for concealing, +lest it be profaned by other eyes, was over her. Maria felt, +although she was conscious of her aunt's covert sympathy for +something that troubled her which she did not know about, and +grateful for it, that she should die of shame if Aunt Maria did +know. After supper that night she returned to her own room. She +said she had some essays to correct.</p> +<p>“Well, I guess I'll step into the other side a +minute,” said Aunt Maria. “Eunice went to the +sewing-meeting this afternoon, and I want to know what they put in +that barrel for that minister out West. I don't believe they had +enough to half fill it. Of all the things they sent the last time, +there wasn't anything fit to be seen.”</p> +<p>Maria seated herself in her own room, beside her tiny stove. She +had a pink shade on her lamp, which stood on her little +centre-table. The exercises were on the table, but she had not +touched them when she heard doors opening and shutting below, then +a step on the stairs. She knew at once it was Lily. Her room door +opened, after a soft knock, and Lily glided gracefully in.</p> +<p>“I knew you were up here, dear,” she said. “I +saw your light, and I saw your aunt's sitting-room lamp go +out.”</p> +<p>“Aunt Maria has only gone in Uncle Henry's side. Sit down, +Lily,” said Maria, rising and returning Lily's kiss, and +placing a chair for her.</p> +<p>“Does she always put her lamp out when she goes in +there?” asked Lily with innocent wonder.</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Maria, rather curtly. That was one of +poor Aunt Maria's petty economies, and she was sensitive with +regard to it. A certain starvation of character, which had resulted +from the lack of material wealth, was evident in Aunt Maria, and +her niece recognized the fact with exceeding pity, and a sense of +wrong at the hands of Providence.</p> +<p>“How very funny,” said Lily.</p> +<p>Maria said nothing. Lily had seated herself in the chair placed +for her, and as usual had at once relapsed into a pose which would +have done credit to an artist's model, a pose of which she was +innocently conscious. She cast approving glances at the graceful +folds of crimson cashmere which swept over her knees; she extended +one little foot in its pointed shoe; she raised her arms with a +gesture peculiar to her and placed them behind her head in such a +fashion that she seemed to embrace herself. Lily in crimson +cashmere, which lent its warm glow to her tender cheeks, and even +seemed to impart a rosy reflection to the gloss of her hair, was +ravishing. To-night, too, her face wore a new expression, one of +triumphant tenderness, which caused her to look fairly +luminous.</p> +<p>“It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?” she said.</p> +<p>“Very pleasant,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Did you know I went sleigh-riding this +afternoon?”</p> +<p>“Did you?”</p> +<p>“Yes; George took me out.”</p> +<p>“That was nice,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“We went to Wayland. The sleighing is lovely.”</p> +<p>“I thought it looked so,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“It is. Say, Maria!”</p> +<p>“Well?”</p> +<p>“He said things to me this afternoon that sounded as if he +did mean them. He did, really.”</p> +<p>“Did he?”</p> +<p>“Do you want me to tell you?” asked Lily, eying +Maria happily and yet a little timidly.</p> +<p>Maria straightened herself. “If you want to know what I +really think, Lily,” she said, “I think no girl should +repeat anything a man says to her, if she does think he really +means it. I think it is between the two. I think it should be held +sacred. I think the girl cheapens it by repeating it, and I don't +think it is fair to the man. I don't care to hear what Mr. Ramsey +said, if you want the truth, Lily.”</p> +<p>Lily looked abashed. “I dare say you are right, +Maria,” she said, meekly. “I won't repeat anything he +said if you don't think I ought, and don't want to hear +it.”</p> +<p>“Is your new dress done?” asked Maria, abruptly.</p> +<p>“It is going to be finished this week,” said Lily. +“Do you think I am horrid, proposing to tell you what he +said, Maria?”</p> +<p>“No, only I don't care to hear any more about +it.”</p> +<p>“Well, I hope you don't think I am horrid.”</p> +<p>“I don't, dear,” said Maria, with an odd sensation +of tenderness for the other, weaker girl, whom she had handled in a +measure roughly with her own stronger character. She looked +admiringly at her as she spoke. “Nobody can ever really think +you horrid,” she said.</p> +<p>“If they did, I should think I was horrid my own +self,” said Lily, with the ready acquiescence in the opinion +of another which signified the deepest admiration, even to her own +detriment, and was the redeeming note in her character.</p> +<p>Maria laughed. “I declare, Lily,” said she, “I +hope you will never be accused of a crime, for I do believe even if +you were innocent, you would side with the lawyer for the +prosecution.”</p> +<p>“I don't know but I should,” said Lily.</p> +<p>Then she ventured to say something more about George Ramsey, +encouraged by Maria's friendliness, but she met with such scanty +sympathy that she refrained. She arose soon, and said she thought +she must go home.</p> +<p>“I am tired to-night, and I think I had better go to bed +early,” she said.</p> +<p>“Don't hurry,” Maria said, conventionally; but Lily +kissed Maria and went.</p> +<p>Maria knew that her manner had driven Lily away, but she did not +feel as if she could endure hearing her confidences, and Lily's +confidences had all the impetus of a mountain stream. Had she +remained, they could not have been finally checked. Maria moved her +window curtains slightly and watched Lily flitting across the yard. +She saw her enter the door, and also saw, quite distinctly the +shadow of a man upon the white curtain as he rose to greet her when +she entered. She wondered whether the man was Dr. Ellridge, or +George Ramsey. The shadow looked like that of the older man, she +thought, and she was not mistaken.</p> +<p>Lily, on entering the sitting-room, found Dr. Ellridge with her +mother, and her mother's face was flushed, and she had a conscious +simper. Lily said good-evening, and sat down as usual with her +fancy-work, after she had removed her wraps, but soon her mother +said to her that there was a good fire in her own room, and she +thought that she had better go to bed early, as she must be tired, +and Dr. Ellridge echoed her with rather a foolish expression.</p> +<p>“I don't think you ought to sit up late working on +embroidery, Lily,” he said. “You are looking tired +to-night. You must let me prescribe for you a glass of hot milk and +bed.”</p> +<p>Lily looked at both of them with wondering gentleness, then she +rose.</p> +<p>“There is a good fire in the kitchen,” said her +mother, “and Hannah will heat the milk for you. You had +better do as Dr. Ellridge said. You are going out to-morrow night, +too, you know.”</p> +<p>Lily said good-night, and went out with a smouldering disquiet +in her heart. When she asked Hannah out in the kitchen to heat the +milk for her, because Dr. Ellridge said she must drink it and then +go to bed, the girl, who had been long with the family and +considered that she in reality was the main-spring of the house, +eyed her curiously.</p> +<p>“Said you had better go to bed?” said she. +“Why, it isn't nine o'clock!”</p> +<p>“He said I looked tired, Hannah,” said Lily +faintly.</p> +<p>Hannah, who was a large, high-shouldered Nova Scotia girl, with +a large, flat face obscured with freckles, sniffed. Lily heard her +say quite distinctly as she went into the pantry for the milk, that +she called it a shame when there were so many grown-up daughters to +think of, for her part.</p> +<p>Lily knew what she meant. She sat quite pale and still while the +milk was heating, and then drank it meekly, said good-night to +Hannah and went up-stairs.</p> +<p>She could not go to sleep, although she went at once to bed, and +extinguished her lamp. She lay there and heard a clock down in the +hall strike the hours. The clock had struck twelve, and she had not +heard Dr. Ellridge go. The whole situation filled her with a sort +of wonder of disgust. She could not imagine her mother and Dr. +Ellridge sitting up until midnight as she might sit up with George +Ramsey. She felt as if she were witnessing a ghastly inversion of +things, as if Love, instead of being in his proper panoply of wings +and roses, was invested with a medicine-case, an obsolete +frock-coat, and elderly obesity. Dr. Ellridge was quite stout. She +wondered how her mother could, and then she wondered how Dr. +Ellridge could. Lily loved her mother, but she had relegated her to +what she considered her proper place in the scheme of things, and +now she was overstepping it. Lily called to mind vividly the lines +on her mother's face, her matronly figure. It seemed to her that +her mother had had her time of love with her father, and this was +as abnormal as two springs in one year. Shortly after twelve, Lily +heard a soft murmur of voices in the hall, then the front door +close. Then her mother came up-stairs and entered her room.</p> +<p>“Are you asleep, Lily?” she whispered, softly, and +Lily recognized with shame the artificiality of the whisper.</p> +<p>“No, mother, I am not asleep,” she replied, quite +loudly.</p> +<p>Her mother came and sat down on the bed beside her. She patted +Lily's cheeks, and felt for her hand. Lily's impulse was to snatch +it away, but she was too gentle. She let it remain passively in her +mother's nervous clasp.</p> +<p>“Lily, my dear child, I have something to tell you,” +whispered Mrs. Merrill.</p> +<p>Lily said nothing.</p> +<p>“Lily, my precious child,” said her mother, in her +strained whisper. “I don't know whether you have suspected +anything or not, but I am meditating a great change in my life. I +have been very lonely since your dear father died, and I never had +a nature to live alone and be happy. You might as well expect the +vine to live without its tree. I have made up my mind that I shall +be much happier, and Dr. Ellridge will. He needs the sympathy and +love of a wife. His daughters do as well as they can, but a +daughter is not like a wife.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother!” said Lily. Then she gave a little sob. +Her mother bent over and kissed her, and Lily smelled Dr. +Ellridge's cigar, and she thought also medicine. She shrank away +from her mother, and sobbed convulsively.</p> +<p>“My dear child,” said Mrs. Merrill, “you need +not feel so badly. There will be no change in your life until you +yourself marry. We shall live right along here. This house is +larger and more convenient than the doctor's. He will rent his +house, and we shall live here.”</p> +<p>“And all those Ellridge girls,” sobbed Lily.</p> +<p>“They are very nice girls, dear. Florence and Amelia will +room together; they can have the southeast room. Mabel, I suppose, +will have to go in the best chamber. Perhaps, by-and-by, Dr. +Ellridge will finish off another room for her. I don't quite like +the idea of having no spare room. But you will keep your own room, +and you will be all the happier for having three nice +sisters.”</p> +<p>“I never liked them,” sobbed Lily. It really seemed +to her that she was called upon to marry the Ellridge girls, and +that was the main issue.</p> +<p>“They are very nice girls,” repeated Mrs. Merrill, +and there was obstinacy in her artificially sweet tone. +“Everybody says they are very nice girls. You certainly would +not wish your mother to give up her chance of a happy life, because +you have an unwarrantable prejudice against the poor doctor's +daughters.”</p> +<p>“You have been married once,” said Lily, feebly. It +was as if she made a faint remonstrance because of her mother, who +had already had her reasonable share of cake, taking a second +slice. She had too sweet a disposition to say bitter things, but +the bitterness of the things she might have said was in her +heart.</p> +<p>“I suppose you think because I am older it is +foolish,” said her mother, in an aggressive voice. +“Wait till you yourself are older and you may know how I +feel. You may find out that you cannot give up all the joys of life +because you have been a few years longer in the world. You may not +feel so very different from what you do now.” Mrs. Merrill's +voice rang true in this last. There was even a pathetic appeal to +her daughter for sympathy. But Lily continued to sob weakly, and +did not say any more.</p> +<p>“Well, good-night, my dear child,” Mrs. Merrill said +finally. “You will feel very differently about all this later +on. You will come to see, as I do, that it is for the best. You +will be much happier.” Mrs. Merrill kissed Lily again, and +went out. She closed the door with a slight slam.</p> +<p>Lily knew that her mother was angry with her. As for herself, +she considered that she had never been so unhappy in her whole +life. She thought of living with the Ellridge girls, who were +really of a common cast, and always with Dr. Ellridge at the head +of the table, dictating to her as he had done to-night, in his +smooth, slightly satirical way, and her whole soul rose in revolt. +She felt sure that Dr. Ellridge was not at all in love with her +mother, as George Ramsey might be in love with herself. All the +romance had been sucked out of them both years before. She called +to mind again her mother's lined face, her too aggressive curves, +her tightly frizzed hair, and she knew that she was right. She +remembered hearing that Dr. Ellridge's daughters were none of them +domestic, that he had hard work to keep a house-keeper, that his +practice was declining. She remembered how shabby and mean his +little house had looked when she had passed it in the sleigh with +George Ramsey, that very day. She said to herself that Dr. Ellridge +was only marrying her mother for the sake of the loaves and fishes, +for a pretty, well-kept home for himself and his daughters. Lily +had something of a business turn in spite of her feminity. She +calculated how much rent Dr. Ellridge could get for his own house. +That will dress the girls, she thought. She knew that her mother's +income was considerable. Dr. Ellridge would be immeasurably better +off as far as this world's goods went. There was no doubt of that. +Lily felt such a measure of revolt and disgust that it was fairly +like a spiritual nausea. Her own maiden innocence seemed assaulted, +and besides that there was a sense of pitiful grief and wonder that +her mother, besides whom she had nobody in the world, could so +betray her. She was like the proverbial child with its poor little +nose out of joint. She lay and wept like one. The next morning, +when she went down to breakfast, her pretty face was pale and +woe-begone. Her mother gave one defiant glance at her, then spooned +out the cereal with vehemence. Hannah gave a quick, shrewd glance +at her when she set the saucer containing the smoking mess before +her.</p> +<p>“Her mother has told her,” she thought. She also +thought that she herself would give notice were it not for poor +Miss Lily.</p> +<p>Lily's extreme gentleness, even when she was distressed, was +calculated to inspire faithfulness in every one. Hannah gave more +than one pitying, indignant glance at the girl's pretty, sad face. +Lily did not dream of sulking to the extent of not eating her +breakfast. She ate just as usual. She even made a remark about the +weather to her mother, although in a little, weeping voice, as if +the weather itself, although it was a brilliant morning, were a +source of misery. Mrs. Merrill replied curtly. Lily took another +spoonful of her cereal.</p> +<p>She remained in her own room the greater part of the day. In the +afternoon her mother, without saying anything to her, took the +trolley for Westbridge. Lily thought with a shiver that she might +be going over there to purchase some article for her trousseau. The +thought of her mother with a trousseau caused her to laugh a +little, hysterical laugh, as she sat alone in her chamber. That +evening she and her mother went to a concert in the town hall. Lily +knew that Dr. Ellridge would accompany her mother home. She +wondered what she should do, what she should be expected to +do—take the doctor's other arm, or walk behind. She had seen +the doctor with two of his daughters seated, when she and her +mother passed up the aisle. She knew that the two daughters would +go home together, and the doctor would go with her mother. She +thought of George Ramsey. Now and then as the concert proceeded she +twisted her neck slightly and peered around, but she saw nothing of +him. She concluded that he was not there. But when the concert was +over, and she and her mother were passing out the door, and Dr. +Ellridge was pressing close to her mother, under a fire of hostile +glances from his daughters, Lily felt a touch on her own arm. She +turned, and saw George Ramsey's handsome face with a quiver of +unutterable bliss. She took his arm, and followed her mother and +Dr. Ellridge. When they were out in the frosty air, under a low sky +sparkling with multitudinous stars traversed by its mysterious +nebulous highway of the gods, this poor little morsel of a mortal, +engrossed with her poor little troubles, answered a remark of +George's concerning the weather in a trembling voice. Then she +began to weep unreservedly. George with a quick glance around, drew +her around a corner which they had just reached into a street which +afforded a circuitous route home, and which was quite deserted.</p> +<p>“Why Lily, what in the world is the matter?” he +said. There was absolutely nothing in his voice or his heart at the +time except friendliness and honest concern for his old playmate's +distress.</p> +<p>“Mother is going to be married to Dr. Ellridge,” +whispered Lily, “and he and his three horrid daughters are +all coming to live at our house.”</p> +<p>George whistled.</p> +<p>Lily sobbed quite aloud.</p> +<p>“Hush, poor little girl,” said George. He glanced +around; there was not a soul to be seen. Lily's head seemed to +droop as naturally towards his shoulder as a flower towards the +sun. A sudden impulse of tenderness, the tenderness of the strong +for the weak, of man for woman, came over the young fellow. Before +he well knew what he was doing, his arm had passed around Lily's +waist, and the pretty head quite touched his shoulder. George gave +one last bitter thought towards Maria, then he spoke.</p> +<p>“Well,” he said, “don't cry, Lily dear. If +your mother is going to marry Dr. Ellridge, suppose you get married +too. Suppose you marry me, and come and live at my +house.”</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXV</h4> +<p>The next morning, before Maria had started for school, Lily +Merrill came running across the yard, and knocked at the side door. +She always knocked unless she was quite sure that Maria was alone. +She was afraid of her aunt. Aunt Maria opened the door, and Lily +shrank a little before her, in spite of the wonderful glowing +radiance which lit her lovely face that morning.</p> +<p>“Good-morning, Miss Stillman,” said Lily, +timidly.</p> +<p>“Well?” said Aunt Maria. The word was equivalent to +“What do you want?”</p> +<p>“Has Maria gone?” asked Lily.</p> +<p>“No, she is getting dressed.”</p> +<p>“Can I run up to her room and see her a minute? I have +something particular I want to tell her.”</p> +<p>“I don't know whether she'd want anybody to come up while +she's dressing or not,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“I don't believe she'd mind me,” said Lily, +pleadingly. “Would you mind calling up and asking her, +please, Miss Stillman?”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>She actually closed the door and left Lily standing in the +bitter wind while she spoke to Maria. Lily heard her faintly +calling.</p> +<p>“Say, Maria, that Merrill girl is at the door, and wants +to know if she can come a minute. She's got something she wants to +tell you.”</p> +<p>Then Aunt Maria opened the door. “I suppose you can go +up,” she said, ungraciously. The radiance in Lily's face +filled her with hostility, she did not know why.</p> +<p>“Oh, thank you!” cried Lily; and ran into the house +and up the stairs to Maria's room.</p> +<p>Maria was standing before the glass brushing her hair, which was +very long, and bright, and thick. Lily went straight to her and +threw her arms around her and began to weep. Maria pushed her aside +gently.</p> +<p>“Why, what is the matter, Lily?” she asked. +“Excuse me, but I must finish my hair; I have no more than +time. What is the matter?”</p> +<p>“Nothing is the matter,” sobbed Lily, +“only—Oh Maria I am so happy! I have not slept a wink +all night I was so happy. Oh, you don't know how happy I +am!”</p> +<p>Maria's face turned deadly white. She swept the glowing lengths +of her hair over it with a deft movement. “Why, what makes +you so happy?” she asked, coolly.</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria, he was in earnest, he was. I am engaged to +George.”</p> +<p>Maria brushed her hair. “I am very glad,” she said, +in an unfaltering voice. She bent her head, bringing her hair +entirely over her face, preparatory to making a great knot on the +top of her head. “I hope you will be very happy.”</p> +<p>“Happy!” said Lily. “Oh, Maria, you don't know +how happy I am!”</p> +<p>“I am very glad,” Maria repeated, brushing her hair +smoothly from her neck. “He seems like a very fine young man. +I think you have made a wise choice, Lily.”</p> +<p>Lily flung herself into a chair and looked at Maria. “Oh, +Maria dear,” she said, “I wish you were as happy as I. +I hope you will be some time.”</p> +<p>Maria laughed, and there was not a trace of bitterness in her +laugh. “Well, I shall not cry if I never am,” she said. +“What a little goose you are, Lily, to cry!” She swept +the hair back from her face, and her color had returned. She looked +squarely at Lily's reflection in the glass, and there was an odd, +triumphant expression on her face.</p> +<p>“I can't help it,” sobbed Lily. “I always have +cried when I was very happy, and I never was so happy as this; and +last night, before he—before George asked me—I was so +miserable I wanted to die. Only think, Maria, mother is going to +marry Dr. Ellridge, and he and his three horrid girls are coming to +live at our house. I don't know how I could have stood it if George +hadn't asked me. Now I shall live with him in his house, of course, +with his mother. I have always liked George's mother. I think she +is sweet.”</p> +<p>“Yes, she is a very sweet woman, and I should think you +could live very happily with her,” said Maria, twisting her +hair carefully. Maria had a beautiful neck showing above the lace +of her underwaist. Lily looked at it. Her tears had ceased, and +left not a trace on her smooth cheeks. The lace which Maria's +upward-turned hair displayed had set her flexible mind into a new +channel.</p> +<p>“Say, Maria,” she said, “it is to be a very +short engagement. It will have to be, on account of mother. A +double wedding would be too ridiculous, and I want to get away +before all those Ellridges come into our house. Dr. Ellridge can't +let his house before spring, and so I think in a month, if I can +get ready.” Lily blushed until her face was like the heart of +a rose.</p> +<p>“Well, you have a number of very pretty dresses +now,” said Maria. “I should think you could get +ready.”</p> +<p>“I shall have to get a wedding-dress made, and a tea-gown, +and one besides for receiving calls,” said Lily. “Then +I must have some underwear. Will you go shopping with me in +Westbridge some Saturday, Maria?”</p> +<p>“I should be very glad to do so, dear,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>“That is a very pretty lace on your waist,” Lily +said, meditatively. “I think I shall get ready-made things. +It takes so much time to make them one's self, and besides I think +they are just as pretty. Don't you?”</p> +<p>“I think one can buy very pretty ready-made things,” +Maria said. She slipped on her blouse and fastened her collar.</p> +<p>“I shall be so much obliged to you if you will go,” +said Lily. “I won't ask mother. To tell you the truth, Maria, +I think it is dreadful that she is going to marry again—a +widower with three grown-up daughters, too.”</p> +<p>“I don't see why,” Maria said, dropping her black +skirt over her head.</p> +<p>“You don't see why?”</p> +<p>“No, not if it makes her happy. People have a right to all +the happiness they can get, at all ages. I used to think myself +that older people were silly to want things like young people, but +now I have changed my mind. Dr. Ellridge is a good man, and I dare +say your mother will be happier, especially if you are going +away.”</p> +<p>“Oh, if she had not been going to get married herself, I +should rather have lived at home, after I was married,” said +Lily. She looked reflectively at Maria as she fastened her belt. +“It's queer,” she said, “but I do believe my +feeling so terribly about mother's marrying made George ask me +sooner. Of course, he must have meant to ask me some time, or he +would not have asked me at all.”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said Maria, getting her hat from the +closet-shelf.</p> +<p>“But he walked home with me from the concert last night, +and I couldn't help crying, I felt so dreadfully. Then he asked me +what the matter was, and I told him, and then he asked me right +away. I think maybe he had thought of waiting a little, but that +hastened him. Oh, Maria, I am so happy!”</p> +<p>Maria fastened on her hat carefully. “I am very glad, +dear,” she said. She turned from the glass, and Lily's face, +smiling at her, seemed to give out light like a star. It might not +have been the highest affection which the girl, who was one of +clear and limpid shadows rather than depths, felt; it might have +had its roots in selfish ends; but it fairly glorified her. Maria +with a sudden impulse bent over her and kissed her. “I am +very glad, dear,” she said, “and now I must run, or I +shall be late. My coat is down-stairs.”</p> +<p>“Don't say anything before your aunt Maria, will +you?” said Lily, rising and following her.</p> +<p>“No, of course, if you don't want me to.”</p> +<p>“Of course it will be all over town before night,” +said Lily, “but someway I would rather your aunt Maria did +not hear it from me. She doesn't like me a bit.” Lily said +the last in a whisper.</p> +<p>Both girls went down-stairs, and Maria took her coat from the +rack in the hall.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria opened the sitting-room door. She had a little +satchel with Maria's lunch. “Here is your luncheon,” +said she, in a hard tone, “and you'd better hurry and not +stop to talk, or you'll be late.”</p> +<p>“I am going right away, Aunt Maria,” said Maria. She +took the satchel, and kissed her aunt on her thin, sallow +cheek.</p> +<p>“Good-morning, Miss Stillman,” said Lily, sweetly, +as she followed Maria.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria said nothing at all; she gave Lily a grim nod, while +her lips were tightly compressed. She turned the key in the door +with an audible snap.</p> +<p>“Well, good-bye, dear,” said Lily to Maria. “I +hope you will be as happy as I am some day, and I know you +will.”</p> +<p>Lily's face was entirely sweet and womanly as she turned it +towards Maria for a kiss, which Maria gave her.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, dear,” she said, gently, and was off.</p> +<p>Nobody knew how glad she was to be off. She had a stunned, +shocked feeling; she realized that her knees trembled, but she held +up her head straight and went on. She realized that worse than +anything else would be the suspicion on the part of any one that +Lily's engagement to George Ramsey troubled her. All the time, as +she hurried along the familiar road, she realized that strange, +shocked feeling, as of some tremendous detonation of spirit. She +bowed mechanically to people whom she met. She did not fairly know +who they were. She kept on her way only through inertia. She felt +that if she stopped to think, she would scarcely know the road to +the school-house. She wondered when she met a girl somewhat older +than herself, just as she reached the bridge, if that girl, who was +plain and poorly dressed, one of those who seem to make no +aspirations to the sweets of life, if she had ever felt as she +herself did. Such a curiosity possessed her concerning it that she +wished she could ask the girl, although she did not know her. She +dreaded lest Jessy Ramsey should run to meet her, and her dread was +realized. However, Maria was not as distressed by it as she +thought. She stooped and kissed Jessy quite easily.</p> +<p>“Good-morning, dear,” she said.</p> +<p>A shock of any kind has the quality of mercy in that it benumbs +as to pain. Maria's only realization was that something monstrous +had happened, something like mutilation, but there was no sting of +agony. She entered the school-house and went about her duties as +usual. The children realized no difference in her, but all the time +she realized the difference in herself. Something had gone from +her, some essential part which she could never recover, not in +itself, no matter what her future life might be. She was shorn of +her first love, and that which has been never can be again.</p> +<p>When Maria reached the bridge on her way home, there was Lily +waiting for her, as she had half expected she would be.</p> +<p>“Maria, dear,” said Lily, with a pretty gesture of +pleading, “I had to come and meet you, because I am so happy, +and nobody else knows, except mother, and, somehow, her being +pleased doesn't please me. I suppose I am wicked, but it makes me +angry. I know it is awful to say such a thing of my own mother, but +I can't help feeling that she thinks now she can have my room for +Mabel Ellridge, and won't have to give up the spare chamber. I have +nobody to talk to but you, Maria. George won't come over before +evening, and I am scared to go in and see his mother. I am so +afraid she won't like me. Do you think she will like me, Maria +dear?”</p> +<p>“I don't see why she should not,” replied Maria. +Lily had hold of her arm and was nestling close to her.</p> +<p>“Don't you, honest?”</p> +<p>“No, dear. I said so.”</p> +<p>“You don't mind my coming to meet you and talk it over, do +you, Maria?”</p> +<p>“Of course I don't! Why should I?” asked Maria, +almost angrily.</p> +<p>“I thought you wouldn't. Maria, do you think a blue +tea-gown or a pink one would be prettier?”</p> +<p>“I think pink is your color,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, I rather like the idea of pink myself. Mother says +I shall have enough money to get some nice things. I suppose it is +very silly, but I always thought that one of the pleasantest things +about getting married, must be having some pretty, new clothes. Do +you think I am very silly, Maria?”</p> +<p>“I dare say most girls feel so,” said Maria, +patiently.</p> +<p>As she spoke she looked away from the other girl at the wintry +landscape. There was to the eastward of Amity a low range of hills, +hardly mountains. These were snow-covered, and beneath the light of +the setting sun gave out wonderful hues and lights of rose and blue +and pearl. It was to Maria as if she herself, being immeasurably +taller than Lily and the other girls whom she typified, could see +farther and higher, even to her own agony of mind. It is a great +deal for a small nature to be pleased with the small things of +life. A large nature may miss a good deal in not being pleased with +them. Maria realized that she herself, in Lily's place, could have +no grasp of mind petty enough for pink and blue tea-gowns, that she +had outgrown that stage of her existence. She still liked pretty +things, but they had now become dwarfed by her emotions, whereas, +in the case of the other girl, the danger was that the emotions +themselves should become dwarfed. Lily was typical, and there is +after all a certain security as to peace and comfort in being one +of a kind, and not isolated.</p> +<p>Lily talked about her bridal wardrobe all the way until they +reached the Ramsey house; then she glanced up at the windows and +bowed, dimpling and blushing. “That's his mother,” she +said to Maria. “I wonder if George has told her.”</p> +<p>“I should think he must have,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“I am so glad you think she will like me. I wonder what +room we shall have, and whether there will be new furniture. I +don't know how the up-stairs rooms are furnished, do +you?”</p> +<p>“No, how should I? I was never up-stairs in the house in +my life,” said Maria. Again she gazed away from Lily at the +snow-covered hills. Her face wore an expression of forced patience. +It really seemed to her as if she were stung by a swarm of +platitudes like bees.</p> +<p>Lily kissed her at her door. “I should ask if I couldn't +come over this evening, and sit up in your room and talk it +over,” said she, “but I suppose he will be likely to +come. He didn't say so, but I suppose he will.”</p> +<p>“I should judge so,” said Maria.</p> +<p>When she entered the sitting-room, her aunt, who was knitting +with a sort of fierce energy, looked up. “Oh, it's +you!” said she. Her face had an expression of hostility and +tenderness at once.</p> +<p>“Yes, Aunt Maria.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria surveyed her scrutinizingly. “You don't mean to +say you didn't wear your knit jacket under your coat, such a bitter +day as this?” said she.</p> +<p>“I have been warm enough.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria sniffed. “I wonder when you will ever be old +enough to take care of yourself?” said she. “You need +to be watched every minute like a baby.”</p> +<p>“I was warm enough, Aunt Maria,” Maria repeated, +patiently.</p> +<p>“Well, sit down here by the stove and get heated through +while I see to supper,” said Aunt Maria, crossly. “I've +got a hot beef-stew with dumplings for supper, and I guess I'll +make some chocolate instead of tea. That always seems to me to warm +up anybody better.”</p> +<p>“Don't you want me to help?” said Maria.</p> +<p>“No; everything is all done except to make the chocolate. +I've had the stew on hours. A stew isn't good for a thing unless +you have it on long enough to get the goodness out of the +bone.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria opened the door leading to the dining-room. In winter +it served the two as both kitchen and dining-room, having a +compromising sort of stove on which one could cook, and which still +did not look entirely plebeian and fitted only for the kitchen. +Maria saw through the open door the neatly laid table, with its red +cloth and Aunt Maria's thin silver spoons and china. Aunt Maria had +a weakness in one respect. She liked to use china, and did not keep +that which had descended to her from her mother stored away, to be +taken out only for company, as her sister-in-law thought she +properly should do. The china was a fine Lowestoft pattern, and it +was Aunt Maria's pride that not a piece was missing.</p> +<p>“As long as I take care of my china myself, and am not +dependent on some great, clumsy girl, I guess I can afford to use +it,” she said.</p> +<p>As Maria eyed the delicate little cups a savory odor of stew +floated through the room. She realized that she was not hungry, +that the odor of food nauseated her with a sort of physical +sympathy with the nausea of her soul, with life itself. Then she +straightened herself, and shut her mouth hard. The look of her New +England ancestresses who had borne life and death without flinching +was on her face.</p> +<p>“I will be hungry,” Maria said to herself. +“Why should I lose my appetite because a man who does not +care for me is going to marry another girl, and when I am married, +too, and have no right even to think of him for one minute even if +he had been in earnest, if he had thought of me? Why should I lose +my appetite? Why should I go without my supper? I will eat. More +than that, I will enjoy eating, and neither George Ramsey nor Lily +Merrill shall prevent it, neither they nor my own self.”</p> +<p>Maria sniffed the stew, and she compelled herself, by sheer +force of will, to find the combined odor of boiling meat and +vegetables inviting. She became hungry.</p> +<p>“That stew smells so good,” she called out to her +aunt, and her voice rang with triumph.</p> +<p>“I guess it <em>is</em> a good stew,” her aunt +called back in reply. “I've had it on four hours, and I've +made dumplings.”</p> +<p>“Lovely!” cried Maria. She said to herself defiantly +and proudly, that there were little zests of life which she might +have if she could not have the greatest joys, and those little +zests she would not be cheated out of by any adverse fate. She said +practically to herself, that if she could not have love she could +have a stew, and it might be worse. She smiled to herself over her +whimsical conceit, and her face lost its bitter, strained look +which it had worn all day. She reflected that even if she could not +marry George Ramsey, and had turned the cold shoulder to him, he +had been undeniably fickle; that his fancy had been lightly turned +aside by a pretty face which was not accompanied by great mental +power. She had felt a contempt for George, and scorn for Lily, but +now her face cleared, and her attitude of mind. She had gained a +petty triumph over herself, and along with that came a clearer view +of the situation. When Aunt Maria called her to supper, she jumped +up, and ran into the dining-room, and seated herself at the +table.</p> +<p>“I am as hungry as a bear,” said she.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria behind her delicate china teacups gave a sniff of +satisfaction, and her set face softened. “Well, I'm glad you +are,” said she. “I guess the stew is good.”</p> +<p>“Of course it is,” said Maria. She lifted the cover +of the dish and began ladling out the stew with a small, thin, +silver ladle which had come to Aunt Maria along with the china from +her mother. She passed a plate over to her aunt, and filled her +own, and began eating. “It is delicious,” said she. The +stew really pleased her palate, and she had the feeling of a +conqueror who has gained one of the outposts in a battle. Aunt +Maria passed her a thin china cup filled with frothing chocolate, +and Maria praise that too. “Your chocolate is so much nicer +than our cook used to make,” said she, and Aunt Maria +beamed.</p> +<p>“I've got some lemon-cake, too,” said she.</p> +<p>“I call this a supper fit for a queen,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“I thought I would make the cake this afternoon. I thought +maybe you would like it,” said Aunt Maria, smiling. Her own +pride was appeased. The feeling that Maria, her niece whom she +adored, had been slighted, had rankled within her all day. Now she +told herself that Maria did not care; that she might have been +foolish in not caring and taking advantage of such a matrimonial +chance, but that she did not care, and that she consequently was +not slighted.</p> +<p>“Well, I s'pose Lily told you the news this +morning?” she said, presently. “I s'pose that was why +she wanted to see you. I s'pose she was so tickled she couldn't +wait to tell of it.”</p> +<p>“You mean her engagement to Mr. Ramsey?” said Maria, +helping herself to more stew.</p> +<p>“Yes. Eunice came in and told before you'd been gone half +an hour. She'd been down to the store, and I guess Lily's mother +had told it to somebody there. I s'pose Adeline Merrill is tickled +to death to get Lily out of the way, now she's going to get married +herself. She would have had to give up her spare chamber if she +hadn't.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me a very nice arrangement,” said +Maria, taking a spoonful of stew. “It would have been hard +for poor Lily, and now she will live with Mr. Ramsey and his +mother, and Mrs. Ramsey seems to be a lovely woman.”</p> +<p>“Yes, she is,” assented Aunt Maria. “She was +built on a different plan from Adeline Merrill. She came of better +stock. But I don't see what George Ramsey is thinking of, for my +part.”</p> +<p>“Lily is very pretty and has a very good +disposition,” said Maria. “I think she will make him a +good wife.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria sniffed. “Now, Maria Edgham,” said she, +“what's the use. You know it's sour grapes he's getting. You +know he wanted somebody else.”</p> +<p>“Whom?” asked Maria, innocently, sipping her +chocolate.</p> +<p>“You know he wanted you, Maria Edgham.”</p> +<p>“He got over it pretty quickly then,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“Maybe he hasn't got over it. Lily Merrill is just one of +the kind of girls who lead a man on when they don't know they're +being led. He is proud, too; he comes of a family that have always +held their heads high. He wanted you.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!”</p> +<p>“You can't tell me. I know.”</p> +<p>“Aunt Maria,” said Maria, with sudden earnestness, +“if you ever tell such a thing as that out, I don't know what +I shall do.”</p> +<p>“I ain't going to have folks think you're slighted,” +said Aunt Maria. She had made up her mind, in fact, to tell Eunice +after supper.</p> +<p>“Slighted!” said Maria, angrily. “There is no +question of slight. Do you think I was in love with George +Ramsey?”</p> +<p>“No, I don't, for if you had been you would have had him +instead of letting a little dolly-pinky, rosy-like Lily Merrill get +him. I think he was a good match, and I don't know what possessed +you, but I don't think you wanted him.”</p> +<p>“If you talk about it you will make people think +so,” said Maria, passionately; “and if they do I will +go away from Amity and never come back as long as I +live.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria looked with sharp, gleaming eyes at her niece. +“Maria Edgham, you've got something on your mind,” said +she.</p> +<p>“I have not.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you have, and I want to know what it is.”</p> +<p>“My mind is my own,” said Maria, indignantly, even +cruelly. Then she rose from the table and ran up-stairs to her own +room.</p> +<p>“You have gone off without touching the lemon-cake,” +her aunt called after her, but Maria made no response.</p> +<p>Lemon-cake was an outpost which she could not then take. She had +reached her limit, for the time being. She sat down beside her +window in the dark room, lighted only by the gleam from the Merrill +house across the yard and an electric light on the street corner. +There were curious lights and shadows over the walls; strange +flickerings and wavings as of intangible creatures, unspoken +thoughts. Maria rested her elbows on the window-sill, and rested +her chin in her hands, and gazed out. Presently, with a quiver of +despair, she saw the door of the Merrill house open and Lily come +flitting across the yard. She thought, with a shudder, that she was +coming to make a few more confidences before George Ramsey arrived. +She heard a timid little knock on the side door, then her aunt's +harsh and uncompromising, “No, Maria ain't at home,” +said she, lying with the utter unrestraint of one who believes in +fire and brimstone, and yet lies. She even repeated it, and +emphasized and particularized her lie, seemingly with a grim +enjoyment of sin, now that she had taken hold of it.</p> +<p>“Maria went out right after supper,” said she. Then, +evidently in response to Lily's low inquiry of where she had gone +and when she would be home, she said: “She went to the +post-office. She was expecting a letter from a gentleman in Edgham, +I guess, and I shouldn't wonder if she stopped in at the Monroes' +and played cards. They've been teasing her to. I shouldn't be +surprised if she wasn't home till ten o'clock.”</p> +<p>Maria heard her aunt with wonder which savored of horror, but +she heard the door close and saw Lily flit back across the yard +with a feeling of immeasurable relief. Then she heard her aunt's +voice at her door, opened a narrow crack.</p> +<p>“Are you warm enough in here?” asked Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes, plenty warm enough.”</p> +<p>“You'd better not light a lamp,” said Aunt Maria, +coolly; “I just told that Merrill girl that you had gone +out.”</p> +<p>“But I hadn't,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“I knew it; but there are times when a lie ain't a lie, +it's only the truth upside-down. I knew that you didn't want that +doll-faced thing over here again. She had better stay at home and +wait for her new beau. She was all prinked up fit to kill. I told +her you had gone out, and I meant to, but you'd better not light +your lamp for a little while. It won't matter after a little while. +I suppose the beau will come, and she won't pay any attention to +it. But if you light it right away she'll think you've got back and +come tearing over here again.”</p> +<p>“All right,” said Maria. “I'll sit here a +little while, and then I'll light my lamp. I've got some work to +do.”</p> +<p>“I'm going into the other side, after I've finished the +dishes,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“You won't—”</p> +<p>“No, I won't. Let George Ramsey chew his sour grapes if he +wants to. I sha'n't say anything about it. Anybody with any sense +can't help knowing a man of sense would have rather had you than +Lily Merrill. I ain't afraid of anybody thinking you're +slighted.” There was indignant and acrid loyalty in Aunt +Maria's tone. She closed the door, as was her wont, with a little +slam and went down-stairs. Aunt Maria walked very heavily. Her +steps jarred the house.</p> +<p>Maria continued sitting at her window. Presently a new light, a +rosy light of a lamp under a pink shade, flashed in her eyes. The +parlor in the Merrill house was lighted. Maria saw Lily draw down +the curtain, upon which directly appeared the shadows of growing +plants behind it in a delicate grace of tracery. Presently Maria +saw a horse and sleigh drive into the Merrill yard. She saw Mrs. +Merrill open the side-door, and Dr. Ellridge enter. Then she +watched longer, and presently a dark shadow of a man passed down +the street, of which she could see a short stretch from her window, +and she saw him go to the front door of the Merrill house. Maria +knew that was George Ramsey. She laughed a little, hysterical laugh +as she sat there in the dark. It was ridiculous, the two pairs of +lovers in the two rooms! The second-hand, warmed-over, renovated +love and the new. After Maria laughed she sobbed. Then she checked +her sobs and sat quite still and fought, and presently a strange +thing happened, which is not possible to all, but is possible to +some. With an effort of the will which shocked her house of life, +and her very soul, and left marks which she would bear to all +eternity, she put this unlawful love for the lover of another out +of her heart. She closed all her doors and windows of thought and +sense upon him, and the love was gone, and in its place was an +awful emptiness which yet filled her with triumph.</p> +<p>“I do not love him at all now,” she said, quite +aloud; and it was true that she did not. She rose, pulled down her +curtains, lighted her lamp, and went to work.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVI</h4> +<p>Maria, after that, went on her way as before. She saw, without +the slightest qualm, incredible as it may seem, George Ramsey +devoted to Lily. She even entered without any shrinking into Lily's +plans for her trousseau, and repeatedly went shopping with her. She +began embroidering a bureau-scarf and table-cover for Lily's room +in the Ramsey house. It had been settled that the young couple were +to have the large front chamber, and Mrs. Merrill's present to Lily +was a set of furniture for it. Mrs. Ramsey's old-fashioned walnut +set was stowed away. Maria even went with Mrs. Merrill to purchase +the furniture. Mrs. Merrill had an idea, which could not be +subdued, that Maria would have liked George Ramsey for herself, and +she took a covert delight in pressing Maria into this service, and +descanting upon the pleasant life in store for her daughter. Maria +understood with a sort of scorn Mrs. Merrill's thought; but she +said to herself that if it gave her pleasure, let her think so. She +had a character which could leave people to their mean and +malicious delights for very contempt.</p> +<p>“Well, I guess Lily's envied by a good many girls in +Amity,” said Mrs. Merrill, almost undisguisedly, when she and +Maria had settled upon a charming set of furniture.</p> +<p>“I dare say,” replied Maria. “Mr. Ramsey seems +a very good young man.”</p> +<p>“He's the salt of the earth,” said Mrs. Merrill. She +gave a glance of thwarted malice at Maria's pretty face as they +were seated side by side in the trolley-car on their way home that +day. Her farthest imagination could discern no traces of chagrin, +and Maria looked unusually well that day in a new suit. However, +she consoled herself by thinking that Maria was undoubtedly like +her aunt, who would die before she let on that she was hit, and +that the girl, under her calm and smiling face, was stung with envy +and slighted affection.</p> +<p>Lily asked Maria to be her maid of honor. She planned to be +married in church, but George Ramsey unexpectedly vetoed the church +wedding. He wished a simple wedding at Lily's house. He even +demurred at the bridal-gown and veil, but Lily had her way about +that. Maria consented with no hesitation to be her maid of honor, +although she refused to allow Mrs. Merrill to purchase her dress. +She purchased some white cloth, and had it cut and fitted, and she +herself made it, embroidering it with white silk, sitting up far +into the night after school. But, after all, she was destined not +to wear the dress to Lily's wedding and not to be her maid of +honor.</p> +<p>The wedding was to be the first week of Maria's spring vacation, +and she unexpectedly received word from home that her father was +not well, and that she had better go home as soon as her school was +finished. Her father himself wrote. He wrote guardedly, evidently +without Ida's knowledge. He said that, unless her heart was +particularly set upon attending the wedding, he wished she would +come home; that her vacation was short, at the best, that he had +not seen her for a long time, and that he did not feel quite +himself some days. Maria read between the lines, and so did her +aunt Maria, to whom she read the letter.</p> +<p>“Your father's sicker than he lets on,” Aunt Maria +said, bluntly. “You'd better go. You don't care anything +particular about going to that Merrill girl's wedding. She can get +Fanny Ellwell for her maid of honor. That dress Fanny wore at Eva +Granger's wedding will do for her to wear. Your dress will come in +handy next summer. You had better go home.”</p> +<p>Maria sat soberly looking at the letter. “I am afraid +father is worse than he says,” she said.</p> +<p>“I know he is. Harry Edgham wasn't ever very strong, and +I'll warrant his wife has made him go out when he didn't feel equal +to it, and she has had stacks of company, and he must have had to +strain every nerve to meet expenses, poor man! You'd better go, +Maria.”</p> +<p>“Of course, I am going,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>That evening she went over and told Lily that she could not be +her maid of honor, that her father was sick, and she would be +obliged to go home as soon as school closed. George Ramsey was +calling, and Lily's face had a lovely pink radiance. One could +almost seem to see the kisses of love upon it. George acted a +little perturbed at sight of Maria. He remained silent during +Lily's torrent of regrets and remonstrances, but he followed Maria +to the door and said to her how sorry he was that her father was +ill.</p> +<p>“I hope it is nothing serious,” he said.</p> +<p>“Thank you,” said Maria. “I hope not, but I +don't think my father is very strong, and I feel that I ought to +go.”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said George. “We shall be sorry +to miss you, but, if your father is ill, you ought to +go.”</p> +<p>“Do you think one day would make any difference?” +said Lily, pleadingly, putting up her lovely face at Maria.</p> +<p>“It would mean three days, you know, dear,” Maria +said.</p> +<p>“Of course it would,” said George; “and Miss +Edgham is entirely right, Lily.”</p> +<p>“I don't want Fanny Ellwell one bit for maid of +honor,” Lily said, poutingly.</p> +<p>Maria did not pay any attention. She was thinking anxiously of +her father. She realized that he must be very ill or he would not +have written her as he had done. It was not like Harry Edgham to +deprive any one of any prospective pleasure, and he had no reason +to think that being maid of honor at this wedding was anything but +a pleasure to Maria. She felt that the illness must be something +serious. Her school was to close in three days, and she was almost +too impatient to wait.</p> +<p>“Ida Edgham ought to be ashamed of herself for not writing +and letting you know that your father was sick before,” said +Aunt Maria. “She and Lily Merrill are about of a +piece.”</p> +<p>“Maybe father didn't want her to,” said Maria. +“Father knew my school didn't close until next Thursday. If I +thought he was very ill I would try to get a substitute and start +off before.”</p> +<p>“But I know your father wouldn't have written for you to +come unless he wasn't well and wanted to see you,” said Aunt +Maria. “I shouldn't be a mite surprised, too, if he suspected +that Ida would write you not to come, and thought he'd get ahead of +her.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria was right. In the next mail came a letter from Ida, +saying that she supposed Maria would not think she could come home +for such a short vacation, especially a she had to stay a little +longer in Amity for the wedding, and how sorry they all were, and +how they should look forward to the long summer vacation.</p> +<p>“She doesn't say a word about father's being ill,” +said Maria.</p> +<p>“Of course she doesn't! She knew perfectly well that if +she did you would go home whether or no; or maybe she hasn't got +eyes for anything aside from herself to see that he is +sick.”</p> +<p>Maria grew so uneasy about her father that she engaged a +substitute and went home two days before her vacation actually +commenced. She sent a telegram, saying that she was coming, and on +what train she should arrive. Evelyn met her at the station in +Edgham. She had grown, and was nearly as tall as Maria, although +only a child. She was fairly dancing with pleasurable expectation +on the platform, with the uncertain grace of a butterfly over a +rose, when Maria caught sight of her. Evelyn was a remarkably +beautiful little girl. She had her mother's color and dimples, with +none of her hardness. Her forehead, for some odd reason, was high +and serious, like Maria's own, and Maria's own mother's. Her dark +hair was tied with a crisp white bow, and she was charmingly +dressed in red from head to foot—a red frock, red coat, and +red hat. Ida could at least plead, in extenuation of her faults of +life, that she had done her very best to clothe those around her +with beauty and grace. When Maria got off the car, Evelyn made one +leap towards her, and her slender, red-clad arms went around her +neck. She hugged and kissed her with a passionate fervor odd to see +in a child. Her charming face was all convulsed with emotion.</p> +<p>“Oh, sister!” she said. “Oh, +sister!”</p> +<p>Maria kissed her fondly. “Sister's darling,” she +said. Then she put her gently away. “Sister has to get out +her trunk-check and see to getting a carriage,” she said.</p> +<p>“Mamma has gone to New York,” said Evelyn, +“and papa has not got home yet. He comes on the next train. +He told me to come and meet you.”</p> +<p>Maria, after she had seen to her baggage and was seated in the +livery carriage with Evelyn, asked how her father was. “Is +father ill, dear?” she said.</p> +<p>Evelyn looked at her with surprise. “Why, no, sister, I +don't think so,” she replied. “Mamma hasn't said +anything about it, and I haven't heard papa say anything, +either.”</p> +<p>“Does he go to New York every day?”</p> +<p>“Yes, of course,” said Evelyn. The little girl had +kept looking at her sister with loving, adoring eyes. Now she +suddenly cuddled up close to her and thrust her arm through +Maria's. “Oh, sister!” she said, half sobbingly +again.</p> +<p>“There, don't cry, sister's own precious,” Maria +said, kissing the little, glowing face on her shoulder. She +realized all at once how hard the separation had been from her +sister. “Are you glad to have me home?” she asked.</p> +<p>For answer Evelyn only clung the closer. There was a strange +passion in the look of her big eyes as she glanced up at her +sister. Maria was too young herself to realize it, but the child +had a dangerous temperament. She had inherited none of her mother's +hard phlegmaticism. She was glowing and tingling with emotion and +life and feeling in every nerve and vein. As she clung to her +sister she trembled all over her lithe little body with the +violence of her affection for her and her delight at meeting her +again. Evelyn had made a sort of heroine of her older sister. Her +imagination had glorified her, and now the sight of her did not +disappoint her in the least. Evelyn thought Maria, in her brown +travelling-gown and big, brown-feathered hat, perfectly beautiful. +She was proud of her with a pride which reached ecstasy; she loved +her with a love which reached ecstasy.</p> +<p>“So father goes to New York every day?” said Maria +again.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Evelyn. Then she repeated her ecstatic +“Oh, sister!”</p> +<p>To Maria herself the affection of the little girl was +inexpressibly grateful. She said to herself that she had something, +after all. She thought of Lily Merrill, and reflected how much more +she loved Evelyn than she had loved George Ramsey, how much more +precious a little, innocent, beautiful girl was than a man. She +felt somewhat reassured about her father's health. It did not seem +to her that he could be very ill if he went to New York every +day.</p> +<p>“Mamma has gone to the matinée,” said Evelyn, +nestling luxuriously, like a kitten, against Maria. “She said +she would bring me some candy. Mamma wore her new blue velvet gown, +and she looked lovely, but”—Evelyn hesitated a second, +then she whispered with her lips close to Maria's +ear—“I love you best.”</p> +<p>“Evelyn, darling, you must not say such things,” +said Maria, severely. “Of course, you love your own mother +best.”</p> +<p>“No, I don't,” persisted Evelyn. “Maybe it's +wicked, but I don't. I love papa as well as I do you, but I don't +love mamma so well. Mamma gets me pretty things to wear, and she +smiles at me, but I don't love her so much. I can't help +it.”</p> +<p>“That is a naughty little girl,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“I can't help it,” said Evelyn. “Mamma can't +love anybody as hard as I can. I can love anybody so hard it makes +me shake all over, and I feel ill, but mamma can't. I love you so, +Maria, that I don't feel well.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” said Maria, but she kissed Evelyn +again.</p> +<p>“I don't—honest,” said Evelyn. Then she added, +after a second's pause, “If I tell you something, won't you +tell mamma—honest?”</p> +<p>“I can't promise if I don't know what it is,” said +Maria, with her school-teacher manner.</p> +<p>“It isn't any harm, but mamma wouldn't understand. She +never felt so, and she wouldn't understand. You won't tell her, +will you, sister?”</p> +<p>“No, I guess not,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Promise.”</p> +<p>“Well, I won't tell her.”</p> +<p>Evelyn looked up in her sister's face with her wonderful dark +eyes, a rose flush spread over her face. “Well, I am in +love,” she whispered.</p> +<p>Maria laughed, although she tried not to. “Well, with +whom, dear?” she asked.</p> +<p>“With a boy. Do you think it is wrong, sister?”</p> +<p>“No, I don't think it is very wrong,” replied Maria, +trying to restrain her smile.</p> +<p>“His first name is pretty, but his last isn't so +very,” Evelyn said, regretfully. “His first name is +Ernest. Don't you think that is a pretty name?”</p> +<p>“Very pretty.”</p> +<p>“But his last name is only Jenks,” said Evelyn, with +a mortified air. “That is horrid, isn't it?”</p> +<p>“Nobody can help his name,” said Maria, +consolingly.</p> +<p>“Of course he can't. Poor Ernest isn't to blame because +his mother married a man named Jenks; but I wish she hadn't. If we +ever get married, I don't want to be called Mrs. Jenks. Don't +people ever change their names, sister?”</p> +<p>“Sometimes, I believe.”</p> +<p>“Well, I shall not marry him unless he changes his name. +But he is such a pretty boy. He looks across the school-room at me, +and once, when I met him in the vestibule, and there was nobody +else there, he asked me to kiss him, and I did.”</p> +<p>“I don't think you ought to kiss boys,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“I would rather kiss him than another girl,” said +Evelyn, looking up at her sister with the most limpid passion, that +of a child who has not the faintest conception of what passion +means.</p> +<p>“Well, sister would rather you did not,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“I won't if you don't want me to,” said Evelyn, +meekly. “That was quite a long time ago. It is not very +likely I shall meet him anywhere where we could kiss each other, +anyway. Of course, I don't really love him as much as I do you and +papa. I would rather he died than you or papa; but I am in love +with him—you know what I mean, sister?”</p> +<p>“I wouldn't think any more about it, dear,” said +Maria.</p> +<p>“I like to think about him,” said Evelyn, simply. +“I like to sit whole hours and think about him, and make sort +of stories about us, you know—how me meet somewhere, and he +tells me how much he loves me, and how we kiss each other again. It +makes me happy. I go to sleep so. Do you think it is wrong, +sister?”</p> +<p>Maria remembered her own childhood. “Perhaps it isn't +wrong, exactly, dear,” she said, “but I wouldn't, if I +were you. I think it is better not.”</p> +<p>“Well, I will try not to,” said Evelyn, with a sigh. +“He told Amy Jones I was the prettiest girl in school. Of +course we couldn't be married for a long time, and I wouldn't be +Mrs. Jenks. But, now you've come home, maybe I sha'n't want to +think so much about him.”</p> +<p>Maria found new maids when she reached home. Ida did not keep +her domestics very long. However, nobody could say that was her +fault in this age when man-servants and maid-servants buzz angrily, +like bees, over household tasks and are constantly hungering for +new fields.</p> +<p>“We have had two cooks and two new second-girls since you +went away,” Evelyn said, when they stood waiting for the +front door to be opened, and the man with Maria's trunk stood +behind them. “The last second-girl we had +stole”—Evelyn said the last in a horrified +whisper—“and the last cook couldn't cook. The cook we +have now is named Agnes, and the second-girl is Irene. Agnes lets +me go out in the kitchen and make candy, and she always makes a +little cake for me; but I don't like Irene. She says things under +her breath when she thinks nobody will hear, and she makes up my +bed so it is all wrinkly. I shouldn't be surprised if she stole, +too.”</p> +<p>Then the door opened and a white-capped maid, with a rather +pretty face, evidently of the same class as Gladys Mann, +appeared.</p> +<p>“This is my sister, Miss Maria, Irene,” said +Evelyn.</p> +<p>The maid nodded and said something inarticulate.</p> +<p>Maria said “How do you do?” to her, and asked her to +tell the man where to carry the trunk.</p> +<p>When the trunk was in Maria's old room, and Maria had smoothed +her hair and washed her face and hands, she and Evelyn sat down in +the parlor and waited. The parlor looked to Maria, after poor Aunt +Maria's sparse old furnishings, more luxurious than she had +remembered it. In fact, it had been improved. There were some +splendid palms in the bay-window, and some new articles of +furniture. The windows, also, had been enlarged, and were hung with +new curtains of filmy lace, with thin, red silk over them. The +whole room seemed full of rosy light.</p> +<p>“I wish you would ask Irene to fix the hearth fire,” +Evelyn had said to Maria when they entered the room, which did seem +somewhat chilly.</p> +<p>Maria asked the girl to do so, and when she had gone and the +fire was blazing Evelyn said:</p> +<p>“I didn't like to ask her, sister. She doesn't realize +that I am not a baby, and she does not like it. So I never ask her +to do anything except when mamma is here. Irene is afraid of +mamma.”</p> +<p>Maria laughed and looked at the clock. “How long will it +be before father comes, do you think, dear?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Papa comes home lately at five o'clock. I guess he will +be here very soon now; but mamma won't be home before half-past +seven. She has gone with the Voorhees to the matinée. Do you +know the Voorhees, sister?”</p> +<p>“No, dear.”</p> +<p>“I guess they came to Edgham after you went away. They +bought that big house on the hill near the church. They are very +rich. There are Mr. Voorhees and Mrs. Voorhees and their little +boy. He doesn't wear long stockings in the coldest weather; his +legs are quite bare from a little above his shoes to his knees. I +should think he would be cold, but mamma says it is very stylish. +He is a pretty little boy, but I don't like him; he looks too much +like Mr. Voorhees, and I don't like him. He always acts as if he +were laughing at something inside, and you don't know what it is. +Mrs. Voorhees is very handsome, not quite so handsome as mamma, but +very handsome, and she wears beautiful clothes and jewels. They +often ask mamma to go to the theatre with them, and they are here +quite a good deal. They have dinner-parties and receptions, and +mamma goes. We had a dinner-party here last week.”</p> +<p>“Doesn't father go to the theatre with them?” asked +Maria.</p> +<p>“No, he never goes. I don't know whether they ask him or +not. If they do, he doesn't go. I guess he would rather stay at +home. Then I don't believe papa would want to leave me alone until +the late train, for often the cook and Irene go out in the +evening.”</p> +<p>Maria looked anxiously at her little sister, who was sitting as +close to her as she could get in the divan before the fire. +“Does papa look well?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Why, yes, I guess so. He looks just the way he always +has. I haven't heard him say he wasn't well, nor mamma, and he +hasn't had the doctor, and I haven't seen him take any medicine. I +guess he's well.”</p> +<p>Maria looked at the clock, a fine French affair, which had been +one of Ida's wedding gifts, standing swinging its pendulum on the +shelf between a Tiffany vase and a bronze. “Father must be +home soon now, if he comes on that five-clock train,” she +said.</p> +<p>“Yes, I guess he will.”</p> +<p>In fact, it was a very few minutes before a carriage stopped in +front of the house and Evelyn called out: “There he is! Papa +has come!”</p> +<p>Maria did not dare look out of the window. She arose with +trembling knees and went out into the hall as the front door +opened. She saw at the first glance that her father had +changed—that he did not look well. And yet it was difficult +to say why he did not look well. He had not lost flesh, at least +not perceptibly; he was not very pale, but on his face was the +expression of one who is looking his last at the things of this +world. The expression was at once stern and sad and patient. When +he saw Maria, however, the look disappeared for the time. His face, +which had not yet lost its boyish outlines, fairly quivered between +smiles and tears. He caught Maria in his arms.</p> +<p>“Father's blessed child!” he whispered in her +ear.</p> +<p>“Oh, father,” half sobbed Maria, “why didn't +you send for me before? Why didn't you tell me?”</p> +<p>“Hush, darling!” Harry said, with a glance at +Evelyn, who stood looking on with a puzzled, troubled expression on +her little face. Harry took off his overcoat, and they all went +into the parlor. “That fire looks good,” said Harry, +drawing close to it.</p> +<p>“I got Maria to ask Irene to make it,” Evelyn said, +in her childish voice.</p> +<p>“That was a good little girl,” said Harry. He sat +down on the divan, with a daughter on each side of him. Maria +nestled close to her father. With an effort she kept her quivering +face straight. She dared not look in his face again. A knell seemed +ringing in her ears from her own conviction, a voice of her inner +consciousness, which kept reiterating, “Father is going to +die, father is going to die.” Maria knew little of illness, +but she felt that she could not mistake that expression. But her +father talked quite gayly, asking her about her school and Aunt +Maria and Uncle Henry and his wife. Maria replied mechanically. +Finally she mustered courage to say:</p> +<p>“How are you feeling, father? Are you well?”</p> +<p>“I am about the same as when you went away, dear,” +Harry replied, and that expression of stern, almost ineffable +patience deepened on his face. He smiled directly, however, and +asked Evelyn what train her mother had taken.</p> +<p>“She won't be home until the seven-thirty train,” +said Harry, “and there is no use in our waiting dinner. You +must be hungry, Maria. Evelyn, darling, speak to Irene. I hear her +in the dining-room.”</p> +<p>Evelyn obeyed, and Harry gave his orders that dinner should be +served as soon as possible. The girl smiled at him with a +coquettish air.</p> +<p>“Irene is pleasanter to papa than to anybody else,” +Evelyn observed, meditatively, when Irene had gone out. “I +guess girls are apt to be pleasanter to gentlemen than to little +girls.”</p> +<p>Harry laughed and kissed the child's high forehead. +“Little girls are just as well off if they don't study out +other people's peculiarities too much,” he said.</p> +<p>“They are very interesting,” said Evelyn, with an +odd look at him, yet an entirely innocent look.</p> +<p>Maria was secretly glad that this first evening She was not +there, that she could dine alone with her father and Evelyn. It was +a drop of comfort, and yet the awful knell never ceased ringing in +her ears—“Father is going to die, father is going to +die.” Maria made an effort to eat, because her father watched +her anxiously.</p> +<p>“You are not as stout as you were when you went away, +precious,” he said.</p> +<p>“I am perfectly well,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, I must say you do look well,” said Harry, +looking admiringly at her. He admired his little Evelyn, but no +other face in the world upon which he was soon to close his eyes +forever was quite so beautiful to him as Maria's. “You look +very much as your own mother used to do,” he said.</p> +<p>“Was Maria's mamma prettier than my mamma?” asked +Evelyn, calmly, without the least jealousy. She looked +scrutinizingly at Maria, then at her father. “I think Maria +is a good deal prettier than mamma, and I suppose, of course, her +mamma must have been better-looking than mine,” said she, +answering her own question, to Harry's relief. But she straightway +followed one embarrassing question with another. “Did you +love Maria's mamma better than you do my mamma?” she +asked.</p> +<p>Maria came to her father's relief. “That is not a question +for little girls to ask, dear,” said she.</p> +<p>“I don't see why,” said Evelyn. “Little girls +ought to know things. I supposed that was why I was a little girl, +in order to learn to know everything. I should have been born grown +up if it hadn't been for that.”</p> +<p>“But you must not ask such questions, precious,” +said Maria. “When you are grown up you will see +why.”</p> +<p>Harry insisted upon Evelyn's going to bed directly after dinner, +although she pleaded hard to be allowed to sit up until her mother +returned. Harry wished for at least a few moments alone with Maria. +So Evelyn went off up-stairs, after teary kisses and good-nights, +and Maria was left alone with her father in the parlor.</p> +<p>“You are not well, father?” Maria said, immediately +after Evelyn had closed the door.</p> +<p>“No, dear,” replied Harry, simply.</p> +<p>Maria retained her self-composure very much as her mother might +have done. A quick sense of the necessity of aiding her father, of +supporting him spiritually, came over her.</p> +<p>“What doctor have you seen, father?” she asked.</p> +<p>“The doctor here and three specialists in New +York.”</p> +<p>“And they all agreed?”</p> +<p>“Yes, dear.”</p> +<p>Maria looked interrogatively at her father. Her face was very +white and shocked, but it did not quiver. Harry answered the +look.</p> +<p>“I may have to give up almost any day now,” he said, +with an odd sigh, half of misery, half of relief.</p> +<p>“Does Ida know?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“No, dear, she does not suspect. I thought there was no +need of distressing her. I wanted to tell you while I was able, +because—” Harry hesitated, then he continued: +“Father wanted to tell you how sorry he was not to make any +better provision for you,” he said, pitifully. “He +didn't want you to think it was because he cared any the less for +you. But—soon after I married Ida—well, I realized how +helpless she would be, especially after Evelyn was born, and I had +my life insured for her benefit. A few years after I tried to get a +second policy for your benefit, but it was too late. Father hasn't +been well for quite a long time.”</p> +<p>“I hope you don't think I care about any money,” +Maria cried, with sudden passion. “I can take care of myself. +It is <em>you</em> I think of.” Maria began to weep, then +restrained herself, but she looked accusingly and distressedly at +her father.</p> +<p>“I had to settle the house on her, too,” said Harry, +painfully. “But I felt sure at the time—she said +so—that you would always have your home here.”</p> +<p>“That is all right, father,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“All father can do for his first little girl, the one he +loves best of all,” said Harry, “is to leave her a +little sum he has saved and put in the savings-bank here in her +name. It is not much, dear.”</p> +<p>“It is more than I want. I don't want anything. All I want +is you!” cried Maria. She had an impulse to rush to her +father, to cling about his neck and weep her very heart out, but +she restrained herself. She saw how unutterably weary her father +looked, and she realized that any violent emotion, even of love, +might be too much for his strength. She knew, too, that her father +understood her, that she cared none the less because she restrained +herself. Maria would never know, luckily for her, how painfully and +secretly poor Harry had saved the little sum which he had placed in +the bank to her credit; how he had gone without luncheons, without +clothes, without medicines even how he had possibly hastened the +end by his anxiety for her welfare.</p> +<p>Suddenly carriage-wheels were heard, and Harry straightened +himself. “That is Ida,” he said. Then he rose and +opened the front door, letting a gust of frosty outside air enter +the house, and presently Ida came in. She was radiant, the most +brilliant color on her hard, dimpled cheeks. The blank dark light +of her eyes, and her set smile, were just as Maria remembered them. +She was magnificent in her blue velvet, with her sable furs and +large, blue velvet hat, with a blue feather floating over the black +waves of her hair. Maria said to herself that she was certainly a +beauty, that she was more beautiful than ever. She greeted Maria +with the most faultless manner; she gave her her cool red cheek to +be kissed, and made the suitable inquiries as to her journey, her +health, and the health of her relatives in Amity. When Harry said +something about dinner, she replied that she had dined with the +Voorhees in the Pennsylvania station, since they had missed the +train and had some time on their hands. She removed her wraps and +seated herself before the fire.</p> +<p>When at last Maria went to her own room, she was both pleased +and disturbed to find Evelyn in her bed. She had wished to be free +to give way to her terrible grief. Evelyn, however, waked just +enough to explain that she wanted to sleep with her, and threw one +slender arm over her, and then sank again into the sound sleep of +childhood. Maria lay sobbing quietly, and her sister did not awaken +at all. It might have been midnight when the door of the room was +softly opened and light flared across the ceiling. Maria turned, +and Ida stood in the doorway. She had on a red wrapper, and she +held a streaming candle. Her black hair floated around her +beautiful face, which had not lost its color or its smile, although +what she said might reasonably have caused it to do so.</p> +<p>“Your father does not seem quite well,” she said to +Maria. “I have sent Irene and the cook for the doctor. If you +don't mind, I wish you would get up and slip on a wrapper and come +into my room.” Ida spoke softly for fear of waking Evelyn, +whom she had directly seen in Maria's bed when she opened the +door.</p> +<p>Maria sprang up, got a wrapper, put it on over her night-gown, +thrust her feet into slippers, and followed Ida across the hall. +Harry lay on the bed, seemingly unconscious.</p> +<p>“I can't seem to rouse him,” said Ida. She spoke +quite placidly.</p> +<p>Maria went close to her father and put her ear to his mouth. +“He is breathing,” she whispered, tremulously.</p> +<p>Ida smiled. “Oh yes,” she said. “I don't think +it anything serious. It may be indigestion.”</p> +<p>Then Maria turned on her. “Indigestion!” she +whispered. “Indigestion! He is dying. He has been dying a +long time, and you haven't had sense enough to see it. You haven't +loved him enough to see it. What made you marry my father if you +didn't love him?”</p> +<p>Ida looked at Maria, and her face seemed to freeze into a +smiling mask.</p> +<p>“He is dying!” Maria repeated, in a frenzy, yet +still in a whisper.</p> +<p>“Dying? What do you know about it?” Ida asked, with +icy emphasis.</p> +<p>“I know. He has seen three specialists besides the doctor +here.”</p> +<p>“And he told you instead of me?”</p> +<p>“He told me because he knew I loved him,” said +Maria. She was as white as death herself, and she trembled from +head to foot with strange, stiff tremors. Her blue eyes fairly +blazed at her step-mother.</p> +<p>Suddenly the sick man began to breathe stertorously. Even Ida +started at that. She glanced nervously towards the bed. Little +Evelyn, in her night-gown, her black fleece of hair fluffing around +her face like a nimbus of shadow, came and stood in the +doorway.</p> +<p>“What is the matter with papa?” she whispered, +piteously.</p> +<p>“He is asleep, that is all, and breathing hard,” +replied her mother. “Go back to bed.”</p> +<p>“Go back to bed, darling,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“What is the matter?” asked Evelyn. She burst into a +low, frightened wail.</p> +<p>“Go back to bed this instant, Evelyn,” said her +mother, and the child fled, whimpering.</p> +<p>Maria stood close to her father. Ida seated herself in a chair +beside the table on which the lamp stood. Neither of them spoke +again. The dying man continued to breathe his deep, rattling +breath, the breath of one who is near the goal of life and pants at +the finish of the race. The cook, a large Irishwoman, put her face +inside the door.</p> +<p>“The doctor is comin' right away,” said she. Then in +the same breath she muttered, looking at poor Harry, “Oh, me +God!” and fled, doubtless to pray for the poor man's +soul.</p> +<p>Then the doctor's carriage-wheels were heard, and he came +up-stairs, ushered by Irene, who stood in the doorway, listening +and looking with a sort of alien expression, as if she herself were +immortal, and sneered and wondered at it all.</p> +<p>Ida greeted the doctor in her usual manner. “Good-evening, +doctor,” she said, smiling. “I am sorry to have +disturbed you at this hour, but Mr. Edgham has an acute attack of +indigestion and I could not rouse him, and I thought it hardly wise +to wait until morning.”</p> +<p>The doctor, who was an old man, unshaven and grim-faced, nodded +and went up to the bed. He did not open his medicine-case after he +had looked at Harry.</p> +<p>“I suppose you can give him something, doctor?” Ida +said.</p> +<p>“There is nothing that mortal man can do, madam,” +said the doctor, surlily. He disliked Ida Edgham, and yet he felt +apologetic towards her that he could do nothing. He in reality felt +testily apologetic towards all mankind that he could not avert +death at last.</p> +<p>Ida's brilliant color faded then; she ceased to smile. “I +think I should have been told,” she said, with a sort of hard +indignation.</p> +<p>The doctor said nothing. He stood holding Harry's hand, his +fingers on the pulse.</p> +<p>“You surely do not mean me to understand that my husband +is dying?” said Ida.</p> +<p>“He cannot last more than a few hours, madam,” +replied the doctor, with pitilessness, yet still with the humility +of one who has failed in a task.</p> +<p>“I think we had better have another doctor at once,” +said Ida. “Irene, go down street to the telegraph operator +and tell him to send a message for Dr. Lameth.”</p> +<p>“He has been consulted, and also Dr. Green and Dr. +Anderson, not four weeks ago, and we all agree,” said the +doctor, with a certain defiance.</p> +<p>“Go, Irene,” said Ida.</p> +<p>Irene went out of the room, but neither she nor the cook left +the house.</p> +<p>“The madam said to send a telegram,” Irene told the +cook, “but the doctor said it was no use, and I ain't goin' +to stir out a step again to-night. I'm afraid.”</p> +<p>The cook, who was weeping beside the kitchen table, hardly +seemed to hear. She wept profusely and muttered surreptitiously +prayers on her rosary for poor Harry's soul, which passed as day +dawned.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVII</h4> +<p>Maria had always attended church, and would have said, had she +been asked, that she believed in religion, that she believed in +God; but she had from the first, when she had thought of such +matters at all, a curious sort of scorn, which was half shame, at +the familiar phrases used concerning it. When she had heard of such +and such a one that “he was serious,” that he had +“experienced conviction,” she had been filled with +disgust. The spiritual nature of it all was to her mind treated +materially, like an attack of the measles or mumps. She had seen +people unite with the church of which her mother had been a member, +and heard them subscribe to and swear their belief in articles of +faith, which seemed to her monstrous. Religion had never impressed +her with any beauty, or sense of love. Now, for the first time, +after her father had died, she seemed all at once to sense the +nearness of that which is beyond, and a love and longing for it, +which is the most primitive and subtlest instinct of man, filled +her very soul. Her love for her father projected her consciousness +of him beyond this world. In the midst of her grief a strange peace +was over her, and a realization of love which she had never had +before. Maria, at this period, had she been a Catholic, might have +become a religious devotee. She seemed to have visions of the +God-man crowned with thorns, the rays of unutterable and eternal +love, and sacred agony for love's sake. She said to herself that +she loved God, that her father had gone to him. Moreover, she took +a certain delight in thinking that her own mother, with her keen +tongue and her heart of true gold, had him safe with her. She +regarded Ida with a sort of covert triumph during those days after +the funeral, when the sweet, sickly fragrance of the funeral +flowers still permeated the house. Maria did not weep much after +the first. She was not one to whom tears came easily after her +childhood. She carried about with her what seemed like an aching +weight and sense of loss, along with that strange new conviction of +love and being born for ultimate happiness which had come to her at +the time of her father's death.</p> +<p>The spring was very early that year. The apple-trees were in +blossom at an unusual time. There was a tiny orchard back of the +Edgham house. Maria used to steal away down there, sit down on the +grass, speckled with pink-and-white petals, and look up through the +rosy radiance of bloom at the infinite blue light of the sky. It +seemed to her for the first time she laid hold on life in the midst +of death. She wondered if she could always feel as she did then. +She had a premonition that this state, which bordered on ecstasy, +would not endure.</p> +<p>“Maria does not act natural, poor child,” Ida said +to Mrs. Voorhees. “She hardly sheds a tear. Sometimes I fear +that her father's marrying again did wean her a little from +him.”</p> +<p>“She may have deep feelings,” suggested Mrs. +Voorhees. Mrs. Voorhees was an exuberant blonde, with broad +shallows of sentimentality overflowing her mind.</p> +<p>“Perhaps she has,” Ida assented, with a peculiar +smile curling her lips. Ida looked handsomer than ever in her +mourning attire. The black softened her beauty, instead of bringing +it into bolder relief, as is sometimes the case. Ida mourned Harry +in a curious fashion. She mourned the more pitifully because of the +absence of any mourning at all, in its truest sense. Ida had borne +in upon her the propriety of deep grief, and she, maintaining that +attitude, cramped her very soul because of its unnaturalness. She +consoled herself greatly because of what she esteemed her devotion +to the man who was gone. She said to herself, with a preen of her +funereal crest, that she had been such a wife to poor Harry as few +men ever had possessed.</p> +<p>“Well, I have the consolation of thinking that I have done +my duty,” she said to Mrs. Voorhees.</p> +<p>“Of course you have, dear, and that is worth +everything,” responded her friend.</p> +<p>“I did all I could to make his home attractive,” +said Ida, “and he never had to wait for a meal. How pretty he +thought those new hangings in the parlor were! Poor Harry had an +æsthetic sense, and I did my best to gratify it. It is a +consolation.”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said Mrs. Voorhees.</p> +<p>If Ida had known how Maria regarded those very red silk parlor +hangings she would have been incredulous. Maria thought to herself +how hard her poor father had worked, and how the other hangings, +which had been new at the time of Ida's marriage, could not have +been worn out. She wanted to tear down the filmy red things and +stuff them into the kitchen stove. When she found out that her +father had saved up nearly a thousand dollars for her, which was +deposited to her credit in the Edgham savings-bank, her heart +nearly broke because of that. She imagined her father going without +things to save that little pittance for her, and she hated the +money. She said to herself that she would never touch it. And yet +she loved her father for saving it for her with a very anguish of +love.</p> +<p>Ida was manifestly surprised when Henry's will was read and she +learned of Maria's poor little legacy, but she touched her cool red +lips to Maria's cheek and told her how glad she was. “It will +be a little nest-egg for you,” she said, “and it will +buy your trousseau. And, of course, you will always feel at perfect +liberty to come here whenever you wish to do so. Your room will be +kept just as it is.”</p> +<p>Maria thanked her, but she detected an odd ring of insincerity +in Ida's voice. After she went to bed that night she speculated as +to what it meant. Evelyn was not with her. Ida had insisted that +she should occupy her own room.</p> +<p>“You will keep each other awake,” she said.</p> +<p>Evelyn had grown noticeably thin and pale in a few days. The +child had adored her father. Often, at the table, she would look at +his vacant place, and push away her plate, and sob. Ida had become +mildly severe with her on account of it.</p> +<p>“My dear child,” she said, “of course we all +feel just as you do, but we control ourselves. It is the duty of +those who live to control themselves.”</p> +<p>“I want my papa!” sobbed Evelyn convulsively.</p> +<p>“You had better go away from the table, dear,” said +Ida calmly. “I will have a plate of dinner kept warm for you, +and by-and-by when you feel like it, you can go down to the kitchen +and Agnes will give it to you.”</p> +<p>In fact, poor little Evelyn, who was only a child and needed her +food, did steal down to the kitchen about nine o'clock and got her +plate of dinner. But she was more satisfied by Agnes bursting into +tears and talking about her “blissed father that was gone, +and how there was niver a man like him,” and actually holding +her in her great lap while she ate. It was a meal seasoned with +tears, but also sweetened with honest sympathy. Evelyn, when she +slipped up the back stairs to her own room after her supper, longed +to go into her sister's room and sleep with her, but she did not +dare. Her little bed was close to the wall, against which, on the +other side, Maria's bed stood, and once Evelyn distinctly heard a +sob. She sobbed too, but softly, lest her mother hear. Evelyn felt +that she and Maria and Agnes were the only ones who really mourned +for her father, although she viewed her mother in her mourning +robes with a sort of awe, and a feeling that she must believe in a +grief on her part far beyond hers and Maria's. Ida had obtained a +very handsome mourning wardrobe for both herself and Evelyn, and +had superintended Maria's. Maria paid for her clothes out of her +small earnings, however. Ida had her dress-maker's bill made out +separately, and gave it to her. Maria calculated that she would +have just about enough to pay her fare back to Amity without +touching that sacred blood-money in the savings-bank. It had been +on that occasion that Ida had made the remark to her about her +always considering that house as her home, and had done so with +that odd expression which caused Maria to speculate. Maria decided +that night, as she lay awake in bed, that Ida had something on her +mind which she was keeping a secret for the present. The surmise +was quite justified, but Maria had not the least suspicion of what +it was until three days before her vacation was to end, when Ida +received a letter with the Amity post-mark, directed in Aunt +Maria's precise, cramped handwriting. She spoke about it to Maria, +who had brought it herself from the office that evening after +Evelyn had gone to bed.</p> +<p>“I had a letter from your aunt Maria this morning,” +she said, with an assumed indifference.</p> +<p>“Yes; I noticed the Amity post-mark and Aunt Maria's +writing,” said Maria.</p> +<p>Ida looked at her step-daughter, and for the first time in her +life she hesitated. “I have something to say to you, +Maria,” she said, finally, in a nervous voice, so different +from her usual one that Maria looked at her in surprise. She waited +for her to speak further.</p> +<p>“The Voorhees are going abroad,” she said, +abruptly.</p> +<p>“Are they?”</p> +<p>“Yes, they sail in three weeks—three weeks from next +Saturday.”</p> +<p>Maria still waited, and still her step-mother hesitated. At +last, however, she spoke out boldly and defiantly.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Voorhees's sister, Miss Angelica Wyatt, is going +with them,” said she. “Mrs. Voorhees is not going to +take Paul; she will leave him with her mother. She says travelling +is altogether too hard on children.”</p> +<p>“Does she?”</p> +<p>“Yes; and so there are three in the party. Miss Wyatt has +her state-room to herself, and—they have asked me to go. The +passage will not cost me anything. All the expense I shall have +will be my board, and travelling fares abroad.”</p> +<p>Maria looked at her step-mother, who visibly shrank before her, +then looked at her with defiant eyes.</p> +<p>“Then you are going?” she said.</p> +<p>“Yes. I have made up my mind that it is a chance which +Providence has put in my way, and I should be foolish, even wicked, +to throw it away, especially now. I am not well. Your dear father's +death has shattered my nerves.”</p> +<p>Maria looked, with a sarcasm which she could not repress, at her +step-mother's blooming face, and her rounded form.</p> +<p>“I have consulted Mrs. Voorhees's physician, in New +York,” said Ida quickly, for she understood the look. +“I consulted him when I went to the city with Mrs. Voorhees +last Monday, and he says I am a nervous wreck, and he will not +answer for the consequences unless I have a complete change of +scene.”</p> +<p>“What about Evelyn?” asked Maria, in a dry +voice.</p> +<p>“I wrote to your aunt Maria about her. The letter I got +this morning was in reply to mine. She writes very +brusquely—she is even ill-mannered—but she says she is +perfectly willing for Evelyn to go there and board. I will pay four +dollars a week—that is a large price for a child—and I +knew you would love to have her.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I should; I don't turn my back upon my own flesh and +blood,” Maria said, abruptly. “I guess I shall be glad +to have her, poor little thing! with her father dead and her mother +forsaking her.”</p> +<p>“I think you must be very much like your aunt +Maria,” said Ida, in a cool, disagreeable voice. “I +would fight against it, if I were you, Maria. It is not +interesting, such a way as hers. It is especially not interesting +to gentlemen. Gentlemen never like girls who speak so quickly and +emphatically. They like girls to be gentle.”</p> +<p>“I don't care what gentlemen think,” said Maria, +“but I do care for my poor, forsaken little sister.” +Maria's voice broke with rage and distress.</p> +<p>“You are exceedingly disagreeable, Maria,” said Ida, +with the radiant air of one who realizes her own perfect +agreeableness.</p> +<p>Maria's lip curled. She said nothing.</p> +<p>“Evelyn's wardrobe is in perfect order for the +summer,” said Ida. “Of course she can wear her white +frocks in warm weather, and she has her black silk frocks and coat. +I have plenty of black sash ribbons for her to wear with her white +frocks. You will see to it that she always wears a black sash with +a white frock, I hope, Maria. I should not like people in Amity to +think I was lacking in respect to your father's memory.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I will be sure that Evelyn wears a black sash with a +white frock,” replied Maria, in a bitter voice.</p> +<p>She rose abruptly and left the room. Up in her own chamber she +threw herself face downward upon her bed, and wept the tears of one +who is oppressed and helpless at the sight of wrong and disloyalty +to one beloved. Maria hardly thought of Evelyn in her own +personality at all. She thought of her as her dead father's child, +whose mother was going away and leaving her within less than three +weeks after her father's death. She lost sight of her own happiness +in having the child with her, in the bitter reflection over the +disloyalty to her father.</p> +<p>“She never cared at all for father,” she muttered to +herself—“never at all; and now she does not really care +because he is gone. She is perfectly delighted to be free, and have +money enough to go to Europe, although she tries to hide +it.”</p> +<p>Maria felt as if she had caught sight of a stone of shame in the +place where a wife's and mother's heart should have been. She felt +sick with disgust, as if she had seen some monster. It never +occurred to her that she was possibly unjust to Ida, who was, after +all, as she was made, a being on a very simple and primitive plan, +with an acute perception of her own welfare and the means whereby +to achieve it. Ida was in reality as innocently self-seeking as a +butterfly or a honey-bee. She had never really seen anybody in the +world except herself. She had been born humanity blind, and it was +possibly no more her fault than if she had been born with a +hump.</p> +<p>The next day Ida went to New York with Mrs. Voorhees to complete +some preparations for her journey, and to meet Mrs. Voorhees's +sister, who was expected to arrive from the South, where she had +been spending the winter. That evening the Voorheeses came over and +discussed their purchases, and Miss Wyatt, the sister, came with +them. She was typically like Mrs. Voorhees, only younger, and with +her figure in better restraint. She had so far successfully fought +down an hereditary tendency to avoirdupois. She had brilliant +yellow hair and a brilliant complexion, like her sister, and she +was as well, even better, dressed. Ida had purchased that day a +steamer-rug, a close little hat, and a long coat for the voyage, +and the women talked over the purchases and their plans for travel +with undisguised glee. Once, when Ida met Maria's sarcastic eyes, +she colored a little and complained of a headache, which she had +been suffering with all day.</p> +<p>“Yes, there is no doubt that you are simply a nervous +wreck, and you would break down entirely without the sea-voyage and +the change of scene,” said Mrs. Voorhees, in her smooth, +emotionless voice and with a covert glance at Maria. Ida had +confided to her the attitude which she knew Maria took with +reference to her going away.</p> +<p>“All I regret—all that mars my perfect delight in +the prospect of the trip—is parting with my darling little +Paul,” Mrs. Voorhees said, with a sigh.</p> +<p>“That is the way I feel with regard to Evelyn,” said +Ida.</p> +<p>Maria, who was sewing, took another stitch. She did not seem to +hear.</p> +<p>The next day but one Maria and Evelyn started for Amity. Ida did +not go to the station with them. She was not up when they started. +The curtains in her room were down, and she lay in bed, drawing +down the corners of her mouth with resolution when Maria and Evelyn +entered to bid her good-bye. Maria said good-bye first, and bent +her cheek to Ida's lips; then it was Evelyn's turn. The little girl +looked at her mother with fixed, solemn eyes, but there were no +tears in them.</p> +<p>“Mamma is so sorry she cannot even go to the station with +her darling little girl,” said Ida, “but she is +completely exhausted, and has not slept all night.”</p> +<p>Evelyn continued to look at her, and there came into her face an +innocent, uncomplaining accusation.</p> +<p>“Mamma cannot tell you how much she feels leaving her +precious little daughter,” whispered Ida, drawing the little +figure, which resisted rigidly, towards her. “She would not +do it if she were not afraid of losing her health +completely.” Evelyn remained in her attitude of constrained +affection, bending over her mother. “Mamma will write you +very often,” continued Ida. “Think how nice it will be +for you to get letters! And she will bring you some beautiful +things when she comes back.” Then Ida's voice broke, and she +found her handkerchief under her pillow and put it to her eyes.</p> +<p>Evelyn, released from her mother's arm, regarded her with that +curiosity and unconscious accusation which was more pitiful than +grief. The child was getting her first sense, not of loss, for one +cannot lose that which one has never had, but of non-possession of +something which was her birthright.</p> +<p>When at last they were on the train, Evelyn surprised her sister +by weeping violently. Maria tried to hush her, but she could not. +Evelyn wept convulsively at intervals all the way to New York. When +they were in the cab, crossing the city, Maria put her arm around +her sister and tried to comfort her.</p> +<p>“What is it, precious?” she whispered. “Do you +feel so badly about leaving your mother?”</p> +<p>“No,” sobbed the little girl. “I feel so badly +because I don't feel badly.”</p> +<p>Maria understood. She began talking to her of her future home in +Amity, and the people whom she would see. All at once Maria +reflected how Lily would be married to George Ramsey when she +returned, that she should see George's wife going in and out the +door that might have been the door of her own home, and she also +had a keen pang of regret for the lack of regret. She no longer +loved George Ramsey. It was nothing to her that he was married to +Lily; but, nevertheless, her emotional nature, the best part of +her, had undergone a mutilation. Love can be eradicated, but there +remains a void and a scar, and sometimes through their whole lives +such scars of some people burn.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVIII</h4> +<p>Evelyn was happier in Amity, with Maria and her aunt, than she +had ever been. It took a little while for her to grow accustomed to +the lack of luxury with which she had always been surrounded; then +she did not mind it in the least. Everybody petted her, and she +acquired a sense of importance which was not offensive, because she +had also a sense of the importance of everybody else. She loved +everybody. Love seemed the key-note of her whole nature. It was +babyish love as yet, but there were dangerous possibilities which +nobody foresaw, except Henry Stillman.</p> +<p>“I don't know what will become of that child when she +grows up if she can't have the man she falls in love with,” +he told Eunice one night, after Maria and Evelyn, who had been in +for a few moments, had gone home.</p> +<p>Eunice, who was not subtle, looked at him wonderingly, and her +husband replied to her unspoken question.</p> +<p>“That child's going to take everything hard,” he +said.</p> +<p>“I don't see what makes you think so.”</p> +<p>“She is like a harp that's overstrung,” said +Henry.</p> +<p>“How queer you talk!”</p> +<p>“Well, she is; and if she is now, what is she going to be +when she's older? Well, I hope the Lord will deal gently with her. +He's given her too many feelings, and I hope He will see to it that +they ain't tried too hard.” Henry said this last with the +half-bitter melancholy which was growing upon him.</p> +<p>“I guess she will get along all right,” said Eunice, +comfortably. “She's a pretty little girl, and her mother has +looked out for her clothes, if she did scoot off and leave her. I +wonder how long she's going to stay in foreign parts?”</p> +<p>Henry shook his head. “Do you want to know how +long?” he said.</p> +<p>“Yes. What do you mean, Henry?”</p> +<p>“She's going to stay just as long as she has a good time +there. If she has a good time there she'll stay if it's +years.”</p> +<p>“You don't mean you think she would go off and leave that +darling little girl a whole year?”</p> +<p>“I said years,” replied Henry.</p> +<p>“Land! I don't believe it. You're dreadful hard on women, +Henry.”</p> +<p>“Wait and see,” said Henry.</p> +<p>Time proved that Henry, with his bitter knowledge of the +weakness of human nature, was right. Ida remained abroad. After a +year's stay she wrote Maria, from London, that an eminent physician +there said that he would not answer for her life if she returned to +the scene wherein she had suffered so much. She expressed a great +deal of misery at leaving her precious Evelyn so long, but she did +not feel that it was right for her to throw her life away. In a +postscript to this letter she informed Maria, as if it were an +afterthought, that she had let the house in Edgham furnished. She +said it injured a house to remain unoccupied so long, and she felt +that she ought to keep the place up for her poor father's sake, he +had thought so much of it. She added that the people who rented it +had no children except a grown-up daughter, so that everything +would be well cared for. When Maria read the letter to her aunt the +elder woman sniffed.</p> +<p>“H'm,” said she. “I ain't surprised, not a +mite.”</p> +<p>“It keeps us here quartered on you,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“So far as that goes, I am tickled to death she has rented +the house,” replied Aunt Maria. “I had made up my mind +that you would feel as if you would want to go to Edgham for your +summer vacation, anyway, and I thought I would go with you and keep +house, though I can't say that I hankered after it. The older I +grow the more I feel as if I was best off in my own home, but I +would have gone. So far as I am concerned I am glad she has let the +house, but I must say I ain't surprised. You mark my words, Maria +Edgham, and you see if what I say won't come true.”</p> +<p>“What is it?”</p> +<p>“Ida Slome will stay over there, if she has a good time. +She's got money enough with poor Harry's life insurance, and now +she will have her house rent. It don't cost her much to keep Evelyn +here, and she's got enough. I don't mean she's got enough to +traipse round with duchesses and earls and that sort, but she's got +enough. Those folks she went with have settled down there, haven't +they?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I believe so,” said Maria. “Mr. Voorhees +was an Englishman, and I believe he is in some business in +London.”</p> +<p>“Well, Ida Slome is going to stay there. I shouldn't be +surprised if Evelyn was grown up before she saw her mother +again.”</p> +<p>“I can't quite believe that,” Maria said.</p> +<p>“When you get to be as old as I am you will believe +more,” said her aunt Maria. “You will see that folks' +selfishness hides the whole world besides. Ida Slome is that +kind.”</p> +<p>“I think she is selfish myself,” said Maria, +“but I don't believe she can leave Evelyn as long as +that.”</p> +<p>“Wait and see,” said Aunt Maria, in much the same +tone that her brother had used towards his wife.</p> +<p>Maria Stillman was right. Evelyn remained in Amity. She outgrew +Maria's school, and attended the Normal School in Westbridge. Maria +herself outgrew her little Amity school, and obtained a position as +teacher in one of the departments of the Normal School, and still +Ida had not returned. She wrote often, and in nearly every letter +spoke of the probability of her speedy return, and in the same +breath of her precarious health. She could not, however, avoid +telling of her social triumphs in London. Ida was evidently having +an aftermath of youth in her splendid maturity. She was evidently +flattered and petted, and was thoroughly enjoying herself. Aunt +Maria said she guessed she would marry again.</p> +<p>“She's too old,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Wait till you're old yourself and you won't be so ready +to judge,” said her aunt. “I ain't so sure she +won't.”</p> +<p>Evelyn was a young lady, and was to graduate the next year, and +still her mother had not returned. She was the sweetest young +creature in the world at that time. She was such a beauty that +people used to turn and stare after her. Evelyn never seemed to +notice it, but she was quite conscious, in a happy, childlike +fashion, of her beauty. She resembled her mother to a certain +extent, but she had nothing of Ida's hardness. Where her mother +froze, she flamed. Two-thirds of the boys in the Normal School were +madly in love with her, but Evelyn, in spite of her temperament, +was slow in development as to her emotions. She was very childish, +although she was full of enthusiasms and nervous energy. Maria had +long learned that when Evelyn told her she was in love, as she +frequently did, it did not in the least mean that she was, in the +ordinary acceptation of the term. Evelyn was very imaginative. She +loved her dreams, and she often raised, as it were, a radiance of +rainbows about some boy of her acquaintance, but the brightness +vanished the instant the boy made advances. She had an almost +fierce virginity of spirit in spite of her loving heart. She did +not wish to touch her butterflies of life. She used to walk between +her aunt and Maria when they were coming out of church, so that no +boy would ask leave to go home with her. She clung to the girls in +her class for protection when she went to any entertainment. +Consequently her beautiful face, about which clustered her dark, +fine hair like mist, aroused no envy. The other girls said that +Evelyn Edgham was such a beauty and she did not know it. But Evelyn +did know it perfectly, only at that time it filled her with a sort +of timidity and shame. It was as if she held some splendid, heavy +sword of victory which she had not the courage to wield. She loved +her sister better than anybody else. She had no very intimate +friend of her own sex with whom she fell in love, after the fashion +of most young girls. That might have happened had it not been for +her sister, whom Evelyn thought of always as excelling everybody +else in beauty and goodness and general brilliancy. Maria, when +nearing thirty, was, in fact, as handsome as she had ever been. Her +self-control had kept lines from her face. She was naturally +healthy, and she, as well as Evelyn, had by nature a disposition to +make the most of herself and a liking for adornment. Aunt Maria +often told Eunice that Maria was full as good-looking as Evelyn, if +she was older, but that was not quite true. Maria had never had +Evelyn's actual beauty, her perfection as of a perfect flower; +still she was charming, and she had admirers, whom she always +checked, although her aunt became more and more distressed that she +did so. Always at the bottom of Maria's heart lay her secret. It +was not a guilty secret. It was savored more of the absurd of +tragedy than anything else. Sometimes Maria herself fairly laughed +at the idea that she was married. All this time she wondered about +Wollaston Lee. She thought, with a sick terror, of the possibility +of his falling in love, and wishing to marry, and trying to secure +a divorce, and the horrible publicity, and what people would say +and do. She knew that a divorce would be necessary, although the +marriage was not in reality a marriage at all. She had made herself +sufficiently acquainted with the law to be sure that a divorce +would be absolutely necessary in order for either herself or +Wollaston Lee to marry again. For herself, she did not wish to +marry, but she did wonder uneasily with regard to him. She was not +in the least jealous; all her old, childish fancy for him had been +killed by that strenuous marriage ceremony, but she dreaded the +newspapers and the notoriety which would inevitably follow any +attempt on either side to obtain a divorce. She dreamed about it +often, and woke in terror, having still before her eyes the great, +black letters on the first pages of city papers. She had never seen +Wollaston Lee since she had lived in Amity. She had never even +heard anything about him except once, when somebody had mentioned +his name and spoken of seeing him at a reception, and that he was a +professor in one of the minor colleges. She did not wish ever to +repeat that experience. Her heart had seemed to stand still, and +she had grown so white that a lady beside her asked her hurriedly +if she were faint. Maria had thrown off the faintness by a sheer +effort of will, and the color had returned to her face, and she had +laughingly replied with a denial. Sometimes she thought uneasily of +Gladys Mann. The clergyman who, in his excess of youthful zeal, had +performed the ceremony was dead. She had seen his obituary notice +in a New York paper with a horrible relief. He had died quite +suddenly in one of the pneumonia winters. But Gladys Mann and her +possession of the secret troubled her. Gladys Mann, as she +remembered her, had been such a slight, almost abortive character. +She asked herself if she could keep such a secret, if she would +have sense enough to do so. Gladys had married, too, a man of her +own sort, who worked fitfully, and spent most of his money in +carousing with John Dorsey and her father. Gladys had had a baby a +few months after her marriage, and she had had two more since. The +last time Maria had been in Amity was soon after Gladys's first +baby was born. Maria had met her one day carrying the little thing +swathed in an old shawl, with a pitiful attempt of finery in a +white lace bonnet cocked sidewise on its little head, which waggled +over Gladys's thin shoulder. Gladys, when she saw Maria, had +colored and nodded, and almost run past her without a word.</p> +<p>It was just before the beginning of Evelyn's last year at school +when Maria received a letter from Gladys's mother. It was a curious +composition. Mrs. Mann had never possessed any receptivity for +education. The very chirography gave evidence of a rude, almost +uncivilized mind. Maria got it one night during the last of August. +She had gone to the post-office for the last mail, and all the time +there had been over her a premonition of something unwonted of much +import to her. The very dusty flowers and weeds by the way-side +seemed to cry out to her as she passed them. They seemed no longer +mere flowers and weeds, but hieroglyphics concerning her future, +which she could almost interpret.</p> +<p>“I wonder what is going to happen?” she thought. +“Something is going to happen.” She was glad that +Evelyn was not with her, as usual, but had gone for a drive with a +young friend who had a pony-carriage. She felt that she could not +have borne her sister's curious glances at the letter which she was +sure would be in the post-office box. It was there when she entered +the dirty little place. She saw one letter slanted across the dusty +glass of the box. It was not a lock box, and she had to ask the +postmaster for the letter.</p> +<p>“Number twenty-four, please,” she said.</p> +<p>The postmaster was both bungling and curious. He was a long time +finding the box, then in giving her the letter. Maria felt dizzy. +When at last he handed it to her with an inquisitive glance, she +almost ran out of the office. When she was out-doors she glanced at +the post-mark and saw it was Edgham. When she came to a lonely +place in the road, when she was walking between stone-walls +overgrown with poison-ivy, and meadowsweet, and hardhack, and +golden-rod, she opened the letter. Just as she opened it she heard +the sweet call of a robin in the field on her left, and the low of +a cow looking anxiously over her bars.</p> +<p>The letter was written on soiled paper smelling strongly of +tobacco, and it enclosed another smaller, sealed envelop. Maria +read:</p> +<p> “Deer Miss,—I now tak my pen in hand to +let you no that Gladys she is ded. She had a little boy bon, and he +and she both died. Gladys she had been coffin for some time befoar, +and jest befor she was took sick, she give me this letter, and sed +for me to send it to you if ennything happened to her.<br> + “Excuse hast and a bad +pen. Mrs. Mann.”</p> +<p>Maria trembled so that she could hardly stand. She looked +hastily around; there was no one in sight. She sank down on a large +stone which had fallen from the stone wall on the left. Then she +opened the little, sealed letter. It was very short. It contained +only one word, one word of the vulgar slang to which poor Gladys +had become habituated through her miserable life, and yet this one +word of slang had a meaning of faithfulness and honor which +dignified it. Maria read, “Nit.” and she knew that +Gladys had died and had not told.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIX</h4> +<p>It is frequently a chain of sequences whose beginnings are lost +in obscurity which lead to events. The principal of the Normal +School in Westbridge, which Evelyn attended and in which Maria +taught, had been a certain Professor Lane. If he had not gone to +Boston one morning when the weather was unusually sultry for the +season, and if an east wind had not come up, causing him, being +thinly clad, to take cold, which cold meant the beginning of a +rapid consumption which hurried him off to Colorado, and a year +later to death; if these east winds had not made it impossible for +Wollaston Lee's mother, now widowed, to live with him in the +college town where he had been stationed, a great deal which +happened might not have come to pass at all. It was “the wind +which bloweth where it listeth, and no man knoweth whence it cometh +and whither it goeth,” which precipitated the small tragedy +of a human life.</p> +<p>The Saturday before the fall term commenced, Evelyn came home +from Westbridge, where she had been for some shopping, and she had +a piece of news. She did not wait to remove her hat, but stood +before Maria and her aunt, who were sewing in the sitting-room, +with the roses nestling against the soft flying tendrils of her +black hair. It was still so warm that she wore her summer hat.</p> +<p>“What do you think!” said she. “I have such a +piece of news!”</p> +<p>“What is it, dear?” asked Maria. Aunt Maria looked +up curiously.</p> +<p>“Why, Professor Lane has had to give up. He starts for +Colorado Monday. He kept hoping he could stay here, but he went to +a specialist, who told him he could not live six months in this +climate, so he is starting right off. And we are to have a new +principal.”</p> +<p>“Who is he?” asked Maria. She felt herself +trembling, for no reason that she could define.</p> +<p>“Addie Hemingway says he is a handsome young man. He has +been a professor in some college, but his mother lives with him, +and the climate didn't agree with her, and so he had resigned and +was out of a position, and they have sent right away for him, and +he is coming. In fact, Addie says she thinks he has come, and that +he and his mother are at Mrs. Land's boarding-house; but they are +going to keep house. Addie says she has heard he is a young man and +very handsome.”</p> +<p>“What is his name?” asked Maria, faintly.</p> +<p>Evelyn looked at her and laughed. “The funniest thing +about it all is,” said she, “that he comes originally +from Edgham, and you must have known him, Maria. I don't remember +him at all, but I guess you must. His name is Lee, and his first +name—I can't remember his first name. Did you know a young +man about your age in Edgham named Lee?”</p> +<p>“Wollaston?” asked Maria. She hardly knew her own +voice.</p> +<p>“Yes; that is it—Wollaston. It is an odd name. How +queer it will seem to have a handsome young man for principal +instead of poor old Professor Lane. I am sorry, for my part; I +liked Professor Lane. I went to the book-store in Westbridge and +bought a book for him to read on the journey, and left it at the +door. I sent in my remembrances, and told the girl how sorry I was +that Professor Lane was not well.”</p> +<p>“That was a good girl,” said Maria. “I am glad +you did.” She was as white as death, but she continued sewing +steadily.</p> +<p>Evelyn went to the looking-glass and removed her hat, and +readjusted her flying hair around her glowing face. She did not +notice her sister's pallor and expression of shock, almost of +horror, but Aunt Maria did. Finally she spoke.</p> +<p>“What on earth ails you, Maria Edgham?” she said, +harshly. When Aunt Maria was anxious, she was always harsh, and +seemed to regard the object of her solicitude as a culprit.</p> +<p>Evelyn turned abruptly and saw her sister's face, then she ran +to her and threw her arms around her neck and pulled her head +against her shoulder. “What is it? What is it?” she +cried, in her sobbing, emotional voice, which any stress +aroused.</p> +<p>Maria raised her head and pushed Evelyn gently away. +“Nothing whatever is the matter, dear,” she said, +firmly, and took up her work again.</p> +<p>“Folks don't turn as white as sheets if nothing is the +matter,” said Aunt Maria, still in her harsh, accusing voice. +“I want to know what is the matter. Did your dinner hurt you? +You ate that lemon-pie.”</p> +<p>“I feel perfectly well, Aunt Maria,” replied Maria, +making one of her tremendous efforts of will, which actually sent +the color back to her face. She smiled as she spoke.</p> +<p>“You do look better,” said Aunt Maria +doubtfully.</p> +<p>“Yes, you do,” said Evelyn.</p> +<p>“Maybe it was the light,” said Aunt Maria in a +reassured tone.</p> +<p>“There isn't much light to see to sew by, I know +that,” Maria said in an off-hand tone. “I believe I +will take a little run down to the post-office for the night mail. +Evelyn, you can help Aunt Maria get supper, can't you, +dear?”</p> +<p>“Of course I can,” said Evelyn. “But are you +sure you are well enough to go alone?”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” said Maria, rising and folding her +work.</p> +<p>“Do you think anything is the matter with sister?” +Evelyn asked Aunt Maria after Maria had gone.</p> +<p>“Don't ask me,” replied Aunt Maria curtly.</p> +<p>“Aunt Maria!”</p> +<p>“Well?”</p> +<p>“Professor Lane isn't married. You don't suppose sister—”</p> +<p>“What a little goose you are, Evelyn Edgham!” cried +Aunt Maria, almost fiercely turning upon her. “Do you suppose +if Maria Edgham had wanted any man she couldn't have got +him?”</p> +<p>“I suppose she could,” said Evelyn meekly. +“And I know Professor Lane is so much older, but he always +seemed to like sister, and I didn't know but she felt badly because +he was so ill.”</p> +<p>“Stuff!” said Aunt Maria. “Come, you had +better set the table. I have got to make some biscuits for supper. +They won't be any more than done by the time Maria gets +back.”</p> +<p>“Did you think she looked so very pale?” asked +Evelyn, following her aunt out of the room.</p> +<p>“No, I didn't think she looked pale at all when I came to +look at her,” said Aunt Maria, sharply. “She looked +just as she always does. It was the light.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria unhesitatingly lied. She knew that her niece had been +pale, and she believed that it was on account of Professor Lane. +She thought to herself what fools girls were. There Maria had +thrown away such a chance as George Ramsey, and was very likely +breaking her heart in secret over this consumptive, old enough to +be her father.</p> +<p>Evelyn also believed, in her heart of hearts, that her sister +was in love with Professor Lane, but she took a more sentimental +view of the matter. She was of the firm opinion that love has no +age, and then Professor Lane had never seemed exactly old to her, +and he was a very handsome man. She thought of poor Maria with the +tenderest pity and sympathy. It almost seemed to her that she +herself was in love with Professor Lane, and that his going so far +away to recover his health was a cruel blow to her. She thought of +poor Maria walking to the post-office and brooding over her +trouble, and her tender heart ached so hard that it might have been +Maria's own.</p> +<p>But Maria, walking to the post-office, realized not so much an +ache in her heart as utter horror and terror. She asked herself how +could she possibly continue teaching in that school if Wollaston +Lee were principal; how could she endure the daily contact with him +which would be inevitable. She wondered if he could possibly have +known that she was teaching in that school when he accepted the +position. Such a deadly fear was over her that her class-room and +the great pile of school buildings seemed to her fancy as horrible +as a cage of wild beasts. She felt such a loathing of the man who +was legally, although not really, her husband, that the loathing +itself filled her with shame and disgust at herself. She told +herself that it was horrible, horrible, that she could not endure +it, that it was impossible. She was in a fairly desperate mood. She +had a sudden impulse to run away and leave everybody and +everything, even Evelyn and her aunt, whom she loved so well. She +felt pitiless towards everybody except herself. She took out her +pocket-book and counted the money which it contained. There were +fifteen dollars and some loose change. The railroad station was on +a road parallel to the one on which she was walking. An express +train flashed by as she stood there. Suddenly Maria became +possessed of one of those impulses which come to everybody, but to +which comparatively few yield in lifetimes. The girl gathered up +her skirts and broke into a run for the railroad station. She knew +that there was an accommodation train due soon after the express. +She reached the dusty platform, in fact, just as the train came in. +There were no other passengers from Amity except a woman whom she +did not know, dragging a stout child by the arm. The child was +enveloped in clothing to such an extent that it could scarcely +walk. It stumbled over its voluminous white coat. Nobody could have +told its sex. It cast a look of stupid discomfort at Maria, then +its rasped little face opened for a wail. “Shet up!” +said the mother, and she dragged more forcibly at the podgy little +arm, and the child broke into a lop-sided run towards the cars.</p> +<p>Maria had no time to get a ticket. She only had time for that +one glance at the helpless, miserable child, before she climbed up +the steep car-steps. She found an empty seat, and shrugged close to +the window. She did not think very much of what she was doing. She +thought more of the absurdly uncomfortable child, over-swathed in +clothing, and over-disciplined with mother-love, she could not have +told why. She wondered what it would be like to have an ugly, +uninteresting, viciously expostulating little one dragging at her +hand. The mother, although stout and mature-looking, was not much +older than she. It seemed to her that the being fond of such a +child, and being happy under such circumstances, would involve as +much of a vital change in herself as death itself. And yet she +wondered if such a change were possible with all women, herself +included. She gazed absently at the pale landscape past which the +train was flying. The conductor had to touch her arm before he +could arouse her attention, when he asked for her ticket. Then she +looked at him vacantly, and he had to repeat his “Ticket, +please.”</p> +<p>Maria opened her pocket-book and said, mechanically, the name of +the first station which came into her head, +“Ridgewood.” Ridgewood was a small city about fifteen +miles distant. She had sometimes been there shopping. She gave the +conductor a five-dollar bill, and he went away, murmuring something +about the change. When he returned with the rebate-slip and the +change, he had to touch her shoulder again to arrest her +attention.</p> +<p>“Change, miss,” said the conductor, and “you +can get ten cents back on this at the station.”</p> +<p>Maria took the change and the slip and put them in her +pocket-book, and the conductor passed on with a quick, almost +imperceptible backward glance at her. Maria sat very still. The +child who had got on at Amity began to wail again, and its outcries +filled the whole car. To Maria it seemed like the natural outburst +of an atmosphere overcharged with woe, and the impotent rage and +regret of the whole race, as a cloud is charged with electricity. +She felt that she herself would like to burst into a wild wail, and +struggle and wrestle against fate with futile members, as the child +fought against its mother with its fat legs in shoes too large, and +its bemittened hands. However, she began to get a certain comfort +from the rapid motion. She continued to stare out of the window at +the landscape, which fast disappeared under the gathering shadows. +The car lamps were lit. Maria still looked, however, out of the +window; the lights in the house windows, and red and green +signal-lights, gave her a childish interest. She forgot entirely +about herself. She turned her back upon herself and her complex +situation of life with infinite relief. She did not wonder what she +would do when she reached Ridgewood. She did not think any more of +herself. It was as if she had come into a room of life without any +looking-glasses, and she was no longer visible to her own +consciousness. She did not look at the other passengers. All that +was evident to her of the existence of any in the car besides +herself was the unceasing wail of the child, and its mother's +half-soothing, half-scolding voice. She did not see the passengers +who boarded the train at the next station beyond Amity, and that +Wollaston Lee was one of them. Indeed, she might not at once have +recognized him, although the man retained in a marked degree the +features of the boy. Wollaston had grown both tall and +broad-shouldered, and had a mustache. He was a handsome fellow, +well dressed, and with an easy carriage, and he had an expression +of intelligent good-humor which made more than one woman in the car +look at him. Although Maria did not see him, he saw her at once, +and recognized her, and his handsome face paled. The ridiculous +complexity of his position towards her had not tended to make him +very happy. He had kept the secret as well as Maria; for him, as +for her, a secret was a heavy burden, almost amounting to guilt. He +continued to glance furtively at her from time to time. He thought +that she was very pretty, and also that there was something amiss +with her. He, as well as the girl, had entirely gotten over his +boyish romance, but the impulse to honorable dealing and duty +towards her had not in the least weakened.</p> +<p>When the train stopped at Ridgewood he rose. Maria did not stir. +Wollaston stopped, and saw the conductor touch Maria, and heard him +say, “This is your station, lady.”</p> +<p>Maria rose mechanically and followed the conductor through the +car. When she had descended the steps Wollaston, who had gotten off +just in advance, stood aside and waited. He felt uneasy without +just knowing why. It seemed to him that there was something strange +about the girl's bearing. He thought so the more when she stood +motionless on the platform and remained there a moment or more +after the train had moved out; then she went towards a bench +outside the station and sat down. Wollaston made up his mind that +there was something strange, and that he must speak to her.</p> +<p>He approached her, and he could hear his heart beat. He stood in +front of her, and raised his hat. Maria did not look up. Her eyes +seemed fixed on a fringe of wood across the track in which some +katydids were calling, late as it was. That wood, with its +persistent voices of unseen things, served to turn her thought from +herself, just as the cry of the child had done.</p> +<p>“Miss Edgham,” said Wollaston, in a strained voice. +It suddenly occurred to him that that was not the girl's name at +all, that she was in reality Mrs. Lee, not Miss Edgham.</p> +<p>Maria did not seem to see him until he had repeated her name +again. Then she gave a sudden start and looked up. An electric +light on the platform made his face quite plain. She knew him at +once. She did not make a sound, but rose with a sudden stealthy +motion like that of a wild, hunted thing who leaves its covert for +farther flight. But Wollaston laid his hand on her shoulder and +forced her gently back to her seat. There was no one besides +themselves on the platform. They were quite alone.</p> +<p>“Don't be afraid,” he said. But Maria, looking up at +him, fairly chattered with terror. Her lips were open, she made +inarticulate noises like a frightened little monkey. Her eyes +dilated. This seemed to her incredibly monstrous, that in fleeing +she should have come to that from which she fled. All at once the +species of mental coma in which she had been cleared away, and she +saw herself and the horrible situation in which her flight had +placed her. The man looked down at her with the utmost kindness, +concern, and pity.</p> +<p>“Don't be afraid,” he said again; but Maria +continued to look at him with that cowering, hunted look.</p> +<p>“Where are you going?” asked Wollaston, and suddenly +his voice became masterful. He realized that there was something +strange, undoubtedly, about all this.</p> +<p>“I don't know,” Maria said, dully.</p> +<p>“You don't know?”</p> +<p>“No, I don't.”</p> +<p>Maria raised her head and looked down the track. “I am +going on the train,” said she, with another wild impulse.</p> +<p>“What train?”</p> +<p>“The next train.”</p> +<p>“The next train to where?”</p> +<p>“The next train to Springfield,” said Maria, +mentioning the first city which came into her mind.</p> +<p>“What are you going to Springfield for so late? Have you +friends there?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria, in a hopeless voice.</p> +<p>Wollaston sat down beside her. He took one of her little, cold +hands, and held it in spite of a feeble struggle on her part to +draw it away. “Now, see here, Maria,” he said, “I +know there is something wrong. What is it?”</p> +<p>His tone was compelling. Maria looked straight ahead at the +gloomy fringe of woods, and answered, in a lifeless voice, “I +heard you were coming.”</p> +<p>“And that is the reason you were going away?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“See here, Maria,” said Wollaston, eagerly, +“upon my honor I did not know myself until this very +afternoon that you were one of the teachers in the Westbridge +Academy. If I had known I would have refused the position, although +my mother was very anxious for me to accept it. I would refuse it +now if it were not too late, but I promise you to resign very soon +if you wish it.”</p> +<p>“I don't care,” said Maria, still in the same +lifeless tone. “I am going away.”</p> +<p>“Going where?”</p> +<p>“To Springfield. I don't know. Anywhere.”</p> +<p>Wollaston leaned over her and spoke in a whisper. “Maria, +do you want me to take steps to have it annulled?” he asked. +“It could be very easily done. There was, after all, no +marriage. It is simply a question of legality. No moral question is +involved.”</p> +<p>A burning blush spread over Maria's face. She snatched her hand +away from his. “Do you think I could bear it?” she +whispered back, fiercely.</p> +<p>“Bear what?” asked the young man, in a puzzled +tone.</p> +<p>“The publicity, the—newspapers. Nobody has known, +not one of my relatives. Do you think I could bear it?”</p> +<p>“I will keep the secret as long as you desire,” said +Wollaston. “I only wish to act honorably and for your +happiness.”</p> +<p>“There is only one reason which could induce me to give my +consent to the terrible publicity,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“What is that?”</p> +<p>“If—you wished to marry anybody else.”</p> +<p>“I do not,” said Wollaston, with a half-bitter +laugh. “You can have your mind easy on that score. I have not +thought of such a thing as possible for me.”</p> +<p>Maria cast a look of quick interest at him. Suddenly she saw his +possible view of the matter, that it might be hard for him to +forego the happiness which other young men had.</p> +<p>“I would not shrink at all,” she said, gently, +“if at any time you saw anybody whom you wished to marry. You +need not hesitate. I am not so selfish as that. I do not wish your +life spoiled.”</p> +<p>Wollaston laughed pleasantly. “My life is not to be +spoiled because of any such reason as that,” he said, +“and I have not seen anybody whom I wished to marry. You know +I have mother to look out for, and she makes a pleasant home for +me. You need not worry about me, but sometimes I have worried a +little about you, poor child.”</p> +<p>“You need not, so far as that is concerned,” cried +Maria, almost angrily. A sense of shame and humiliation was over +her. She did not love Wollaston Lee. She felt the same old terror +and disgust at him, but it mortified her to have him think that she +might wish to marry anybody else.</p> +<p>“Well, I am glad of that,” said Wollaston. “I +suppose you like your work.”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“After all, work is the main thing,” said +Wollaston.</p> +<p>“Yes,” assented Maria, eagerly.</p> +<p>Wollaston returned suddenly to the original topic. “Were +you actually running away because you heard I was coming?” he +said.</p> +<p>“Yes, I suppose I was,” Maria replied, in a +hopeless, defiant sort of fashion.</p> +<p>“Do you actually know anybody in Springfield?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“Have you much money with you?”</p> +<p>“I had fifteen dollars and a few cents before I paid my +fare here.”</p> +<p>“Good God!” cried Wollaston. Then he added, after a +pause of dismay, almost of terror, during which he looked at the +pale little figure beside him, “Do you realize what might +have happened to you?”</p> +<p>“I don't think I realized much of anything except to get +away,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>Wollaston took her hand again and held it firmly. “Now +listen to me, Maria,” he said. “On Monday I shall have +to begin teaching in the Westbridge Academy. I don't see how I can +do anything else. But now listen. I give you my word of honor, I +will not show by word or deed that you are anything to me except a +young lady who used to live in the same village with me. I shall +have to admit that.”</p> +<p>“I am not anything else to you,” Maria flashed +out.</p> +<p>“Of course not,” Wollaston responded, quietly. +“But I give you my word of honor that I will make no claim +upon you, that I will resign my position when you say the word, +that I will keep the wretched, absurd secret until you yourself +tell me that you wish for—an annulment of the fictitious tie +between us.”</p> +<p>Maria sat still.</p> +<p>“You will not think of running away now, will you?” +Wollaston said, and there was a caressing tone in his voice, as if +he were addressing a child.</p> +<p>Maria did not reply at once.</p> +<p>“Tell me, Maria,” said Wollaston. “You will +not think of doing such a desperate thing, which might ruin your +whole life, when I have promised you that there is no +reason?”</p> +<p>“No, I will not,” Maria said.</p> +<p>Wollaston rose and went nearer the electric light and looked at +his watch. Then he came back. “Now, Maria, listen to me +again,” he said. “I have some business in Ridgewood. I +would not attend to it to-night but I have made an appointment with +a man and I don't see my way out of breaking it. It is about a +house which I want to rent. Mother doesn't like the boarding-house +at Westbridge, and in fact our furniture is on the road and I have +no place to store it, and I am afraid there are other parties who +want to rent this house, that I shall lose it if I do not keep the +appointment. But I have only a little way to go, and it will not +keep me long. I can be back easily inside of half an hour. The next +train to Amity stops here in about thirty-seven minutes. Now I want +you to go into the waiting-room, and sit there until I come back. +Can I trust you?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Maria, with a curious docility. She +rose.</p> +<p>“You had better buy your ticket back to Amity, and when I +come into the station, I think it is better that I should only bow +to you, especially if others should happen to be there. Can I trust +you to stay there and not get on board any train but the one which +goes to Amity?”</p> +<p>“Yes, you can,” said Maria, with the same docility +which was born of utter weariness and the subjection to a stronger +will.</p> +<p>She went into the waiting-room and bought her ticket, then sat +down on a settee in the dusty, desolate place and waited. There +were two women there besides herself, and they conversed very +audibly about their family affairs. Maria listened absently to +astonishing disclosures. The man in the ticket-office was busy at +the telegraph, whose important tick made an accompaniment to the +chatter of the women, both middle-aged, and both stout, and both +with grievances which they aired with a certain delight. One had +bought a damaged dress-pattern in Ridgewood, and had gone that +afternoon to obtain satisfaction. “I set there in Yates & +Upham's four mortal hours,” said she, in a triumphant tone, +“and they kep' comin' and askin' me things, and sayin' would +I do this and that, but I jest stuck to what I said I would do in +the first place, and finally they give in.”</p> +<p>“What did you want?” asked the other woman.</p> +<p>“Well, I wanted my money back that I had paid for the +dress, and I wanted the dressmaker paid for cuttin' it—it was +all cut an' fitted—and I wanted my fares back and forth paid, +too.”</p> +<p>“You don't mean to say they did all that?” said the +other woman, in a tone of admiration.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir, they did. Finally Mr. Upham himself came and +talked with me, and he said he would allow me what I asked. I tell +you I marched out of that store, when I'd got my money back, +feelin' pretty well set up.”</p> +<p>“I should think you would have,” said the other +woman, in an admiring tone. “You do beat the +Dutch!”</p> +<p>Then the women fell to talking about the niece of one of them +who had been jilted by her lover. “He treated her as mean as +pusley,” one woman said. “There he'd been keepin' +company with poor Aggie three mortal years, comin' regular every +Wednesday and Sunday night, and settin' up with her, and keepin' +off other fellers.”</p> +<p>“I think he treated her awful mean,” assented the +other woman. “I don't know what I would have said if it had +been my Mamie.”</p> +<p>Maria detected a covert tone of delight in this woman's voice. +She realized instinctively that the woman had been jealous that her +companion's niece had been preferred to her daughter, and was +secretly glad that she was jilted. “How does she take +it?” she asked.</p> +<p>“She just cries her eyes out, poor child,” her +friend answered. “She sets and cries all day, and I guess she +don't sleep much. Her mother is thinkin' of sendin' her to visit +her married sister Lizzie down in Hartford, and see if that won't +divert her mind a little.”</p> +<p>“I should think that would be a very good idea,” +said the other woman. Maria, listening listlessly, whirled about +herself in the current of her own affairs, thought what a cat that +woman was, and how she did not in the least care if she was a +cat.</p> +<p>Wollaston Lee was not gone very long. He bowed and said +good-evening to Maria, then seated himself at a little distance. +The two women looked at him with sharp curiosity. “It would +be the best thing for poor Aggie if she could get her mind set on +another young man,” said the woman whose niece had been +jilted.</p> +<p>“That is so,” assented the other woman.</p> +<p>“There's as good fish in the sea as has ever been caught, +as I told her,” said the first woman, with speculative eyes +upon Wollaston Lee.</p> +<p>It was not long before the train for Amity arrived. Wollaston, +with an almost imperceptible gesture, looked at Maria, who +immediately arose. Wollaston sat behind her on the train. Just +before they reached Amity he came forward and spoke to her in a low +voice. “I have to go on to Westbridge,” he said. +“Will there be a carriage at the station?”</p> +<p>“There always is,” Maria replied.</p> +<p>“Don't think of walking up at this hour. It is too late. +What—” Wollaston hesitated a second, then he +continued, in a whisper, “What are you going to tell your +aunt?” he said.</p> +<p>“Nothing,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“Can you?”</p> +<p>“I must. I don't see any other way, unless I tell +lies.”</p> +<p>Wollaston lifted his hat, with an audible remark about the +beauty of the evening, and passed through into the next car, which +was a smoker. The two women of the station were seated a little in +the rear across the aisle from Maria. She heard one of them say to +the other, “I wonder who that girl was he spoke to?” +and the other's muttered answer that she didn't know.</p> +<p>Contrary to her expectations, Maria did not find a carriage at +the Amity station, and she walked home. It was late, and the +village houses were dark. The electric lights still burned at wide +intervals, lighting up golden boughs of maples until they looked +like veritable branches of precious metal. Maria hurried along. She +had a half-mile to walk. She did not feel afraid; a sense of +confusion and relief was over her, with another dawning sense which +she did not acknowledge to herself. An enormous load had been +lifted from her mind; there was no doubt about that. A feeling of +gratitude and confidence in the young man who had just left her +warmed her through and through. When she reached her aunt's house +she saw a light in the sitting-room windows, and immediately she +turned into the path the door opened and her aunt stood there.</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham, where have you been?” asked Aunt +Maria.</p> +<p>“I have been to walk,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“Been to walk! Do you know what time it is? It is 'most +midnight. I've been 'most crazy. I was just goin' in to get Henry +up and have him hunt for you.”</p> +<p>“I am glad you didn't,” said Maria, entering and +removing her hat. She smiled at her aunt, who continued to gaze at +her with the sharpest curiosity.</p> +<p>“Where have you been to walk this time of night?” +she demanded.</p> +<p>Maria looked at her aunt, and said, quite gravely, “Aunt +Maria, you trust me, don't you?”</p> +<p>“Of course I do; but I want to know. I have a right to +know.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you have,” said Maria, “but I shall +never tell you as long as I live where I have been +to-night.”</p> +<p>“What?”</p> +<p>“I shall never tell you were I have been, only you can +rest assured that there is no harm—that there has been no +harm.”</p> +<p>“You don't mean to ever tell?”</p> +<p>“No.” Maria took a lamp from the sitting-room table, +lighted it, and went up-stairs.</p> +<p>“You are just like your mother—just as set,” +Aunt Maria called after her, in subdued tones. “Here I've +been watchin' till I was 'most crazy.”</p> +<p>“I am real sorry,” Maria called back. +“Good-night, Aunt Maria. Such a thing will never happen +again.”</p> +<p>Directly Maria was in her own room she pulled down her +window-shades. She did not see a man, who had followed at a long +distance all the way from the station, moving rapidly up the +street. It was Wollaston Lee. He had seen, from the window of the +smoker, that there was no carriage waiting, had jumped off the +train, entered the station, then stolen out and followed Maria +until he saw her safely in her home. Then the last trolley had +gone, and he walked the rest of the way to Westbridge.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXX</h4> +<p>The next morning, which was Sunday, Maria could not go to +church. An utter weariness and lassitude, to which she was a +stranger, was over her. Evelyn remained at home with her. Evelyn +still had the idea firmly fixed in her mind that Maria was grieving +over Professor Lane. It was also firmly fixed in Aunt Maria's mind. +Aunt Maria, who had both suspicion and imagination, had conceived a +reason for Maria's mysterious absence the night before. She knew +that Professor Lane was to take a night train from Westbridge. She +jumped at the conclusion that Maria had gone to Westbridge to see +him off, and had missed the trolley connection. There were two +trolley-lines between Amity and Westbridge, and that accounted for +her walking to the house. Aunt Maria was mortified and angry. She +would have been mortified to have her niece so disturbed over any +man who had not proposed marriage to her, but when she reflected +upon Professor Lane, his sunken chest, his skinny throat, and his +sparse gray hair, although he was yet a handsome man for his years, +she experienced a positive nausea. She was glad when Evelyn came +down in the morning and said that Maria had called to her, and said +she did not want any breakfast and did not feel able to go to +church.</p> +<p>“Do you think sister is going to be sick, Aunt +Maria?” Evelyn said, anxiously. Then her sweet eyes met her +aunt's, and both the young and the old maid blushed at the thought +which they simultaneously had.</p> +<p>“Sick? No,” replied Aunt Maria, crossly.</p> +<p>“I guess I will stay home with her, anyway,” Evelyn +said, timidly.</p> +<p>“Well, you can do jest as you are a mind to,” said +Aunt Maria. “I'm goin' to meetin'. If folks want to act like +fools, I ain't goin' to stay at home and coddle them.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Aunt Maria, I don't think sister acts like a +fool,” Evelyn said, in her sweet, distressed voice. +“She looks real pale and acts all tired out.”</p> +<p>“I guess she'll survive it,” said Aunt Maria, +pouring the coffee.</p> +<p>“Don't you think I had better make some toast and a cup of +tea for her, if she does say she doesn't want any +breakfast?”</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham is old enough to know her own mind, and if +she says she don't want any breakfast I'd let her go without till +she was hungry,” said Aunt Maria. She adored Maria above any +living thing, and just in proportion to the adoration she felt +angry with her. It was a great relief to her not to see her.</p> +<p>“Aren't you going up-stairs and see if you think sister is +sick?” Evelyn asked, as Aunt Maria was tying her +bonnet-strings.</p> +<p>“No, I ain't,” replied Aunt Maria. “It's all I +can do to walk to church. I ain't goin' to climb the stairs for +nothin'. I ain't worried a mite about her.”</p> +<p>After Aunt Maria was gone Evelyn made a slice of toast, placed +it on a pretty plate, and made also some tea, which she poured into +a very dainty cup. Then she carried the toast and tea on a little +tray up to Maria's room.</p> +<p>“Please sit up and drink this tea and eat this toast, +sister,” she said, pleadingly.</p> +<p>“Thank you, dear,” said Maria, “but I don't +feel as if I could eat anything.”</p> +<p>“It's real nice,” said Evelyn, looking with a +childish wistfulness from her sister to the toast. Maria could not +withstand the look. She raised herself in bed and let Evelyn place +the tray on her knees. Then she forced herself to drink the tea and +eat the toast. Evelyn all the time watched her with that sweet +wistfulness of expression which was one of her chief charms. +Evelyn, when she looked that way, was irresistible. There was so +much anxious love in her tender face that it made it fairly +angelic. Evelyn's dark hair was tumbling about her face like a +child's, in a way which she often wore it when at home when there +was no company. It was tied with a white ribbon bow. She wore a +black skirt and a little red breakfast-jacket faced with white. As +her sister gradually despatched the tea and toast, the look of +wistfulness on her face changed to one of radiant delight. She +clapped her hands.</p> +<p>“There,” she said, “I knew you would eat your +breakfast if I brought it to you. Wasn't that toast +nice?”</p> +<p>“Delicious.”</p> +<p>“I made it my own self. Aunt Maria was cross. Don't you +think it is odd that any one who loves anybody should ever be +cross?”</p> +<p>“It often happens,” said Maria, laying back on her +pillows.</p> +<p>“Of course, Aunt Maria loves us both, but she loves you +especially; but she is often cross with you. I don't understand +it.”</p> +<p>“She doesn't love me any better than she does you, +dear,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Oh yes, she does; but I am not jealous. I am very glad I +am not, for I could be terribly jealous.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense, precious!”</p> +<p>“Yes, I could. Sometimes I imagine how jealous I could be, +and it frightens me.”</p> +<p>“You must not imagine such things, dear.”</p> +<p>“I have always imagined things,” said Evelyn. Her +face took on a very serious, almost weird and tragic expression. +Maria had as she had often had before, a glimpse of dangerous +depths of emotion in her sister's character.</p> +<p>“That is no reason why you should always imagine,” +she said, with a little, weary sigh.</p> +<p>Directly the look of loving solicitude appeared on Evelyn's +face. She went close to her sister, and laid her soft, glowing +cheek against hers.</p> +<p>“I am so sorry, dearest,” she said. “Sorry for +whatever troubles you.”</p> +<p>“What makes you think anything troubles me?”</p> +<p>“You seem to me as if something troubled you.”</p> +<p>“Nothing does,” said Maria. She pushed Evelyn gently +away and sat up. “I was only tired out,” she said, +firmly. “The breakfast has made me feel better. I will get up +now and write some letters.”</p> +<p>“Wouldn't you rather lie still and let me read to +you?”</p> +<p>“No, dear, thank you. I will get up now.”</p> +<p>Evelyn remained in the room while her sister brushed her hair +and dressed. “I wonder what kind of a man the new principal +will be?” she said, looking dreamily out of the window. She +had, in fact, already had her dreams about him. As yet she had +admitted men to her dreams only, but she had her dreams. She did +not notice her sister's change of color. She continued to gaze +absently out of the window at the autumn landscape. A golden maple +branch swung past the window in a crisp breeze, now and then a leaf +flew away like a yellow bird and became a part of the golden carpet +on the ground. “Addie Hemingway says he is very +handsome,” she said, meditatively. “Do you remember +him, sister—that is, do you remember how he looked when he +was a boy?”</p> +<p>“As I remember him he was a very good-looking boy,” +Maria said.</p> +<p>“I wonder if he is engaged?” Evelyn said.</p> +<p>Suddenly her soft cheeks flamed.</p> +<p>“I don't see what that matters to you,” Maria +retorted, in a tone which she almost never used towards +Evelyn—“to you or any of the other girls. Mr. Lee is +coming to teach you, not to become engaged to his +pupils.”</p> +<p>“Of course I know he is,” Evelyn said, humbly. +“I didn't mean to be silly, sister. I was only +wondering.”</p> +<p>“The less a young girl wonders about a man the +better,” Maria said.</p> +<p>“Well, I won't wonder, only it does seem rather natural to +wonder. Didn't you use to wonder when you were a young girl, +sister?”</p> +<p>“It does not make it right if I did.”</p> +<p>“I don't think you could do anything wrong, sister,” +Evelyn returned, with one of her glances of love and admiration. +Suddenly Maria wondered herself what a man would do if he were to +receive one of those glances.</p> +<p>Evelyn continued her little chatter. “Of course none of us +girls ever wondered about Professor Lane, because he was so +old,” she said. Then she caught herself with an anxious +glance at her sister. “But he was very handsome, too,” +she added, “and I don't know why we shouldn't have thought +about him, and he wasn't so very old. I think Colorado will cure +him.”</p> +<p>“I hope so,” Maria said, absently. She had no more +conception of what was in Evelyn's mind with regard to herself and +Professor Lane than she had of the thought of an inhabitant of +Mars. Ineffable distances of surmise and imagination separated the +two in the same room.</p> +<p>Evelyn continued: “Mr. Lee isn't married, anyway,” +she said. “Addie said so. His mother keeps house for him. +Wasn't that a dreadful thing in the paper last night, +sister?”</p> +<p>“What?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“About that girl's getting another woman's husband to fall +in love with her, and get a divorce, and then marrying him. I don't +see how she could. I would rather die than marry a man who had been +divorced. I would think of the other wife all the time. Don't you +think it was dreadful, sister?”</p> +<p>“Why do you read such things?” asked Maria, and +there was a hard ring in her voice. It seemed to her that she was +stretched on a very rack of innocence and ignorance.</p> +<p>“It was all there was in the paper to read,” replied +Evelyn, “except advertisements. There were pictures of the +girl, and the wife, and the man, and the two little children. Of +course it was worse because there were children, but it was +dreadful anyway. I would never speak to that girl again, not if she +had been my dearest friend.”</p> +<p>“You had better read a library book, if there is nothing +better than that to read in a paper,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“There wasn't, except a prize-fight, and I don't care +anything about prize-fights, and I believe there were races, too, +but I don't know anything about races.”</p> +<p>“I don't see that you know very much about marriage and +divorce,” Maria said, adjusting her collar.</p> +<p>“Are you angry with me, sister? Don't you want me to +fasten your collar?”</p> +<p>“No, I can fasten it myself, thank you, dear. No, I am not +angry with you, only I do wish you wouldn't read such stuff. Put +the paper away, and get a book instead.”</p> +<p>“I will if you want me to, sister,” replied +Evelyn.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXI</h4> +<p>The Monday when the fall term of the academy at Westbridge +opened was a very beautiful day. The air was as soft as summer, but +with a strange, pungent quality which the summer had lacked. There +was a slightly smoky scent which exhilarated. It was a scent of +death coming from bonfires of dead leaves and drying vegetation, +and yet it seemed to presage life. When Maria and Evelyn went out +to take the trolley for Westbridge, Maria wore a cluster of white +chrysanthemums pinned to her blouse. The blouse itself was a very +pretty one, worn with a black plaited skirt. It was a soft silk of +an old-rose shade, and it was trimmed with creamy lace. Maria had +left off her mourning. Evelyn looked with a little surprise at +Maria's blouse.</p> +<p>“Why, you've got on your pink blouse, sister,” she +said.</p> +<p>Maria colored softly, for no ostensible reason. +“Yes,” she said.</p> +<p>“You don't generally wear it to school.”</p> +<p>“I thought as long as it was the first day,” Maria +said, in a slightly faltering tone. She bent her head until her +rose-wreathed hat almost concealed her face. The sisters stood in +front of the house waiting for their car. Evelyn made a sudden +little run back into the yard.</p> +<p>“You hold the car!” she cried.</p> +<p>“I don't know that they will wait; you must not +stop,” Maria called out. But the car had just stopped when +Evelyn returned, and she had a little cluster of snowberries pinned +in the front of her red gown. She looked bewitchingly over them at +Maria when they were seated side by side in the car.</p> +<p>“I guess I was going to wear flowers as well as some other +folks,” she whispered with a soft, dark glance at her sister +from under her long lashes. Maria smiled.</p> +<p>“You don't need to wear flowers,” she said.</p> +<p>“Why not as well as you?”</p> +<p>“Oh, you are a flower yourself,” Maria said, looking +fondly at her.</p> +<p>Indeed, the young girl looked like nothing so much as a rose, +with her tenderly curved pink cheeks, the sweet arch of her lips, +and her glowing radiance of smiles. Maria looked at her critically, +then bade her turn that she might fasten a hook on her collar which +had become unfastened.</p> +<p>“Now you are all right,” she said.</p> +<p>Evelyn smiled. “Don't you think these snowberries are +pretty with this red dress?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Lovely.”</p> +<p>“I wonder what the new principal will be like,” +Evelyn said, musingly, after riding awhile in silence.</p> +<p>“I presume he will be very much like other young men. The +main thing to consider is, if he is a good teacher,” Maria +said.</p> +<p>“What makes you cross, sister?” Evelyn whispered +plaintively.</p> +<p>“I am not cross, only I don't want you to be +silly.”</p> +<p>“I am not silly. All the girls are wondering, too. I am +only like other girls. You can't expect me to be just like you, +Maria. Of course you are older, and you don't wonder, and then, +too, you knew him when he was a boy. Is he light or +dark?”</p> +<p>“Light,” Maria replied, looking out of the +window.</p> +<p>“Sometimes light children grow dark as they grow +older,” said Evelyn. “I hope he hasn't. I like light +men better than dark, don't you, Maria?”</p> +<p>“I don't like one more than another,” said Maria +shortly.</p> +<p>“Of course I know you don't in one way. Don't be so +cross,” Evelyn said in a hurt way. “But almost +everybody has an opinion about light and dark men.”</p> +<p>Maria looked out of the window, and Evelyn said no more, but she +felt a sorrowful surprise at her sister. Evelyn was so used to +being petted and admired that the slightest rebuff, especially a +rebuff from Maria, made her incredulous. It really seemed to her +that Maria must be ill to speak so shortly to her. Then she +remembered poor Professor Lane, and how in all probability Maria +was thinking about him this morning, and that made her irritable, +and how she, Evelyn, ought to be very patient. Evelyn was in +reality very patient and very slow to take offence. So she snuggled +gently up to her sister, until her slender, red-clad shoulder +touched Maria's, and looked pleasantly around through the car, and +again wondered privately about the new principal.</p> +<p>They had a short walk after leaving the car to the academy. As +they turned into the academy grounds, which were quite beautiful +with trees and shrubs, a young man was mounting the broad flight of +granite steps which led to the main entrance. Evelyn touched Maria +agitatedly on the arm. “Oh, Maria,” said she.</p> +<p>“What?”</p> +<p>“Is that—he?”</p> +<p>“I think so. I saw only his back, but I should think so. I +don't see what other young man could be going into the building. It +was certainly not the janitor, nor Mr. Hughes” (Mr. Hughes +was the music-teacher) replied Maria calmly, although she was +pale.</p> +<p>“Oh, if that was he, I think he is splendid,” +whispered Evelyn.</p> +<p>Maria said nothing as the two proceeded along the fine gravel +walk between hydrangeas, and inverted beech-trees, and +symmetrically trimmed firs.</p> +<p>“He is light,” Evelyn said, meditatively. “I +am glad of that.” As she spoke she put her hand to her head +and adjusted her hair, then her hat. She threw back her shoulders. +She preened herself, innocently and unconsciously, like a little +bird. Maria did not notice it. She had her own thoughts, and she +was using all her power of self-control to conceal her agitation. +It seemed to her as she entered the building as if her secret was +written upon her face, as if everybody must read as they ran. But +she removed her coat and hat, and took her place with the other +assistants upon the platform in the chapel of the academy where the +morning exercises were held. She spoke to the other teachers, and +took her usual seat. Wollaston was not yet there. The pupils were +flocking into the room, which was picturesque with a dome-shaped +ceiling, and really fine frescoed panels on the walls. Directly +opposite the platform was a large oriel-window of stained glass, +the gift of the founder. Rays of gold and green and blue and +crimson light filtered through, over the assembling school. Maria +saw Evelyn with her face turned towards the platform eagerly +watching. She was not looking at Maria, but was evidently expecting +the advent of the new principal. It did not at that time occur to +Maria to attribute any serious meaning to the girl's attitude. She +merely felt a sort of impatience with her, concerning her attitude, +when she herself knew what she knew.</p> +<p>Suddenly a sort of suppressed stir was evident among those of +the pupils who were seated. Maria felt a breeze from an open door, +and knew that Wollaston had entered. He spoke first to her, calling +her by name, and bidding her good-morning, then to the other +teachers. The others were either residents of Westbridge, or +boarded there, and he had evidently been introduced to them before. +Then he took his seat, and waited quietly for the pupils to become +seated. It lacked only a few minutes of the time for opening the +school. It was not long before the seats were filled, and Maria +heard Wollaston's voice reading a selection from the Bible. Then +she bent her head, and heard him offering prayer. She felt a sort +of incredulity now. It seemed to her inconceivable that the boy +whom she had known could be actually conducting the opening +exercises of a school with such imperturbability and +self-possession. All at once a great pride of possession seized +her. She glanced covertly at him between her fingers. The secret +which had been her shame suddenly filled her with the possibility +of pride. Wollaston Lee, standing there, seemed to her the very +grandest man whom she had ever seen. He was undoubtedly handsome, +and he had, moreover, power. When he had finished his prayer, and +had begun his short address to the scholars, she glanced at him +again, and saw what splendid shoulders he had, how proudly he held +his head, and yet what a boyish ingenuousness went with it all. +Maria did not look at Evelyn at all. Had she done so, she would +have been startled. Evelyn was gazing at the new principal with the +utmost unreserve, the unreserve of awakened passion which does not +know itself because of innocence and ignorance. Evelyn, gazing at +the young man, had never been so unconscious of herself, and at the +same time she had never been so conscious. She felt a life to which +she had been hitherto a stranger tingling through every vein and +nerve of her young body, through every emotion of her young soul. +She gazed with wide-open eyes like a child, the rose flush deepened +on her cheeks, her parted lips became moist and deep crimson, +pulses throbbed in her throat. She smiled involuntarily, a smile of +purest delight and admiration. Love twofold had awakened within her +emotional nature. Love of herself, as she might be seen in +another's eyes, and love of another. And yet she did not know it +was love, and she felt no shame, and no fright, nothing but +rapture. She was in the broad light of the present, under the +direct rays of a firmament of life and love. Another girl, Addie +Hemingway, who was no older than Evelyn, but shrewd beyond her +years, with a taint of coarseness, noticed her, and nudged the girl +at her right. “Just look at Evelyn Edgham,” she +whispered.</p> +<p>The other girl looked.</p> +<p>“I suppose she thinks she'll catch him, she's so awful +pretty,” whispered Addie maliciously.</p> +<p>“I don't think she is so very pretty,” whispered +back the other girl, who was pretty herself and disposed to assert +her own claims to attention.</p> +<p>“She thinks she is,” whispered back Addie. +“Just see how bold she looks at him. I should think she would +be ashamed of herself.”</p> +<p>“So should I,” nodded the other girl.</p> +<p>But Evelyn had no more conception of the propriety of shame than +nature itself. She was pure nature. Presently Wollaston himself, +who had been making his address to his pupils with a vague sense of +an upturned expanse of fresh young faces of boys and girls, without +any especial face arresting his attention, saw Evelyn with a start +which nobody, man or woman, could have helped. She was so beautiful +that she could no more be passed unnoticed than a star. Wollaston +made an almost imperceptible pause in his discourse, then he +continued, fixing his eyes upon the oriel-window opposite. He +realized himself as surprised and stirred, but he was not a young +man whom a girl's beauty can rouse at once to love. He had, +moreover, a strong sense of honor and duty. He realized Maria was +his legal wife. He was, although he had gotten over his boyish +romance, which had been shocked out of him at the time of his +absurd marriage, in an attitude of soul which was ready for love, +and love for his wife. He had often said to himself that no other +honorable course was possible for either Maria or himself: that it +was decidedly best that they should fall in love with each other +and make their marriage a reality. At the same time, something more +than delicacy and shyness restrained him from making advances. He +was convinced that Maria not only disliked but feared him. A great +pity for her was in his heart, and also pride, which shrank from +exposing itself to rebuffs. Yet he did not underestimate himself. +He considered that he had as good a chance as any man of winning +her affection and overcoming her present attitude towards him. He +saw no reason why he should not. While he was not conceited, he +knew perfectly well his advantages as to personal appearance. He +also was conscious of the integrity of his purpose as far as she +was concerned. He knew that, whenever she should be willing to +accept him, he should make her a good husband, and he recognized +his readiness and ability to love her should she seem ready to +welcome his love. He, however, was very proud even while conscious +of his advantages, and consequently easily wounded. He could not +forget Maria's look of horror when she had recognized him the +Saturday before. A certain resentment towards her because of it was +over him in spite of himself. He said to himself that he had not +deserved that look, that he had done all that mortal man could do +to shield her from a childish tragedy, for which he had not been to +blame in any greater degree than she. He said to himself that she +might at least have had confidence in his honor and his generosity. +However, pity for her and that readiness to do his duty—to +love her—were uppermost. The quick glance which he had given +Maria that morning had filled him with pleasure. Maria, in her +dull-rose blouse, with her cluster of chrysanthemums, with her +fair, emotional face held by sheer force of will in a mould of +serenity, with her soft yellow coils of hair and her still childish +figure, was charming. After that one glance at Evelyn, with her +astonishing beauty, he thought no more about her. When his address +was finished the usual routine of the school began.</p> +<p>He did not see Maria again all day. She had her own class-room, +and at noon she and Evelyn ate their luncheon together there. +Evelyn did not say a word about the new principal. She was very +quiet. She did not eat as usual.</p> +<p>“Don't you feel well, dear?” asked Maria.</p> +<p>“Yes, sister,” replied Evelyn. Then suddenly her +lips quivered and a tear rolled down the lovely curve of her +cheek.</p> +<p>“Why, Evelyn, precious, what is the matter?” asked +Maria.</p> +<p>“Nothing,” muttered Evelyn. Then suddenly, to her +sister's utter astonishment, the young girl sprang up and ran out +of the room.</p> +<p>Maria was sure that she heard a muffled sob. She thought for a +second of following her, then she had some work to do before the +afternoon session, and she also had a respect for others' desires +for secrecy, possibly because of her long carrying about of her own +secret. She sat at her table with her forehead frowning uneasily, +and wrote, and did not move to follow Evelyn.</p> +<p>Evelyn, when she rushed out of the class-room, took +instinctively her way towards a little but dense grove in the rear +of the academy. It was a charming little grove of firs and maples, +and there were a number of benches under the trees for the +convenience of the pupils. It was rather singular that there was +nobody there. Usually during the noon-hour many ate their luncheons +under the shadow of the trees. However, the wind had changed, and +it was cool. Then, too, the reunions among the old pupils were +probably going on to better advantage in the academy, and many had +their luncheons at a near-by restaurant. However it happened, +Evelyn, running with the tears in her eyes, her heart torn with +strange, new emotion which as yet she could not determine the +nature of, whether it was pain or joy, found the grove quite +deserted. The cold sunlight came through the golden maple boughs +and lay in patches on the undergrowth of drying golden-rod and +asters. Under the firs and pines it was gloomy, and a premonition +of winter was in the air. Evelyn sat down on a bench under a +pine-tree, and began to weep quite unrestrainedly. She did not know +why. She heard the song of the pine over her head, and it seemed to +increase her apparently inconsequent grief. In reality she wept the +tears of the world, the same which a new-born child sheds. Her +sorrow was the mysterious sorrow of existence itself. She wept +because of the world, and her life in it, and her going out of it, +because of its sorrow, which is sweetened with joy, and its joy +embittered with sorrow. But she did not know why she wept. Evelyn +was cast on very primitive moulds, and she had been very +unrestrained, first by the indifference of her mother, then by the +love of her father and sister and aunt. It was enough for Evelyn +that she wished to weep that she wept. No other reason seemed in +the least necessary to her. In front of where she sat was a large +patch of sunlight overspreading a low growth of fuzzy weeds, which +shone like silver, and a bent thicket of dry asters which were +still blue although withered.</p> +<p>All at once Evelyn became aware that this patch of sunlight was +darkened, and she looked up in a sweet confusion. Her big, dark +eyes were not in the least reddened by her tears; they only +glittered with them. Her lips, slightly swollen, only made her +lovelier.</p> +<p>Directly before her stood the new principal, and he was gazing +down at her with a sort of consternation, pity, and embarrassment. +Wollaston was in reality wishing himself anywhere else. A woman's +tears aroused in him pity and irritation. He wished to pass on, but +it seemed too impossible to do so and leave this lovely young +creature in such distress without a word of inquiry. He therefore +paused, and his slightly cold, blue eyes met Evelyn's brilliant, +tearful ones with interrogation.</p> +<p>“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked. +“Shall I call any one? Are you ill?”</p> +<p>Evelyn felt hurt and disturbed by his look and tone. New tears +welled up in her eyes. She shook her head with a slight pout. +Wollaston passed on. Evelyn raised her head and gazed after him +with an indescribable motion, the motion of a timid, wild thing of +the woods, which pursues, but whose true instinct is to be pursued. +Suddenly she rose, and ran after him, and was by his side.</p> +<p>“I am ashamed you should have seen—” she +said, brokenly. “I was crying for nothing.”</p> +<p>Wollaston looked down at her and smiled. She also was smiling +through her tears. “Young ladies should not cry for +nothing,” he said, with a whimsical, school-master +manner.</p> +<p>“It seems to me that nothing is the most terrible thing in +the whole world to cry for,” replied Evelyn, with unconscious +wisdom, but she still smiled. Again her eyes met the young man's, +and her innocently admiring gaze was full upon his, and that +happened which was inevitable, one of the chain of sequences of +life itself. His own eyes responded ardently, and the girl's eyes +fell before the man's. At the same time there was no ulterior +significance in the man's look, which was merely in evidence of a +passing emotion to which he was involuntarily subject. He had not +the slightest thought of any love, which his look seemed to express +for this little beauty of a girl, whose name he did not even know. +But he slackened his pace, and Evelyn walked timidly beside him +over the golden net-work of sunlight in the path. Evelyn spoke +first.</p> +<p>“You came from Edgham, Mr. Lee,” she said.</p> +<p>Wollaston looked at her. “Yes. Do you know anybody +there?”</p> +<p>Evelyn laughed. “I came from there myself,” she +said, “and so did my sister, Maria. Maria is one of the +teachers, you know.”</p> +<p>Evelyn wondered why Mr. Lee's face changed, not so much color +but expression.</p> +<p>“Oh, you are Miss Edgham's sister?” he +exclaimed.</p> +<p>“Yes. I am her sister—her half-sister.”</p> +<p>“Let me see; you are in the senior class.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Evelyn. Then she added, “Did +you remember my sister?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes,” replied Wollaston. “We used to go to +school together.”</p> +<p>“She cannot have altered,” said Evelyn. “She +always looks just the same to me, anyway.”</p> +<p>“She does to me,” said Lee, and there was in +inflection in his voice which caused Evelyn to give a startled +glance at him. But he continued, quite naturally, “Your +sister looks just as I remember her, only, of course, a little +taller and more dignified.”</p> +<p>“Maria is dignified,” said Evelyn, “but of +course she has taught school a long time, and a school-teacher has +to be dignified.”</p> +<p>“Are you intending to teach school?” asked Lee, and +even as he asked the question he felt amused. The idea of this +flower-like thing teaching school, or teaching anything, was +absurd. She was one of the pupils of life, not one of the +expounders.</p> +<p>“No, I think not,” said Evelyn. Then she said, +“I have never thought about it.” Then an +incomprehensible little blush flamed upon her cheeks. Evelyn was +thinking that she should be married instead of doing anything else, +but that the man did not consider. He was singularly unversed in +feminine nature.</p> +<p>A bell rang from the academy, and Evelyn turned about with +reluctance. “There is the bell,” said she. She was +secretly proud although somewhat abashed at being seen walking back +to the academy with the new principal. Addie Hemingway was looking +out of a window, and she said to the other girl, the same whom she +had addressed in the chapel:</p> +<p>“See, Evelyn Edgham has got him in tow already.”</p> +<p>That night, when Maria and Evelyn arrived home, Aunt Maria asked +Evelyn how she liked the new principal. “Oh, he's perfectly +splendid,” replied Evelyn. Then she blushed vividly. Aunt +Maria noticed it and gave a swift glance at Maria, but Maria did +not notice it at all. She was so wrapped in her own dreams that she +was abstracted. After she went to bed that night she lay awake a +long time dreaming, just as she had done when she had been a little +girl. Her youth seemed to rush back upon her like a back-flood. She +caught herself dreaming of love-scenes in that same little wood +where Wollaston and Evelyn had walked that day. She never thought +of Evelyn and the possibility of her thinking of Wollaston. But +Evelyn, in her little, white, maiden bed, was awake and dreaming +too. Outside the wind was blowing and the leaves dropping and the +eternal stars shining overhead. It seemed as if so much +maiden-dreaming in the house should make it sound with song, but it +was silent and dark to the night. Only the reflection of the +street-lamp made it evident at all to occasional passers. It is +well that the consciousness of human beings is deaf to such +emotions, or all individual dreams would cease because of the +multiple din.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXII</h4> +<p>Evelyn, as the weeks went on, did not talk as much as she had +been accustomed to do. She did not pour her confidences into her +sister's ears. She never spoke of the new principal. She studied +assiduously, and stood exceedingly well in all her classes. She had +never taken so much pains with her pretty costumes. When her mother +sent her a Christmas present of a Paris gown, she danced with +delight. There was to be a Christmas-tree in the academy chapel, +and she planned to wear it. Although it was a Paris gown it was +simple enough, a pretty, girlish frock of soft white cloth, with +touches of red. “I can wear holly in my hair, and it will be +perfectly lovely,” Evelyn said. But she came down with such a +severe cold and sore throat at the very beginning of the holidays +that going to Westbridge was out of the question. Evelyn lamented +over the necessity of her staying at home like a child. She even +cried.</p> +<p>“I wouldn't be such a baby,” said Aunt Maria. At +times Aunt Maria could not quite forgive Evelyn for being Ida +Slome's child, especially when she showed any weakness. She looked +severely now at poor Evelyn, in her red house-wrapper, weeping in +her damp little handkerchief. “I should think you were about +ten,” she said.</p> +<p>Evelyn wiped her eyes and sniffed. Her throat was very sore, and +her cold was also in her head. Her pretty lips were disfigured with +fever-sores. Her eyes were inflamed.</p> +<p>“You wouldn't want to go looking the way you do, +anyhow,” said Aunt Maria, pitilessly.</p> +<p>After Aunt Maria went out of the room, Maria, who was putting +some finishing-touches to the gown which she herself was to wear to +the Christmas-tree, went over to her sister and knelt down beside +her. “Poor darling,” she said. “Don't you want me +to stay at home with you?”</p> +<p>Evelyn pushed her away gently, with a fresh outburst of tears. +“No,” she said. “Don't come so close, Maria, or +you will catch it. Everybody says it is contagious. No, I wouldn't +have you stay at home for anything. I am not a pig, if I am +disappointed. But Aunt Maria need not be so cross.”</p> +<p>“Aunt Maria does not mean to be cross, sweetheart,” +said Maria, stroking her sister's fluffy, dark head. “Are you +sure that you do not want me to stay home with you, +dear?”</p> +<p>“Perfectly sure,” replied Evelyn. “I want you +to go so you can tell me about it.”</p> +<p>Evelyn had not the slightest idea of jealousy of Maria. While +she admired her, it really never occurred to her, so naïve she +was in her admiration of herself, that anybody could think her more +attractive than she was and fall in love with her, to her neglect. +She had not the least conception of what this Christmas-tree meant +to her older sister: the opportunity of seeing Wollaston Lee, of +talking with him, of perhaps some attention on his part. Maria was +to return to Amity on the last trolley from Westbridge. It was +quite a walk from the academy. She dreamed of Wollaston's escorting +her to the trolley-line. She dressed herself with unusual care when +the day came. She had a long, trailing gown of a pale-blue cloth +and a blue knot for her yellow hair. She also had quite a +pretentious blue evening cloak. Christmas afternoon a long box full +of pale-yellow roses arrived. There was a card enclosed which Maria +caught up quickly and concealed without any one seeing her. +Wollaston had sent her the roses. Her heart beat so hard and fast +that it seemed the others must hear it. She bent over the roses. +“How perfectly lovely!” she said.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria took up the box and lifted the flowers out carefully. +“There isn't any card,” she said. “I wonder who +sent them?” All at once a surmise seized her that Professor +Lane, who was said to be regaining his health in Colorado, had sent +an order to the Westbridge florist for these flowers. +Simultaneously the thought came to Evelyn, but Eunice, who was in +the room, looked bewildered. When Maria carried the roses out to +put them in water, she turned to her sister-in-law. “Who on +earth do you suppose sent them?” she whispered.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria looked at her, and formed Professor Lane's name +noiselessly with her lips, giving her at the same time a knowing +nod. Eunice looked at Evelyn, who also nodded, although with a +somewhat disturbed expression. She still did not feel quite +reconciled to the idea of her sister's loving Professor Lane.</p> +<p>“I didn't know,” said Eunice.</p> +<p>“Nobody knows; but we sort of surmise,” said Aunt +Maria.</p> +<p>“Why, he's old enough to be her father,” Eunice +said.</p> +<p>“What of that, if he only gets cured of his +consumption?” said Aunt Maria. She herself felt disgusted, +but she had a pleasure in concealing her disgust from her +sister-in-law. “Lots of girls would jump at him,” said +she.</p> +<p>“I wouldn't have when I was a girl,” Eunice +remarked, in a mildly reminiscent manner.</p> +<p>“You don't know what you would have done if you hadn't got +my brother,” said Aunt Maria.</p> +<p>“I would never have married anybody,” Eunice +replied, with a fervent, faithful look. As she spoke, she seemed to +see Henry Stillman as he had been, when a young man and courting +her, and she felt as if a king had passed her field of memory to +the exclusion of all others.</p> +<p>“Maybe you wouldn't have,” said her sister-in-law, +“but nowadays girls have to take what they can get. Men ain't +so anxious to marry. When a man had to have all his shirts and +dickeys made he was helpless, to say nothing of his pants, but +nowadays he can get everything ready-made, and it doesn't make so +much difference to him whether he gets married or not. He can have +a good deal more for himself, if he's an old bachelor.”</p> +<p>“Maybe you are right,” said Eunice, “but I +know when I was a girl Maria's age I wouldn't have let an old man +like Professor Lane, with the consumption, too, tie my shoes. Do +you suppose he really sent her the roses?”</p> +<p>“Who else could have sent them?”</p> +<p>“They must have cost an awful sight of money,” said +Eunice, in an awed tone. Then she stopped, for Maria re-entered the +room with the roses in a tall vase. She wore some of them pinned to +the shoulder of her blue gown that evening. She knew who had sent +them, and it seemed to her that she did not overestimate the +significance of the sending. When she started for Westbridge that +evening she was radiant. She had the roses carefully pinned in +tissue-paper to protect them from the cold; her long, blue cloak +swept about her in graceful folds, she wore a blue hat with a long, +blue feather.</p> +<p>“Why didn't you wear a head tie?” asked Aunt Maria. +“Ain't you afraid you will spoil that hat if you take it off? +The feather will get all mussy.”</p> +<p>“I shall put it in a safe place,” replied Maria, +smiling. She blushed as she spoke. She knew perfectly well herself +why she wore that hat, because she thought Wollaston might escort +her to the trolley, and she wished to appear at her best in his +eyes. Maria no longer disguised from herself the fact that she +loved this man who was her husband and not her husband. She knew +that she was entirely ready to respond to his advances, should he +make any, that she would be happier than she had ever been in her +whole life if the secret which had been the horror of her life +should be revealed. She wondered if it would not be better to have +another wedding. That night she had not much doubt of Wollaston's +love for her. When she entered the car, and saw besides herself +several young girls prinked in their best, who were also going to +the Christmas-tree, she felt a sort of amused pride, that all their +prinking and preening was in vain. She assumed that all of them had +dressed to attract Wollaston. She could not think of any other man +whom any girl could wish to attract. She sat radiant with her long, +blue feather sweeping the soft, yellow puff of her hair. She gave +an affect of smiling at everybody, at all creation. She really felt +for the first time that she could remember a sense of perfect +acquiescence with the universal scheme of things, therefore she +felt perfect content and happiness. She thought how wonderful it +was that poor Gladys Mann, lying in her unmarked grave this +Christmas-time, should have been the means, all unwittingly, of +bringing such bliss to herself. She thought how wonderful that +Evelyn's loss should have been the first link in such a sequence. +She thought of Evelyn with a sort of gratitude, as if she had done +something incalculable for her. She also thought of her as always +with the utmost love and pride and tenderness. She reflected with +pleasure on the gift which she herself had hung on the tree for +Evelyn, and how pleased the child would be. It was a tiny gold +brooch with a pearl in the centre. Evelyn was very fond of +ornaments. Maria did not once imagine of the possibility that +Evelyn could have any dreams herself with regard to Wollaston. She +did not in reality think of Evelyn as old enough to have any dreams +at all which need be considered seriously, and least of all about +Wollaston Lee. She nodded to a young man, younger than herself, who +was in Evelyn's class at the academy, who sat across the aisle, and +he returned the nod eagerly. He was well grown, and handsome, and +looked as old as Maria herself. Presently as the car began to fill +up, he crossed the aisle, and asked if he might sit beside her. +Maria made room at once. She smiled at the young fellow with her +smile which belonged in reality to another man, and he took it for +himself. Perhaps nothing on earth is so misappropriated as smiles +and tears. The seat was quite narrow. It was necessary to sit +rather close, in any event, but presently Maria felt the boy's +broad shoulder press unmistakably against hers. She shrank away +with an imperceptible motion. She did not feel so much angry as +amused at the thought that this great boy should be making love to +her, when all her heart was with some one else, when she could not +even give him a pleasant look which belonged wholly to him. Maria +leaned against the window, and gazed out at the flying shadows. +“I am glad it is so pleasant,” she said in a perfectly +unconcerned voice.</p> +<p>“Yes, so am I,” the boy replied, but his voice shook +with emotion. Maria thought again how ridiculous it was. Then +suddenly she reflected that this might not be on her account but +Evelyn's. She thought that the boy might be trying to ingratiate +himself with her on her sister's account. She felt at once +indignation and a sense of pity. She was sure that Evelyn had never +thought of him. She glanced at the boy's handsome, manly face, +which, although manly, wore still an expression of ingenuousness +like a child's. She reflected that if Evelyn were to marry when she +were older, that perhaps this was a good husband for her. The boy +came of one of the best families in Amity. She turned towards him +smiling.</p> +<p>“Evelyn was very much disappointed that she could not come +to-night,” she said.</p> +<p>The boy brightened visibly at her tone.</p> +<p>“She has a very severe cold,” Maria added.</p> +<p>“I am sorry,” said the boy. Then he said in a low +tone whose boldness and ardor were unmistakable, that it did not +make any difference to him who was there as long as she was. Maria +could scarcely believe her ears. She gave the boy a keen, +incredulous glance, but he was not daunted. “I mean +it,” he said.</p> +<p>“Nonsense,” said Maria. She looked out of the window +again. She told herself that it was annoying but too idiotic to +concern herself with. She made up her mind that when they changed +trolleys she would try to find a seat with some one else. But when +they changed she found the boy again beside her. She was quite +angry then, and made no effort to disguise it. She sat quite still, +gazing out of the window, shrugged against it as closely as she was +able to sit, and said nothing. However, her face resumed its happy +smile when she thought again of Wollaston, and the boy thought the +smile meant for him. He leaned over her tenderly.</p> +<p>“I wish I could have a picture of you as you look +to-night,” he said.</p> +<p>“Well, I am afraid that you will have to do without +it,” Maria said shortly. Still the boy remained insensible to +rebuff.</p> +<p>“What are you carrying, Miss Edgham?” he asked, +looking at her roses enveloped in tissue paper.</p> +<p>“Some roses which a friend sent me,” Maria +replied.</p> +<p>Then the boy colored and paled a little. He jumped at once to +the conclusion that the friend was a man. “I suppose you are +going to wear them,” he said pitifully.</p> +<p>“Yes, I am,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>The boy in his turn sat as far away as possible in his corner of +the seat, and gazed ahead with a gloomy air.</p> +<p>When they reached the academy grounds he quite deserted Maria, +who walked to the chapel with one of the other teachers, who +entered at the same time. She was a young lady who lived in +Westbridge. Maria caught the pale glimmer of an evening gown under +her long, red cloak trimmed with white fur, and reflected that +possibly she also had adorned herself especially for Wollaston's +benefit, and again she felt that unworthy sense of pride and +amusement. The girl herself echoed her thoughts, for she said soon +after Maria had greeted her:</p> +<p>“I saw Mr. Lee and his mother starting.”</p> +<p>“Did you?” returned Maria.</p> +<p>“Don't you think he is very handsome?” asked the +girl in a sentimental tone which irritated.</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria sharply, although she lied. +“I don't think he is handsome at all. He looks intelligent +and sensible, but as for handsome—”</p> +<p>“Oh, don't you think so?” cried the other. Then she +caught herself short, for Wollaston Lee, with his mother on his +arm, came up. They said good-evening, and all four passed in.</p> +<p>The platform of the chapel was occupied by a great +Christmas-tree. The chapel itself was trimmed with evergreens and +holly. The moment Maria entered, after she had removed her hat in a +room which was utilized as a dressing-room, and pinned her roses on +her shoulder, she became sensible of a peculiar intoxication as of +some new happiness and festivity, of a cup of joy which she had +hitherto not tasted. The spicy odor of the evergreens, even the +odor of oyster-stew from a room beyond where supper was to be +served, that, and cake, and the sweetness of her own roses, raised +her to a sense of elation which she had never before had. She sat +with the other teachers well towards the front. Wollaston was with +his mother on the right. Maria saw with a feeling of relief the +people with whom the Lees had formerly boarded presently enter and +sit with them. She thought that Wollaston would be free to walk to +the trolley with her if he so wished. She felt surer and surer that +he did so wish. Once she caught him looking at her, and when she +answered his smile she felt her own lips stiff, and realized how +her heart pounded against her side. She experienced something like +a great pain which was still a great joy. Suddenly everything +seemed unreal to her. When the presents were distributed, it was +still so unreal that she did not feel as pleased as she would have +done with the number for poor little Evelyn at home. She hardly +knew what she received herself. They were the usual useless and +undesirable tokens from her class, and others more desirable from +the other lady teachers. Wollaston Lee's name was often called. +Again Maria experienced that unworthy sensation of malicious glee +that all this was lavished upon him when he was in reality hers and +beyond the reach of any of these smiling girls with eyes of covert +wistfulness upon the handsome young principal.</p> +<p>After the festivities were over, Maria adjusted her hat in the +dressing-room and fastened her long, blue cloak. She wrapped her +roses again in the tissue-paper. They were very precious to her. +The teacher whom she had met on entering the academy was fastening +her cloak, and she gazed at Maria with a sort of envious +admiration.</p> +<p>“You look like a princess, all in blue, Miss +Edgham,” said she. Her words were sweet, but her voice rang +false.</p> +<p>“Thank you,” said Maria, and went out swiftly. She +feared lest the other teacher attach herself to her, and the other +teacher lived on the road towards the trolley. When Maria went out +of the academy, that which she had almost feared to hope for +happened. Wollaston stepped beside her, and she heard him ask if he +might walk with her to the trolley.</p> +<p>Maria took his arm.</p> +<p>“Mother is with the Gleasons,” said Wollaston. His +voice trembled.</p> +<p>Just then the boy who had sat with Maria on the car coming over +walked with a defiant stride to her other side.</p> +<p>“Good-evening, Mr. Lee,” he said, lifting his hat. +“Good-evening, Miss Edgham,” as if that was the first +time that evening he had seen her. Then he walked on with her and +Wollaston, and nothing was to be done but accept the situation. The +young fellow was fairly belligerent with jealous rage. He had lost +his young head over his teacher, and was doing something for which +he would scorn himself later on.</p> +<p>Wollaston pressed Maria's hand closely under his arm, and she +felt her very soul thrill, but they all talked of the tree and the +festivities of the evening, with an apparent disregard of the +terrible undercurrent of human emotions which had them all in its +grasp. Wollaston carried Maria's presents and Evelyn's. When they +reached the trolley-line, and he gave them to her, she managed to +whisper a thank you for his beautiful roses, and he pressed her +hand and said good-night. The boy asked with a mixture of humility +and defiance if he could not carry her parcels (he himself had +nothing but three neckties and a great silk muffler, which he did +not value highly, as he was well stocked already, and he had thrust +them into his pockets). “No, thank you,” said Maria, +“I prefer to carry them myself.” She was curt, but she +was so lit up with rapture that she could not help smiling at him +as she spoke, and he again sat in the same car-seat. She hardly +spoke a word all the way to Amity, but he walked to her door with +her, alighting from the car at the same time she did, although he +lived half a mile farther on.</p> +<p>“You will have to walk a half mile,” Maria observed, +when he handed her off and let the car go on.</p> +<p>“I like to walk,” the boy said, fervently.</p> +<p>Maria had her latch-key. She opened the door hurriedly and ran +in. She was half afraid that this irrepressible young man might +offer to kiss her. “Good-night,” she said, and almost +slammed the door in his face.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria had left a light burning low on the hall table. Maria +took it and went up-stairs. She gathered up the skirt of her gown +into a bag to hold the presents, hers and Evelyn's.</p> +<p>When she entered her own room and set the lamp on the dresser, +she was aware of a little, nestling movement in the bed, and +Evelyn's dark head and lovely face raised itself from the +pillow.</p> +<p>“I came in here,” said Evelyn, “because I +wanted to see you after you came home. Do you mind?”</p> +<p>“No, darling, of course I don't mind,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>She displayed Evelyn's presents, and the girl examined them +eagerly. Maria thought she seemed disappointed even with her own +gift of the brooch which she had expected would so delight her.</p> +<p>“Is that all?” Evelyn said.</p> +<p>“All?” laughed Maria. “Why, you little, greedy +thing, what do you expect?”</p> +<p>To her astonishment Evelyn began suddenly to cry. She sobbed as +if her heart would break, and would not tell her sister why she was +so grieved. Finally, Maria having undressed and got into bed, her +sister clung closely to her, still sobbing.</p> +<p>“Evelyn, darling, what is it?” whispered Maria.</p> +<p>“You'll laugh at me.”</p> +<p>“No, I won't, honest, precious.”</p> +<p>“Honest?”</p> +<p>“Yes, honest, dear.”</p> +<p>“Were those all the presents I had?”</p> +<p>“Yes, of course, I brought you all you had, +dear.”</p> +<p>Evelyn murmured something inarticulate against Maria's +breast.</p> +<p>“What is it, dear, sister didn't hear?”</p> +<p>“I hung a book on the tree for him,” choked Evelyn, +“and I thought maybe—I thought—”</p> +<p>“Thought what?”</p> +<p>“I thought maybe he would—”</p> +<p>“Who would?”</p> +<p>“I thought maybe Mr. Lee would give me something,” +sobbed Evelyn.</p> +<p>Maria lay still.</p> +<p>Evelyn nestled closer. “Oh,” she whispered, “I +love him so! I can't help it. I can't. I love him so, +sister!”</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXIII</h4> +<p>There was a second's hush after Evelyn had said that. It seemed +to Maria that her heart stood still. A sort of incredulity, as of +the monstrous and the super-human seized her. She felt as one who +had survived a railroad accident might feel looking down upon his +own dismembered body in which life still quivered. She could not +seem to actually sense what Evelyn had said, although the words +still rang in her ears. Presently, Evelyn spoke again in her +smothered, weeping voice. “Do you think I am so very +dreadful, so—immodest, to care so much about a man who has +never said he cared about me?”</p> +<p>“He has never said anything?” asked Maria, and her +voice sounded strange in her own ears.</p> +<p>“No, never one word that I could make anything of, but he +has looked at me, he has, honest, sister.” Evelyn burst into +fresh sobs.</p> +<p>Then Maria roused herself. She patted the little, soft, dark +head.</p> +<p>“Why, Evelyn, precious,” she said, “you are +imagining all this. You can't care so much about a man whom you +have seen so little. You have let your mind dwell on it, and you +imagine it. You don't care. You can't, really. You wait, and +by-and-by you will find out that you care a good deal more for +somebody else.”</p> +<p>But then Evelyn raised herself and looked down at her sister in +the dark, and there was a ring in her voice which Maria had never +before heard. “Not care,” she said—“not +care! I will stand everything but that. Maria, don't you dare tell +me I don't care!”</p> +<p>“But you don't know him at all, dear.”</p> +<p>“I know him better than anybody else in the whole +world,” said Evelyn, still in the same strained voice. +“The very minute I saw him I loved him, and then it seemed as +if a great bright light made him plain to me. I do love him, Maria. +Don't you ever dare say I don't. That is the only thing that makes +me feel that I am not ashamed to live, the knowing that I do love +him. I should be dreadful if I didn't love him—really love +him, I mean, with the love that lasts. Do you suppose that if I +only felt about him as some of the other girls do, that I would +have told you? I <em>do</em> love him!”</p> +<p>“What makes you so sure?”</p> +<p>“What makes me so sure? Why, everything. I know there is +not another man in the whole world for me that can possibly equal +him, and then—I feel as if my whole life were full of him. I +can't seem to remember much before he came. When I look back, it is +like looking into the dark, and I can't imagine the world being at +all without him.”</p> +<p>“Would you be willing to be very poor, to go without +pretty things if you—married him, to live in a house like the +Ramsey's on the other side of the river, not to have enough to eat +and drink and wear?”</p> +<p>“I would have enough to eat and drink and wear. I would +have as much as a queen if I had him,” cried Evelyn. +“What do you think I care about pretty things, or even food +and life itself, when it comes to anything like this? Live in a +house like the Ramsey's! I would live in a cave. I would live on +the street, and I should never know it was not a palace. Maria, you +do know that I love him, don't you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I know that you think you do.”</p> +<p>“No, say I do.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I know you do,” Maria said.</p> +<p>Then Evelyn lay down again, and wept quietly.</p> +<p>“Yes, I love him,” she moaned, “but he does +not love me. You don't think he does, do you? I know you +don't.”</p> +<p>Maria said nothing. She was sure that he did not.</p> +<p>“No, he does not. I see you know it,” Evelyn sobbed, +“and all I cared about going to the Christmas-tree and +wearing my new gown was on account of him, and I sent a beautiful +book. I thought I could do that. All the girls in the senior class +gave him something, and I have been saving up every cent, and he +never gave me anything, not even a box of candy or flowers. Do you +think he gave any of the other girls anything, Maria?”</p> +<p>“I don't think so.”</p> +<p>“I can't help hoping he did not. And I don't believe it is +so very wicked, because I know that none of the other girls can +possibly love him as much as I do. But, Maria—”</p> +<p>“Well?”</p> +<p>“I do love him enough not to complain if he really loved +some other girl, and she was good, and would make him happy. I +would go down on my knees to her to love him. I would, Maria, +honest.” Evelyn was almost hysterical. Maria soothed her, and +evaded as well as she was able her repeated little, piteous +questions as to whether she thought Mr. Lee could ever care for +her. “I know I am pretty,” Evelyn said naïvely. +“I really think I must be prettier than any other girl in +school. I have heard so, and I really think so myself, but being +pretty means so little when it comes to anything like this with a +man like him. He might love Addie Hemingway instead of me, so far +as looks were concerned, but I don't think Addie would make him +very happy—do you, Maria?”</p> +<p>“No, dear. I am quite sure he will never think of her. Now +try and be quiet and go to sleep.”</p> +<p>“I cannot go to sleep,” moaned Evelyn, but it was +not very long before she was drawing long, even breaths. Her youth +had asserted itself. Then, too, she had got certain comfort from +this baring of her soul before the soothing love of her sister.</p> +<p>As soon as Maria became sure that Evelyn was soundly asleep she +gently unwound the slender, clinging arms and got out of bed, and +stole noiselessly into Evelyn's own room, which adjoined hers. She +did not get into bed, but took a silk comfortable off, and wrapped +it around her, then sat down in a low chair beside the window. It +seemed to her that if she could not have a little while to think by +herself that she should go mad. The utterly inconceivable to her +had happened, and the utterly inconceivable fairly dazzles the +brain when it comes to pass. Maria felt as if she were outside all +hitherto known tracks of life, almost as if she were in the fourth +dimension. The possibility that her own sister might fall in love +with the man whom she had married had never entered her mind +before. She had checked Evelyn's wonder concerning him, but she had +thought no more of it than of the usual foolish exuberance of a +young girl. Now she believed that her sister really loved +Wollaston. She recalled the fears which she had had with regard to +her strenuous nature. She did not believe it to be a passing fancy +of an ordinary young girl. She recalled word for word what Evelyn +had said, and she believed. Maria sat awhile gazing out of the +window at the starlit sky in a sort of blank of realization, of +adjustment. She could not at first formulate any plan of action. +She could only, as it were, state the problem. She gazed up at the +northern constellations, at the mysterious polar star, and it +seemed to steady her mind and give it power to deal with her petty +problem of life by its far-away and everlasting guiding light. The +window was partly open, and the same pungent odor of death and life +in one which had endured all day came in her nostrils. She seemed +to sense heaven and earth and herself as an atom, but an atom +racked with infinite pain between the two.</p> +<p>“There is the great polar star,” she said to +herself, “there are all the suns and stars, here is the +earth, and here am I, Maria Edgham, who am on the earth, but must +some day give up my mortal life and become a part of it, and part +of the material universe and perhaps also of the spiritual. I am as +nothing, and yet this pain in my heart, this love in my heart, +makes me shine with my own fire as much as the star. I could not be +unless the earth existed, but it is of such as myself that the +earth is made up, and without such as myself it could not shine in +its place in the heavens.”</p> +<p>Maria began to attach a certain importance to her individual +existence even while she realized the pettiness of it, +comparatively speaking. She was an infinitesimal part, but the +whole could not be without that part. Suddenly the religious +instruction which she had drank in with her mother's milk took +possession of her, but she had a breadth of outlook which would +have terrified her mother. Maria said to herself that she believed +in God, but that His need of her was as much as her need of Him. +She said to herself that without her tiny faith in Him, her tiny +speck of love for Him, He would lack something of Himself. Then all +at once, in a perfect flood of rapture, something which she had +never before known came into her heart: the consciousness of the +love of God for herself, of the need of God for herself, poor +little Maria Edgham, whose ways of life had been so untoward and so +absurd that she almost seemed to herself something to be laughed at +rather than pitied, much less loved. But all at once the knowledge +of the love of God was over her. She gazed up again at the great +polar star overlooking with its eternal light the mysteries of the +north, and for the first time in her whole life the primitive +instinct of worship asserted itself within her. Maria rose, and +fell on her knees, and continued to gaze up at the star which +seemed to her like an eye of God Himself, and love seemed to +pervade her whole being. She thought now almost lightly of +Wollaston Lee. What was any earthly love to love like this, which +took hold of the beginning and end of things, of the eternal? A +resolution which this sense of love seemed to inspire came over +her. It was a resolution almost grotesque, but it was sacred +because her heart of hearts was in it, and she made it because of +this love of God for her and her new sense of worship for something +beyond the earth and all earthly affections which had taken +possession of her. She rose, undressed herself, and went to bed. +She did not say any prayer as usual. She seemed an incarnate prayer +which made formulas unnecessary. Why was it essential to say +anything when she was? At last she fell asleep, and did not wake +until the dawn light was in the room. She did not wake as usual to +a reunion with herself, but to a reunion with another self. She did +not feel altogether happy. The resolution of the night before +remained, but the ecstasy had vanished. She was not yet an angel, +only a poor, human girl with the longings of her kind, which would +not be entirely stifled as long as her human heart beat. But she +did what she had planned. Maria had an unusually high forehead. It +might have given evidence of intellect, of goodness, but it was not +beautiful. She had always fluffed her blond hair over it, +concealing it with pretty waves. This morning she brushed all her +hair as tightly back as possible, and made a hard twist at an ugly +angle at the back of her head. By doing this she did not actually +destroy her beauty, for her regular features and delicate tints +remained, but nobody looking at her would have called her even +pretty. Her delicate features became pronounced and hardened, her +nose seemed sharpened and elongated, her lips thinner. This display +of her forehead hardened and made bold all her face and made her +look years older than she was. Maria looked at herself in the glass +with a sort of horror. She had always been fond of herself in the +glass. She had loved that double of herself which had come and gone +at her bidding, but now it was different. She was actually afraid +of the stern, thin visage which confronted her, which was herself, +yet not herself. When she was fully dressed it was worse still. She +put on a gray gown which had never been becoming. It was not +properly fitted. It was short-waisted, and gave her figure a short, +chunky appearance. This chunky aspect, with her sharp face and +strained back hair, made her seem fairly hideous to herself. But +she remained firm. Her firmness, in reality, was one cause of the +tightening and thinning of her lips. She hesitated when about to go +down-stairs. She had not heard Evelyn go down. She wondered whether +she had better wait until she went, or go into her room. She +finally decided upon the latter course. Evelyn was standing in +front of her dresser brushing her hair. When Maria entered she +threw with a quick motion the whole curly, fluffy mass over her +face, which glowed through it with an intensity of shame. Evelyn, +when she awoke that morning, felt as if she had revealed some +nakedness of her very soul. The girl was fairly ill. She could not +believe that she had said what she remembered herself to have +said.</p> +<p>“Good-morning, dear,” said Maria.</p> +<p>Evelyn did not notice her changed appearance at all. She +continued to brush away at the mist of hair over her face. +“Oh, sister!” she murmured.</p> +<p>“Never mind, precious, we won't say anything more about +it,” said Maria, and her voice had maternal inflections.</p> +<p>“I ought not,” stammered Evelyn, but Maria +interrupted her.</p> +<p>“I have forgotten all about it, dear,” she said. +“Now you had better hurry or you will be late.”</p> +<p>“When I woke up this morning and remembered, I felt as if +I should die,” Evelyn said, in a choked voice.</p> +<p>“Nonsense,” said Maria. “You won't die, and it +will all come out right. Don't worry anything about it or think +anything more about it. Why don't you wear your red dress to school +to-day? It is pleasant.”</p> +<p>“Well, perhaps I had better,” Evelyn said. She threw +back her hair then, but still she did not look at Maria.</p> +<p>She arranged her hair and removed her little dressing-sack +before she looked at Maria, who had seated herself in a +rocking-chair beside the window. Aunt Maria always insisted upon +getting breakfast without any assistance. The odor of coffee and +baking muffins stole into the room. Evelyn got her red dress from +the closet and put it on, still avoiding Maria's eyes. But at last +she turned towards her.</p> +<p>“I am all ready to go down,” she said, in a weak +little voice; then she gave a great start, and stared at Maria.</p> +<p>Maria bore the stare calmly, and rose.</p> +<p>“All right, dear,” she replied.</p> +<p>But Evelyn continued standing before her, staring incredulously. +It was almost as if she doubted Maria's identity.</p> +<p>“Why, Maria Edgham!” she said, finally. “What +is the matter?”</p> +<p>“What do you mean, dear?”</p> +<p>“What have you done to yourself to make you look so queer? +Oh, I see what it is! It's your hair. Maria, dear, what have you +strained it off your forehead in that way for? It makes you +look—why—”</p> +<p>Then Maria lied. “My hair has been growing farther and +farther off my forehead lately,” said she, “and I +thought possibly the reason was because I covered it. I thought if +I brushed my hair back it would be better for it. Then, too, my +head has ached some, and it seemed to me the pain in my forehead +would be better if I kept it cooler.”</p> +<p>“But, Maria,” said Evelyn, “you don't look so +pretty. You don't, dear, honest. I hate to say so, but you +don't.”</p> +<p>“Well I am afraid the pretty part of it will have to +go,” said Maria, going towards the door.</p> +<p>“Oh, Maria, please pull your hair over your forehead just +a little.”</p> +<p>“No, dear, I have it all fixed for the day, and it must +stay as it is.”</p> +<p>Evelyn followed Maria down-stairs. She had a puzzled expression. +Maria's hair was diverting her from her own troubles. She could not +understand why any girl should deliberately make herself homely. +She felt worried. It even occurred to wonder if anything could be +the matter with Maria's mind.</p> +<p>When the two girls went into the little dining-room, where +breakfast was ready for them, Aunt Maria began to say something +about the weather, then she cut herself short when she saw +Maria.</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham,” said she, “what on earth—”</p> +<p>Maria took her place at the table. “Those gems look +delicious,” she observed. But Aunt Maria was not to be +diverted.</p> +<p>“I don't want to hear anything about gems,” said +she. “They are good enough, I guess. I always could make +gems, but what I want to know is if you have gone clean +daft.”</p> +<p>“I don't think so,” replied Maria, laughing.</p> +<p>But Aunt Maria continued to stare at her with an expression of +almost horror.</p> +<p>“What under the sun have you got your hair done up that +way for?” said she.</p> +<p>Maria repeated what she had told Evelyn.</p> +<p>“Stuff!” said Aunt Maria. “It will make the +hair grow farther back straining it off your forehead that way, I +can tell you that. You don't use common-sense, and as for your +headache, I guess the hair didn't make it ache. It's the first I've +heard of it. You look like a fright, I can tell you +that.”</p> +<p>“Well, I can't help it,” said Maria. “I shall +have to behave well to make up.”</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham, you don't mean to say you are going to +school looking as you do now!”</p> +<p>Maria laughed, and buttered a gem.</p> +<p>“You look old enough to be your own grandmother. You have +spoiled your looks.”</p> +<p>“Looks don't amount to much,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham, are you crazy?”</p> +<p>“I hope not.”</p> +<p>“I told sister she didn't look so pretty,” said +Evelyn.</p> +<p>“Look so pretty? She looks like a homely old maid. Your +nose looks a yard long and your chin looks peaked and your mouth +looks as if you were as ugly as sin. Your forehead is too high; it +always was, and you ought to thank the Lord that he gave you pretty +hair, and enough of it to cover up your forehead, and now you've +gone and strained it back just as tight as you can and made a knot +like a tough doughnut at the back of your head. You look like a +crazy thing, I can tell you that.”</p> +<p>Maria said nothing. She ate her breakfast, while Aunt Maria and +Evelyn could not eat much and were all the time furtively watching +her.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria took Evelyn aside before the sisters left for school, +and asked her in a whisper if she thought anything was wrong with +Maria, if she had noticed anything, but Evelyn said she had not. +But she and Aunt Maria looked at each other with eyes of frightened +surmise.</p> +<p>When Maria had her hat on she looked, if anything, worse.</p> +<p>“Good land!” said Aunt Maria, when she saw her. +“Well, if you are set on making a spectacle of yourself, I +suppose you are.”</p> +<p>After the girls had gone she went into the other side of the +house and told Eunice. “There she has gone and made herself +look like a perfect scarecrow,” she said. “I wonder if +there is any insanity in her father's family?”</p> +<p>“Did she look so bad?” asked Eunice, with a stare of +terror at her sister-in-law.</p> +<p>“Look so bad! She looked as old and homely as you and I +every bit.”</p> +<p>Maria made as much of a sensation on the trolley as she had done +at home. The boy who had persecuted her the night before with his +attentions bowed to Evelyn, and glanced at her evidently with no +recognition. After a while he came to Evelyn and asked where her +sister was that morning. Maria laughed, and he looked at her, then +he fairly turned pale, and lifted his hat. He mumbled something and +returned to his seat. Maria was conscious of his astonished and +puzzled gaze at her all the way. When she reached the academy the +other teachers—that is, the women—assailed her openly. +One even attempted to loosen by force Maria's tightly strained +locks.</p> +<p>“Why, Miss Edgham, you fairly frighten me,” she +said, when Maria resisted.</p> +<p>Maria realized the amazement of the pupils when they entered her +class-room, the amazement of incredulity and almost disgust. +Everybody seemed amazed and almost disgusted except Wollaston Lee. +He did, indeed, give one slightly surprised glance at her, then he +seemed to notice nothing different in her appearance. The man's +sense of duty and honor was so strong that in reality his sense of +externals was blunted. He had a sort of sublime short-sightedness +to everything that was not of the spirit. He had been convinced the +night previous that Maria was beginning to regard him with favor, +and being convinced of that made him insensible to any mere outward +change in her. She looked to him, on the whole, prettier than usual +because he seemed to see in her love for himself.</p> +<p>When the noon intermission came he walked into her class-room, +and invited Maria and Evelyn to go with him to a near-by restaurant +and lunch.</p> +<p>“I would ask you to go home with me,” he said, +apologetically, to Maria, “but mother has a cold.”</p> +<p>Maria turned pale. She wondered if he had possibly told his +mother. Then she remembered how he had promised her not to tell +without her permission, and was reassured. Evelyn blushed and +smiled and dimpled, and cast one of her sweet, dark glances at him, +which he did not notice at all. His attention was fixed upon Maria, +who hesitated, regarding him with her pale, pinched face. Evelyn +took it for granted that Mr. Lee's invitation was only on her +account, and that Maria was asked simply as a chaperon, and +because, indeed, he could not very well avoid it. She jumped up and +got her hat.</p> +<p>“It will be perfectly lovely,” she said, and faced +them both, her charming face one glow of delight.</p> +<p>But Maria did not rise. She looked at the basket of luncheon +which she had begun to unpack, and replied, coldly, “Thank +you, Mr. Lee, but we have our luncheon with us.”</p> +<p>Wollaston looked at her in a puzzled way.</p> +<p>“But you could have something hot at the +restaurant,” he said. The words were not much, but in reality +he meant, and Maria so understood him, “Why, what do you +mean, after last night? You know how I feel about you. Why do you +refuse?”</p> +<p>Maria took another sandwich from her basket. “Thank you +for asking us, Mr. Lee,” she said, “but we have our +luncheon.”</p> +<p>Her tone was fairly hostile. The hostility was not directed +towards him, but towards the weakness in herself. But that he could +not understand.</p> +<p>“Very well,” he said, in a hurt manner. “Of +course I will not urge you, Miss Edgham.” Then he walked out +of the room, hollowing his back and holding his head very straight +in a way he had had from a boy when he was offended.</p> +<p>Evelyn pulled off her hat with a jerk. She looked at Maria with +her eyes brilliant with tears. “I think you were mean, +sister,” she whispered, “awful mean; so +there!”</p> +<p>“I thought it was better not to go,” Maria replied. +Her tone was at once stern and pitiful. Evelyn noticed only her +sternness. She began to weep softly.</p> +<p>“There, he wanted me, too,” she said, “and of +course he had to ask you, and you knew—I think you might +have, sister.”</p> +<p>“I thought it was better not,” repeated Maria. +“Now, dear, you had better eat your luncheon.”</p> +<p>“I don't want any luncheon.”</p> +<p>Maria began to eat a sandwich herself. There was an odd meekness +and dejectedness in her manner. Presently she laid the half-eaten +sandwich on the table and took out her handkerchief, and shook all +over with helpless and silent sobs.</p> +<p>Then Evelyn looked at her, her pouting expression relaxed +gradually. She looked bewildered.</p> +<p>“Why, what are you crying for?” she asked, in a low +voice.</p> +<p>Maria did not answer.</p> +<p>Presently Evelyn rose and went over to her sister, and laid her +cheek alongside hers and kissed her.</p> +<p>“Don't, sister,” she whispered. “I am sorry. I +didn't mean to be cross. I suppose you were right not to go, only I +did want to.” Evelyn snivelled a little. “I know he was +hurt, too,” she said.</p> +<p>Maria raised her head and wiped her eyes. “I did not think +it was best,” she said yet again. Then she looked at Evelyn +and tried to smile. “Don't worry, precious,” she said. +“Everything will come out all right.”</p> +<p>Evelyn gazed wonderingly at her sister's tear-stained face. +“I don't see what you cried for, and I don't see why you +wouldn't go,” she said. “The scholars will see you have +been crying, and he will see, too. I don't see why you feel badly. +I should think I was the one to feel badly.”</p> +<p>“Everything will come out all right,” repeated +Maria. “Don't worry, sister's own darling.”</p> +<p>“Everybody will see that you have been crying,” said +Evelyn, who was in the greatest bewilderment. “What did make +you cry, Maria?”</p> +<p>“Nothing, dear. Don't think any more about it,” said +Maria rising. She took a tumbler from the lunch-basket. “Go +and fill this with water for me, that is a dear,” she said. +“Then I will bathe my eyes. Nobody would know that you have +been crying.”</p> +<p>“That is because I am not so fair-skinned,” said +Evelyn; “but I don't see.”</p> +<p>She went out with the tumbler, shaking her head in a puzzled +way. When she returned, Maria had the luncheon all spread out on +the table, and looked quite cheerful in spite of her swollen eyes. +The sisters ate together, and Evelyn was very sweet in spite of her +disappointment. She was in reality very sweet and docile before all +her negatives of life, and always would be. Her heart was always in +leading-strings of love. She looked affectionately at Maria as they +ate the luncheon.</p> +<p>“I am so sorry I was cross,” she said. “I +suppose you thought that it would look particular if we went out to +lunch with Mr. Lee.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I think it might have,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, I suppose it would,” said Evelyn with a sigh, +“and I know all the other girls are simply dying for him, but +he asked us, after all.” Evelyn said the last with an +indescribable air of sweet triumph. It was quite evident that she +regarded the invitation as meant for herself alone, and that she +took ineffable delight in it in spite of the fact that it had been +refused. She kept glancing out of the window as she ate. Presently +she looked at her sister and laughed. “There he is coming +now,” she said, “and he is all alone. He didn't take +anybody else to luncheon.”</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXIV</h4> +<p>Wollaston Lee, approaching the academy on his return from his +solitary lunch, was quite conscious of being commanded by the +windows of Maria's class-room. He was so conscious that his stately +walk became almost a strut. He felt resentment at Maria. He could +not help it. He had not been, in fact, so much in love with her, as +in that attitude of receptivity which invites love. He felt that +she ought to be in love, and he wooed not only the girl but love +itself. Therefore resentment came more readily than if he had +actually loved. He had been saying to himself, while he was eating +his luncheon which mortified pride had rendered tasteless, that if +it had not been for the fact of his absurd alliance with Maria she +was the last girl in the world to whom he would have voluntarily +turned, now that he was fully grown, and capable of estimating his +own character and hers. He said to himself that she was pretty, +attractive, and of undeniable strength of character, and yet that +very strength of character would have repelled him. He was not a +man who needed a wife of great strength of character, of consistent +will. He himself had sufficient. His chances of happiness would +have been greater with a wife in whom the affections and emotions +were predominant; there would have been less danger of friction. +Then, too, his wife would necessarily have to live with his mother, +and his mother was very like himself. He said to himself that there +would certainly be friction, and yet he also said that he could not +abandon his attitude of readiness to reciprocate should Maria wish +for his allegiance.</p> +<p>Now, for the first time, Wollaston had Evelyn in his mind. Of +course he had noticed her beauty, and admired her. The contrary +would not have been possible, but now he was conscious of a +distinct sensation of soothed pride, when he remembered how she had +smiled and dimpled at his invitation, and jumped up to get her +hat.</p> +<p>“That pretty little thing wanted to come, anyhow. It is a +shame,” he thought. Then insensibly he fell to wondering how +he should feel if it were Evelyn to whom he were bound instead of +her sister. It did not seem possible to him that the younger +sister, with her ready gratitude and her evident ardor of +temperament, could smile upon him at night and frown the next +morning as Maria had done. He considered, also, how Evelyn would +get on better with his mother. Then he resolutely put the thought +out of his mind.</p> +<p>“It is not Evelyn, but Maria,” he said to himself, +and shut his mouth hard. He resumed his attitude of obedience to +duty, but one who is driven by duty alone almost involuntarily +balks in spirit.</p> +<p>Wollaston was conscious of balking, although he would not +retreat. When he saw Maria again after the exercises of the day +were closed, and he encountered her as she was leaving the academy, +she looked distinctly homely to him, and yet such was the honor of +the man that he did not in the least realize that the homeliness +was an exterior thing. It seemed to him that he saw her encompassed +with the stiffness of her New England antecedents, as with an +armor, and that he got a new and unlovely view of her character. On +the contrary, Evelyn's charming, half-smiling, half-piteous face +turned towards him seemed to afford glimpses of sweetest affections +and womanly gentleness and devotion. Evelyn wished to say that she +was sorry that they were obliged to refuse his invitation, but she +did not dare. Instead, she gave him that little, half-smiling, +half-piteous glance, to which he responded with a lighting up of +his whole face and lift of his hat. Then Evelyn smiled entirely, +and her backward glance at him was wonderfully alluring, yet +maidenly, almost childish. Wollaston, on his way home, thought +again how different it would be if Evelyn, instead of Maria, were +his wife. Then he put it out of his head resolutely.</p> +<p>The next morning Maria arranged her hair as usual. She had +comprehended that something more than mere externals were needful +to change the mind of a man like Wollaston, and she gave up the +attempt, it must be acknowledged, with a little pleasure. Feminine +vanity was inherent in Maria. Nobody knew what the making herself +hideous the day before had cost her.</p> +<p>“Oh, I am so glad you have done up your hair the old +way,” Evelyn cried, when she saw her, and Aunt Maria remarked +that she was glad to see that she had not quite lost her +common-sense.</p> +<p>Maria began herself to think that she had not evinced much sense +in her procedure of the day before. She had underestimated the +character of the man whom she had married, and had made herself +ridiculous for nothing. The boy who was infatuated with her, when +he saw her on the trolley that morning, made a movement to go +forward and speak to her, then he sat still with frequent puzzled +glances at her. He was repelled if Wollaston was not. This changing +of the face of a woman in a day's time filled him with suspicion. +He looked hard at Maria's soft puff of hair, and reflected that it +might be a wig; that anyway he was not so much in love as he had +thought, with a girl who could look as Maria had done the day +before.</p> +<p>When Maria reached the academy, the teachers greeted her with +enthusiasm. One who was given to exuberance fairly embraced +her.</p> +<p>“Now you are my own beautiful Miss Edgham again,” +said she.</p> +<p>Wollaston, during the opening exercises, only glanced once at +her, then he saw no difference. But he did look at Evelyn, and when +she turned her lovely face away before his gaze and a soft blush +rose over her round cheeks he felt his pulses quicken. But he did +not speak a word to Maria or Evelyn all day.</p> +<p>When Evelyn went home that night she was very sober. She would +not eat her supper, and Maria was sure that she heard her sobbing +in the night. The next morning the child looked pale and wan, and +Aunt Maria asked harshly if she were sick. Evelyn replied no +quickly. When she and Maria were outside waiting for the trolley, +Evelyn said, half catching her breath with a sob even then:</p> +<p>“Mr. Lee didn't speak a word to me all day yesterday. I +know he did not like it because we didn't go to lunch with +him.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense, dear,” said Maria. Then she added, with +an odd, secretive meaning in her voice: “Don't worry, +precious.”</p> +<p>“I can't help it,” said Evelyn.</p> +<p>When the term was about half finished it became evident to Maria +that she and Evelyn must call upon Mrs. Lee, Wollaston's mother. +She had put it off as long as she could, although all the other +teachers had called, and Aunt Maria had kept urging her to do +so.</p> +<p>“She is going to think it is awful funny if you don't +call,” she said, “when you used to live in the same +place, too.”</p> +<p>In reality, Aunt Maria, now that George Ramsey had married, was +thinking that Wollaston might be a good match for Maria, and she +wished to prevent her marriage with Professor Lane should he return +from Colorado cured.</p> +<p>At last Maria felt that she was fairly obliged to go, and one +Saturday afternoon she and Evelyn went to Westbridge for the +purpose. Wollaston and his mother lived in an exceedingly pretty +house. Mrs. Lee had artistic taste, and the rooms were unusual +though simple. Maria looking about, felt a sort of homesick +longing. She realized how perfectly a home like this would have +suited her. As for Evelyn, she looked about with quick, bright +glances, and she treated Mrs. Lee as if she were in love with her. +She was all the time wondering if Wollaston would possibly come in, +and in lieu of him, she played off her innocent graces with no +reserve upon his mother. Wollaston did not come in. He had gone to +the city, but when he came home his mother told him of the +call.</p> +<p>“Those Edgham girls who used to live in Edgham, the one +who teaches in your school, and her sister, called this +afternoon,” said she.</p> +<p>“Did they?” responded Wollaston. He turned a page of +the evening paper. It was after dinner, and the mother and son were +sitting in a tiny room off the parlor, from which it was separated +by some eastern portières. There was a fire on the hearth. +The two windows, which were close together, were filled up with red +and white geraniums. There was a red rug, and the walls were lined +with books. Outside it had begun to snow, and the flakes drifted +past the windows filled with red and white blossoms like a silvery +veil of the storm.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Lee. Then she added, with a keen +although covert glance at her son: “I like the younger +sister.”</p> +<p>“She is considered quite a beauty, I believe,” said +Wollaston.</p> +<p>“Quite a beauty; she is a perfect beauty,” said his +mother with emphasis. “It seemed to me I never had seen such +a perfectly beautiful, sweet girl. I declare, I actually wanted to +take her in my arms. Anybody could live with that girl. As for her +sister, I don't like her at all.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Lee was very like her son. She had the same square jaw and +handsome face, which had little of the truly feminine in it. Her +clear blue eyes surveyed every new person with whom she came in +contact in her new dwelling place, with impartial and pitiless +scrutiny. When she liked people she said so. When she did not she +also said so, and, as far as she could, let them alone. When she +spoke now, she looked as if Maria's face was actually before her. +She did not frown, but her expression was one of complete hostility +and unsparing judgment.</p> +<p>“Why don't you like her?” asked her son, with his +eyes upon his paper.</p> +<p>“Why don't I like her? She is New England to the backbone, +and one who is New England to the backbone is insufferable. She is +stiff and set in her ways. She would go to the stake for a fad, or +send her nearest and dearest there.”</p> +<p>“She is a very good teacher, and the pupils like +her,” said Wollaston. He kept his voice quite steady.</p> +<p>“She may be a very good teacher,” said his mother. +“I dare say she is. I can't imagine anybody not learning a +task which she set them, but I don't like her.”</p> +<p>“She is pretty—at least, she is called so,” +said Wollaston. Then he added, with an impulse of loyalty: “I +think myself that she is very pretty.”</p> +<p>“I don't call her at all pretty,” said his mother. +“She has a nose which looks as if it could pierce fate, and +she sets her mouth as though she was deciding the laws of the +universe. It is all very well in a man, that kind of a face, but I +can't call it pretty in a woman.”</p> +<p>Wollaston glanced at his mother, and an expression of covert +amusement was on his face as he reflected that his mother herself +answered her own description of poor Maria, and did not dream of +it. In fact, the two, although one was partly of New England +heritage, and the other of a wholly different, more southern State, +they were typically alike. They could meet only to love or quarrel; +there could never be neutrality between them. Wollaston said no +more, but continued reading his paper. He did not in reality sense +one word which he read. He acknowledged to himself that he was very +unhappy. He was caught in a labyrinth from which he saw no way of +escape into the open. He realized that love for Maria had become +almost impossible—that is, spontaneous love—even if she +should change her attitude towards him. He realized a lurking sense +of guilt as to his sentiments towards Evelyn, and he realized also +that his mother and Maria could never live together in peace. Once +Mrs. Lee took a dislike, her very soul fastened upon it as with a +grip of iron jaws. Doubtless if she knew that her son was in honor +bound to Maria she would try to make the best of it, but the best +of it would be bad enough. He wondered while he sat with the paper +before his face what Maria's real attitude towards him was. He +could not understand such apparent inconsistencies in a woman of +his mother's type, and he had been almost sure that one night that +Maria loved him.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXV</h4> +<p>Maria, after that call, faced her future course more fully than +ever. She had disliked Mrs. Lee as much as Mrs. Lee had disliked +her. Only the fact that she was Wollaston's mother made her +endurable to her.</p> +<p>“Isn't Mrs. Lee perfectly lovely?” said Evelyn, when +she and Maria were on their way home.</p> +<p>“Yes,” Maria answered, but she did not think so. +Mrs. Lee shone for her only with reflected glory.</p> +<p>“I wonder where Mr. Lee was?” Evelyn murmured, +timidly.</p> +<p>“I don't know,” Maria said with an absent air. +“We did not go to call on him.”</p> +<p>“Of course we didn't,” said Evelyn. “Don't be +cross, sister.”</p> +<p>“I am not in the least cross,” Maria answered with +perfect truth.</p> +<p>“I didn't know but you were, you spoke so,” said +Evelyn. She leaned wearily against her sister, and looked ahead +with a hollow, wistful expression.</p> +<p>Evelyn had grown thin and lost much of her color. Aunt Maria and +Eunice talked about it when they were alone.</p> +<p>“I wonder if there is any consumption in her mother's +family?” Aunt Maria said.</p> +<p>“I wonder,” said Eunice. “I don't like the way +she looks.”</p> +<p>“Well, don't say anything about it to Maria, for she will +worry herself sick,” said Aunt Maria. “She sets her +eyes by Evelyn.”</p> +<p>“Don't you think she notices?”</p> +<p>“No, she hasn't said a word about it.”</p> +<p>But Aunt Maria was wrong. Maria had noticed. That afternoon, +returning from Westbridge, she looked anxiously down at her +sister.</p> +<p>“Don't you feel well, dear?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Perfectly well,” Evelyn replied languidly, +“only I am a little tired.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps it is the spring weather,” said Maria.</p> +<p>Evelyn nodded. It was the beginning of the spring term, and +spring came like a flood that year. The trees fairly seemed to +burst forth in green-and-rosy flames, and the shrubs in the +door-yards bloomed so boldly that they shocked rather than +pleased.</p> +<p>“I like the spring to come slowly, so one does not feel +choked with it,” Evelyn said after a little, as she gazed out +of the window. “There are actually daisies in that field. +They have come too soon.” Evelyn spoke with an absurd +petulance which was unusual with her.</p> +<p>Maria laughed. “Well, dear, we can't help it,” she +said.</p> +<p>“If this world is for people, and not the people for this +world, it seems to me we ought to be able to help a little,” +said Evelyn with perfectly unconscious heresy. “There it +rained too much last week, and this week it is too hot, and the +apple blossoms have come too soon after the cherry blossoms. It is +like eating all your candy in one big pill.”</p> +<p>Maria laughed again, but Evelyn sighed wearily. The car was very +hot and close.</p> +<p>“I shall be thankful when we get home,” Evelyn +said.</p> +<p>“Yes, you will feel better when you get home and have some +supper,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“I don't want any supper,” said Evelyn.</p> +<p>“If you don't eat any supper you cannot study this +evening.”</p> +<p>“I must study,” said Evelyn with a feverish light in +her eyes.</p> +<p>“You can't unless you eat.”</p> +<p>“Well, I will drink some milk,” said Evelyn. She was +studying very hard. She was very ambitious, both naturally and +because of her feeling for Wollaston Lee. It seemed to her that she +should die if she did not stand well in her class. Evelyn had +received so little notice from Wollaston that she had made up her +mind that he did not care for her, and the conviction was breaking +her heart, but she said to herself that she would graduate with +honors that she might have that much, that she must.</p> +<p>The graduating with honors would have been easy to the girl, for +she had naturally a quick grasp of knowledge, but her failing +health and her almost unconquerable languor made it hard for her to +work as usual. However, she persisted. It became evident that she +would stand first among the girls of her class, and only second to +one boy, who had a large brain and little emotion, and was so +rendered almost impregnable. Ida sent Evelyn a graduating costume +from Paris, and the girl brightened a little after she had tried it +on. She could not quite give up all hope of being loved when she +saw herself in that fluffy white robe, and looked over her slender +shoulder at her graceful train, and reflected how she would not +only look pretty but acquit herself with credit. She said to +herself that if she were a man she should love herself. There was +about Evelyn an almost comical naïveté and +truthfulness.</p> +<p>Ida also sent Maria a gown for the graduating exercises. Hers +was a pale blue, very pretty, but not as pretty as Evelyn's. The +night after the gowns came Maria was startled by a sudden rush into +her room when she was almost asleep, and Evelyn nestling into her +arms and sobbing out that she was sorry, she was sorry, but she +could not help it.</p> +<p>“Can't help what, darling?” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Can't help being glad that my dress is so much prettier +than yours,” wept Evelyn. “I am sorry, sister, but I +can't help it, and I am so ashamed I had to come in and tell +you.”</p> +<p>Maria laughed and kissed her. “Sister is very glad yours +is the prettiest,” she said.</p> +<p>“Oh, I am so sorry I am so selfish,” sobbed Evelyn. +Then she added, in a tiny whisper, “I know now he won't ever +think of me, but I can't help being glad I shall look nice for him +to see, anyway.”</p> +<p>Evelyn was asleep long before her sister. Maria lay awake, with +the little, frail body in her arms, realizing with horror how very +frail and thin it was. Evelyn was of the sort whom emotion can +kill. She was being consumed like a lamp which needed oil. Love was +for the girl not only a need but a condition of life. Maria was +realizing it. At the same time she said to herself that possibly +after school was over and Evelyn could rest she might regain her +strength. There seemed to be no organic trouble. The local +physician had been consulted, and said that nothing whatever was +the matter, yet had gone away with a grave face after prescribing a +simple tonic. The fact was that life was flickering low, as it +sometimes does, with no ostensible reason which science could +grasp. Evelyn was beyond science. She was assailed in that citadel +of spirit which overlooks science from the heights of eternity. No +physician but fate itself could help her.</p> +<p>All this time, while Maria was suffering as keenly as her +sister, her suffering left no evidence. She had inherited from her +mother a tremendous strength of will, which sustained her. She said +to herself that she had her work to do, that her health must not +fail. She said that probably Wollaston did not care for her, +although she could not help thinking that she had the power to make +him care, and that she would be lacking in all that meant her true +and best self should she give way to her unhappiness and let it +master her. She therefore mastered it. In those days to Maria, who +had a ready imagination, her unhappiness seemed sometimes to assume +a material shape like the fabulous dragon. She seemed to be +fighting something with tooth and claw, a monstrous verity; but she +fought, and she kept the upper hand. Maria did not lose flesh. She +ate as usual, she retained her interest in her work, and all the +time whenever a moment of solitude came she renewed the conflict. +She thought as little as possible of Wollaston; she avoided even +looking at him. He thought that he really was an object of aversion +to her. He began to question the advisability of his retaining his +position another year. He told himself that it was hardly fair to +Maria to subject her to such annoyance, that it was much easier for +him to obtain another position than it was for her. He wanted to +ask her with regard to it, but in the days before commencement she +so manifestly shrank from even looking at him that he hardly liked +to approach her even with a question which concerned her own +happiness.</p> +<p>Wollaston in those days used sometimes to glance at Evelyn, and +notice how very thin and delicate she looked, and an anxiety which +was almost paternal was over him. He used almost to wish that she +was not so proficient in her studies. One day, meeting her in the +vestibule when no one was in sight, he could not resist the impulse +which led him to pat her little, dark, curly head and say, in a +voice broken with tenderness:</p> +<p>“Don't study too hard, little one.”</p> +<p>Evelyn gave an upward glance at him and ran away. Wollaston +stood still a moment, dazed. He was not naturally a conceited man. +Then, too, he had always regarded himself as so outside the pale +that he doubted the evidence of his own senses. If he had not been +tied to Evelyn's sister he would have said to himself, in a +rapture, that that look of the young girl's meant, could mean, only +one thing: that all her innocent heart was centred upon himself. It +would have savored no more of conceit that the seeing his face in a +mirror. He would simply have thought it the truth. But now, since +he was always forgetting that other women did not know the one +woman's secret, and looked upon him as an unmarried man, and +therefore a fit target for their innocent wiles, the preening of +their dainty dove plumage, he said to himself that he must have +been mistaken. That Evelyn had looked at him as she had done only +because she was nervous and overwrought, and the least thing was +sufficient to disturb her equilibrium.</p> +<p>However, he was very careful not to address Evelyn particularly +again, but that one little episode had been sufficient for the girl +to build another air castle upon. That night when she went home she +was radiant with happiness. Her color had returned, smiles lit her +whole face. Ineffable depths of delight sparkled in her eyes. It +seemed almost a sacrilege to look at the young girl, whose heart +was so plainly evident in her face. Maria looked at her, and felt a +chill in her own heart.</p> +<p>“Something must have happened,” she said to herself. +She thought that Evelyn would tell her, but she did not; she ate +her supper with more appetite than she had shown for many a week. +Her gayety in the evening, when some neighbors came in, was so +unrestrained and childlike that it was fairly infectious. They sat +out on the front door-step. It had been a warm day, and the evening +cool was welcome and laughter floated out into the street. It was +laughter over nothing, but irresistible, induced because of the +girl's exuberant mood. She felt that night as if there was no +meaning in the world except happiness and fun. George Ramsey, going +home about nine o'clock, heard the laughter, and shrugged his +shoulders rather bitterly. Lily had made him such a good wife, +according to the tenets of wifehood, that he had apparently no +reason to complain. She was always perfectly amiable and +affectionate, not violently affectionate, but with the sort of +affection which does not ruffle laces nor disarrange hair, and that +he had always considered the most desirable sort of affection in +the long-run. She and his mother got on very well also—that +is, apparently. Lily, it was true, always had her way, but she had +it so gently and unobtrusively that one really doubted if she were +not herself the conceder. She always looked the same, she dressed +daintily, and arranged her fair hair beautifully. George did not +own to himself that sameness irritated him when it was such +charming sameness. However, he did sometimes realize, and sternly +put it away from him, a little sting when he happened to meet +Maria. He had a feeling as if he had gone from a waxwork show and +met a real woman.</p> +<p>To-night when he heard the peals of laughter from the front door +of the Stillman house he felt the sting again, and an unwarrantable +childish indignation as if he had been left out of something and +slighted. He was conscious of wishing when he reached home that his +wife would greet him with a frown and reproaches; in fact, with +something new, instead of her sweet, gentle smile of admiration, +looking up from her everlasting embroidering, from where she sat +beside the sitting-room lamp. George felt furious with her for +admiring him. He sat down moodily and took up the evening paper. +His mother was not there. She had gone to her room early with a +headache.</p> +<p>Finally, Lily remarked that it was a beautiful night, and it was +as exactly what might have been expected from her flower-like lips +as the squeaking call for mamma of a talking doll. George almost +grunted a response, and rattled his paper loudly. Lily looked at +him with a little surprise, but with unfailing love and admiration. +George had sometimes a feeling that if he were to beat her she +would continue to admire him and think it lovely of him. Lily had, +in fact, the soul of an Oriental woman in the midst of New England. +She would have figured admirably in a harem. George, being +Occidental to his heart's core, felt an exasperation the worse +because it was needfully dumb, on account of this adoration. He +thought less of himself because his wife thought he could do no +wrong. The power of doing wrong is, after all, a power, and George +had a feeling of having lost that power and of being in a negative +way wronged. Finally he spoke crossly to Lily over his +newspaper.</p> +<p>“Why do you stick so to that everlasting +fancy-work?” said he. “Why on earth don't you sometimes +run out of an evening? You never go into the next house +nowadays.”</p> +<p>Lily arose directly.</p> +<p>“We will go over there now if you wish,” said she. +She laid down her work and smoothed her hair with her doll-like +gesture, which never varied.</p> +<p>George looked at her surlily and irresolutely.</p> +<p>“No, I guess we had better not to-night,” he +said.</p> +<p>“I had just as lief, dear.”</p> +<p>George rose, letting his paper slide to the floor.</p> +<p>“Well,” he said, “they are all out on the +front door-step, and I think some of the neighbors are there, too. +We might run over a moment. It is too hot to stay in the house, +anyway.”</p> +<p>But when George and Lily came alongside the Stillman house the +laughter was hushed, and there was a light in Aunt Maria's bedroom, +and lights also in the chambers behind the drawn curtains.</p> +<p>“We are too late,” said George. “They have +gone to bed.”</p> +<p>“I think they have,” replied Lily, looking up at the +lighted bedroom windows. Then she added, “I will go over +there any evening you wish, dear,” and looked at him with +that unfailing devotion which unreasonably angered him.</p> +<p>He answered her quite roughly, and was ashamed of himself +afterwards.</p> +<p>“It is a frightfully monotonous life we lead +anyhow,” said he, as if she, Lily, were responsible for +it.</p> +<p>“Suppose we go away a week somewhere next month,” +said Lily.</p> +<p>“Well, I'll think of it,” said he, striding along by +her side. Even that suggestion, which was entirely reasonable, +angered him, and he felt furious and ashamed of himself for being +so angered.</p> +<p>Lily was constantly making him ashamed of himself for not being +a god and for feeling unreasonable anger when she did nothing to +provoke it. Once in a while a man likes to have a reasonable cause +for resentment in order to prove himself in the right.</p> +<p>“Well, I am ready to go whenever you wish to do so, +dear,” said Lily. “My wardrobe is in order.”</p> +<p>“Well, we'll see,” George grunted again, as he and +Lily retraced their steps.</p> +<p>They sat down again in the sitting-room, and Lily took up her +embroidery, and he read a murder case in his paper.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Maria, after putting out her lamp, was lying awake in +bed thinking that Evelyn would come in and make some confidence to +her, but she did not come. Maria felt horribly uneasy. She could +not understand her sister's sudden change of mood, and yet she did +not for a moment doubt Wollaston. She said to herself that as far +as she was concerned she would brave the publicity if Wollaston +loved Evelyn, but she recalled as exactly as if she had committed +them to heart what Evelyn had said with regard to divorce and the +horror which she had expressed of a divorced man or woman +remarrying. Then she further considered how much worse it would be +if the divorced man married her own sister. That course seemed to +her impossible. She imagined the horrible details, the surmises, +the newspaper articles, and she said to herself that even if she +herself were willing to face the ordeal it would be still more of +an ordeal for Wollaston and Evelyn. She said to herself that it was +impossible; then she also said to herself, with no bitterness, but +with an acquiescence in the logic of it, that it would be much +better for them all if she, Maria, should die.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXVI</h4> +<p>Evelyn's return of appetite and spirits endured only a few days. +Then she seemed worse than she had been before. In fact, Wollaston, +thinking that he had done wrong in yielding for only a second to +his impulse of tender protection and admiration for the young girl, +went too far in the opposite direction. In order to make amends to +Maria, himself, and Evelyn, he was actually rude, almost brutal. He +scarcely spoke to Evelyn. On one occasion he even reprimanded her +severely in a class for a slight mistake. Evelyn turned pale, and +gave him a glance like that of some pretty, little, harmless animal +which has nothing except love and devotion in its heart, and whose +very mistakes are those of love and over-anxiety to please. +Wollaston was struck to the heart by the look, but he did not relax +one muscle of his stern face.</p> +<p>“I think Mr. Lee treated you mean, so there,” Addie +Hemingway said to Evelyn when they had left the room.</p> +<p>Evelyn said nothing. Her face continued pale and shocked. It was +inconceivable to her that anybody, least of all Mr. Lee, could have +spoken so to her.</p> +<p>“He's treating you like a child,” Addie Hemingway +continued. “Mr. Lee has no right to speak so to +seniors.” Addie's words were in themselves sympathetic, but +there was an undertone of delight at the other girl's discomfiture +in her voice which she could not eliminate. In reality she was +saying to herself that Evelyn Edgham, in spite of her being so +pretty, had had to meet a rebuff, and she exulted in it.</p> +<p>Evelyn still said nothing. She left Addie abruptly and joined +Maria in her class-room. It was the noon-hour. Maria glanced +anxiously at her sister as she entered.</p> +<p>“Why, darling, what is the matter?” she cried.</p> +<p>“Nothing,” replied Evelyn. An impulse of loyalty +seized her. She would not repeat, not even to Maria, the unkind +words which Mr. Lee had used towards her.</p> +<p>“But you look so pale, dear,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“It was warm in there,” said Evelyn, with a quiet, +dejected air unusual to her.</p> +<p>Maria could not get any admission that anything was wrong from +her. Evelyn tried to eat her luncheon, making more of an effort +than usual, but she could not. At last she laid her head down on +her sister's table and wept with the utter abandon of a child, but +she still would not tell what caused her tears.</p> +<p>After that Evelyn lost flesh so rapidly that it became alarming. +Maria and her aunt wondered if they ought to allow her to go +through the strain of the graduation exercises, but neither dared +say anything about it to her. Evelyn's whole mind seemed fastened +upon her graduation and the acquitting of herself with credit. She +studied assiduously. She often used to go into the spare chamber +and gaze at her graduating dress, which was spread out on the bed +there covered with a sheet.</p> +<p>“She's so set on that graduation and wearing that +dress,” Aunt Maria said to Eunice Stillman, her +sister-in-law, one day when she was alone with her in her parlor +and heard Evelyn's light step overhead. “She goes in there +almost every day and looks at it.”</p> +<p>Eunice sighed. “Well, I wish she looked better,” +said she.</p> +<p>“So do I. It seems to me that she loses every +day.”</p> +<p>“Did you ever think—” began Eunice. Then she +stopped and hesitated.</p> +<p>“Think what?”</p> +<p>“If—anything happened to her, that that dress—”</p> +<p>“Oh, for the land sake, stop, Eunice!” cried Aunt +Maria, impatiently. “Ain't I had it on my mind the whole +time. And that dress looks just as if it was laid out +there.”</p> +<p>“Do you think Maria notices?”</p> +<p>“Yes, she's just as worried as I am. But what can we do? +Maybe if Evelyn gets through the graduation she will be better. I +shall be thankful when it's over, for my part.”</p> +<p>“How that child's mother could have gone off and left her +all this time I don't see,” Eunice said. “If I were in +her place and anything happened to her, I should never forgive +myself.”</p> +<p>“Trust Ida Slome to forgive herself for most +anything,” Aunt Maria returned, bitterly. “But as far +as that goes, I guess the child has had full as good care here as +she would have had with her ma.”</p> +<p>“I guess so, too,” said Eunice; +“better—only I should never forgive myself.”</p> +<p>That was only a week before the graduation day, which was on a +Wednesday. It was a clear June day, with a sky of blue, veiled here +and there with wing-shaped clouds. It was quite warm. Evelyn +dressed herself very early. She was ready long before it was time +to take the car. Evelyn, in her white graduating dress, was fairly +angelic. Although she had lost so much flesh, it had not affected +her beauty, only made it more touching. Her articulations and bones +were so fairy-like and delicate that even with her transparent +sleeved and necked dress there were no unseemly protuberances. Her +slenderness, moreover, was not so apparent in her fluffy gown. +Above her necklace of pink corals her lovely face showed. It was +full of a gentle and uncomplaining melancholy, yet that day there +was a tinge of hope in it. The faintest and most appealing smile +curved her lips. She looked at everybody with a sort of wistful +challenge. It was as if she said: “After all, am I not +pretty, and worthy of being loved? Am I not worthy of being loved, +even if I am not, and I have all my books in my head, +too?”</p> +<p>Maria had given her a bouquet of red roses. When Evelyn in her +turn came forward to read her essay, holding her red roses, with +red roses of excitement burning on her delicate cheeks, there was a +low murmur of admiration. Then it was that Maria, in her blue gown, +seated among the other teachers, caught the look on Wollaston Lee's +face. It was unmistakable. It was a look of the utmost love and +longing and admiration, the soul of the man, for the minute, was +plainly to be read. In a second, the look was gone, but Maria had +seen. “He is in love with her,” she told herself, +“only he is so honorable that he chokes the love back.” +Maria turned very pale, but she listened with smiling lips to +Evelyn's essay. It was very good, but not much beyond the usual +rate of such productions. Evelyn had nothing creative about her, +although she was even a brilliant scholar. But the charm of that +little flutelike voice, coming from that slight, white-clad beauty, +made even platitudes seem like something higher than wisdom.</p> +<p>When Evelyn had finished there was a great round of applause and +a shower of flowers. She returned again and again, and bowed, +smiling delightedly. She was flushed with her triumph. She thought +that even Mr. Lee must be pleased with her, if he did not love her, +and be proud to have such a pupil.</p> +<p>That evening there was to be a reception for the teachers, and +the graduating-class, at Mr. Lee's house. Evelyn and Maria had +planned to go to one of the other teacher's, who lived in +Westbridge, have supper, and go from there to the reception. But +when the exercises were over, and they had reached the teacher's +home, Evelyn's strength gave way. She had a slight fainting fit. +The teacher, an elderly woman who lived alone, gave her home-made +wine and made her take off her dress, put on one of her own +wrappers, and lie down and rest until the last minute, in the hope +that she would be able to go to the reception. But it became +evident that the girl was too exhausted. When Maria and the teacher +were fastening her dress again, she fainted the second time. The +teacher, who was a decisive woman, spoke.</p> +<p>“There is no sense whatever in this child's leaving this +house to-night,” said she. “Maria, you go to the +reception, and I will stay and take care of her.”</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria. “If Evelyn is not able to +go, I think we had better take the trolley at once for home.” +Maria was as decided as the other teacher. When the white-clad +graduates and the teachers were gathering at Wollaston Lee's, she +and Evelyn boarded the trolley for Amity. Evelyn still held fast to +her bouquet of red roses, and Maria was laden with baskets and +bouquets which had been strewn at her shrine. Evelyn leaned back in +her seat, with her head resting against the window, and did not +speak. All her animation of the morning had vanished. She looked +ghastly. Maria kept glancing furtively at her. She herself looked +nearly as pale as Evelyn. She realized that she was face to face +with a great wall of problem. She was as unhappy as Evelyn, but she +was stronger to bear unhappiness. She had philosophy, and logic, +and her young sister was a creature of pure emotion, and at the +same time she was so innocent and ignorant that she was completely +helpless before it. Evelyn closed her eyes as she leaned against +the window-frame, and a chill crept over her sister as she thought +that she could not look much different if she were dead. Then came +to Maria the conviction that this sister's life meant more than +anything else in the world to her. That she could bear the loss of +everything rather than that, and when she too would not be able to +avoid the sense of responsibility for it. If she had not been so +headlong and absurdly impetuous years ago, Evelyn might easily have +been happy and lived.</p> +<p>When they reached home, Aunt Maria, who had come on an earlier +car, was already in her bedroom and the front-door was fastened and +the sitting-room windows were dark. Maria knocked on the door, and +presently she heard footsteps, then Aunt Maria's voice, asking, +with an assumption of masculine harshness, who were there.</p> +<p>“It is only I and Evelyn,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>Then the door was opened, and Aunt Maria, in her ruffled +night-gown and cap, holding a streaming lamp, stood back hastily +lest somebody see her. “Come in and shut the door quick, for +goodness sake!” said she. “I am all +undressed.”</p> +<p>Maria and Evelyn went in, and Maria closed and locked the +door.</p> +<p>“What have you come home for?” asked Aunt Maria. +“Why didn't you go to the reception, and stay at Miss +Thomas's, the way you said you were going to, I'd like to +know?”</p> +<p>“Evelyn didn't feel very well, and I thought we'd better +come home,” replied Maria, with a little note of evasion in +her voice.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria turned and looked sharply at Evelyn, who was leaning +against the wall. She was faint again, and she looked, in her white +dress with her slender curves, like a bas-relief. “What on +earth is the matter with her?” asked Aunt Maria in her angry +voice, which was still full of the most loving concern. She caught +hold of Evelyn's slight arm. “You are all tired out, just as +I expected,” she said. “I call the whole thing pure +tomfoolery. If girls want to get educated, let them, but when it +comes to making such a parade when they are all worn out with +education there is no sense in it. Maria, you get her up-stairs to +bed.”</p> +<p>Evelyn was too exhausted to make any resistance. She allowed +Maria to assist her up-stairs and undress her. When her sister bent +over her to kiss her good-night, she said, soothingly, “There +now, darling; go to sleep. You will feel better now school is done +and you will have a chance to rest.”</p> +<p>But Evelyn responded with the weakest and most hopeless little +sob.</p> +<p>“Don't cry, precious,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Won't you tell if I tell you something?” said +Evelyn, raising herself on one slender arm.</p> +<p>“No, dear.”</p> +<p>“Well—he does—care a good deal about me. I +know now. I—I met him out in the grove after the exercises +were over, and—there was nobody there, and he—he caught +hold of my arms, and, Maria, he looked at me, but—” +Evelyn burst into a weak little wail.</p> +<p>“What is it, dear?”</p> +<p>“Oh, I don't know what it is, but for some reason he +thinks he can't tell me. He did not say so, but he made me know, +and—and oh, Maria, he is going away! He is not coming back to +Westbridge at all. He is going to get another place!”</p> +<p>“Nonsense!”</p> +<p>“Yes, it is so. He said so. Oh, Maria! you will think I am +dreadful, and I do love you and Aunt Maria and Uncle Henry and Aunt +Eunice, but I can't help minding his going away where I can never +see him, more than anything else in the world. I can't help loving +him most. I do feel so very badly, sister, that I think I shall +die.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense, darling.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I shall. And I am not ashamed now. I was ashamed +because I thought so much about a man who did not care anything +about me, but now I am not ashamed. I am just killed. A person is +not to blame for being killed. I am not ashamed. I am killed. He is +going away, and I shall never see him again. The sight of him was +something; I shall not even have that. You don't know, sister. I +don't love him for my own self, but for himself. Just the knowing +he is near is something, and I shall not even have that.” +Evelyn was too weak to cry tumultuously, but she made little, +futile moans, and clung to Maria's hand. Maria tried to soothe her, +and finally the child, worn out, seemed to be either asleep or in +the coma of exhaustion.</p> +<p>Then Maria went into her own room. She undressed, and sat down +beside the window with a wrapper over her night-gown. Now she had +to solve her problem. She began as she might have done with a +problem in higher algebra, this problem of the human heart and its +emotions. She said to herself that there were three people. Evelyn, +Wollaston and herself, three known quantities, and an unknown +quantity of happiness, and perhaps life itself, which must be +evolved from them. She eliminated herself and her own happiness not +with any particular realization of self-sacrifice. She came of a +race of women to whom self-sacrifice was more natural than +self-gratification. She was unhappy, but there was no struggle for +happiness to render the unhappiness keener. She thought first of +Evelyn. She loved Wollaston. Maria reasoned, of course, that she +was very young. This first love might not be her only one, but the +girl's health might break under the strain, and she took into +consideration, as she had often done, the fairly abnormal strength +of Evelyn's emotional nature in a slight and frail young body. +Evelyn was easily one who might die because of a thwarted love. +Then Maria thought of Wollaston, and, loving him as she did, she +acknowledged to herself coolly that he was the first to be +considered, his happiness and well being. Even if Evelyn did break +her heart, the man must have the first consideration. She tried to +judge fairly as to whether she or Evelyn would on the whole be the +best for him. She estimated herself, and she estimated Evelyn, and +she estimated the man. Wollaston Lee was a man of a strong nature, +she told herself. He was capable of self-restraint, of holding his +head up from his own weaknesses forever. Maria reasoned that if he +had been a weaker man she would have loved him just the same, and +in that case Evelyn would have been the one to be sacrificed. She +thought that a girl like Evelyn would not have been such a good +wife for a weak man as she herself, who was stronger. But Wollaston +did not need any extraneous strength. On the contrary, some one who +was weaker than he might easily strengthen his strength. It seemed +to her that Evelyn was distinctly better for the man than she. Then +she remembered the look which she had seen on his face when Evelyn +began her essay that day.</p> +<p>“If he does not love her now it is because he is bound to +me,” she thought. “He would most certainly love her if +it were not for me.”</p> +<p>Again it seemed to Maria distinctly better that she should die, +better—that is, for Evelyn and the man. But she had the +thought, with no morbid desire for suicide or any bitterness. It +simply seemed to her as if her elimination would produce that +desirable unknown quantity of happiness.</p> +<p>Elimination and not suicide seemed to her the only course for +her to pursue. She sat far into the night thinking it over. She had +great imagination and great daring. Things were possible to her +which would not have been possible to many—that is, she +considered things as possibilities which would have seemed to many +simply vagaries. She thought of them seriously, with a belief in +their fulfilment. It was almost morning, the birds had just begun +to sing in scattering flute-like notes, when she crept into +bed.</p> +<p>She hardly slept at all. She heard the gathering chorus of the +birds, in a half doze, until seven o'clock. Then she got up and +dressed herself. She peeped cautiously into Evelyn's room. The girl +was sleeping, her long, dark lashes curled upon her wan cheeks. She +looked ghastly, yet still lovely. Maria looked at her, and her +mouth compressed. Then she turned away. She crept noiselessly down +the stairs and into the kitchen where Aunt Maria was preparing +breakfast. The stove smoked a little and the air was blue.</p> +<p>“How is she?” asked Aunt Maria, in a hushed +voice.</p> +<p>“She is fast asleep.”</p> +<p>“Better let her sleep just as long as she will,” +said Aunt Maria. “These exhibitions are pure tomfoolery. She +is just tuckered out.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I think she is,” said Maria.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria looked keenly at her, and her face paled and +lengthened.</p> +<p>“Maria Edgham, what on earth is the matter with +<em>you?</em>” she said. “You look as bad as she does. +Between both of you I am at my wit's end.”</p> +<p>“Nothing ails me,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“Nothing ails you? Look at yourself in the glass +there.”</p> +<p>Maria stole a look at herself in a glass which hung over the +kitchen-table, and she hardly knew her own face, it had gathered +such a strange fixedness of secret purpose. That had altered it +more than her pallor. Maria tried to smile and say again that +nothing ailed her, but she could not. Suddenly a tremendous pity +for her aunt came over her. She had not thought so much about that. +But now she looked at things from her aunt's point of view, and she +saw the pain to which the poor old woman must be put. She saw no +way of avoiding the giving her the pain, but she suffered it +herself. She went up to Aunt Maria and kissed her.</p> +<p>Aunt Maria started back, and rubbed her face violently. +“What did you do that for?” said she, in a frightened +voice. Then she noticed Maria's dress, which was one which she +seldom wore unless she was going out. “What have you got on +your brown suit for this morning?” said she.</p> +<p>“I thought I would go down to the store after breakfast +and get some embroidery silk for that centre-piece,” replied +Maria.</p> +<p>As she spoke she seemed to realize what a little thing a lie +was, and how odd it was that she should realize it, who had been +brought up to speak the truth.</p> +<p>“Your gingham would have been enough sight better to have +worn this hot morning,” said Aunt Maria, still with that air +of terror and suspicion.</p> +<p>“Oh, this dress is light,” replied Maria, going +out.</p> +<p>“Where are you going now?”</p> +<p>“Into the parlor.”</p> +<p>Aunt Maria stood still, listening, until she heard the parlor +door open. She was still filled with vague suspicion. She did not +hear quite as acutely as formerly, and Maria had no difficulty +about leaving the parlor unheard the second after she entered it, +and getting her hat and coat and a small satchel which she had +brought down-stairs with her from the hat-tree in the entry. Then +she opened the front door noiselessly and stole out. She went +rapidly down the street in the direction of the bridge, which she +had been accustomed to cross when she taught school in Amity. She +met Jessy Ramsey, now grown to be as tall as herself, and pretty +with a half-starved, pathetic prettiness. Jessy was on her way to +work. She went out by the day, doing washings. She stopped when she +met Maria, and gave a little, shy look—her old little-girl +look—at her. Maria also stopped. “Good-morning, +Jessy,” said she. Then she asked how she was, if her cough +was better, and where she was going to work. Then, suddenly, to +Jessy's utter amazement and rapture, she kissed her. “I never +forget what a good little girl you were,” said she, and was +gone. Jessy stood for a moment staring after her. Then she wiped +her eyes and proceed to her scene of labor.</p> +<p>Maria went to the railroad station. She was just in time for a +train. She got on the rear car and sat in the last seat. She looked +about and did not see anybody whom she knew. She recalled how she +had run away before, and how Wollaston had brought her back. She +knew that it would not happen so again. She was on a through train +which did not stop at the station where he had found her. When the +train slowed up a little in passing that station, she saw the bench +on the platform where she had sat, and a curious sensation came +over her. She was like one who has made the leap and realizes that +there is nothing more to dread, and who gets even a certain +abnormal pleasure from the sensation. When the conductor came +through the car she purchased her ticket for New York, and asked +when the train was due in the city. When she learned that it was +due at an hour so late that it would be impossible for her to go, +as she had planned, to Edgham that night, she did not, even then, +for the time being, feel in the least dismayed. She had plenty of +money. Her last quarter's salary was in her little satchel. The +train was made up of Pullmans only, and it was by a good chance +that she had secured a seat. She gazed out of the large window at +the flying landscape, and again that sense of pleasure in the midst +of pain was over her. The motion itself was exhilarating. She +seemed to be speeding past herself and her own anxieties, which +suddenly appeared as petty and evanescent as the flying +telegraph-poles along the track. “It has to be over some +time,” she reflected. “Nothing matters.” She felt +comforted by a realization of immensity and the continuance of +motion. She comprehended her own atomic nature in the great scheme +of things. She had never done so before. Her own interests had +always loomed up before her like a beam in the eye of God. Now she +saw that they were infinitesimal, and the knowledge soothed her. +She leaned her head back and dozed a little. She was awakened by +the porter thrusting a menu into her hands. She ordered something. +It was not served promptly, and she had no appetite. There was some +tea which tasted of soap.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXVII</h4> +<p>There were very few people in this car, for the reason that +there had recently been a terrible rear-end collision on the road, +and people had flocked into the forward cars. There were three +young girls who filled the car with chatter, and irritated Maria +unreasonably. They were very pretty and well dressed, and with no +reserve. They were as inconsequently confidential about their own +affairs as so many sparrows, but more intelligible. One by one the +men left and went into the smoker, before this onslaught of harsh +trebles shrieking above the roar of the train, obtruding their +little, bird-like affairs, their miniature hoppings upon the stage +of life, upon all in the car.</p> +<p>Finally, there were none left in the car except Maria, these +young girls, an old lady, who accosted the conductors whenever they +entered and asked when the train was due in New York (a tremulous, +vibratory old lady in antiquated frills and an agitatedly sidewise +bonnet, and loose black silk gloves), and across the aisle a tiny, +deformed woman, a dwarf, in fact, with her maid. This little woman +was richly dressed, and she had a fine face. She was old enough to +be Maria's mother. Her eyes were dark and keen, her forehead +domelike, and her square, resigned chin was sunken in the laces at +her throat. Her maid was older than she, and waited upon her with a +faithful solicitude. The little woman had some tea, which the maid +produced from a small silver caddy in a travelling-bag, and the +porter, with an obsequious air, brought boiling water in two squat, +plated tea-pots. It was the tea which served to introduce Maria. +She had just pushed aside, with an air half of indifference, half +of disgust, her own luke-warm concoction flavored with soap, when +the maid, at her mistress's order, touched the bell. When the +porter appeared, Maria heard the dwarf ask for another pot of +boiling water, and presently the maid stood beside her with a cup +of fragrant tea.</p> +<p>“Miss Blair wishes me to ask if you will not drink this +instead of the other, which she fears is not quite +satisfactory,” the maid said, in an odd, acquired tone and +manner of ladyism, as if she were repeating a lesson, yet there +seemed nothing artificial about it. She regarded Maria with a +respectful air. Maria looked across at the dwarf woman, who was +looking at her with kindly eyes which yet seemed aloof, +and a half-sardonic, half-pleasant smile.</p> +<p>Maria thanked her and took the tea, which was excellent, and +refreshed her. The maid returned to her seat, facing her mistress. +They had finished their luncheon. She leaned back in her chair with +a blank expression of face. The dwarf looked out of the window, and +that same half-pleasant, half-sardonic smile remained upon her +face. It was as if she regarded all nature with amused acquiescence +and sarcasm, at its inability to harm her, although it had made the +endeavor.</p> +<p>Maria glanced at her very rich black attire, and a great pearl +cross which gleamed at her throat, and she wondered a little about +her. Then she turned again to the flying landscape, and again that +sense of unnatural peace came over her. She did not think of Evelyn +and Wollaston, or her aunts and uncle, whom she was leaving, except +with the merest glance of thought. It was as if she were already in +another world.</p> +<p>The train sped on, and the girls continued their chatter, and +their high-shrieking trebles arose triumphant above all the +clatter. It was American girlhood rampant on the shield of their +native land. Still there was something about the foolish young +faces and the inane chatter and laughter which was sweet and even +appealing. They became attractive from their audaciousness and +their ignorance that they were troublesome. Their confidence in the +admiration of all who saw and heard almost compelled it. Their +postures, their crossing their feet with lavish displays of +lingerie and dainty feet and hose, was possibly the very boldness +of innocence, although Maria now and then glanced at them and +thought of Evelyn, and was thankful that she was not like them.</p> +<p>The little dwarf also glanced now and then at them with her +pleasant and sardonic smile and with an unruffled patience. She +seemed either to look up from the depths of, or down from the +heights of, her deformity upon them, and to hardly sense them at +all. None of the men returned until a large city was reached, where +some of them were to get off. Then they lounged into the car, were +brushed, took their satchels, and when the train reached the +station swung out, with the unfailing trebles still in their +ears.</p> +<p>Before the train reached New York, all the many appurtenances +had vanished from the car. The chattering girls also had alighted +at a station, with a renewed din like a flock of birds, and there +were then left in the rear car only Maria, the dwarf woman, and her +maid.</p> +<p>It was not until the train was lighted, and she could no longer +see anything from the window except signal-lights and lighted +windows of towns through which they whirled, that Maria's unnatural +mood disappeared. Suddenly she glanced around the lighted car, and +terror seized her. She was no longer a very young girl; she had +much strength of character, but she was unused to the world. For +the first time she seemed to feel the cold waters of it touch her +very heart. She thought of the great and terrible city into which +she was to launch herself late at night. She considered that she +knew absolutely nothing about the hotels. She even remembered, +vaguely, having heard that no unattended woman was admitted to one, +and then she had no baggage except her little satchel. She glanced +at herself in the little glass beside her seat, and her pretty face +all at once occurred to her as being a great danger rather than an +advantage. Now she wished for her aunt Maria's face instead of her +own. She imagined that Aunt Maria might have no difficulty even +under the same adverse circumstances. She looked years younger than +she was. She thought for a moment of going into the lavatory and +rearranging her hair, with a view to making herself look plain and +old, as she had done before, but she recalled the enormous change +it had made in her appearance, and she was afraid to do that lest +it should seem a suspicious circumstance to the conductors and her +fellow-passengers. She glanced across the aisle at the dwarf woman, +and their eyes met, and suddenly a curious sort of feeling of +kinship came over the girl. Here was another woman outside the pale +of ordinary life by physical conditions, as she herself was by +spiritual ones. The dwarf's eyes looked fairly angelic and heavenly +to her. She saw her speak in a whisper to her maid, and the woman +immediately arose and came to her.</p> +<p>“Miss Blair wishes me to ask if you will be so kind as to +go and speak to her; she has something which she wishes to say to +you,” she said, in the same parrot-like fashion.</p> +<p>Maria arose at once, and crossed the aisle and seated herself in +the chair which the maid vacated. The maid took Maria's at a nod +from her mistress.</p> +<p>The little woman looked at Maria for a moment with her keen, +kind eyes and her peculiar smile deepened. Then she spoke. +“What is the matter?” she asked.</p> +<p>Maria hesitated.</p> +<p>The dwarf looked across at her maid. “She will not +understand anything you say,” she remarked. “She is +well trained. She can hear without hearing—that is her great +accomplishment.”</p> +<p>Still Maria said nothing.</p> +<p>“You got on at Amity,” said the dwarf. “Is +that where you live?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“What is your name?”</p> +<p>Maria closed her mouth firmly.</p> +<p>The dwarf laughed. “Oh, very well,” said she. +“If you do not choose to tell it, I can. Your name is +Ackley—Elizabeth Ackley. I am glad to meet you, Miss +Ackley.”</p> +<p>Maria paled a little, but she said nothing to disapprove this +extraordinary statement.</p> +<p>“My name is Blair—Miss Rosa Blair,” said the +dwarf. “I am a rose, but I happened to bloom outside the +pale.” She laughed gayly, but Maria's eyes upon her were +pitiful. “You are also outside the pale in some way,” +said Miss Blair. “I always know such people when I meet them. +There is an affinity between them and myself. The moment I saw you +I said to myself: she also is outside the pale, she also has +escaped from the garden of life. Well, never mind, child; it is not +so very bad outside when one becomes accustomed to it. I am. +Perhaps you have not had time; but you will have. What is the +matter?”</p> +<p>“I am running away,” replied Maria then.</p> +<p>“Running away! From what?”</p> +<p>“It is better for me to be away,” said Maria, +evading the question. “It would be better if I were +dead.”</p> +<p>“But you are not,” said the dwarf, with a quick +movement almost of alarm.</p> +<p>“No,” said Maria; “and I see no reason why I +shall not live to be an old woman.”</p> +<p>“I don't either,” said Miss Blair. “You look +healthy. You say, better if you were dead—better for whom, +yourself or others?”</p> +<p>“Others.”</p> +<p>“Oh!” said Miss Blair. She remained quietly +regardful of Maria for a little while, then she spoke again. +“Where are you going when you reach New York?” she +asked.</p> +<p>“I was going out to Edgham, but I shall miss the last +train, and I shall have to go to a hotel,” replied Maria, and +she looked at the dwarf with an expression of almost childish +terror.</p> +<p>“Don't you know that it may be difficult for a young girl +alone? Have you any baggage?”</p> +<p>Maria looked at her little satchel, which she had left beside +her former chair.</p> +<p>“Is that all?” asked Miss Blair.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“You must certainly not think of trying to go to a hotel +at this time of night,” said the dwarf. “You must go +home with me. I am entirely safe. Even your mother would trust you +with me, if you have one.”</p> +<p>“I have not, nor father, either,” replied Maria. +“But I am not afraid to trust you for myself.”</p> +<p>A pleased expression transfigured Miss Blair's face. “You +do not distrust me and you do not shrink from me?” she +said.</p> +<p>“No,” replied Maria, looking at her with +indescribable gratitude.</p> +<p>“Then it is settled,” said the dwarf. “You +will come home with me. I expect my carriage when we arrive at the +station. You will be entirely safe. You need not look as frightened +as you did a few moments ago again. Come home with me to-night; +then we will see what can be done.”</p> +<p>Miss Blair turned her face towards the window. Her big chair +almost swallowed her tiny figure, the sardonic expression had +entirely left her face, which appeared at once noble and loving. +Maria gazed at her as she sat so, with an odd, inverted admiration. +It seemed extraordinary to her she should actually admire any one +like this deformed little creature, but admire her she did. It was +as if she suddenly had become possessed of a sixth sense for an +enormity of beauty beyond the usual standards.</p> +<p>Miss Blair glanced at her and saw the look in her eyes, and a +look of triumph came into her own. She bent forward towards +Maria.</p> +<p>“You are sheltering me as well as I am sheltering +you,” she said, in a low voice.</p> +<p>Maria did not know what to say. Miss Blair leaned back again and +closed her eyes, and a look of perfect peace and content was on her +face.</p> +<p>It was not long before the train rolled into the New York +tunnel. Miss Blair's maid rose and took down her mistress's +travelling cloak of black silk, which she brushed with a little, +ivory brush taken from her travelling-bag.</p> +<p>“This young lady is going home with us, Adelaide,” +said Miss Blair.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” replied the maid, without the +slightest surprise.</p> +<p>She took Maria's coat from the hook where it swung, and brushed +it also, and assisted her to put it on before the porter entered +the car.</p> +<p>Maria felt again in a daze, but a great sense of security was +over her. She had not the slightest doubt of this strange little +creature who was befriending her. She felt like one who finds a +ledge of safety on a precipice where he had feared a sheer descent. +She was content to rest awhile on the safe footing, even if it were +only transient.</p> +<p>When they alighted from the train at the station a man in livery +met them and assisted Miss Blair down the steps with +obsequiousness.</p> +<p>“How do you do, James?” said Miss Blair, then went +on to ask the man what horses were in the carriage.</p> +<p>“The bays, Miss Blair,” replied the man, +respectfully.</p> +<p>“I am glad of that,” said his mistress, as she went +along the platform. “I was afraid Alexander might make a +mistake and put in those new grays. I don't like to drive with them +at night very well.” Then she said to Maria: “I am very +nervous about horses, Miss Ackley. You may wonder at it. You may +think I have reached the worst and ought to fear nothing, but there +are worsts beyond worsts.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” Maria replied, vaguely. She kept close to +Miss Blair. She realized what an agony of fear she should have felt +in that murky station with the lights burning dimly through the +smoke and the strange sights and outcries all around her.</p> +<p>Miss Blair's carriage was waiting, and Maria saw, +half-comprehendingly, that it was very luxurious indeed. She +entered with Miss Blair and her maid, then after a little wait for +baggage they drove away.</p> +<p>When the carriage stopped, the footman assisted Maria out after +Miss Blair, and she followed her conductress's tiny figure toiling +rather painfully on the arm of her maid up the steps. She entered +the house, and stood for a second fairly bewildered.</p> +<p>Maria had seen many interiors of moderate luxury, but never +anything like this. For a second her attention was distracted from +everything except the wonderful bizarre splendor in which she found +herself. It was not Western magnificence, but Oriental; hangings of +the richest Eastern stuffs, rugs, and dark gleams of bronzes and +dull lights of brass, and the sheen of silken embroideries.</p> +<p>When Maria at last recovered herself and turned to Miss Blair, +to her astonishment she no longer seemed as deformed as she had +been on the train. She fitted into this dark, rich, Eastern +splendor as a misformed bronze idol might have done. Miss Blair +gave a little, shrewd laugh at Maria's gaze, then she spoke to +another maid who had appeared when the door opened.</p> +<p>“This is my friend Miss Ackley, Louise,” she said. +“Take her to the west room, and call down and have a supper +tray sent to her.” Then she said to Maria that she must be +tired, and would prefer going at once to her room. “I am +tired myself,” said Miss Blair. “Such persons as I do +not move about the face of the earth with impunity. There is a wear +and tear of the soul and the body when the body is so small that it +scarcely holds the soul. You will have your supper sent up, and +your breakfast in the morning. At ten o'clock I will send Adelaide +to bring you to my room.” She bade Maria good-night, and the +girl followed the maid, stepping into an elevator on one side of +the vestibule. She had a vision of Miss Blair's tiny figure with +Adelaide moving slowly upward on the other side.</p> +<p>Maria reflected that she was glad that she had her toilet +articles and her night-dress at least in her satchel. She felt the +maid looking at her, although her manner was very much like +Adelaide's. She wondered what she would have thought if she had not +at least had her simple necessaries for the night when she followed +her into a room which seemed to her fairly wonderful. It was a +white room. The walls were hung with paper covered with sheafs of +white lilies; white fur rugs—wolf-skins and skins of polar +bears—were strewn over the polished white floor. All the +toilet articles were ivory and the furniture white, with +decorations of white lilies and silver. In one corner stood a bed +of silver with white draperies. Beyond, Maria had a glimpse of a +bath in white and silver, and a tiny dressing-room which looked +like frost-work. When the maid left her for a moment Maria stood +and gazed breathless. She realized a sort of delight in externals +which she had never had before. The externals seemed to be +farther-reaching. There was something about this white, virgin room +which made it seem to her after her terror on the train like +heaven. A sense of absolute safety possessed her. It was something +to have that, although she was doing something so tremendous to her +self-consciousness that she felt like a criminal, and the ache in +her heart for those whom she had left never ceased. The maid +brought in a tray covered with dainty dishes of white and silver +and a little flask of white wine. Then, after Maria had refused +further assistance, she left her. Maria ate her supper. She was in +reality half famished. Then she went to bed. Nestling in her white +bed, looking out of a lace-curtained window opposite through which +came the glimpse of a long line of city lights, Maria felt more +than ever as if she were in another world. She felt as if she were +gazing at her past, at even her loves of life, through the wrong +end of a telescope.</p> +<p>The night was very warm but the room was deliciously cool. A +breath of sweet coolness came from one of the walls. Maria, +contrary to her wont, fell asleep almost immediately. She was +exhausted, and an unusual peace seemed to soothe her very soul. She +felt as if she had really died and gotten safe to Heaven. She said +her prayers, then she was asleep. She awoke rather late the next +morning, and took her bath, and then her breakfast was brought. +When that was finished and she was dressed, it was ten o'clock, and +the maid Adelaide came to take her to her hostess. Maria went down +one elevator and up another, the one in which she had seen Miss +Blair ascend the night before. Then she entered a strange room, in +the midst of which sat Miss Blair. To Maria's utter amazement, she +no longer seemed in the least deformed, she no longer seemed a +dwarf. She was in perfect harmony with the room, which was +low-ceiled, full of strange curves and low furniture with curved +backs. It was all Eastern, as was the first floor of the house. +Maria understood with a sort of intuition that this was necessary. +The walls were covered with Eastern hangings, tables of lacquer +stood about filled with squat bronzes and gemlike ivory carvings. +The hangings were all embroidered in short curve effects. Maria +realized that her hostess, in this room, made more of a harmony +than she herself. She felt herself large, coarse, and common where +she should have been tiny, bizarre, and, according to the usual +standard, misformed. Miss Blair had planned for herself a room +wherein everything was misformed, and in which she herself was in +keeping. It had been partly the case on the first floor of the +house. Here it was wholly. Maria sat down in one of the squat, +curved-back chairs, and Miss Blair, who was opposite, looked at +her, then laughed with the open delight of a child.</p> +<p>“What a pity I cannot make the whole earth over to suit +me,” she said, “instead of only this one room! Now I +look entirely perfect to you, do I not?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” Maria replied, looking at her with +wonder.</p> +<p>“It is my vanity room,” said Miss Blair, and she +laughed as if she were laughing at herself. Then she added, with a +little pathos, “You yourself, if you had been in my place, +would have wanted one little corner in which you could be +perfect.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I should,” said Maria. As she spoke she +settled herself down lower in her chair.</p> +<p>“Yes, you do look entirely too tall and straight in +here,” said Miss Blair, and laughed again, with genuine glee. +“Beauty is only a matter of comparison, you know,” said +she. “If one is ugly and misshapen, all she has to do is to +surround herself with things ugly and misshapen, and she gets the +effect of perfect harmony, which is the highest beauty in the +world. Here I am in harmony after I have been out of tune. It is a +comfort. But, after all, being out of tune is not the worst thing +in the world. It might be worse. I would not make the world over to +suit me, but myself to suit the world, if I could. After all, the +world is right and I am wrong, but in here I seem to be right. Now, +child, tell me about yourself.”</p> +<p>Maria told her. She left nothing untold. She told her about her +father and mother, her step-mother, and Evelyn, and her marriage, +and how she had planned to go to Edgham, get the little sum which +her father had deposited in the savings-bank for her, and then +vanish.</p> +<p>“How?” asked Miss Blair.</p> +<p>Maria confessed that she did not know.</p> +<p>“Of course your mere disappearance is not going to right +things, you know,” said Miss Blair. “That matrimonial +tangle can only be straightened by your death, or the appearance of +it. I do not suppose you meditate the stereotyped hat on the bank, +and that sort of thing.”</p> +<p>“I don't know exactly what to do,” said Maria.</p> +<p>“You are quite right in avoiding a divorce,” said +Miss Blair, “especially when your own sister is concerned. +People would never believe the whole truth, but only part of it. +The young man would be ruined, too. The only way is to have your +death-notice appear in the paper.”</p> +<p>“How?”</p> +<p>“Everything is easy, if one has money,” said Miss +Blair, “and I have really a good deal.” She looked +thoughtfully at Maria. “Did you really care for that young +man?” she asked.</p> +<p>Maria paled. “I thought so,” she said.</p> +<p>“Then you did.”</p> +<p>“It does not make any difference if I did,” said +Maria, with a little indignation. She felt as if she were being +probed to her heart-strings.</p> +<p>“No, of course it does not,” Miss Blair agreed +directly. “If he and your sister have fallen in love, as you +say, you have done obviously the only thing to do. We will have the +notice in the papers. I don't know quite how I shall arrange it; +but I have a fertile brain.”</p> +<p>Maria looked hesitatingly at her. “But it will not be +telling the truth,” she said.</p> +<p>“But what did you plan to do, if you told the truth when +you came away?” asked Miss Blair with a little +impatience.</p> +<p>“I did not really plan anything,” replied Maria +helplessly. “I only thought I would go.”</p> +<p>“You are inconsequential,” said Miss Blair. +“You cannot start upon a train of sequences in this world +unless you go on to the bitter end. Besides, after all, why do you +object to lying? I suppose you were brought up to tell the truth, +and so was I, and I really think I venerate the truth more than +anything else, but sometimes a lie is the highest truth. See here. +You are willing to bear all the punishment, even fire and +brimstone, and so on, if your sister and this man whom you love, +are happy, aren't you?”</p> +<p>“Of course,” replied Maria.</p> +<p>“Well, if you tell a lie which can hurt only yourself, and +bless others, and are willing to bear the punishment for it, you +are telling the truth like the angels. Don't you worry, my dear. +But you must not go to Edgham for that money. I have enough for us +both.”</p> +<p>“I have nearly all my last term's salary, except the sum I +paid for my fare here,” Maria said, proudly.</p> +<p>“Well, dear, you shall spend it, and then you shall have +some of mine.”</p> +<p>“I don't want any money, except what I earn,” Maria +said.</p> +<p>“You may read to me, and earn it,” Miss Blair said +easily. “Don't fret about such a petty thing. Now, will you +please touch that bell, dear. I must go and arrange about our +passage.”</p> +<p>“Our passage?” repeated Maria dully.</p> +<p>“Yes; to-day is Thursday. We can catch a Saturday steamer. +We can buy anything which you need ready-made in the way of +wearing-apparel, and get the rest on the other side.”</p> +<p>Maria gasped. She was very white, and her eyes were dilated. She +stared at Miss Rosa Blair, who returned her stare with curious +fixedness. Maria seemed to see depths within depths of meaning in +her great dark eyes. A dimness swept over her own vision.</p> +<p>“Touch the bell, please, dear,” said Miss Blair.</p> +<p>Maria obeyed. She touched the bell. She was swept off her feet. +She had encountered a will stronger than any which she had ever +known, a will which might have been strengthened by the tininess of +the body in which its wings were bent, but always beating for +flight. And she had encountered this will at a moment when her own +was weakened and her mind dazed by the unprecedented circumstances +in which she was placed.</p> +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXVIII</h4> +<p>Three days later, when they were on the outward-bound steamer, +Miss Rosa Blair crossed the corridor between her state-room, which +she occupied with her maid, to Maria's, and stood a moment looking +down at the girl lying in her berth. Maria was in that state of +liability to illness which keeps one in a berth, although she was +not actually sea-sick.</p> +<p>“My dear,” said Miss Blair. “I think I may as +well tell you now. In the night's paper before we left, I saw the +death-notice of a certain Maria Edgham, of Edgham, New Jersey. +There were some particulars which served to establish the fact of +the death. You will not be interested in the +particulars?”</p> +<p>Maria turned her pale face towards the port-hole, against which +dashed a green wave topped with foam. “No,” said +she.</p> +<p>“I thought you would not,” said Miss Blair. +“Then there is something else.”</p> +<p>Maria waited quiescent.</p> +<p>“Your name is on the ship's list of passengers as Miss +Elizabeth Blair. You are my adopted daughter.”</p> +<p>Maria started.</p> +<p>“Adelaide does not remember that you were called Miss +Ackley,” said Miss Blair. “She will never remember that +you were anything except my adopted daughter. She is a model maid. +As for the others, Louise is a model, too, and so is the coachman. +The footman is discharged. When we return, nobody in my house will +have ever known you except as Elizabeth Blair.” Miss Blair +went out of the state-room walking easily with the motion of the +ship. She was a good sailor.</p> +<p>The next afternoon Maria was able to sit out on deck. She leaned +back in her steamer-chair, and wept silently. Miss Blair stood at a +little distance near the rail, talking to an elderly gentleman whom +she had met years ago. “She is my adopted daughter +Elizabeth,” said Miss Blair. “She has been a little +ill, but she is much better. She is feeling sad over the death of a +friend, poor child.”</p> +<p><br> +It was a year before Maria and Miss Blair returned to the United +States. Maria looked older, although she was fully as handsome as +she had ever been. Her features had simply acquired an expression +of decision and of finish, which they had not before had. She also +looked more sophisticated. It had been on her mind that she might +possibly meet her step-mother abroad, but she had not done so; and +one day Miss Blair had shown her a London newspaper in which was +the notice of Ida's marriage to a Scotchman. “We need not go +to Scotland,” said Miss Blair.</p> +<p>The day after they landed was very warm. They had gone straight +to Miss Blair's New York house; later they were to go to the +sea-shore. The next morning Maria went into Miss Blair's vanity +room, as she called it, and a strange look was on her face. +“I have made up my mind,” said she.</p> +<p>“Well?” Miss Blair said, interrogatively.</p> +<p>“I cannot let him commit bigamy. I cannot let my sister +marry—my husband. I cannot break the laws in such a fashion, +nor allow them to do so.”</p> +<p>“You break no moral law.”</p> +<p>“I am not so sure. I don't know where the dividing-line +between the moral and the legal comes.”</p> +<p>“Then—?”</p> +<p>“I am going to take the train to Amity this +noon.”</p> +<p>Miss Blair turned slightly pale, but she regarded Maria +unflinchingly. “Very well,” said she. “I have +always told you that I would not oppose you in any resolution which +you might make in the matter.”</p> +<p>“It is not because I love him,” said Maria. “I +do love him; I think I always shall. But it is not because of +that.”</p> +<p>“I know that. What do you propose doing after you have +disclosed yourself?”</p> +<p>“Tell the truth.”</p> +<p>“And then what?”</p> +<p>“I shall talk the matter over with Wollaston and Evelyn, +and I think they can be made to see that a quiet divorce will +straighten it all out.”</p> +<p>“Not as far as the man's career is concerned, if he +marries your sister, and not so far as your sister is concerned. +People are prone to believe the worst, as the sparks fly +upward.”</p> +<p>“Then they will,” Maria said, obstinately. “I +have made up my mind I dare not undertake the +responsibility.”</p> +<p>“What will you do afterwards, come back to me?” Miss +Blair said, wistfully. “You will come back, will you not, +dear?”</p> +<p>“If you wish,” Maria said, with a quick, loving +glance at her.</p> +<p>“If I wish!” repeated Miss Blair. “Well, go if +you must.”</p> +<p><br> +Maria did not reach Amity until long after dark. Behind her on the +train were two women who got on at the station before Amity. She +did not know them, and they did not know her, but they presently +began talking about her. “I saw Miss Maria Stillman at the +Ordination in Westbridge, Wednesday,” said one to the other. +This woman had a curiously cool, long-reaching breath when she +spoke. Maria felt it like a fan on the back of her neck.</p> +<p>The other woman, who was fat, responded with a wheezy voice. +“It was queer about that niece of hers, who taught school in +Westbridge, running away and dying so dreadful sudden, wasn't +it?” said she.</p> +<p>“Dreadful queer. I guess her aunt and sister felt pretty +bad about it, and I s'pose they do now; but it's a year ago, and +they've left off their mourning.”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said the other woman. “They would +leave it off on account of—”</p> +<p>Maria did not hear what followed, for a thundering freight-train +passed them and drowned the words. After the train passed, the fat +woman was saying, with her wheezy voice, “Mr. Lee's mother's +death was dreadful sudden, wasn't it?”</p> +<p>“Dreadful.”</p> +<p>“I wonder if he likes living in Amity as well as +Westbridge?”</p> +<p>“I shouldn't think he would, it isn't as convenient to the +academy.”</p> +<p>“Well, maybe he will go back to Westbridge after a +while,” said the other woman, and again her breath fanned +Maria's neck.</p> +<p>She wondered what it meant. A surmise came to her, then she +dismissed it. She was careful to keep her back turned to the women +when the train pulled into Amity. She had no baggage except a +suit-case. She got off the train, and disappeared in the familiar +darkness. All at once it seemed to her as if she had returned from +the unreal to the real, from fairy-land to the actual world. The +year past seemed like a dream to her. She could not believe it. It +was like that fact which is stranger than fiction, and therefore +almost impossible even to write, much less to live. Miss Rosa +Blair, and her travellings in Europe, and her house in New York, +seemed to her like an Arabian Night's creation. She walked along +the street towards her aunt's house, and realized her old self and +her old perplexities. When she drew near the house she saw a light +in the parlor windows and also in Aunt Maria's bedroom. Aunt Maria +had evidently gone to her room for the night. Uncle Henry's side of +the house was entirely dark.</p> +<p>Maria stole softly into the yard, and paused in front of the +parlor windows. The shades were not drawn. There sat Evelyn at work +on some embroidery, while opposite to her sat Wollaston Lee, +reading aloud. In Evelyn's lap, evidently hampering her with her +work, was a beautiful yellow cat, which she paused now and then to +stroke. Maria felt her heart almost stand still. There was +something about it which renewed her vague surmise on the train. It +was only a very few minutes before Wollaston laid down the paper +which he had been reading, and said something to Evelyn, who began +to fold her work with the sweet docility which Maria remembered. +Wollaston rose and went over to Evelyn and kissed her as she stood +up and let the yellow cat leap to the floor. Evelyn looked to Maria +more beautiful than she had ever seen her. Maria stood farther back +in the shadow. Then she heard the front door opened, and the cat +was gently put out. Then she heard the key turn in the lock, and a +bolt slide. Maria stood perfectly still. A light from a lamp which +was being carried by some one, flitted like a will-o'-the-wisp over +the yard, and the parlor windows became dark. Then a broad light +shone out from the front chamber windows through the drawn white +shade, and lay in a square on the grass of the yard. The cat which +had been put out rubbed against Maria's feet. She caught up the +little animal and kissed it. Then she put it down gently, and +hurried back to the station. She thought of Rosa Blair, and an +intense longing came over her. She seemed to suddenly sense the +highest quality of love: that which realizes the need of another, +rather than one's own. The poor little dwarf seemed the very child +of her heart. She looked up at the stars shining through the plumy +foliage of the trees, and thought how many of them might owe their +glory to the radiance of unknown suns, and it seemed to her that +her own soul lighted her path by its reflection of the love of God. +She thought that it might be so with all souls which were faced +towards God, and that which is above and beyond, and it was worth +more than anything else in the whole world.</p> +<p>She questioned no longer the right or wrong of what she had +done, as she hurried on and reached the little Amity station in +time for the last train.</p> +<p align="center">THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of By the Light of the Soul, by +Mary E. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: By the Light of the Soul + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Illustrator: Harold M. Brett + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #17564] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY THE LIGHT OF THE SOUL *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + + +By the Light of the Soul + +A Novel + +By +Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + + +Author of +"The Debtor" "The Portion of Labor" +"Jerome" "A New England Nun" +Etc. etc. + + +Illustrations by +Harold M. Brett + + +New York and London +Harper & Brothers Publishers +1907 + + + +Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers. +All rights reserved. +Published January, 1907. + + + +To Harriet and Carolyn Alden + + + +Chapter I + + +Maria Edgham, who was a very young girl, sat in the church vestry +beside a window during the weekly prayer-meeting. + +As was the custom, a young man had charge of the meeting, and he +stood, with a sort of embarrassed dignity, on the little platform +behind the desk. He was reading a selection from the Bible. Maria +heard him drone out in a scarcely audible voice: "Whom the Lord +loveth, He chasteneth," and then she heard, in a quick response, a +soft sob from the seat behind her. She knew who sobbed: Mrs. Jasper +Cone, who had lost her baby the week before. The odor of crape came +in Maria's face, making a species of discordance with the fragrance +of the summer night, which came in at the open window. Maria felt +irritated by it, and she wondered why Mrs. Cone felt so badly about +the loss of her baby. It had always seemed to Maria a most +unattractive child, large-headed, flabby, and mottled, with ever an +open mouth of resistance, and a loud wail of opposition to existence +in general. Maria felt sure that she could never have loved such a +baby. Even the unfrequent smiles of that baby had not been winning; +they had seemed reminiscent of the commonest and coarsest things of +life, rather than of heavenly innocence. Maria gazed at the young man +on the platform, who presently bent his head devoutly, and after +saying, "Let us pray," gave utterance to an unintelligible flood of +supplication intermingled with information to the Lord of the state +of things on the earth, and the needs of his people. Maria wondered +why, when God knew everything, Leon Barber told him about it, and she +also hoped that God heard better than most of the congregation did. +But she looked with a timid wonder of admiration at the young man +himself. He was so much older than she, that her romantic fancies, +which even at such an early age had seized upon her, never included +him. She as yet dreamed only of other dreamers like herself, +Wollaston Lee, for instance, who went to the same school, and was +only a year older. Maria had made sure that he was there, by a +glance, directly after she had entered, then she never glanced at him +again, but she wove him into her dreams along with the sweetness of +the midsummer night, and the morally tuneful atmosphere of the place. +She was utterly innocent, her farthest dreams were white, but she +dreamed. She gazed out of the window through which came the wind on +her little golden-cropped head (she wore her hair short) in cool +puffs, and she saw great, plumy masses of shadow, themselves like the +substance of which dreams were made. The trees grew thickly down the +slope, which the church crowned, and at the bottom of the slope +rushed the river, which she heard like a refrain through the +intermittent soughing of the trees. A whippoorwill was singing +somewhere out there, and the katydids shrieked so high that they +almost surmounted dreams. She could smell wild grapes and pine and +other mingled odors of unknown herbs, and the earth itself. There had +been a hard shower that afternoon, and the earth still seemed to cry +out with pleasure because of it. Maria had worn her old shoes to +church, lest she spoil her best ones; but she wore her pretty pink +gingham gown, and her hat with a wreath of rosebuds, and she felt to +the utmost the attractiveness of her appearance. She, however, felt +somewhat conscience-stricken on account of the pink gingham gown. It +was a new one, and her mother had been obliged to have it made by a +dress-maker, and had paid three dollars for that, beside the +trimmings, which were lace and ribbon. Maria wore the gown without +her mother's knowledge. She had in fact stolen down the backstairs on +that account, and gone out the south door in order that her mother +should not see her. Maria's mother was ill lately, and had not been +able to go to church, nor even to perform her usual tasks. She had +always made Maria's gowns herself until this pink gingham. + +Maria's mother was originally from New England, and her conscience +was abnormally active. Her father was of New Jersey, and his +conscience, while no one would venture to say that it was defective, +did not in the least interfere with his enjoyment of life. + +"Oh, well, Abby," her father would reply, easily, when her mother +expressed her distress that she was unable to work as she had done, +"we shall manage somehow. Don't worry, Abby." Worry in another +irritated him even more than in himself. + +"Well, Maria can't help much while she is in school. She is a +delicate little thing, and sometimes I am worried about her." + +"Oh, Maria can't be expected to do much while she is in school," her +father said, easily. "We'll manage somehow, only for Heaven's sake +don't worry." + +Then Maria's father had taken his hat and gone down street. He always +went down street of an evening. Maria, who had been sitting on the +porch, had heard every word of the conversation which had been +carried on in the sitting-room that very evening. It did not alarm +her at all because her mother considered her delicate. Instead, she +had a vague sense of distinction on account of it. It was as if she +realized being a flower rather than a vegetable. She thought of it +that night as she sat in meeting. She glanced across at a girl who +went to the same school--a large, heavily built child with a +coarseness of grain showing in every feature--and a sense of +superiority at once exalted and humiliated her. She said to herself +that she was much finer and prettier than Lottie Sears, but that she +ought to be thankful and not proud because she was. She felt vain, +but she was sorry because of her vanity. She knew how charming her +pink gingham gown was, but she knew that she ought to have asked her +mother if she might wear it. She knew that her mother would scold +her--she had a ready tongue--and she realized that she would deserve +it. She had put on the pink gingham on account of Wollaston Lee, who +was usually at prayer-meeting. That, of course, she could not tell +her mother. There are some things too sacred for little girls to tell +their mothers. She wondered if Wollaston would ask leave to walk home +with her. She had seen a boy step out of a waiting file at the vestry +door to a blushing girl, and had seen the girl, with a coy readiness, +slip her hand into the waiting crook of his arm, and walk off, and +she had wondered when such bliss would come to her. It never had. She +wondered if the pink gingham might bring it to pass to-night. The +pink gingham was as the mating plumage of a bird. All unconsciously +she glanced sideways over the fall of lace-trimmed pink ruffles at +her slender shoulders at Wollaston Lee. He was gazing straight at +Miss Slome, Miss Ida Slome, who was the school-teacher, and his young +face wore an expression of devotion. Maria's eyes followed his; she +did not dream of being jealous; Miss Slome seemed too incalculably +old to her for that. She was not so very old, in her early thirties, +but the early thirties to a young girl are venerable. Miss Ida Slome +was called a beauty. She, as well as Maria, wore a pink dress, at +which Maria privately wondered. The teacher seemed to her too old to +wear pink. She thought she ought wear black like her mother. Miss +Slome's pink dress had knots of black velvet about it which +accentuated it, even as Miss Slome's face was accentuated by the +clear darkness of her eyes and the black puff of her hair above her +finely arched brows. Her cheeks were of the sweetest red--not pink +but red--which seemed a further tone of the pink of her attire, and +she wore a hat encircled with a wreath of red roses. Maria thought +that she should have worn a bonnet. Maria felt an odd sort of +instinctive antagonism for her. She wondered why Wollaston looked at +the teacher so instead of at herself. She gave her head a charming +cant, and glanced again, but the boy still had his eyes fixed upon +the elder woman, with that rapt expression which is seen only in the +eyes of a boy upon an older woman, and which is primeval, involving +the adoration and awe of womanhood itself. The boy had not reached +the age when he was capable of falling in love, but he had reached +the age of adoration, and there was nothing in little Maria Edgham in +her pink gingham, with her shy, sidelong glances, to excite it. She +was only a girl, the other was a goddess. His worship of the teacher +interfered with Wollaston's studies. He was wondering as he sat there +if he could not walk home with her that night, if by chance any _man_ +would be in waiting for her. How he hated that imaginary man. He +glanced around, and as he did so, the door opened softly, and Harry +Edgham, Maria's father, entered. He was very late, but he had waited +in the vestibule, in order not to attract attention, until the people +began singing a hymn, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," to the tune of "When +the Swallows Homeward Fly." He was a distinctly handsome man. He +looked much younger than Maria's mother, his wife. People said that +Harry Edgham's wife might, from her looks, have been his mother. She +was a tall, dark, rather harsh-featured woman. In her youth she had +had a beauty of color; now that had passed, and she was sallow, and +she disdained to try to make the most of herself, to soften her stern +face by a judicious arrangement of her still plentiful hair. She +strained it back from her hollow temples, and fastened it securely on +the top of her head. She had a scorn of fashions in hair or dress +except for Maria. "Maria is young," she said, with an ineffable +expression of love and pride, and a tincture of defiance, as if she +were defying her own age, in the ownership of the youth of her child. +She was like a rose-bush which possessed a perfect bud of beauty, and +her own long dwelling upon the earth could on account of that be +ignored. But Maria's father was different. He was quite openly a vain +man. He was handsome, and he held fast to his youth, and would not +let it pass by. His hair, curling slightly over temples boyish in +outlines, although marked, was not in the least gray. His mustache +was carefully trimmed. After he had seated himself unobtrusively in a +rear seat, he looked around for his daughter, who saw him with +dismay. "Now," she thought, her chances of Wollaston Lee walking home +with her were lost. Father would go home with her. Her mother had +often admonished Harry Edgham that when Maria went to meeting alone, +he ought to be in waiting to go home with her, and he obeyed his +wife, generally speaking, unless her wishes conflicted too +strenuously with his own. He did not in the least object to-night, +for instance, to dropping late into the prayer-meeting. There were +not many people there, and all the windows were open, and there was +something poetical and sweet about the atmosphere. Besides, the +singing was unusually good for such a place. Above all the other +voices arose Ida Slome's sweet soprano. She sang like a bird; her +voice, although not powerful, was thrillingly sweet. Harry looked at +her as she sang, and thought how pretty she was, but there was no +disloyalty to his wife in the look. He was, in fact, not that sort of +man. While he did not love his Abby with utter passion, all the women +of the world could not have swerved him from her. + +Harry Edgham came of perhaps the best old family in that vicinity, +Edgham itself had been named for it, and while he partook of that +degeneracy which comes to the descendants of the large old families, +while it is as inevitable that they should run out, so to speak, as +flowers which have flourished too many years in a garden, whose soil +they have exhausted, he had not lost the habit of rectitude of his +ancestors. Virtue was a hereditary trait of the Edghams. + +Harry Edgham looked at Ida Slome with as innocent admiration as +another woman might have done. Then he looked again at his daughter's +little flower-like head, and a feeling of love made his heart warm. +Maria could sing herself, but she was afraid. Once in a while she +droned out a sweet, husky note, then her delicate cheeks flushed +crimson as if all the people had heard her, when they had not heard +at all, and she turned her head, and gazed out of the open window at +the plumed darkness. She thought again with annoyance how she would +have to go with her father, and Wollaston Lee would not dare accost +her, even if he were so disposed; then she took a genuine pleasure in +the window space of sweet night and the singing. Her passions were +yet so young that they did not disturb her long if interrupted. She +was also always conscious of the prettiness of her appearance, and +she loved herself for it with that love which brings previsions of +unknown joys of the future. Her charming little face, in her +realization of it, was as the untried sword of the young warrior +which is to bring him all the glory of earth for which his soul longs. + +After the meeting was closed, and Harry Edgham, with his little +daughter lagging behind him with covert eyes upon Wollaston Lee, went +out of the vestry, a number inquired for his wife. "Oh, she is very +comfortable," he replied, with his cheerful optimism which solaced +him in all vicissitudes, except the single one of actually witnessing +the sorrow and distress of those who belonged to him. + +"I heard," said one man, who was noted in the place for his +outspokenness, which would have been brutal had it not been for his +naivete--"I heard she wasn't going to get out again." + +"Nonsense," replied Harry Edgham. + +"Then she is?" + +"Of course she is. She would have come to meeting to-night if it had +not been so damp." + +"Well, I'm glad to hear it," said the man, with a curious +congratulation which gave the impression of disappointment. + +Little Maria Edgham and her father went up the village street; Harry +Edgham walked quite swiftly. "I guess we had better hurry along," he +observed, "your mother is all alone." + +Maria tagged behind him. Her father had to stop at a grocery-store on +the corner of the street where they lived, to get a bag of peaches +which he had left there. "I got some peaches on my way," he +explained, "and I didn't want to carry them to church. I thought your +mother might like them. The doctor said she might eat fruit." With +that he darted into the store with the agility of a boy. + +Maria stood on the dusty sidewalk in the glare of electric light, and +waited. Her pink gingham dress was quite short, but she held it up +daintily, like a young lady, pinching a fold between her little thumb +and forefinger. Mrs. Jasper Cone, with another woman, came up, and to +Maria's astonishment, Mrs. Cone stopped, clasped her in her arms and +kissed her. As she did so, she sobbed, and Maria felt her tears of +bereavement on her cheek with an odd mixture of pity and awe and +disgust. "If my Minnie had--lived, she might have grown up to be like +her," she gasped out to her friend. "I always thought she looked like +her." The friend made a sympathetic murmur of assent. Mrs. Cone +kissed Maria again, holding her little form to her crape-trimmed +bosom almost convulsively, then the two passed on. Maria heard her +say again that she always had thought the baby looked like her, and +she felt humiliated. She looked after the poor mother's streaming +black veil with resentment. Then Miss Ida Slome passed by, and +Wollaston Lee was clinging to her arm, pressing as closely to her +side as he dared. Miss Slome saw Maria, and spoke in her sweet, crisp +tone. "Good-evening, Maria," said she. + +Maria stood gazing after them. Her father emerged from the store with +the bag of peaches dangling from his hand. He looked incongruous. Her +father had too much the air of a gentleman to carry a paper bag. "I +do hope your mother will like these peaches," he said. + +Maria walked along with her father, and she thought with pain and +scorn how singular it was for a boy to want to go home with an old +woman like Miss Slome, when there were little girls like her. + + + +Chapter II + + +Maria and her father entered the house, which was not far. It was a +quite new Queen Anne cottage of the better class, situated in a small +lot of land, and with other houses very near on either side. There +was a great clump of hydrangeas on the small smooth lawn in front, +and on the piazza stood a small table, covered with a dainty white +cloth trimmed with lace, on which were laid, in ostentatious +neatness, the evening paper and a couple of magazines. There were +chairs, and palms in jardinieres stood on either side of the flight +of wooden steps. + +Maria's mother was, however, in the house, seated beside the +sitting-room table, on which stood a kerosene lamp with a singularly +ugly shade. She was darning stockings. She held the stocking in her +left hand, and drew the thread through regularly. Her mouth was +tightly closed, which was indicative both of decision of character +and pain. Her countenance looked sallower than ever. She looked up at +her husband and little girl entering. "Well," she said, "so you've +got home." + +"I've brought you some peaches, Abby," said Harry Edgham. He laid the +bag on the table, and looked anxiously at his wife. "How do you feel +now?" said he. + +"I feel well enough," said she. Her reply sounded ill-humored, but +she did not intend it to be so. She was far from being ill-humored. +She was thinking of her husband's kindness in bringing the peaches. +But she looked at the paper bag on the table sharply. "If there is a +soft peach in that bag," said she, "and there's likely to be, it will +stain the table-cover, and I can never get it out." + +Harry hastily removed the paper bag from the table, which was covered +with a white linen spread trimmed with lace and embroidered. + +"Don't you feel as if you could eat one to-night? You didn't eat much +supper, and I thought maybe--" + +"I don't believe I can to-night, but I shall like them to-morrow," +replied Mrs. Edgham, in a voice soft with apology. Then she looked +fairly for the first time at Maria, who had purposely remained behind +her father, and her voice immediately hardened. "Maria, come here," +said she. + +Maria obeyed. She left the shelter of her father's broad back, and +stood before her mother, in her pink gingham dress, a miserable +little penitent, whose penitence was not of a high order. The +sweetness of looking pretty was still in her soul, although Wollaston +Lee had not gone home with her. + +Maria's mother regarded her with a curious expression compounded of +pride and almost fierce disapproval. Harry went precipitately out of +the room with the paper bag of peaches. "You didn't wear that new +pink gingham dress that I had to hire made, trimmed with all that +lace and ribbon, to meeting to-night?" said Maria's mother. + +Maria said nothing. It seemed to her that such an obvious fact +scarcely needed words of assent. + +"Damp as it is, too," said her mother. + +Mrs. Edgham extended a lean, sallow hand and felt of the dainty +fabric. "It is just as limp as a rag," said she, "about spoiled." + +"I held it up," said Maria then, with feeble extenuation. + +"Held it up!" repeated her mother, with scorn. + +"I thought maybe you wouldn't care." + +"Wouldn't care! That was the reason why you went out the other door +then. I wondered why you did. Putting on that new pink gingham dress +that I had to hire made, trimmed with all that lace and ribbon, and +wearing it out in the evening, damp as it is to-night! I don't see +what you were thinking of, Maria Edgham." + +Maria looked down disconsolately at the lace-trimmed ruffles on her +skirt, but even then she thought how pretty it was, and how pretty +she must look herself standing so forlornly before her mother. She +wondered how her mother could scold her when she was her own +daughter, and looked so sweet. She still felt the damp coolness of +the night on her cheeks, and realized a bloom on them like that of a +wild rose. + +But Mrs. Edgham continued. She had the high temper of the women of +her race who had brought up great families to toil and fight for the +Commonwealth, and she now brought it to bear upon petty things in +lieu of great ones. Besides, her illness made her irritable. She +found a certain relief from her constant pain in scolding this child +of her heart, whom secretly she admired as she admired no other +living thing. Even as she scolded, she regarded her in the pink dress +with triumph. "I should think you would be ashamed of yourself, Maria +Edgham," said she, in a high voice. + +Harry Edgham, who had deposited the peaches in the ice-box, and had +been about to enter the room, retreated. He went out the other door +himself, and round upon the piazza, when presently the smoke of his +cigar stole into the room. Then Mrs. Edgham included him in her wrath. + +"You and your father are just alike," said she, bitterly. "You both +of you will do just what you want to, whether or no. He will smoke, +though he knows it makes me worse, besides costing more than he can +afford, and you will put on your best dress, without asking leave, +and wear it out in a damp night, and spoil it." + +Maria continued to stand still, and her mother to regard her with +that odd mixture of worshipful love and chiding. Suddenly Mrs. Edgham +closed her mouth more tightly. + +"Stand round here," said she, violently. "Let me unbutton your dress. +I don't see how you fastened it up yourself, anyway; you wouldn't +have thought you could, if it hadn't been for deceiving your mother. +You would have come down to me to do it, the way you always do. You +have got it buttoned wrong, anyway. You must have been a sight for +the folks who sat behind you. Well, it serves you right. Stand round +here." + +"I am sorry," said Maria then. She wondered whether the wrong +fastening had showed much through the slats of the settee. + +Her mother unfastened, with fingers that were at once gentle and +nervous, the pearl buttons on the back of the dress. "Take your arms +out," said she to Maria. Maria cast a glance at the window. "There's +nobody out there but your father," said Mrs. Edgham, harshly, "take +your arms out." + +Maria took her arms out of the fluffy mass and stood revealed in her +little, scantily trimmed underwaist, a small, childish figure, with +the utmost delicacy of articulation as to shoulder-blades and neck. +Maria was thin to the extreme, but her bones were so small that she +was charming even in her thinness. Her little, beautifully modelled +arms were as charming as a fairy's. + +"Now slip off your skirt," ordered her mother, and Maria complied and +stood in her little white petticoat, with another glance of the +exaggerated modesty of little girlhood at the window. + +"Now," said her mother, "you go and hang this up in the kitchen where +it is warm, on that nail on the outside door, and maybe some of the +creases will come out. I've heard they would. I hope so, for I've got +about all I want to do without ironing this dress all over." + +Maria gazed at her mother with sudden compunction and anxious love. +After all, she loved her mother down to the depths of her childish +heart; it was only that long custom had so inured her to the loving +that she did not always realize the warmth of her heart because of +it. "Do you feel sick to-night mother?" she whispered. + +"No sicker than usual," replied her mother. Then she drew the +delicate little figure close to her, and kissed her with a sort of +passion. "May the Lord look out for you," she said, "if you should +happen to outlive me! I don't know what would become of you, Maria, +you are so heedless, wearing your best things every day, and +everything." + +Maria's face paled. "Mother, you aren't any worse?" said she, in a +terrified whisper. + +"No, I am not a mite worse. Run along, child, and hang up your dress, +then go to bed; it's after nine o'clock." + +It did not take much at that time to reassure Maria. She had +inherited something of the optimism of her father. She carried her +pink dress into the kitchen, with wary eyes upon the windows, and +hung it up as her mother had directed. On her return she paused a +moment at the foot of the stairs in the hall, between the dining-room +and sitting-room. Then, obeying an impulse, she ran into the +sitting-room and threw her soft little arms around her mother's neck. +"I'm real sorry I wore that dress without asking you, mother," she +said. "I won't again, honest." + +"Well, I hope you will remember," replied her mother. "If you wear +the best you have common you will never have anything." Her tone was +chiding, but the look on her face was infinitely caressing. She +thought privately that never was such a darling as Maria. She looked +at the softly flushed little face, with its topknot of gold, the +delicate fairness of the neck, and slender arms, and she had a +rapture of something more than possession. The beauty of the child +irradiated her very soul, the beauty and the goodness, for Maria +never disobeyed but she was sorry afterwards, and somehow glorified +faults seem lovelier than cold virtues. "Well, run up-stairs to bed," +said she. "Be careful of your lamp." + +When Maria was in her own room she set the lamp on the dresser and +gazed upon her face reflected in the mirror. That was her nightly +custom, and might have been regarded as a sort of fetich worship of +self. Nothing, in fact, could have been lovelier than that face of +childish innocence and beauty, with the soft rays of the lamp +illuminating it. Her blue eyes seemed to fairly give forth light, the +soft pink on her cheeks deepened until it was like the heart of a +rose. She opened her exquisitely curved lips, and smiled at herself +in a sort of ecstasy. She turned her head this way and that in order +to get different effects. She pulled the little golden fleece of hair +farther over her forehead. She pushed it back, revealing the bold yet +delicate outlines of her temples. She thought how glad she should be +when her hair was grown. She had had an illness two years before, and +her mother had judged it best to have her hair cut short. It was now +just long enough to hang over her ears, curving slightly forward like +the old-fashioned earlocks. She had her hair tied back from her face +with a pink ribbon in a bow on top of her head. She loosened this +ribbon, and shook her hair quite loose. She peeped out of the golden +radiance of it at herself, then she shook it back. She was charming +either way. She was undeveloped, but as yet not a speck of the mildew +of earth had touched her. She was flawless, irreproachable, except +for the knowledge of her beauty, through heredity, in her heart, +which was older than she herself. + +Suddenly Maria, after a long gaze of rapture at her face in the +glass, gave a great start. She turned and saw her mother standing in +the door looking at her. + +Maria, with an involuntary impulse of concealment, seized her brush, +and began brushing her hair. "I was just brushing my hair," she +murmured. She felt as guilty as if she had committed a crime. + +Her mother continued to look at her sternly. "There isn't any use in +your trying to deceive me, Maria," said she. "I am ashamed that a +child of mine should be so silly. To stand looking at yourself that +way! You needn't think you are so pretty, because you are not. You +don't begin to be as good-looking as Amy Long." + +Maria felt a cold chill strike her. She had herself had doubts as to +her superior beauty when Amy Long was concerned. + +"You don't begin to be as good-looking as your aunt Maria was at your +age, and you know yourself how she looks now. Nobody would dream for +a minute of calling her even ordinary-looking," her mother continued +in a pitiless voice. + +Maria shuddered. She seemed to see, instead of her own fair little +face in the glass, an elderly one as sallow as her mother's, but +without the traces of beauty which her mother's undoubtedly had. She +saw the thin, futile frizzes which her aunt Maria affected; she saw +the receding chin, indicative at once of degeneracy and obstinacy; +she saw the blunt nose between the lumpy cheeks. + +"Your aunt Maria looked very much as you do when she was your age," +her mother went on, with the calm cruelty of an inquisitor. + +Maria looked at her, her mouth was quivering. "Did I look like Mrs. +Jasper Cone's baby that died last week when I was a baby?" said she. + +"Who said you did?" inquired her mother, unguardedly. + +"She did. She came up behind me with Mrs. Elliot when I was waiting +for father to get the peaches, and she said her baby that died looked +just like me; she had always thought so." + +"That Cone baby look like you!" repeated Maria's mother. "Well, one's +own always looks different to them, I suppose." + +"Then you don't think it did?" said Maria. Tears actually stood in +her beautiful blue eyes. + +"No, I don't," replied her mother, abruptly. "Nobody in their sober +senses could think so. I am sorry poor Mrs. Cone lost her baby. I +know how I felt when my first baby died, but as for saying it looked +like you--" + +"Then you don't think it did, mother?" + +"It was one of the homliest babies I ever laid my eyes on, poor +little thing, if it did die," said Maria's mother, emphatically. She +was completely disarmed by this time. But when she saw Maria glance +again at the glass she laid hold of her moral weapons, the wielding +of which she believed to be for the best spiritual good of her child. +"Your aunt Maria was very much better looking than you at her age," +she repeated, firmly. Then, at the sight of the renewed quiver around +the sensitive little mouth her heart melted. "Get out of your clothes +and into your night-gown, and get to bed, child," said she. "You look +well enough. If you only behave as well as you look, that is all that +is necessary." + + + +Chapter III + + +Maria fell asleep that night with the full assurance that she had not +been mistaken concerning the beauty of the little face which she had +seen in the looking-glass. All that troubled her was the +consideration that her aunt Maria, whose homely face seemed to glare +out of the darkness at her, might have looked just as she did when +she was her age. She hoped, and then she hoped that the hope was not +wicked, that she might die young rather than live to look like her +aunt Maria. She pictured with a sort of pleasurable horror, what a +lovely little waxen-image she would look now, laid away in a nest of +white flowers. She had only just begun to doze, when she awoke with a +great start. Her father had opened her door, and stood calling her. + +"Maria," he said, in an agitated voice. + +Maria sat up in bed. "Oh, father, what is it?" said she, and a vague +horror chilled her. + +"Get up, and slip on something, and go into your mother's room," said +her father, in a gasping sort of voice. "I've got to go for the +doctor." + +Maria put one slim little foot out of bed. "Oh, father," she said, +"is mother sick?" + +"Yes, she is very sick," replied her father. His voice sounded almost +savage. It was as if he were furious with his wife for being ill, +furious with Maria, with life, and death itself. In reality he was +torn almost to madness with anxiety. "Slip on something so you won't +catch cold," said he, in his irritated voice. "I don't want another +one down." + +Maria ran to her closet and pulled out a little pink wrapper. "Oh, +father, is mother very sick?" she whispered again. + +"Yes, she is very sick. I am going to have another doctor to-morrow," +replied her father, still in that furious, excited voice, which the +sick woman must have heard. + +"What shall I--" began Maria, but her father, running down the +stairs, cut her short. + +"Do nothing," said he. "Just go in there and stay with her. And don't +you talk. Don't you speak a word to her. Go right in." With that the +front door slammed. + +Maria went tiptoeing into her mother's room, still shaking from head +to foot, and her blue eyes seeming to protrude from her little white +face. Even before she entered her mother's room she became conscious +of a noise, something between a wail and a groan. It was +indescribably terrifying. It was like nothing which she had ever +heard before. It did not seem possible that her mother, that anything +human, in fact, was making such a noise, and yet no animal could have +made it, for it was articulate. Her mother was in fact both praying +and repeating verses of Scripture, in that awful voice which was no +longer capable of normal speech, but was compounded of wail and +groan. Every sentence seemed to begin with a groan, and ended with a +long-drawn-out wail. Maria went close to her mother's bed and stood +looking at her. Her poor little face would have torn her mother's +heart with its piteous terror, had she herself not been in such agony. + +Maria did not speak. She remembered what her father had said. As her +mother lay there, stretched out stiff and stark, almost as if she +were dead, Maria glanced around the room as if for help. She caught +sight of a bottle of cologne on the dresser, one which she had given +her mother herself the Christmas before; she had bought it out of her +little savings of pocket-money. Maria went unsteadily over to the +dresser and got the cologne. She also opened a drawer and got out a +clean handkerchief. She became conscious that her mother's eyes were +upon her, even although she never ceased for a moment her cries of +agony. + +"What--r you do--g?" asked her mother, in her dreadful voice. + +"Just getting some cologne to put on your head, to make you feel +better, mother," replied Maria, piteously. She thought she must +answer her mother's question in spite of her father's prohibition. + +Her mother seemed to take no further notice; she turned her face to +the wall. "Have--mercy upon me, O Lord, according to Thy loving +kindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies," she +shrieked out. Then the words ended with a long-drawn-out "Oh--oh--" + +Had Maria not been familiar with the words, she could not have +understood them. Not a consonant was fairly sounded, the vowels were +elided. She went, feeling as if her legs were sticks, close to her +mother's bed, and opened the cologne bottle with hands which shook +like an old man's with the palsy. She poured some cologne on the +handkerchief and a pungent odor filled the room. She laid the wet +handkerchief on her mother's sallow forehead, then she recoiled, for +her mother, at the shock of the coldness, experienced a new and +almost insufferable spasm of pain. "Let--me alone!" she wailed, and +it was like the howl of a dog. + +Maria slunk back to the dresser with the handkerchief and the cologne +bottle, then she returned to her mother's bedside and seated herself +there in a rocking-chair. A lamp was burning over on the dresser, but +it was turned low; her mother's convulsed face seemed to waver in +unaccountable shadows. Maria sat, not speaking a word, but quivering +from head to foot, and her mother kept up her prayers and her verses +from Scripture. Maria herself began to pray in her heart. She said it +over and over to herself, in unutterable appeal and terror, "O Lord, +please make mother well, please make her well." She prayed on, +although the groaning wail never ceased. + +Suddenly her mother turned and looked at her, and spoke quite +naturally. "Is that you?" she said. + +"Yes, mother. I'm so sorry you are sick. Father has gone for the +doctor." + +"You haven't got on enough," said her mother, still in her natural +voice. + +"I've got on my wrapper." + +"That isn't enough, getting up right out of bed so. Go and get my +white crocheted shawl out of the closet and put it over your +shoulders." + +Maria obeyed. While she was doing so her mother resumed her cries. +She said the first half of the twenty-third psalm, then she looked +again at Maria seating herself beside her, and said, in her own +voice, wrested as it were by love from the very depths of mortal +agony. "Have you got your stockings on?" said she. + +"Yes, ma'am, and my slippers." + +Her mother said no more to her. She resumed her attention to her own +misery with an odd, small gesture of despair. The cries never ceased. +Maria still prayed. It seemed to her that her father would never +return with the doctor. It seemed to her, in spite of her prayer, +that all hope of relief lay in the doctor, and not in the Lord. It +seemed to her that the doctor must help her mother. At last she heard +wheels, and, in her joy, she spoke in spite of her father's +injunction. "There's the doctor now," said she. "I guess he's +bringing father home with him." + +Again her mother's eyes opened with a look of intelligence, again she +spoke in her natural voice. She looked towards the clothes which she +had worn during the day, on a chair. "Put my clothes in the closet," +said she, but her voice strained terribly on the last word. + +Maria flew, and hung up her mother's clothes in the closet just +before her father and the doctor entered the room. As she did so, the +tears came for the first time. She had a ready imagination. She +thought to herself that her mother might never put on those clothes +again. She kissed the folds of her mother's dress passionately, and +emerged from the closet, the tears streaming down her face, all the +muscles of which were convulsed. The doctor, who was a young man, +with a handsome, rather hard face, glanced at her before even looking +at the moaning woman in the bed. He said something in a low tone to +her father, who immediately addressed her. + +"Go right into your own room, and stay there until I tell you to come +out, Maria," said he, still in that angry voice, which seemed to have +no reason in it. It was the dumb anger of the race against Fate, +which included and overran individuals in its way, like Juggernaut. + +At her father's voice, Maria gave a hysterical sob and fled. A sense +of injury tore her heart, as well as her anxiety. She flung herself +face downward on her bed and wept. After a while she turned over on +her back and looked at the room. Not one little thing in the whole +apartment but served to rack her very soul with the consideration of +her mother's love, which she was perhaps about to lose forever. The +dainty curtains at the windows, the scarf on the dresser, the chintz +cover on a chair--every one her mother had planned. She could not +remember how much her mother had scolded her, only how much she had +loved her. At the moment of death the memory of love reigns +triumphant over all else, but she still felt the dazed sense of +injury that her father should have spoken so to her. She could hear +the low murmur of voices in her mother's room across the hall. +Suddenly the cries and moans ceased. A great joy irradiated the +child. She said to herself that her mother was better, that the +doctor had given her something to help her. + +She got off the bed, wrapped her little pink garment around her, and +stole across the hall to her mother's room. The whole hall was filled +with a strange, sweet smell which made her faint, but along with the +faintness came such an increase of joy that it was almost ecstasy. +She turned the knob of her mother's door, but, before she could open +it, it was opened from the other side, and her father's face, haggard +and resentful as she had never seen it, appeared. + +"Go back!" he whispered, fiercely. + +"Oh, father, is mother better?" + +"Go back!" + +Maria went back, and again the tempest of woe and injury swept over +her. Why should her father speak to her so? Why could he not tell her +if her mother were better? She sat in her little rocking-chair beside +the window, and looked out at the night. She was conscious of a +terrible sensation which seemed to have its starting-point at her +heart, but which pervaded her whole body, her whole consciousness. +She was conscious of such misery, such grief, that it was like a +weight and a pain. She knew now that her mother was no better, that +she might even die. She heard no more of the cries and moans, and +somehow now, the absence of them seemed harder to bear than they +themselves had been. Suddenly she heard her mother's door open. She +heard her father's voice, and the doctor's in response, but she still +could not distinguish a word. Presently she heard the front door open +and close softly. Then her father hurried down the steps, and got +into the doctor's buggy and drove away. It was dark, but she could +not mistake her father. She knew that he had gone for another doctor, +probably Dr. Williams, who lived in the next town, and was considered +very skilful. The other doctor was remaining with her mother. She did +not dare leave her room again. She sat there watching an hour, and a +pale radiance began to appear in the east, which her room faced. It +was like dawn in another world, everything had so changed to her. The +thought came to her that she might go down-stairs and make some +coffee, if she only knew how. Her father might like some when he +returned. But she did not know how, and even if she had she dared not +leave her room again. + +The pale light in the east increased, suddenly rosy streamers, almost +like northern lights, were flung out across the sky. She could +distinguish things quite clearly. She heard the rattle of wheels, and +thought it was her father returning with Dr. Williams, but instead it +was the milkman in his yellow cart. He carried a bottle of milk +around to the south door. There was something horribly ghastly in +that every-day occurrence to the watching child. She realized the +interminable moving on of things in spite of all individual +sufferings, as she would have realized the revolution of a wheel of +torture. She felt that it was simply hideous that the milk should be +left at the door that morning, just as if everything was as it had +been. When the milkman jumped into his wagon, whistling, it seemed to +her as if he were doing an awful thing. The milk-wagon stopped at the +opposite house, then moved on out of sight down the street. She +wished to herself that the milkman's horse might run away while he +was at some door. The rancor which possessed her father, the kicking +against the pricks, was possessing her. She felt a futile rage, like +that of some little animal trodden underfoot. A boy whom she knew ran +past whooping, with a tin-pail, after the milkman. Evidently his +mother wanted some extra milk. The sun was reflected on the sides of +the swinging pail, and the flash of light seemed to hurt her, and she +felt the same unreasoning wrath against the boy. Why was not Willy +Royce's mother desperately sick, like her mother, instead of simply +sending for extra milk? The health and the daily swing of the world +in its arc of space seemed to her like a direct insult. + +At last it occurred to her that she ought to dress herself. She left +the window, brushed her hair, braided it, and tied it with a blue +ribbon, and put on her little blue gingham gown which she commonly +wore mornings. Then she sat by the window again. It was not very long +after that that she saw the doctor coming, driving fast. Her father +was with him, and between them sat a woman. She recognized the woman +at once. She was a trained nurse who lived in Edgham. "They have got +Miss Bell," she thought; "mother must be awful sick." She knew that +Miss Bell's wages were twenty-five dollars a week, and that her +father would not have called her in except in an extreme case. She +watched her father help out the woman, who was stout and middle-aged, +and much larger than he. Miss Bell had a dress-suit case, which her +father tugged painfully into the house; Miss Bell followed him. She +heard his key turn in the lock while the doctor fastened his horse. + +She saw the doctor, who was slightly lame, limp around to the buggy +after his horse was tied, and take out two cases. She hated him while +he did it. She felt intuitively that something terrible was to come +to her mother because of those cases. She watched the doctor limp up +the steps with positive malevolence. "If he is such a smart doctor, +why doesn't he cure himself?" she asked. + +She heard steps on the stairs, then the murmur of voices, and the +sound of the door opening into her mother's room. A frightful sense +of isolation came over her. She realized that it was infinitely worse +to be left by herself outside, suffering, than outside happiness. She +tried again to pray, then she stopped. "It is no good praying," she +reflected, "God did not stop mother's pain. It was only stopped by +that stuff I smelled out in the entry." She could not reason back of +that; her terror and misery brought her up against a dead wall. It +seemed to her presently that she heard a faint cry from her mother's +room, then she was quite sure that she smelled that strange, sweet +smell even through her closed door. Then her father opened her door +abruptly, and a great whiff of it entered with him, like some ghost +of pain and death. + +"The doctors have neither of them had any breakfast, and they can't +leave her," he said, with a jerk of his elbow, and speaking still +with that angry tone towards the unoffending child. "Can you make +coffee?" + +"I don't know how." + +"Good for nothing!" said her father, and shut the door with a subdued +bang. + +Maria heard him going down-stairs, and presently she heard a rattle +in the kitchen, a part of which was under her room. She went out +herself and stole softly down the stairs. Her father, with an air of +angry helplessness, was emptying the coffee-pot into her mother's +nice sink. Maria stood trembling at his elbow. "I don't believe +that's where mother empties it," she ventured. + +"It has got to be emptied somewhere," said her father, and his tone +sounded as if he swore. Maria shrank back. "They've got to have some +coffee, anyhow." + +Maria's father carried the coffee-pot over to the stove, in which a +freshly kindled fire was burning, and set it on it, in the hottest +place. Maria stealthily moved it back while he was searching for the +coffee in the pantry. She did not know much, but she did know that an +empty coffee-pot on such a hot place would come to ruin. + +Her father emerged from the pantry with a tin-canister in his hand. +"I've sent a telegram to our aunt Maria for her to come right on," +said he, "but she can't get here before afternoon. I don't suppose +you know how much coffee your mother puts in. I don't suppose you +know about anything." + +Maria realized dimly that she was a scape-goat, but there was such +terrible suffering in her father's face that she had no impulse to +rebel. She smelled of the canister which her father held out towards +her with a nervously trembling hand. "Why, father, this is tea; it +isn't coffee," said she. + +"Well, if you don't know anything that a big girl like you ought to +know, I should think you might know enough not to try to make coffee +with tea," said her father. + +Maria looked at her father in a bewildered sort of way. "I guess the +coffee is in the other canister," said she, meekly. + +"Why didn't you say so then?" demanded her father. + +Maria was silent. It seemed to her that her father had gone mad. +Harry Edgham made a ferocious stride across the kitchen to the +pantry. Maria followed him. "I guess that is the coffee canister," +said she, pointing. + +"Why didn't you say so, then?" asked her father, viciously, and again +Maria made no reply. Her father seized the coffee canister and +approached the stove. "I don't suppose you know how much she puts in. +I don't suppose you know anything," said he. + +"I guess she puts in about a cupful," said Maria, trembling. + +"A cupful! with coffee at the price it is now? I guess she doesn't," +said her father. He poured the coffee-pot full of boiling water from +the tea-kettle, then he tipped the coffee canister into his hand, and +put one small pinch into the pot. + +"Oh, father," ventured Maria. "I don't believe--" + +"You don't believe what?" + +"I don't believe that is enough." + +"Of course it's enough. Don't you suppose your father knows how to +make coffee?" + +Her father set the coffee-pot on the stove, where it immediately +began to boil. Then he carried back the canister into the pantry, and +returned with a panful of eggs. "You can set the table, I suppose, +anyhow?" said he. "You know enough to do as much as that?" + +"Yes, I can do that," replied Maria, with alacrity, and indeed she +could. Her mother had exacted some small household tasks from her, +and setting the table was one of them. She hurried into the +dining-room and began setting the table with the pretty blue-flowered +ware that her mother had been so proud of. She seemed to feel tears +in her heart when she laid the plates, but none sprang to her eyes. +Somehow, handling these familiar inanimate things was the acutest +torture. Presently she smelled eggs burning. She realized that her +father was burning up the eggs, in his utter ignorance of cookery. +She thought privately that she didn't believe but she could cook the +eggs, but she dared not go out in the kitchen. Her father, in his +anxiety, had actually reached ferocity. He had always petted her, in +his easy-going fashion, now he terrified her. She dared not go out +there. + +All at once, as she was getting the clean napkins from the sideboard, +she heard the front door open, and one of the neighbors, Mrs. Jonas +White, entered without knocking. She was a large woman and carelessly +dressed, but her great face was beaming with kindness and pity. + +"I just heard how bad your ma was," she said, in a loud whisper, "an' +I run right over. I thought mebbe--How is she?" + +"She is very sick," replied Maria. She felt at first an impulse to +burst into tears before this broadside of sympathy, then she felt +stiff. + +"You are as white as a sheet," said Mrs. White. "Who is burnin' eggs +out there?" She pointed to the kitchen. + +"Father." + +"Lord! Who's up-stairs?" + +"Miss Bell and the doctors. They've sent for Aunt Maria, but she +can't come before afternoon." + +Mrs. White fastened a button on her waist. "Well, I'll stay till +then," said she. "Lillian can get along all right." Lillian was Mrs. +White's eighteen-year-old daughter. + +Mrs. White opened the kitchen door. "How is she?" she said in a +hushed voice to Harry Edgham, frantically stirring the burned eggs, +which sent up a monstrous smoke and smell. As she spoke, she went +over to him, took the frying-pan out of his hands, and carried it +over to the sink. + +"She is a very sick woman," replied Harry Edgham, looking at Mrs. +White with a measure of gratitude. + +"You've got Dr. Williams and Miss Bell, Maria says?" + +"Yes." + +"Maria says her aunt is coming?" + +"Yes, I sent a telegram." + +"Well, I'll stay till she gets here," said Mrs. White, and again that +expression of almost childish gratitude came over the man's face. +Mrs. White began scraping the burned eggs off the pan. + +"They haven't had any breakfast," said Harry, looking upward. + +"And they don't dare leave her?" + +"No." + +"Well, you just go and do anything you want to, Maria and I will get +the breakfast." Mrs. White spoke with a kindly, almost humorous +inflection. Maria felt that she could go down on her knees to her. + +"You are very kind," said Harry Edgham, and he went out of the +kitchen as one who beats a retreat before superior forces. + +"Maria, you just bring me the eggs, and a clean cup," said Mrs. +White. "Poor man, trying to cook eggs!" said she of Maria's father, +after he had gone. She was one of the women who always treat men with +a sort of loving pity, as if they were children. "Here is some nice +bacon," said she, rummaging in the pantry. "The eggs will be real +nice with bacon. Now, Maria, you look in the ice-chest and see if +there are any cold potatoes that can be warmed up. There's plenty of +bread in the jar, and we'll toast that. We'll have breakfast in a +jiffy. Doctors do have a hard life, and Miss Bell, she ought to have +her nourishment too, if she's goin' to take care of your mother." + +When Maria returned from the ice-box, which stood out in the +woodshed, with a plate of cold potatoes, Mrs. White was sniffing at +the coffee-pot. + +"For goodness sake, who made this?" said she. + +"Father." + +"How much did he put in?" + +"He put in a little pinch." + +"It looks like water bewitched," said Mrs. White. "Bring me the +coffee canister. You know where that is, don't you?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +Maria watched Mrs. White pour out the coffee which her father had +made, and start afresh in the proper manner. + +"Men are awful helpless, poor things," said Mrs. White. "This sink is +in an awful condition. Did your father empty all this truck in it?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Well, I must clean it out, as soon as I get the other things goin', +or the dreen will be stopped up." Mrs. White's English was not +irreproachable, but she was masterful. + +Maria continued to stand numbly in the middle of the kitchen, +watching Mrs. White, who looked at her uneasily. + +"You must be a good girl, and trust in the Lord," said she, and she +tried to make her voice sharp. "Now, don't stand there lookin' on; +just fly round and do somethin'. I don't believe but the dinin'-room +needs dustin'. You find somethin' and dust the dinin'-room real nice, +while I get the breakfast." + +Maria obeyed, but she did that numbly, without any realization of the +task. + +The morning wore on. The doctors, one at a time came down, and the +nurse came down, and they ate a hearty breakfast. Maria watched them, +and hated them because they could eat while her mother was so ill. +Miss Bell also ate heartily, and she felt that she hated her. She was +glad that her father refused anything except a cup of coffee. As for +herself, Mrs. White made her drink an egg beaten up with milk. "If +you won't eat your breakfast, you've got to take this," said she. + +Mrs. White took her own breakfast in stray bites, while she was +clearing away the table. She stayed, and put the house in order, +until Maria's aunt Maria arrived. One of the physicians went away. +For a short time Maria's mother's groans and wailings recommenced, +then the smell of chloroform was strong throughout the house. + +"I wonder why they don't give her morphine instead of chloroform?" +said Mrs. White, while Maria was wiping the dishes. "It is dreadful +dangerous to give that, especially if the heart is weak. Well, don't +you be scart. I've seen folks enough worse than your mother git well." + +In the last few hours Maria's face had gotten a hard look. She no +longer seemed like a little girl. After a while the doctors went away. + +"I don't suppose there is much they can do for a while, perhaps," +remarked Mrs. White; "and Miss Bell, she is as good as any doctor." + +Both physicians returned a little after noon, and previously Mrs. +Edgham had made her voice of lamentation heard again. Then it ceased +abruptly, but there was no odor of chloroform. + +"They are giving her morphine now, I bet a cooky," Mrs. White said. +She, with Maria, was clearing away the dinner-table then. "What time +do you think your aunt Maria will get here?" she asked. + +"About half-past two, father said," replied Maria. + +"Well, I'm real glad you've got some one like her you can call on," +said Mrs. White. "Somebody that 'ain't ever had no family, and 'ain't +tied. Now I'd be willin' to stay right along myself, but I couldn't +leave Lillian any length of time. She 'ain't never had anything hard +put on her, and she 'ain't any too tough. But your aunt can stay +right along till your mother gits well, can't she?" + +"I guess so," replied Maria. + +There was something about Maria's manner which made Mrs. White +uneasy. She forced conversation in order to make her speak, and do +away with that stunned look on her face. All the time now Maria was +saying to herself that her mother was going to die, that God could +make her well, but He would not. She was conscious of blasphemy, and +she took a certain pleasure in it. + +Her aunt Maria arrived on the train expected, and she entered the +house, preceded by the cabman bearing her little trunk, which she had +had ever since she was a little girl. It was the only trunk she had +ever owned. Both physicians and the nurse were with Mrs. Edgham when +her sister arrived. Harry Edgham had been walking restlessly up and +down the parlor, which was a long room. He had not thought of going +to the station to meet Aunt Maria, but when the cab stopped before +the house he hurried out at once. Aunt Maria was dressed wholly in +black--a black mohair, a little black silk cape, and a black bonnet, +from which nodded a jetted tuft. "How is she?" Maria heard her say, +in a hushed voice, to her father. Maria stood in the door. Maria +heard her father say something in a hushed tone about an operation. +Aunt Maria came up the steps with her travelling-bag. Harry forgot to +take it. She greeted Mrs. White, whom she had met on former visits, +and kissed Maria. Maria had been named for her, and been given a +silver cup with her name inscribed thereon, which stood on the +sideboard, but she had never been conscious of any distinct affection +for her. There was a queer, musty odor, almost a fragrance, about +Aunt Maria's black clothes. + +"Take the trunk up the stairs, to the room at the left," said Harry +Edgham, "and go as still as you can." The man obeyed, shouldering the +little trunk with an awed look. + +Aunt Maria drew Mrs. White and Maria's father aside, and Maria was +conscious that they did not want her to hear; but she did +overhear--"...one chance in ten, a fighting chance," and "Keep it +from Maria, her mother had said so." Maria knew perfectly well that +that horrible and mysterious thing, an operation, which means a duel +with death himself, was even at that moment going on in her mother's +room. She slipped away, and went up-stairs to her own chamber, and +softly closed the door. Then she forgot her lack of faith and her +rebellion, and she realized that her only hope of life was from that +which is outside life. She knelt down beside her bed, and began to +pray over and over, "O God, don't let my mother die, and I will +always be a good girl! O God, don't let my mother die, and I will +always be a good girl!" + +Then, without any warning, the door opened and her father stood +there, and behind him was her aunt Maria, weeping bitterly, and Mrs. +White, also weeping. + +"Maria," gasped out Harry Edgham. Then, as Maria rose and went to +him, he seized upon her as if she were his one straw of salvation, +and began to sob himself, and Maria knew that her mother had died. + + + +Chapter IV + + +Without any doubt, Maria's self-consciousness, which was at its +height at this time, helped her to endure the loss of her mother, and +all the sad appurtenances of mourning. She had a covert pleasure at +the sight of her fair little face, in her black hat, above her black +frock. She realized a certain importance because of her grief. + +However, there were times when the grief itself came uppermost; there +were nights when she lay awake crying for her mother, when she was +nothing but a bereft child in a vacuum of love. Her father's +tenderness could not make up to her for the loss of her mother's. +Very soon after her mother's death, his mercurial temperament jarred +upon her. She could not understand how he could laugh and talk as if +nothing had happened. She herself was more like her mother in +temperament--that is, like the New-Englander who goes through life +with the grief of a loss grown to his heart. Nothing could exceed +Harry Edgham's tenderness to his motherless little girl. He was +always contriving something for her pleasure and comfort; but Maria, +when her father laughed, regarded him with covert wonder and reproach. + +Her aunt Maria continued to live with them, and kept the house. Aunt +Maria was very capable. It is doubtful if there are many people on +earth who are not crowned, either to their own consciousness or that +of others, with at least some small semblance of glories. Aunt Maria +had the notable distinction of living on one hundred dollars a year. +She had her rent free, but upon that she did not enlarge. Her married +brother owned a small house, of the story-and-a-half type prevalent +in New England villages, and Maria had the north side. She lived, +aside from that, upon one hundred dollars a year. She was openly +proud of it; her poverty became, in a sense, her riches. "Well, all I +have is just one hundred a year," she was fond of saying, "and I +don't complain. I don't envy anybody. I have all I want." Her little +plans for thrift were fairly Machiavellian; they showed subtly. She +told everybody what she had for her meals. She boasted that she lived +better than her brother, who was earning good wages in a +shoe-factory. She dressed very well, really much better than her +sister-in-law. "Poor Eunice never had much management," Maria was +wont to say, smoothing down, as she spoke, the folds of her own gown. +She never wore out anything; she moved carefully and sat carefully; +she did a good deal of fancy-work, but she was always very +particular, even when engaged in the daintiest toil, to cover her +gown with an apron, and she always held her thin-veined hands high. +She charged this upon her niece Maria when she had her new black +clothes. "Now, Maria," said she, "there is one thing I want you to +remember, here is nothin'--" (Aunt Maria elided her final "g" like +most New-Englanders, although she was not deficient in education, and +even prided herself upon her reading.) "Black is the worst thing in +the world to grow shiny. Folks can talk all they want to about black +bein' durable. It isn't. It grows shiny. And if you will always +remember one thing when you are at home, to wear an apron when you +are doin' anything, and when you are away, to hold your hands high, +you will gain by it. There is no need of anybody gettin' the front +breadths of their dresses all shiny by rubbin' their hands on them. +When you are at school you must remember and hold your school-books +so they won't touch your dress. Then there is another thing you must +remember, not to move your arms any more than you can help, that +makes the waist wear out under the arms. There isn't any need of your +movin' your arms much if any when you are in school, that I can see, +and when you come home you can change your dress. You might just as +well wear out your colored dresses when you are home. Nobody is goin' +to see you. If anybody comes in that I think is goin' to mind, you +can just slip up-stairs, and put on your black dress. It isn't as if +you had a little sister to take your things--they ought to be worn +out." + +It therefore happened that Maria was dressed the greater part of the +time, in her own home, where she missed her mother most, in +bright-colored array, and in funeral attire outside. She told her +father about it, but he had not a large income, and it had been +severely taxed by his wife's almost tragic illness and death. +Besides, if the truth were known, he disliked to see Maria in +mourning, and the humor of the thing also appealed to him. + +"You had better wear what your aunt says, dear. You feel just the +same in your heart, don't you?" asked Harry Edgham, with that light +laugh of his, which always so shocked his serious little daughter. + +"Yes, sir," she replied, with a sob. + +"Well, then, do just as your aunt says, and be a good little girl," +said Harry, and he went hastily out on the porch with his cigar. + +Nothing irritated him so much as to see Maria weep for her mother. He +was one of those who wrestle and fight against grief, and to see it +thrust in his face by the impetus of another heart exasperated him, +although he could say nothing. It may be that, with his temperament, +it was even dangerous for him to cherish grief, and, for that very +reason, he tried to put his dead wife out of his mind, as she had +been taken out of his life. + +"Well, men are different from women," Aunt Maria said to her niece +Maria one night, when Harry had gone out on the piazza, after he had +talked and laughed a good deal at the supper-table. + +Harry Edgham heard the remark, and his face took on a set expression +which it could assume at times. He did not like his sister-in-law, +although he disguised the fact. She was very useful. His meals were +always on time, the house was as neatly kept as before, and Maria was +being trained as she had never been in household duties. + +Maria was obedient, under silent protest, to her aunt. Often, after +she had been bidden to perform some household task, and obeyed, she +had gone to her own room and wept, and told herself that her mother +would never have put such things on her. She had no one in whom to +confide. She was not a girl to have unlimited intimates among other +girls at school. She was too self-centred, and, if the truth were +told, too emulative. + +"Maria Edgham thinks she's awful smart," one girl would say to +another. They all admitted, even the most carping, that Maria was +pretty. "Maria Edgham is pretty enough, and she knows it," said they. +She was in the high school, even at her age, and she stood high in +her classes. There was always a sort of moral strike going on against +Maria, as there is against all superiority, especially when the +superiority is known to be recognized by the possessor thereof. + +In spite of her prettiness, she was not a favorite even among the +boys. They were, as a rule, innocent as well as young, but they would +rather have snatched a kiss from such a pretty, dainty little +creature than have had her go above them in the algebra class. It did +not seem fitting. Without knowing it, they were envious. They would +not even acknowledge her cleverness, not even Wollaston Lee, for whom +Maria entertained a rudimentary affection. He was even rude to her. + +"Maria Edgham is awful stuck up," he told his mother. He was of that +age when a boy tells his mother a good deal, and he was an only child. + +"She's a real pretty little girl, and her aunt says she is a good +girl," replied his mother, who regarded the whole as the antics of +infancy. + +The Lees lived near the Edghams, on the same street, and Mrs. Lee and +Aunt Maria had exchanged several calls. They were, in fact, almost +intimate. The Lees were at the supper-table when Wollaston made his +deprecatory remark concerning Maria, and he had been led to do so by +the law of sequence. Mrs. Lee had made a remark about Aunt Maria to +her husband. "I believe she thinks Harry Edgham will marry her," she +said. + +"That's just like you women, always trumping up something of that +kind," replied her husband. His words were rather brusque, but he +regarded, while speaking them, his wife with adoration. She was a +very pretty woman, and looked much younger than her age. + +"You needn't tell me," said Mrs. Lee. "She's just left off bonnets +and got a new hat trimmed with black daisies; rather light mourning, +I call it, when her sister has not been dead a year." + +"You spiteful little thing!" said her husband, still with his adoring +eyes on his wife. + +"Well, it's so, anyway." + +"Well, she would make Harry a good wife, I guess," said her husband, +easily; "and she would think more of the girl." + +It was then that Wollaston got in his remark about poor Maria, who +had herself noticed with wonder that her aunt had bought a new hat +that spring instead of a bonnet. + +"Why, Aunt Maria, I thought you always wore a bonnet!" said she, +innocently, when the hat came home from the milliner's. + +"Nobody except old women are wearing bonnets now," replied her aunt, +shortly. "I saw Mrs. Rufus Jones, who is a good deal older than I, at +church Sunday with a hat trimmed with roses. The milliner told me +nobody of my age wore a bonnet." + +"Did she know how old you really are, Aunt Maria?" inquired Maria +with the utmost innocence. + +Harry Edgham gave a little chuckle, then came to his sister-in-law's +rescue. He had a thankful heart for even small benefits, and Aunt +Maria had done a good deal for him and his, and it had never occurred +to him that the doing might not be entirely disinterested. Besides, +Aunt Maria had always seemed to him, as well as to his daughter, very +old indeed. It might have been that the bonnets had had something to +do with it. Aunt Maria had never affected fashions beyond a certain +epoch, partly from economy, partly from a certain sense of injury. +She had said to herself that she was old, she had been passed by; she +would dress as one who had. Now her sentiments underwent a curious +change. The possibility occurred to her that Harry might ask her to +take her departed sister's place. She was older than that sister, +much older than he, but she looked in her glass and suddenly her +passed youth seemed to look forth upon her. The revival of hopes +sometimes serves as a tonic. Aunt Maria actually did look younger +than she had done, even with her scanty frizzes. She regarded other +women, not older than herself, with pompadours, and aspiration seized +her. + +One day she went to New York shopping. She secretly regarded that as +an expedition. She was terrified at the crossings. Stout, elderly +woman as she was, when she found herself in the whirl of the great +city, she became as a small, scared kitten. She gathered up her +skirts, and fled incontinently across the streets, with policemen +looking after her with haughty disapprobation. But when she was told +to step lively on the trolley-cars, her true self asserted its +endurance. "I am not going to step in front of a team for you or any +other person," she told one conductor, and she spoke with such +emphasis that even he was intimidated, and held the car meekly until +the team had passed. When Aunt Maria came home from New York that +particular afternoon, she had an expression at once of defiance and +embarrassment, which both Maria and her father noticed. + +"Well, what did you see in New York, Maria?" asked Harry, pleasantly. + +"I saw the greatest lot of folks without manners, that I ever saw in +my whole life," replied Aunt Maria, sharply. + +Harry Edgham laughed. "You'll get used to it," he said, easily. +"Everybody who comes from New England has to take time to like New +York. It is an acquired taste." + +"When I do acquire it, I'll be equal to any of them," replied Aunt +Maria. "When I lose my temper, they had better look out." + +Harry Edgham laughed again. + +It was the next morning when Aunt Maria appeared at the early +breakfast with a pompadour. Her thin frizzes were carefully puffed +over a mystery which she had purchased the afternoon before. + +Maria, when she first saw her aunt, stared open-mouthed; then she ate +her breakfast as if she had seen nothing. + +Harry Edgham gave one sharp stare at his sister-in-law, then he said: +"Got your hair done up a new way, haven't you, Maria?" + +"Yes, my hat didn't set well on my head with my hair the way I was +wearing it," replied Aunt Maria with dignity; still she blushed. She +knew that her own hair did not entirely conceal the under structure, +and she knew, too, why she wore the pompadour. + +Harry Edgham recognized the first fact with simple pity that his +sister-in-law's hair was so thin. He remembered hearing a hair-tonic +recommended by another man in the office, and he wondered privately +if Maria would feel hurt if he brought some for her. Of the other +fact he had not the least suspicion. He said: "Well, it's real +becoming to you, Maria. I guess I like it better than the other way. +I notice all the girls seem to wear their hair so nowadays." + +Aunt Maria smiled at him gratefully. When her sister had married him, +she had wondered what on earth she saw in Harry Edgham; now he seemed +to her a very likeable man. + +When Maria sat in school that morning, her aunt's pompadour diverted +her mind from her book; then she caught Gladys Mann's wondering eyes +upon her, and she studied again. + +While Maria could scarcely be said to have an intimate friend at +school, a little girl is a monstrosity who has neither a friend nor a +disciple; she had her disciple, whose name was Gladys Mann. Gladys +was herself a little outside the pale. Most of her father's earnings +went for drink, and Gladys's mother was openly known to take in +washing to make both ends meet, and keep the girl at school at all; +moreover, she herself came of one of the poor white families which +flourish in New Jersey as well as at the South, although in less +numbers. Gladys's mother was rather a marvel, inasmuch as she was +willing to take in washing, and do it well too, but Gladys had no +higher rank for that. She was herself rather a pathetic little soul, +dingily pretty, using the patois of her kind, and always at the fag +end of her classes. Her education, so far, seemed to meet with no +practical results in the child herself. Her brain merely filtered +learning like a sieve; but she thought Maria Edgham was a wonder, and +it was really through her, and her alone, that she obtained any +education. + +"What makes you always say 'have went'?" Maria would inquire, with a +half-kindly, half-supercilious glance at her satellite. + +"What had I ought to say," Gladys would inquire, meekly--"have came?" + +"Have gone," replied Maria, with supreme scorn. + +"Then when my mother has came home shall I say she has gone?" +inquired Gladys, with positive abjectness. + +"Gladys, you are such a ninny," said Maria. "Why don't you remember +what you learn at school, instead of what you hear at home?" + +"I guess I hear more at home than I learn at school," Gladys replied, +with an adoring glance at Maria. + +Maria half despised Gladys, and yet she had a sort of protective +affection for her, as one might have for a little clinging animal, +and she confided more in her than in any one else, sure, at least, of +an outburst of sympathy. Maria had never forgotten how Gladys had +cried the first morning she went to school after her mother died. +Every time Gladys glanced at poor little Maria, in her black dress, +her head went down on a ring of her little, soiled, cotton-clad arms +on her desk, and Maria knew that she was sorrier for her than any +other girl in school. + +Gladys had a sort of innocent and ignorant impertinence; she asked +anything which occurred to her, with no reflection as to its effect +upon the other party. + +"Say, is it true?" she asked that very morning at recess. + +"Is what true?" + +"Is your father goin' to marry her?" + +"Marry who?" Maria turned quite pale, and forgot her own grammar. + +"Why, your aunt Maria." + +"My aunt Maria? I guess he isn't!" Maria left Gladys with an offended +strut. However, she reflected on Aunt Maria's pompadour. A great +indignation seized her. After this she treated Aunt Maria stiffly, +and she watched both her and her father. + +There was surely nothing in Harry Edgham's behaviour to warrant a +belief that he contemplated marrying his deceased wife's sister. +Sometimes he even, although in a kindly fashion, poked fun at her, in +Maria's presence. But Aunt Maria never knew it; she was, in fact, +impervious to that sort of thing. But Maria came to be quite sure +that Aunt Maria had designs on her father. She observed that she +dressed much better than she had ever done; she observed the fairly +ostentatious attention which she bestowed upon her brother-in-law, +and also upon herself, when he was present. She even used to caress +Maria, in her wooden sort of way, when Harry was by to see. Once +Maria repulsed her roughly. "I don't like to be kissed and fussed +over," said she. + +"You mustn't speak so to your aunt," said Harry, when Aunt Maria had +gone out of the room. "I don't know what we should have done without +her." + +"You pay her, don't you, father?" asked Maria. + +"Yes, I pay her," said Harry, "but that does not alter the fact that +she has done a great deal which money could not buy." + +Maria gazed at her father with suspicion, which he did not recognize. + +It had never occurred to Harry Edgham to marry Aunt Maria. It had +never occurred to him that she might think of the possibility of such +a thing. It was now nearly a year since his wife's death. He himself +began to take more pains with his attire. Maria noticed it. She saw +her father go out one evening clad in a new, light-gray suit, which +he had never worn before. She looked at him wonderingly when he +kissed her good-bye. Harry never left the house without kissing his +little daughter. + +"Why, you've got a new suit, father," she said. + +Harry blushed. "Do you like it, dear?" he asked. + +"No, father, I don't like it half as well as a dark one," replied +Maria, in a sweet, curt little voice. Her father colored still more, +and laughed, then he went away. + +Aunt Maria, to Maria's mind, was very much dressed-up that evening. +She had on a muslin dress with sprigs of purple running through it, +and a purple ribbon around her waist. She made up her mind that she +would stay up until her father came home, in that new gray suit, no +matter what Aunt Maria should say. + +However, contrary to her usual custom, Aunt Maria did not mention, at +half-past eight, that it was time for her to go to bed. It was +half-past nine, and her father had not come home, and Aunt Maria had +said nothing about it. She appeared to be working very interestedly +on a sofa-cushion which she was embroidering, but her face looked, to +Maria's mind, rather woe-begone, although there was a shade of wrath +in the woe. When the little clock on the sitting-room shelf struck +one for half-past nine, Maria looked at her aunt, wondering. + +"Why, I wonder where father has gone so late?" she said. + +Aunt Maria turned, and her voice, in reply, was both pained and +pitiless. "Well, you may as well know first as last," said she, "and +you'd better hear it from me than outside: your father has gone +courtin'." + + + +Chapter V + + +Maria looked at her aunt with an expression of almost idiocy. For the +minute, the term Aunt Maria used, especially as applied to her +father, had no more meaning for her than a term in a foreign tongue. +She was very pale. "Courtin'," she stammered out vaguely, imitating +her aunt exactly, even to the dropping of the final "g." + +Aunt Maria was, for the moment, too occupied with her own personal +grievances and disappointments to pay much attention to her little +niece. "Yes, courtin'," she said, harshly. "I've been suspectin' for +some time, an' now I know. A man, when he's left a widower, don't +smarten up the way he's done for nothin'; I know it." Aunt Maria +nodded her head aggressively, with a gesture almost of butting. + +Maria continued to gaze at her, with that pale, almost idiotic +expression. It was a fact that she had thought of her father as being +as much married as ever, even although her mother was dead. Nothing +else had occurred to her. + +"Your father's thinkin' of gettin' married again," said Aunt Maria, +"and you may as well make up your mind to it, poor child." The words +were pitying, the tone not. + +"Who?" gasped Maria. + +"I don't know any more than you do," replied Aunt Maria, "but I know +it's somebody." Suddenly Aunt Maria arose. It seemed to her that she +must do something vindictive. Here she had to return to her solitary +life in her New England village, and her hundred dollars a year, +which somehow did not seem as great a glory to her as it had formerly +done. She went to the parlor windows and closed them with jerks, then +she blew out the lamp. "Come," said she, "it's time to go to bed. I'm +tired, for my part. I've worked like a dog all day. Your father has +got his key, an' he can let himself in when he gets through his +courtin'." + +Maria crept miserably--she was still in a sort of daze--up-stairs +after Aunt Maria. + +"Well, good-night," said Aunt Maria. "You might as well make up your +mind to it. I suppose it had to come, and maybe it's all for the +best." Aunt Maria's voice sounded as if she were trying to reconcile +the love of God with the existence of hell and eternal torment. She +closed her door with a slam. There are, in some New England women, +impulses of fierce childishness. + +Maria, when she was in her room, had never felt so lonely in her +life. A kind of rage of loneliness possessed her. She slipped out of +her clothes and went to bed, and then she lay awake. She heard her +father when he returned. The clock on a church which was near by +struck twelve soon after. Maria tried to imagine another woman in the +house in her mother's place; she thought of every eligible woman in +Edgham whom her father might select to fill that place, but her +little-girl ideas of eligibility were at fault. She thought only of +women of her mother's age and staidness, who wore bonnets. She could +think of only two, one a widow, one a spinster. She shuddered at the +idea of either. She felt that she would much rather have had her +father marry Aunt Maria than either of those women. She did not +altogether love Aunt Maria, but at least she was used to her. +Suddenly it occurred to her that Aunt Maria was disappointed, that +she felt badly. The absurdity of it struck her strongly, but she felt +a pity for her; she felt a common cause with her. After her father +had gone into his room, and the house had long been silent, she got +up quietly, opened her door softly, and crept across the hall to the +spare room, which Aunt Maria had occupied ever since she had been +there. She listened, and heard a soft sob. Then she turned the knob +of the door softly. + +"Who is it?" Aunt Maria called out, sharply. + +Maria was afraid that her father would hear. + +"It's only me, Aunt Maria," she replied. Then she also gave a little +sob. + +"What's the matter?" + +Maria groped her way across the room to her aunt's bed. "Oh, Aunt +Maria, who is it?" she sobbed, softly. + +Aunt Maria did what she had never done before: she reached out her +arms and gathered the bewildered little girl close, in an embrace of +genuine affection and pity. She, too, felt that here was a common +cause, and not only that, but she pitied the child with unselfish +pity. "You poor child, you are as cold as ice. Come in here with me," +she whispered. + +Maria crept into bed beside her aunt, but she would rather have +remained where she was. She was a child of spiritual rather than +physical affinities, and the contact of Aunt Maria's thin body, even +though it thrilled with almost maternal affection for her, repelled +her. + +Aunt Maria began to weep unrestrainedly, with a curious passion and +abandonment for a woman of her years. + +"Has he come home?" she whispered. Aunt Maria's hearing was slightly +defective, especially when she was nervously overwrought. + +"Yes. Aunt Maria, who is it?" + +"Hush, I don't know. He hasn't paid any open court to anybody, that I +know of, but--I've seen him lookin'." + +"At whom?" + +"At Ida Slome." + +"But she is younger than my mother was." + +"What difference do you s'pose that makes to a man. He'll like her +all the better for that. You can thank your stars he didn't pitch on +a school-girl, instead of the teacher." + +Maria lay stretched out stiff and motionless. She was trying to bring +her mind to bear upon the situation. She was trying to imagine Miss +Ida Slome, with her pink cheeks and her gay attire, in the house +instead of her mother. Her head began to reel. She no longer wept. +She became dimly conscious, after a while, of her aunt Maria's +shaking her violently and calling her by name, but she did not +respond, although she heard her plainly. Then she felt a great jounce +of the bed as her aunt sprang out. She continued to lie still and +rigid. She somehow knew, however, that her aunt was lighting the +lamp, then she felt, rather than saw, the flash of it across her +face. Her aunt Maria pulled on a wrapper over her night-gown, and +hurried to the door. "Harry, Harry Edgham!" she heard her call, and +still Maria could not move. Then she also felt, rather than saw, her +father enter the room with his bath-robe slipped over his pajamas, +and approach the bed. + +"What on earth is the matter?" he said. He also laid hands on Maria, +and, at his touch, she became able to move. + +"What on earth is the matter?" he asked again. + +"She didn't seem able to speak or move, and I was scared," replied +Aunt Maria, with a reproachful accent on the "I"; but Harry Edgham +was too genuinely concerned at his little daughter's white face and +piteous look to heed that at all. + +He leaned over and began stroking her soft little cheeks, and kissing +her. "Father's darling," he whispered. Then he said over his shoulder +to Aunt Maria, "I wish you would go into my room and get that flask +of brandy I keep in my closet." + +Aunt Maria obeyed. She returned with the flask and a teaspoon, and +Maria's father made her swallow a few drops, which immediately warmed +her and made the strange rigidity disappear. + +"I guess she had better stay in here with you the rest of the night," +said Harry to his sister-in-law; but little Maria sat up +determinately. + +"No, I'm going back to my own room," she said. + +"Hadn't you better stay with your aunt, darling?" + +Harry Edgham looked shamefaced and guilty. He saw that his +sister-in-law and Maria had been weeping, and he knew why, in the +depths of his soul. He saw no good reason why he should feel so +shamed and apologetic, but he did. He fairly cowered before the +nervous little girl and her aunt. + +"Well, let father carry you in there, then," he said; and he lifted +up the slight little thing, carried her across the hall to her room, +and placed her in bed. + +It was a very warm night, but Maria was shivering as if with cold. He +placed the coverings over her with clumsy solicitude. Then he bent +down and kissed her. "Try and keep quiet, and go to sleep, darling," +he said. Then he went out. + +Aunt Maria was waiting for him in the hall. Her face, from grief and +consternation, had changed to sad and dignified resignation. + +"Harry," said she. + +Harry Edgham stopped. + +"Well, sister," he said, with pleasant interrogation, although he +still looked shamefaced. + +Aunt Maria held a lamp, a small one, which she was tipping +dangerously. + +"Look out for your lamp, Maria," he said. + +She straightened the lamp, and the light shone full upon her swollen +face, at once piteous and wrathful. "I only wanted to know when you +wanted me to go?" she said. + +"Oh, Lord, Maria, you are going too fast!" replied Harry, and he +fairly ran into his own room. + +The next morning when Maria, in her little black frock--it was made +of a thin lawn for the hot days, and the pale slenderness of her arms +and neck were revealed by the thinness of the fabric--went to school, +she knew, the very moment that Miss Ida Slome greeted her, that Aunt +Maria had been right in her surmise. For the first time since she had +been to school, Miss Slome, who was radiant in a flowered muslin, +came up to her and embraced her. Maria submitted coldly to the +embrace. + +"You sweet little thing," said Miss Slome. + +There was a man principal of the school, but Miss Slome was first +assistant, and Maria was in most of her classes. She took her place, +with her pretty smile as set as if she had been a picture instead of +a living and breathing woman, on the platform. + +"You are awful sweet all of a sudden, ain't you?" said Gladys Mann in +Maria's ear. + +Maria nodded, and went to her own seat. + +All that day she noted, with her sharp little consciousness, the +change in Miss Slome's manner towards her. It was noticeable even in +class. "It is true," she said to herself. "Father is going to marry +her." + +Aunt Maria was a little pacified by Harry's rejoinder the night +before. She begun to wonder if she had been, by any chance, mistaken. + +"Maybe I was wrong," she said, privately, to Maria. But Maria shook +her head. + +"She called me a sweet little thing, and kissed me," said she. + +"Didn't she ever before?" + +"No, ma'am." + +"Well, she may have taken a notion to. Maybe I was mistaken. The way +your father spoke last night sort of made me think so." + +Aunt Maria made up her mind that if Harry was out late the next +Sunday, and the next Wednesday, that would be a test of the +situation. The first time had been Wednesday, and Wednesday and +Sunday, in all provincial localities, are the acknowledged courting +nights. Of course it sometimes happens that an ardent lover goes +every night; but Harry Edgham, being an older man and a widower, +would probably not go to that extent. + +He soon did, however. Very soon Maria and her aunt went to bed every +night before Harry came home, and Miss Ida Slome became more loving +towards Maria. + +Wollaston Lee, boy as he was, child as he was, really suffered. He +lost flesh, and his mother told Aunt Maria that she was really +worried about him. "He doesn't eat enough to keep a bird alive," said +she. + +It never entered into her heart to imagine that Wollaston was in love +with the teacher, a woman almost if not quite old enough to be his +mother, and was suffering because of her love for Harry Edgham. + +One afternoon, when Harry's courtship of Ida Slome had been going on +for about six weeks, and all Edgham was well informed concerning it, +Maria, instead of going straight home from school, took a cross-road +through some woods. She dreaded to reach home that night. It was +Wednesday, and her father would be sure to go to see Miss Slome. +Maria felt an indefinable depression, as if she, little, helpless +girl, were being carried so far into the wheels of life that it was +too much for her. Her father, of late, had been kinder than ever to +her; Maria had begun to wonder if she ought not to be glad if he were +happy, and if she ought not to try to love Miss Slome. But this +afternoon depression overcame her. She walked slowly between the +fields, which were white and gold with queen's-lace and golden-rod. +Her slender shoulders were bent a little. She walked almost like an +old woman. She heard a quick step behind her, and Wollaston Lee came +up beside her. She looked at him with some sentiment, even in the +midst of her depression. The thought flashed across her mind, what is +she should marry Wollaston at the same time her father married Miss +Slome? That would be a happy and romantic solution of the affair. She +colored sweetly, and smiled, but the boy scowled at her. + +"Say?" he said. + +Maria trembled a little. She was surprised. + +"What?" she asked. + +"Your father is the meanest man in this town, he is the meanest in +New Jersey, he is the meanest man in the whole United States, he is +the meanest man in the whole world." + +Again the boy scowled at Maria, who did not understand; but she would +not have her father reviled. + +"He isn't, so there!" she said. + +"He's going to marry teacher." + +"I don't see as he is mean if he is," said Maria, forced into justice +by injustice. + +"I was going to marry her myself, if she'd only waited, and he hadn't +butted in," said Wollaston. + +The boy gave one last scowl at the little girl, and it was as if he +scowled at all womanhood in her. Then he gave a fling away, and ran +like a wild thing across the field of golden-rod and queen's-lace. +Maria, watching, saw him throw himself down prone in the midst of the +wild-flowers, and she understood that he was crying because the +teacher was going to marry her father. She went on, walking like a +little old woman, and she had a feeling as if she had found a road in +the world that led outside all love. + + + +Chapter VI + + +Maria felt that she no longer cared about Wollaston Lee, that she +fairly scorned him. Then, suddenly, something occurred to her. She +turned, and ran back as fast as she could, her short fleece of golden +hair flying. She wrapped her short skirts about her, and wormed +through the barbed-wire fence which skirted the field--the boy had +leaped it, but she was not equal to that--and she hastened, leaving a +furrow through the white-and-gold herbage, to the boy lying on his +face weeping. She stood over him. + +"Say?" said she. + +The boy gave a convulsive wriggle of his back and shoulders, and +uttered an inarticulate "Let me alone"; but the girl persisted. + +"Say?" said she again. + +Then the boy turned, and disclosed a flushed, scowling face among the +flowers. + +"Well, what do you want, anyway?" said he. + +"If you want to marry Miss Slome, why don't you, instead of my +father?" inquired Maria, bluntly, going straight to the point. + +"I haven't got any money," replied Wollaston, crossly; "all a woman +thinks of is money. How'd I buy her dresses?" + +"I don't believe but your father would be willing for you to live at +home with her, and buy her dresses, till you got so you could earn +yourself." + +"She wouldn't have me," said the boy, and he fairly dug his flushed +face into the mass of wild-flowers. + +"You are a good deal younger than father," said Maria. + +"Your father he can give her a diamond ring, and I haven't got more'n +forty cents, and I don't believe that would buy much of anything," +said Wollaston, in muffled tones of grief and rage. + +Maria felt a shock at the idea of a diamond ring. Her mother had +never owned one. + +"Oh, I don't believe father will ever give her a diamond ring in the +world," said she. + +"She's wearing one, anyhow--I saw it," said Wollaston. "Where did she +get it if he didn't give it to her, I'd like to know?" + +Maria felt cold. + +"I don't believe it," she said again. "Teacher is all alone in the +school-house, correcting exercises. Why don't you get right up, and +go back and ask her? I'll go with you, if you want me to." + +Wollaston raised himself indeterminately upon one elbow. + +"Come along," urged Maria. + +Wollaston got up slowly. His face was a burning red. + +"You are a good deal younger and better looking than father," urged +Maria, traitorously. + +The boy was only a year older than Maria. He was much larger and +taller, but although she looked a child, at that moment he looked +younger. Both of his brown hands hung at his sides, clinched like a +baby's. He had a sulky expression. + +"Come along," urged the girl. + +He stood kicking the ground hesitatingly for a moment, then he +followed the girl across the field. They went down the road until +they came to the school-house. Miss Slome was still there; her +graceful profile could be seen at a window. + +Both children marched in upon Miss Slome, who was in a +recitation-room, bending over a desk. She looked up, and her face +lightened at sight of Maria. + +"Oh, it's you, dear?" said she. + +Maria then saw, for the first time, the white sparkle of a diamond on +the third finger of her left hand. She felt that she hated her. + +"He wants to speak to you," she said, indicating Wollaston with a +turn of her hand. + +Miss Slome looked inquiringly at Wollaston, who stood before her like +a culprit, blushing and shuffling, and yet with a sort of doggedness. + +"Well, what is it, Wollaston?" she asked, patronizingly. + +"I came back to ask you if--you would have me?" said Wollaston, and +his voice was hardly audible. + +Miss Ida Slome looked at him in amazement; she was utterly dazed. + +"Have you?" she repeated. "I think I do not quite understand you. +What do you mean by 'have you,' Wollaston?" + +"Marry me," burst forth the boy. + +There was a silence. Maria looked at Miss Slome, and, to her utter +indignation, the teacher's lips were twitching, and it took a good +deal to make Miss Slome laugh, too; she had not much sense of humor. + +In a second Wollaston stole a furtive glance at Miss Slome, which was +an absurd parody on a glance of a man under similar circumstances, +and Miss Slome, who had had experience in such matters, laughed +outright. + +The boy turned white. The woman did not realize it, but it was really +a cruel thing which she was doing. She laughed heartily. + +"Why, my dear boy," she said. "You are too young and I am too old. +You had better wait and marry Maria, when you are both grown up." + +Wollaston turned his back upon her, and marched out of the room. +Maria lingered, in the vain hope that she might bring the teacher to +a reconsideration of the matter. + +"He's a good deal younger than father, and he's better looking," said +she. + +Miss Slome blushed then. + +"Oh, you sweet little thing, then you know--" she began. + +Maria interrupted her. She became still more traitorous to her father. + +"Father has a real bad temper, when things go wrong," said she. +"Mother always said so." + +Miss Slome only laughed harder. + +"You funny little darling," she said. + +"And Wollaston has a real good disposition, his mother told my aunt +Maria so," she persisted. + +The room fairly rang with Miss Slome's laughter, although she tried +to subdue it. Maria persisted. + +"And father isn't a mite handy about the house," said she. "And Mrs. +Lee told Aunt Maria that Wollaston could wipe dishes and sweep as +well as a girl." + +Miss Slome laughed. + +"And I've got a bad temper, too, when I'm crossed; mother always said +so," said Maria. Her lip quivered. + +Miss Slome left her desk, came over to Maria, and, in spite of her +shrinking away, caught her in her arms. + +"You are a little darling," said she, "and I am not a bit afraid of +your temper." She hesitated a moment, looking at the child's averted +face, and coloring. "My dear, has your father told you?" she +whispered; then, "I didn't know he had." + +"No, ma'am, he hasn't," said Maria. She fairly pulled herself loose +from Miss Slome and ran out of the room. Her eyes were almost blinded +with tears; she could scarcely see Wollaston Lee on the road, ahead +of her, also running. He seemed to waver as he ran. Maria called out +faintly. He evidently heard, for he slackened his pace a little; then +he ran faster than ever. Maria called again. This time the boy +stopped until the girl came up. He picked a piece of grass, as he +waited, and began chewing it. + +"How do you know that isn't poison?" said Maria, breathlessly. + +"Don't care if it is; hope it is," said the boy. + +"It's wicked to talk so." + +"Let it be wicked then." + +"I don't see how I am to blame for any of it," Maria said, in a +bewildered sort of way. It was the cry of the woman, the primitive +cry of the primitive scape-goat of Creation. Already Maria began to +feel the necessity of fitting her little shoulders to the blame of +life, which she had inherited from her Mother Eve, but she was as yet +bewildered by the necessity. + +"Ain't it your father that's going to marry her?" inquired Wollaston, +fiercely. + +"I don't want him to marry her any more than you do," said Maria. "I +don't want her for a mother." + +"I told you how it would come out, if I asked her," cried the boy, +still heaping the blame upon the girl. + +"I would enough sight rather marry you than my father, if I were the +teacher," said Maria, and her blue eyes looked into Wollaston's with +the boldness of absolute guilelessness. + +"Hush!" responded Wollaston, with a gesture of disdain. "Who'd want +you? You're nothing but a girl, anyway." + +With that scant courtesy Wollaston Lee resumed his race homeward, and +Maria went her own way. + +It was that very night, after Harry Edgham had returned from his call +upon Ida Slome, that he told Maria. Maria, as usual, had gone to bed, +but she was not asleep. Maria heard his hand on her door-knob, and +his voice calling out, softly: "Are you asleep, dear?" + +"No," responded Maria. + +Then her father entered and approached the child staring at him from +her white nest. The room was full of moonlight, and Maria's face +looked like a nucleus of innocence upon which it centred. Harry +leaned over his little daughter and kissed her. + +"Father has got something to tell you, precious," he said. + +Maria hitched away a little from him, and made no reply. + +"Ida, Miss Slome, tells me that she thinks you know, and so I made up +my mind I had better tell you, and not wait any longer, although I +shall not take any decisive step before--before November. What would +you say if father should bring home a new mother for his little girl, +dear?" + +"I should say I would rather have Aunt Maria," replied Maria, +decisively. She choked back a sob. + +"I've got nothing to say against Aunt Maria," said Harry. "She's been +very kind to come here, and she's done all she could, but--well, I +think in some ways, some one else--Father thinks you will be much +happier with another mother, dear." + +"No, I sha'n't." + +Harry hesitated. The child's voice sounded so like her dead mother's +that he felt a sudden guilt, and almost terror. + +"But if father were happier--you want father to be happy, don't you, +dear?" he asked, after a little. + +Then Maria began to sob in good earnest. She threw her arms around +her father's neck. "Yes, father, I do want you to be happy," she +whispered, brokenly. + +"If father's little girl were large enough to keep his house for him, +and were through school, father would never think of taking such a +step," said Harry Edgham, and he honestly believed what he said. For +the moment his old love of life seemed to clutch him fast, and Ida +Slome's radiant visage seemed to pale. + +"Oh, father," pleaded Maria. "Aunt Maria would marry you, and I would +a great deal rather have her." + +"Nonsense," said Harry Edgham, laughing, with a glance towards the +door. + +"Yes, she would, father; that was the reason she got her pompadour." + +Harry laughed again, but softly, for he was afraid of Aunt Maria +overhearing. "Nonsense, dear," he said again. Then he kissed Maria in +a final sort of way. "It will be all for the best," he said, "and we +shall all be happier. Father doesn't think any the less of you, and +never will, and he is never going to forget your own dear mother; but +it is all for the best, the way he has decided. Now, good-night, +darling, try to go to sleep, and don't worry about anything." + +It was not long before Maria did fall asleep. Her thoughts were in +such a whirl that it was almost like intoxication. She could not seem +to fix her mind on anything long enough to hold herself awake. It was +not merely the fact of her father's going to marry again, it was +everything which that involved. She felt as if she were looking into +a kaleidoscope shaken by fate into endless changes. The changes +seemed fairly to tire her eyes into sleep. + +The very next afternoon Aunt Maria went home. Harry announced his +matrimonial intentions to her before he went to New York, and she +said immediately that she would take the afternoon train. + +"But," said Harry, "I thought maybe you would stay and be at +the--wedding, Maria. I don't mean to get married until the November +vacation, and it is only the first of September now. I don't see why +you are in such a hurry." + +"Yes," replied Aunt Maria, "I suppose you thought I would stay and +get the house cleaned, and slave here like a dog, getting ready for +you to be married. Well, I sha'n't; I'm tired out. I'm going to take +the train this afternoon." + +Harry looked helplessly at her. + +"I don't see what Maria and I are going to do then," said he. + +"If it wasn't for taking Maria away from school, I would ask her to +come and make me a visit, poor child," said Aunt Maria, "until you +brought her new ma home. I have only a hundred dollars a year to live +on, but I'd risk it but I could make her comfortable; but she can't +leave her school." + +"No, I don't see how she can," said Harry, still helplessly. "I +thought you'd stay, Maria. There is the house to be cleaned, and some +painting and papering. I thought--" + +"Yes, I'll warrant you thought," said Aunt Maria, with undisguised +viciousness. "But you were mistaken; I am not going to stay." + +"But I don't see exactly--" + +"Oh, Lord, you and Maria can take your meals at Mrs. Jonas White's, +she'll be glad enough to have you; and you can hire the cleaning +done," said Aunt Maria, with a certain pity in the midst of her +disappointment and contempt. + +It seemed to Maria, when her aunt went away that afternoon, as if she +could not bear it. There is a law of gravitation for the soul as well +as for the body, and Maria felt as one who had fallen from a known +quantity into strangeness, with a horrible shock. + +"Now, if she don't treat you well, you send word, and I'll have you +come and stay with me," whispered Aunt Maria at the last. + +Maria loved Aunt Maria when she went away. She went to school late +for the sake of seeing her off; and she was late in the geography +class, but Miss Slome only greeted her with a smile of radiant +reassurance. + +At recess, Gladys Mann snuggled up to her. + +"Say, is it true?" she whispered. + +"Is what true?" + +"Is your father goin' to get married to teacher?" + +"Yes," said Maria. Then she gave Gladys a little push. "I wish you'd +let me alone," she said. + + + +Chapter VII + + +Extreme youth is always susceptible to diversion which affords a +degree of alleviation for grief. Many older people have the same +facility of turning before the impetus of circumstances to another +view of life, which serves to take their minds off too close +concentration upon sorrow, but it is not so universal. Maria, +although she was sadly lonely, in a measure, enjoyed taking her meals +at Mrs. Jonas White's. She had never done anything like it before. +The utter novelty of sitting down to Mrs. White's table, and eating +in company with her and Mr. Jonas White, and Lillian White, and a son +by the name of Henry, amused her. Then, too, they were all very kind +to her. They even made a sort of heroine of her, especially at noon, +when her father was in New York and she, consequently, was alone. +They pitied her, in a covert sort of fashion, because her father was +going to get married again, especially Mrs. White and Lillian. +Lillian was a very pretty girl, with a pert carriage of blond head, +and a slangy readiness of speech. + +"Well, she's a dandy, as far as looks and dress go, and maybe she'll +make you a real good mother-in-law," she said to Maria. Maria knew +that Lillian should have said step-mother, but she did not venture to +correct her. + +"Looks ain't everything," said Mrs. White, with a glance at her +daughter. She had thought of the possibility of Harry Edgham taking a +fancy to her Lillian. + +Mr. Jonas White, who with his son Henry kept a market, thereby +insuring such choice cuts of meat, spoke then. He did not, as a rule, +say much at table, especially when Maria and her father, who in his +estimation occupied a superior place in society, were present. + +"Guess Mr. Edgham knows what he's about," said he. "He's going to +marry a good-looking woman, and one that's capable of supportin' +herself, if he's laid up or anything happens to him. Guess she's all +right." + +"I guess so, too," said Henry White. Both nodded reassuringly at +Maria, who felt mournfully comforted. + +"Shouldn't wonder if she'd saved something, too," said Mr. White. + +When he and his son were on their way back to the market, driving in +the white-covered wagon with "J. White & Son" on the sides thereof, +they agreed that women were queer. + +"There's your mother and Lillian, they mean all right," said Jonas +White, "but they were getting that poor young one all stirred up." + +Maria never settled with herself whether the Whites thought she had a +pleasant prospect before her or the reverse, but they did not +certainly influence her to love Miss Ida Slome any more. + +Miss Slome was so kind to Maria, in those days, that it really seemed +to her that she ought to love her. She and her father were invited to +take tea at Miss Slome's boarding-house, and after tea they sat in +the little parlor which the teacher had for her own, and Miss Slome +sang and played to them. She had a piano. Maria heard her and her +father talking about the place in the Edgham parlor where it was to +stand. Harry stood over Miss Slome as she was singing, and Maria +observed how his arm pressed against her shoulder. + +After the song was done, Harry and Miss Slome sat down on the sofa, +and Harry drew Maria down on the other side. Harry put his arm around +his little daughter, but not as if he realized it, and she peeked +around and saw how closely he was embracing Miss Slome, whose cheeks +were a beautiful color, but whose set smile never relaxed. It seemed +to Maria that Miss Slome smiled exactly like a doll, as if the smile +were made on her face by something outside, not by anything within. +Maria thought her father was very silly. She felt scorn, shame, and +indignation at the same time. Maria was glad when it was time to go +home. When her father kissed Miss Slome, she blushed, and turned away +her head. + +Going home, Harry almost danced along the street. He was as +light-hearted as a boy, and as thoughtlessly in love. + +"Well, dear, what do you think of your new mother?" he asked, gayly, +as they passed under the maples, which were turning, and whose +foliage sprayed overhead with a radiance of gold in the electric +light. + +Then Maria made that inevitable rejoinder which is made always, which +is at once trite and pathetic. "I can't call her mother," she said. + +But Harry only laughed. He was too delighted and triumphant to +realize the pain of the child, although he loved her. "Oh, well, +dear, you needn't until you feel like it," he said. + +"What am I going to call her, father?" asked Maria, seriously. + +"Oh, anything. Call her Ida." + +"She is too old for me to call her that," replied Maria. + +"Old? Why, dear, Ida is only a girl." + +"She is a good deal over thirty," said Maria. "I call that very old." + +"You won't, when you get there yourself," replied Harry, with another +laugh. "Well, dear, suit yourself. Call her anything you like." + +It ended by Maria never calling her anything except "you," and +referring to her as "she" and "her." The woman, in fact, became a +pronoun for the child, who in her honesty and loyalty could never put +another word in the place which had belonged to the noun, and feel +satisfied. + +Maria was very docile, outwardly, in those days, but inside she was +in a tumult of rebellion. She went home with Miss Slome when she was +asked, but she was never gracious in response to the doll-like smile, +and the caressing words, which were to her as automatic as the smile. +Sometimes it seemed to Maria that if she could only have her own +mother scold her, instead of Miss Slome's talking so sweetly to her, +she would give the whole world. + +For some unexplained cause, the sorrow which Maria had passed through +had seemed to stop her own emotional development. She looked at +Wollaston Lee sometimes and wondered how she had ever had dreams +about him; how she had thought she would like him to go with her, +and, perhaps, act as silly as her father did with Miss Slome. She +remembered how his voice sounded when he said she was nothing but a +girl, and a rage of shame seized her. "He needn't worry," she +thought. "I wouldn't have him, not if he was to go down on his knees +in the dust." She told Gladys Mann that she thought Wollaston Lee was +a very homely boy, and not so very smart, and Gladys told another +girl whose brother knew Wollaston Lee, and he told him. After a +little, Wollaston and Maria never spoke when they met. The girl did +not seem to see the boy; she was more delicate in her manner of +showing aversion, but the boy gazed straight at her with an insolent +stare, as at one who had dared him. He told the same boy who had told +him what Maria had said, that he thought Amy Long was the prettiest +girl in school, and Maria was homely enough to crack a looking-glass, +and that came back to Maria. Everything said in the school always +came back, by some mysterious law of gravitation. + +There was one quite serious difficulty involved in Aunt Maria's +deserting her post, and that was, Maria was too young to be left +alone in the house every night while her father was visiting his +fiancee. She could not stay at Mrs. White's, because it was obviously +unfair to ask them to remain up until nearly midnight to act as her +guardian every, or nearly every, night in the week. However, Harry +submitted the problem to Miss Slome, who solved it at once. She had, +in some respects, a masterly brain, and her executive abilities were +somewhat thrown away in her comparatively humble sphere. + +"You must have the house cleaned," said she. "Let the woman you get +to clean stay over until you come home. She won't be afraid to go +home alone afterwards. Those kind of people never are. I suppose you +will get Mrs. Addix?" + +"They tell me she is about the best woman for house-cleaning," said +Harry, rather helplessly. He was so unaccustomed to even giving a +thought to household details, that he had a vague sense of self-pity +because he was now obliged to do so. His lost Abby occasionally, he +believed, had employed this Mrs. Addix, but she had never troubled +him about it. + +It thus happened that every evening little Maria Edgham sat guarded, +as it were, by Mrs. Addix. Mrs. Addix was of the poor-white race, +like the Manns--in fact, she was distantly related to them. They were +nearly all distantly related, which may have accounted for their +partial degeneracy. Mrs. Addix, however, was a sort of anomaly. +Coming, as she did, of a shiftless, indolent family, she was yet a +splendid worker. She seemed tireless. She looked positively radiant +while scrubbing, and also more intelligent. The moment she stopped +work, she looked like an automatic doll which had run down: all +consciousness of self, or that which is outside self, seemed to leave +her face; it was as if her brain were in her toiling arms and hands. +Moreover, she always went to sleep immediately after Harry had gone +and Maria was left alone with her. She sat in her chair and breathed +heavily, with her head tipped idiotically over one shoulder. + +It was not very lively for Maria during those evenings. She felt +afraid to go to bed and leave the house alone except for the heavily +sleeping woman, whom her father had hard work to rouse when he +returned, and who staggered out of the door, when she started home, +as if she were drunk. She herself never felt sleepy; it was even hard +for her to sleep when at last her father had returned and she went to +bed. Often after she had fallen asleep her heart seemed to sting her +awake. + +Maria grew thinner than ever. Somebody called Harry Edgham's +attention to the fact, and he got some medicine for her to take. But +it was not medicine which she needed--that is, not medicine for the +body, but for the soul. What probably stung her most keenly was the +fact that certain improvements, for which her mother had always +longed but always thought she could not have, were being made in the +house. A bay-window was being built in the parlor, and one over it, +in the room which had been her father's and mother's, and which Maria +dimly realized was, in the future, to be Miss Ida Slome's. Maria's +mother had always talked a good deal about some day having that +bay-window. Maria reflected that her father could have afforded it +just as well in her mother's day, if her mother had insisted upon it, +like Miss Slome. Maria's mother had been of the thrifty New England +kind, and had tried to have her husband save a little. Maria knew +well enough that these savings were going into the improvements, the +precious dollars which her poor mother had enabled her father to save +by her own deprivations and toil. Maria heard her father and Miss +Slome talk about the maid they were to have; Miss Slome would never +dream of doing her own work, as her predecessor had done. All these +things the child dwelt upon in a morbid, aged fashion, and, +consequently, while her evenings with Mrs. Addix were not enjoyable, +they were not exactly dull. Nearly every room in the house was being +newly papered and painted. Maria and Mrs. Addix sat first in one +room, then in another, as one after another was torn up in the +process of improvement. Generally the room which they occupied was +chaotic with extra furniture, and had a distracted appearance which +grated terribly upon the child's nerves. Only her own room was not +touched. "You shall have your room all fixed up next year," her +father told her. "I would have it done now, but father is going to +considerable expense as it is." Maria assured him, with a sort of +wild eagerness, that she did not want her room touched. It seemed to +her that if the familiar paper which her mother had selected were +changed for something else, and the room altered, that the last +vestige of home would disappear, that she could not bear it. + +"Well," said Harry, easily, "your paper will do very well, I guess, +for a while longer; but father will have your room fixed up another +year. You needn't think you are going to be slighted." + +That night, Maria and Mrs. Addix sat in Maria's room. The parlor was +in confusion, and so was the dining-room and the guest-chamber; +indeed, the house was at that time in the height of its repairs. That +very day Maria's mother's room had been papered with a beautiful +paper with a sheenlike satin, over which were strewn garlands of pink +roses. Pink was Miss Slome's favorite color. They had a new hard-wood +floor laid in that room, and there was to be a pink rug, and white +furniture painted with pink roses; Maria knew that her father and +Miss Slome had picked it out. That evening, after her father had +gone, and she sat there with the sleeping Mrs. Addix, a sort of +frenzy seized her, or, rather, she worked herself up to it. She +thought of what her mother would have said to that beautiful new +paper, and furniture, and bay-window. Her mother also had liked pink. +She thought of how much her mother would have liked it, and how she +had gone without, and not made any complaint about her shabby old +furnishings, which had that very day been sold to Mrs. Addix for an +offset to her wages, and which Maria had seen carried away. She +thought about it all, and a red flush deepened on her cheeks, and her +blue eyes blazed. For the time she was abnormal. She passed the limit +which separates perfect sanity from mania. She had some fancy-work in +her hands. Mrs. White had suggested that she work in cross-stitch a +cover for the dresser in her new mother's room, and she was engaged +upon that, performing, as she thought, a duty, but her very soul +rebelled against it. She made some mistakes, and whenever she did she +realized with a sort of wicked glee that the thing would not be +perfect, and she never tried to rectify them. + +Finally, Maria laid her work softly on the table, beside which she +was sitting. She glanced at Mrs. Addix, whose heavy, measured +breathing filled the room, then she arose. She took the lamp from the +table, and tiptoed out. Maria stole across the hall. The room which +had been her father's and mother's was entirely empty, and the roses +on the satiny wall-paper gleamed out as if they were real. There was +a white-and-silver picture-moulding. Maria set her lamp on the floor. +She looked at the great bay-window, she looked at the roses on the +walls. Then she did a mad thing. The paper was freshly put on; it was +hardly dry. Maria deliberately approached the wall near the +bay-window, where the paper looked somewhat damp; she inserted her +slender little fingers, with a scratching of her nails under the +edge, and she tore off a great, ragged strip. Then she took up her +lamp and returned to her room. + +Mrs. Addix was still asleep. She had begun to snore, in an odd sort +of fashion, with deep, regular puffs of breath; it was like the +beating of a drum to peace and rest, after a day of weary and +unskilled labor unprofitable to the soul. Maria sat down again. She +took up her work. She felt very wicked, but she felt better. + + + +Chapter VIII + + +When Maria's father returned that night, he came, as usual, straight +to the room wherein she and Mrs. Addix were sitting. Maria regarded +her father with a sort of contemptuous wonder, tinctured with +unwilling admiration. Her father, on his return from his evenings +spent with Miss Ida Slome, looked always years younger than Maria had +ever seen him. There was the humidity of youth in his eyes, the flush +of youth on his cheeks, the triumph of youth in his expression. Harry +Edgham, in spite of lines on his face, in spite, even, of a shimmer +of gray and thinness of hair on the temples, looked as young as youth +itself, in this rejuvenation of his affection, for he was very much +in love with the woman whom he was to marry. He had been faithful to +his wife while she lived, even the imagination of love for another +woman had not entered his heart. His wife's faded face had not for a +second disturbed his loyalty; but now the beauty of this other woman +aroused within him long dormant characteristics, like some wonderful +stimulant, not only for the body, but for the soul. When he looked in +Ida Slome's beautiful face he seemed to drink in an elixir of life. +And yet, down at the roots of the man's heart slept the memory of his +wife; for Abby Edgham, with her sallow, faded face, had possessed +something which Ida Slome lacked, and which the man needed, to hold +him. And always in his mind, at this time, was the intention to be +more than kind to his motherless little daughter, not to let her +realize any difference in his feeling for her. + +When he came to-night, he looked at the sleeping Mrs. Addix, and at +Maria, taking painful stitches in her dresser cover, at first with a +radiant smile, then with the deepest pity. + +"Poor little soul," he said. "You have had a long evening to +yourself, haven't you?" + +"I don't mind," replied Maria. She was thinking of the torn +wall-paper, and she did not look her father fully in the eyes. + +"Has she been asleep ever since I went?" inquired Harry, in a whisper. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Poor little girl. Well, it will be livelier by-and-by for you. We'll +have company, and more going on." Harry then went close to Mrs. +Addix, sitting with her head resting on her shoulder, still snoring +with those puffs of heavy breath. "Mrs. Addix," he said. + +Mrs. Addix did not stir; she continued to snore. + +"Mrs. Addix!" repeated Harry, in a louder tone, but still the +sleeping woman did not stir. + +"Good Lord, what a sleeper!" said Harry, still aloud. Then he shook +her violently by the shoulder. "Come, Mrs. Addix," said he, in a +shout; "I've got home, and I guess you'll want to be going yourself." + +Mrs. Addix moved languidly, and glanced up with a narrow slit of eye, +as dull as if she had been drugged. Harry shook her again, and +repeated his announcement that he was home and that she must want to +go. At last he roused her, and she stood up with a dazed expression. +Maria got her bonnet and shawl, and she gazed at them vaguely, as if +she were so far removed from the flesh that the garments thereof +perplexed her. Maria put on her bonnet, standing on tiptoe, and Harry +threw the shawl over her shoulders. Then she staggered out of the +room with a mumbled good-night. + +"Take care of the stairs, and do not fall," Harry said. + +He himself held the light for her, until she was safely down, and the +outer door had closed after her. + +"The fresh air will wake her up," he said, laughing. "Not very lively +company, is she, dear?" + +"No, sir," replied Maria, simply. + +Harry looked lovingly at her, then his eyes fell on the door of the +room which had been papered that day. It occurred to him to go in and +see how the new paper looked. + +"Come in with father, and let's see the improvements," he said, in a +gay voice, to Maria. + +Maria followed him into the room. It would have been difficult to say +whether triumphant malice and daring, or fear, prevailed in her heart. + +Harry, carrying the lamp, entered the room, with Maria slinking at +his heels. The first thing he saw was the torn paper. + +"Hullo!" said he. He approached the bay-window with his lamp. +"Confound those paperers!" he said. + +For a minute Maria did not say a word. She was not exactly struggling +with temptation; she had inherited too much from her mother's Puritan +ancestry to make the question of a struggle possible when the duty of +truth stared her, as now, in the face. She simply did not speak at +once because the thing appeared to her stupendous, and nobody, least +of all a child, but has a threshold of preparation before stupendous +things. + +"They haven't half put the paper on," said her father. "Didn't half +paste it, I suppose. You can't trust anybody unless you are right at +their heels. Confound 'em! There, I've got to go round and blow 'em +up to-morrow, before I go to the city." + +Then Maria spoke. "I tore that paper off, father," said she. + +Harry turned and stared at her. His face went white. For a second he +thought the child was out of her senses. + +"What?" he said. + +"I tore that paper off," repeated Maria. + +"You? Why?" + +The double question seemed to hit the child like a pistol-shot, but +she did not flinch. + +"Mother never had paper as pretty as this," she said, "nor new +furniture." Her eyes met her father's with indescribable reproach. + +Harry looked at her with almost horror. For the moment the child's +eyes looked like her dead mother's, her voice sounded like her's. He +continued gazing at her. + +"I couldn't bear it," said Maria. "She" [she meant Mrs. Addix] "was +asleep. I was all alone. I got to thinking. I came in here and tore +it off." + +Harry heaved a deep sigh. He did not look nor was he in the least +angry. + +"I know your poor mother didn't have much," said he. He sighed again. +Then he put his arm around Maria and kissed her. "You can have your +room newly papered now, if you want it," said he, in a choking voice. +"Father will send you over to Ellisville to-morrow with Mrs. White, +and you can pick out some paper your own self, and father will have +it put right on." + +"I don't care about any," said Maria, and she began to sob. + +"Father's baby," said Harry. + +She felt his chest heave, and realized that her father was weeping as +well as she. + +"Oh, father, I don't want new paper," she sobbed out, convulsively. +"Mother picked out that on my room, and--and--I am sorry I tore this +off." + +"Never mind, darling," said Harry. He almost carried the child back +to her own room. "Now get to bed as soon as you can, dear," he said. + +After Maria, trembling and tearful, had undressed and was in bed, her +father came back into the room. He held a small lamp in one hand, and +a tumbler with some wine in the other. + +"Here is some of the wine your mother had," said Harry. "Now I want +you to sit right up and drink this." + +"I--don't want it, father," gasped Maria. + +"Sit right up and drink it." + +Maria sat up. The tumbler was a third full, and the wine was an old +port. Maria drank it. Immediately her head began to swim; she felt in +a sort of daze when her father kissed her, and bade her lie still and +go right to sleep, and went out of the room. She heard him, with +sharpened hearing, enter her mother's room. She remembered about the +paper, and the new furniture, and how she was to have a new mother, +and how she had torn the paper, and how her own mother had never had +such things, but she remembered through a delicious haze. She felt a +charming warmth pervade all her veins. She was no longer unhappy. +Nothing seemed to matter. She soon fell asleep. + +As for Harry Edgham, he entered the empty room which he had occupied +with his dead wife. He set the lamp on the floor and approached the +paper, which poor little Maria, in her fit of futile rebellion, had +torn. He carefully tore off still more, making a clean strip of the +paper where Maria had made a ragged one. When he had finished, it +looked as if the paper had in reality dropped off because of +carelessness in putting on. He gathered up the pieces of paper and +stood looking about the room. + +There is something about an empty room, empty except of memories, but +containing nothing besides, no materialities, no certainties as to +the future, which is intimidating to one who stops and thinks. Harry +Edgham was not, generally speaking, of the sort who stop to think; +but now he did. The look of youth faded from his face. Instead of the +joy and triumph which had filled his heart and made it young again, +came remembrance of the other woman, and something else, which +resembled terror and dread. For the first time he deliberated whether +he was about to do a wise thing: for the first time, the image of Ida +Slome's smiling beauty, which was ever evident to his fancy, produced +in him something like doubt and consternation. He looked about the +room, and remembered the old pieces of furniture which had that day +been carried away. He looked at the places where they had stood. Then +he remembered his dead wife, as he had never remembered her before, +with an anguish of loss. He said to himself that if he only had her +back, even with her faded face and her ready tongue, that old, +settled estate would be better for him than this joy, which at once +dazzled and racked him. Suddenly the man, as he stood there, put his +hands before his face; he was weeping like a child. That which Maria +had done, instead of awakening wrath, had aroused a pity for himself +and for her, which seemed too great to be borne. For the instant, the +dead triumphed over the living. + +Then Harry took up the lamp and went to his own room. He set the lamp +on the dresser, and looked at his face, with the rays thrown upward +upon it, very much as Maria had done the night of her mother's death. +When he viewed himself in the looking-glass, he smiled involuntarily; +the appearance of youth returned. He curled his mustache and moved +his head this way and that. He thought about some new clothes which +he was to have. He owned to himself, with perfect ingenuousness, that +he was, in his way, as a man, as good-looking as Ida herself. +Suddenly he remembered how Abby had looked when she was a young girl +and he had married her; he had not compared himself so favorably with +her. The image of his dead wife, as a young girl, was much fairer in +his mind than that of Ida Slome. + +"There's no use talking, Abby was handsomer than Ida when she was +young," he said to himself, as he began to undress. He went to sleep +thinking of Abby as a young girl, but when once asleep he dreamed of +Ida Slome. + + + +Chapter IX + + +Harry and Ida Slome were to be married the Monday before +Thanksgiving. The school would close on the Friday before. + +Ida Slome possessed, along with an entire self-satisfaction, a vein +of pitiless sense, which enabled her to see herself as others might +see her, and which saved her from the follies often incident to the +self-satisfied. She considered herself a beauty; she thought, and +with reason, that she would be well worth looking at in her +wedding-clothes, but she also told herself that it was quite possible +that some remarks might be made to her disparagement if she had the +wedding to which her inclination prompted her. She longed for a white +gown, veil, bridesmaids, and the rest, but she knew better. She knew +that more could be made of her beauty and her triumph if she +curtailed her wish. She realized that Harry's wife had been dead only +a little more than a year, and that, although still a beauty, she was +not a young girl, and she steered clear of criticism and ridicule. + +The ceremony was performed in the Presbyterian church Monday +afternoon. Ida wore a prune-colored costume, and a hat trimmed with +pansies. She was quite right in thinking that she was adorable in it, +and there was also in the color, with its shade of purple, a delicate +intimation of the remembrance of mourning in the midst of joy. The +church was filled with people, but there were no bridesmaids. Some of +Ida's scholars acted as ushers. Wollaston Lee was among them. To +Maria's utter astonishment, he did not seem to realize his trying +position as a rejected suitor. He was attired in a new suit, and wore +a white rosebud in his coat, and Maria glanced at him with mingled +admiration and disdain. + +Maria sat directly in front of the pulpit, with Mrs. Jonas White and +Lillian. Mrs. White had a new gown of some thin black stuff, +profusely ornamented with jet, and Lillian had a new pink silk gown, +and wore a great bunch of roses. The situation, with regard to Maria, +in connection with the wedding ceremony and the bridal trip, had been +a very perplexing one. Harry had some western cousins, far removed, +both by blood and distance. Aunt Maria and her brother were the only +relatives on his former wife's side. Aunt Maria had received an +invitation, both from Harry and the prospective bride, to be present +at the wedding and remain in the house with Maria until the return of +the bridal couple from their short trip. She had declined in a few +stilted words, although Harry had sent a check to cover the expenses +of her trip, which was returned in her letter. + +"The fact is, I don't know what to do with Maria," Harry said to Ida +Slome, a week before the wedding. "Maria won't come, and neither will +her brother's wife, and she can't be left alone, even with the new +maid. We don't know the girl very well, and it won't do." + +Ida Slome solved the problem with her usual precision and promptness. + +"Then," said she, "she will have to board at Mrs. White's until we +return. There is nothing else to do." + +It was therefore decided that Maria was to board at Mrs. White's, +although it involved some things which were not altogether +satisfactory to Ida. Maria could not sit all alone in a pew, and +watch her father being married to his second wife, that was obvious; +and, since Mrs. Jonas White was going to take charge of her, there +was nothing else to do but to place herself and daughter in a +position of honored intimacy. Mrs. Jonas White said quite openly that +she was not in any need of taking boarders, that she had only taken +Mr. Edgham and Maria to oblige, and that she now was to take poor +little Maria out of pity. She, in reality, did pity Maria, for a good +many reasons. She was a shrewd woman, and she gauged Miss Ida Slome +pitilessly. However, she had to admit that she had shown some +consideration in one respect. In the midst of her teaching, and +preparations for her wedding, she had planned a lovely dress for +Maria. It was unquestionable but the realization of her own +loveliness, and her new attire had an alleviating influence upon +Maria. There was a faint buzz of admiration for her when she entered +the church. She looked as if enveloped in a soft gray cloud. Ida had +planned a dress of some gray stuff, and a soft gray hat, tied under +her chin with wide ribbons, and a long gray plume floating over her +golden-fleece of hair. Maria had never owned such a gown, and, in +addition, she had her first pair of kid-gloves of gray, to match the +dress, and long, gray coat, trimmed with angora fur. She was charming +in it, and, moreover, the gray, as her step-mother's purple, +suggested delicately, if one so chose to understand a dim yet +pleasing melancholy, a shade, as it were, of remembrance. + +Maria had been dressed at home, under Mrs. White's supervision. Maria +had viewed herself in the new long mirror in her mother's room, which +was now resplendent with its new furnishings, and she admitted to +herself that she was lovelier than she had ever been, and that she +had Miss Ida Slome to thank for it. + +"I will say one thing," said Mrs. White, "she has looked out for you +about your dress, and she has shown real good taste, too." + +Maria turned herself about before the glass, which reflected her +whole beautiful little person, and she loved herself so much that for +the first time it seemed to her that she almost loved Ida. She was +blushing and smiling with pleasure. + +Mrs. White sighed. "Well, maybe it is for the best," said she. "One +never knows about such things, how they will work out." + +Maria listened, with a degree of indignation and awe, to the service. +She felt her heart swelling with grief at the sight of this other +woman being made her father's wife and put in the place of her own +mother, and yet, as a musical refrain is the haunting and +ever-recurrent part of a composition, so was her own charming +appearance. She felt so sure that people were observing her, that she +blushed and dared not look around. She was, in reality, much +observed, and both admired and pitied. + +People, both privately and outspokenly, did not believe that the +step-mother would be, in a way, good to the child by the former +marriage. Ida Slome was not exactly a favorite in Edgham. People +acquiesced in her beauty and brilliancy, but they did not entirely +believe in her or love her. She stood before the pulpit with her same +perfect, set smile, displaying to the utmost the sweet curves of her +lips. Her cheeks retained their lovely brilliancy of color. Harry +trembled, and his face looked pale and self-conscious, but Ida +displayed no such weakness. She replied with the utmost self-poise to +the congratulations which she received after the ceremony. There was +an informal reception in the church vestry. Cake and ice-cream and +coffee were served, and Ida and Harry and Maria stood together. Ida +had her arm around Maria most of the time, but Maria felt as if it +were an arm of wood which encircled her. She heard Ida Slome +addressed as Mrs. Edgham, and she wanted to jerk herself away and +run. She lost the consciousness of herself in her new attire. + +Once Harry looked around at her, and received a shock. Maria's face +looked to him exactly like her mother's, although the coloring was so +different. Maria was a blonde, and her mother had been dark. There +was something about the excitement hardly restrained in her little +face, which made the man realize that the dead wife yet lived and +reigned triumphant in her child. He himself was conscious that he +conducted himself rather awkwardly and foolishly. A red spot burned +on either cheek. He spoke jerkily, and it seemed to him that +everything he said was silly, and that people might repeat it and +laugh. He was relieved when it was all over and he and Ida were in +the cab, driving to the station. When they were rolling rapidly +through a lonely part of the road, he put his arm around his new +wife, and kissed her. She received his kiss, and looked at him with +her set smile and the set sparkle in her beautiful eyes. Again the +feeling of almost terror which he had experienced the night when +Maria had torn the paper off in her mother's room, came over him. +However, he made an effort and threw it off. + +"Poor little Maria looked charming, thanks to you, dearest," he said, +tenderly. + +"Yes, I thought she did. That gray suit was just the thing for her, +wasn't it? I never saw her look so pretty before," returned Ida, and +her tone was full of self-praise for her goodness to Maria. + +"Well, she will be a great deal happier," said Harry. "It was a +lonesome life for a child to lead." + +Harry Edgham had not an atom of tact. Any woman might have judged +from his remarks that she had been married on account of Maria; but +Ida only responded with her never-changing smile. + +"Yes," said she, "I think myself that she will be much happier, +dear." Privately she rather did resent her husband's speech, but she +never lost sight of the fact that a smile is more becoming than a +frown. + +Maria remained boarding at Mrs. Jonas White's until her father and +his new wife returned. She did not have a very happy time. In the +first place, the rather effusive pity with which she was treated by +the female portion of the White family, irritated her. She began to +consider that, now her father had married, his wife was a member of +her family, and not to be decried. Maria had a great deal of pride +when those belonging to her were concerned. One day she retorted +pertly when some covert remark, not altogether to her new mother's +laudation, had been made by Lillian. + +"I think she is perfectly lovely," said she, with a toss of her head. + +Lillian and her mother looked at each other. Then Lillian, who was +not her match for pertness, spoke. + +"Have you made up your mind what to call her?" she asked. "Mummer, or +mother?" + +"I shall call her whatever I please," replied Maria; "it is nobody's +business." Then she arose and went out of the room, with an absurd +little strut. + +"Lord a-massy!" observed Mrs. Jonas White, after she had gone. + +"I guess Ida Slome will have her hands full with that young one," +observed Lillian. + +"I guess she will, too," assented her mother. "She was real sassy. +Well, her mother had a temper of her own; guess she's got some of it." + +Mr. Jonas White and Henry were a great alleviation of Maria's +desolate estate during her father's absence. Somehow, the men seemed +to understand better than the women just how she felt: that she would +rather be let alone, now it was all over, than condoled with and +pitied. Mr. Henry White took one of the market horses, hitched him +into a light buggy, and took Maria out riding two evenings, when the +market was closed. It was a warm November, and the moon was full. +Maria quite enjoyed her drive with Mr. Henry White, and he never said +one word about her father's marriage, and her new mother--her pronoun +of a mother--all the way. Mr. Henry White had too long a neck, and +too large a mouth, which was, moreover, too firmly set, otherwise +Maria felt that, with slight encouragement, she might fall in love +with him, since he showed so much delicacy. She counted up the +probable difference in their ages, and estimated it as no more than +was between her father and Her. However, Mr. Henry White gave her so +little encouragement, and his neck was so much too long above his +collar, that she decided to put it out of her mind. + +"Poor little thing," Mr. Henry White said to his father, next day, +"she's about wild, with mother and Lill harping on it all the time." + +"They mean well," said Mr. White. + +"Of course they do; but who's going to stand this eternal harping? If +women folks would only stop being so durned kind, and let folks alone +sometimes, they'd be a durned sight kinder." + +"That's so," said Mr. Jonas White. + +Maria's father and his bride reached home about seven on the Monday +night after Thanksgiving. Maria re-entered her old home in the +afternoon. Miss Zella Holmes, who was another teacher of hers, went +with her. Ida had requested her to open the house. Ida's former +boarding-house mistress had cooked a large turkey, and made some +cakes and pies and bread. Miss Zella Holmes drove around for Maria in +a livery carriage, and all these supplies were stowed in beside them. +On the way they stopped at the station for the new maid, whose train +was due then. She was a Hungarian girl, with a saturnine, almost +savage visage. Maria felt an awe of her, both because she was to be +their maid, and they had never kept one, and because of her +personality. + +When they reached home, Miss Zella Holmes, who was very lively and +quick in her ways, though not at all pretty, gave orders to the maid +in a way which astonished Maria. She was conscious of an astonishment +at everything, which had not before possessed her. She looked at the +kitchen, the dining-room, the sitting-room, the parlor, all the old +apartments, and it was exactly as if she saw old friends with new +heads. The sideboard in the dining-room glittered with the wedding +silver and cut-glass. New pictures hung on the sitting-room and +parlor walls, beside the new paper. Wedding gifts lay on the tables. +There had been many wedding gifts. Miss Zella Holmes flew about the +house, with the saturnine Hungarian in attendance. Maria, at Miss +Holmes's bidding, began to lay the table. She got out some new +table-linen, napkins, and table-cloth, which had been a wedding +present. She set the table with some new china. She looked, with a +numb feeling, at her mother's poor old blue-and-white dishes, which +were put away on the top shelves. + +"I think it would be a very good idea to pack away those dishes +altogether, and put them in a box up in the garret," said Miss +Holmes. Then she noticed Maria's face. "They will come in handy for +your wedding outfit, little girl," she added, kindly and jocosely, +but Maria did not laugh. + +Every now and then Maria looked at the clock on the parlor shelf, +that was also new. The old sitting-room clock had disappeared; Maria +did not know where, but she missed the face of it as if it had been +the face of a friend. Miss Holmes also glanced frequently at the new +clock. There arose a fragrant odor of warming potatoes and gravy from +the kitchen. + +"It is almost time for them," said Miss Holmes. + +She was very much dressed-up, Maria thought. She wore a red silk gown +with a good many frills about the shoulders. She was very slight, and +affected frills to conceal it. Out of this mass of red frills arose +her little, alert head and face, homely, but full of vivacity. Maria +thought her very nice. She would have liked her better for a mother +than Ida. When Miss Zella Holmes smiled it seemed to come from within. + +At last a carriage came rapidly up to their door, and Miss Holmes +sprang to open it. Maria remained in the dining-room. Suddenly an +uncanny fancy had seized her and terrified her. Suppose her father +should look different, like everything else? Suppose it should be to +her as if he had a new head? She therefore remained in the +dining-room, trembling. She heard her father's voice, loud and merry. +"Where is Maria?" Still, Maria did not stir. Then her father came +hurrying into the room, and behind him she who had been Ida Slome, +radiant and triumphant, in her plum-colored array, with the same +smile with which she had departed on her beautiful face. Harry caught +Maria in his arms, rubbed his cold face against her soft little one, +and kissed her. + +"How is father's little girl?" he asked, with a break in his voice. + +"Pretty well, thank you," replied Maria. She gave a helpless little +cling to her father, then she stood away. + +"Speak to your new mother, darling," said Harry. + +"How do _You do_?" said Maria, obediently, and Ida said, "You +darling," and then kissed her exactly as if she had been an +uncommonly well-constructed doll, with a clock-work system which +fitted her to take such a part with perfect accuracy. + +Harry watched his wife and daughter rather anxiously. He seized the +first opportunity to ask Maria, aside, if she had been well, and if +she had been happy and comfortable at Mrs. White's. Then he wound up +with the rather wistful inquiry: + +"You are going to love your new mother, aren't you, darling? Don't +you think she is lovely?" + +Ida had gone up-stairs with Miss Holmes, to remove her wraps. + +"Yes, sir, I think She is lovely," replied Maria. + + + +Chapter X + + +Ida Edgham was, in some respects, a peculiar personality. She was +as much stronger, in another way, than her husband, as her +predecessor had been. She was that anomaly: a creature of supreme +self-satisfaction, who is yet aware of its own limits. She was so +unemotional as to be almost abnormal, but she had head enough to +realize the fact that absolute unemotionlessness in a woman detracts +from her charm. She therefore simulated emotion. She had a spiritual +make-up, a panoply of paint and powder for the soul, as truly as any +actress has her array of cosmetics for her face. She made no effort +to really feel, she knew that was entirely useless, but she observed +all the outward signs and semblance of feeling more or less +successfully. She knew that to take up her position in Harry Edgham's +house like a marble bust of Diana, which had been one of her +wedding-presents, would not be to her credit. She therefore put +herself to the pace which she would naturally be expected to assume +in her position. She showed everybody who called her new possessions, +with a semblance of delight which was quite perfect. She was, in +reality, less deceptive in that respect than in others. She had a +degree of the joy of possession, or she would not have been a woman +at all, and, in fact, would not have married. She had wanted a home +and a husband; not as some women want them, for the legitimate desire +for love and protection, but because she felt a degree of +mortification on account of her single estate. She had had many +admirers, but, although no one ever knew it, not one offer of +marriage, the acceptance of which would not have been an absurdity, +before poor Harry Edgham. She was not quite contented to accept him. +She had hoped for something better; but he was good-looking, and +popular, and his social standing, in her small world, was good. He +was an electrical engineer, with an office in the city, and had a +tolerably good income, although his first wife's New England thrift +had compelled him to live parsimoniously. + +Ida made up her mind from the first that thrift, after the plan of +the first woman, should not be observed in her household. Without +hinting to that effect, or without Harry's recognizing it, she so +managed that within a few weeks after her marriage he put an +insurance on his life, which would insure her comfort in case she +outlived him. He owned his house, and she had herself her little +savings, well invested. She then considered that they could live up +to Harry's income without much risk, and she proceeded to do so. It +was not long before the saturnine Hungarian, who could have provided +a regiment of her own countrymen with the coarse food of her race, +but seemed absolutely incapable of carrying out American ideas of +good cookery, was dismissed, and a good cook, at a price which at +first staggered Harry, installed in her place. Then a young girl was +found to take care of the bedrooms, and wait on table, attired in +white gowns and aprons and caps. + +Ida had a reception two weeks after her return from her bridal trip, +and an elaborate menu was provided by a caterer from New York. Maria, +in a new white gown, with a white bow on her hair, sat at one end of +the dining-table, shining with cut-glass and softly lighted with +wax-candles under rose-colored shades in silver candlesticks, and +poured chocolate, while another young girl opposite dipped lemonade +from a great cut-glass punch-bowl, which had been one of the +wedding-presents. The table was strewn with pink-and-white +carnations. Maria caught a glimpse now and then of her new mother, in +a rose-colored gown, with a bunch of pink roses on her breast, +standing with her father receiving their guests, and she could +scarcely believe that she was awake and it was really happening. She +began to take a certain pleasure in the excitement. She heard one +woman say to another how pretty she was, "poor little thing," and her +heart throbbed with satisfaction. She felt at once beautiful and +appealing to other people, because of her misfortunes. She turned the +chocolate carefully, and put some whipped-cream on top of each dainty +cup; and, for the first time since her father's marriage, she was not +consciously unhappy. She glanced across the table at the other little +girl, Amy Long, who was dark, and wore a pink bow on her hair, and +she was sure that she herself was much prettier. Then, too, Amy had +not the sad distinction of having lost her mother, and having a +step-mother thrust upon her in a year's time. It is true that once +when Amy's mother, large and portly in a blue satin which gave out +pale white lights on the curves of her great arms and back, and whose +roseate face looked forth from a fichu of real lace pinned with a +great pearl brooch, came up behind her little daughter and +straightened the pink bow on her hair, Maria felt a cruel little +pang. There was something about the look of loving admiration which +Mrs. Long gave her daughter that stung Maria's heart with a sense of +loss. She felt that if her new mother should straighten out her white +bow and regard her with admiration, it would be because of her own +self, and the credit which she, Maria, reflected upon her. Still, she +reflected how charming she looked. Self-love is much better than +nothing for a lonely soul. + +That night Maria realized that she was in the second place, so far as +her father was concerned. Ida, in her rose-colored robes, dispensing +hospitality in his home, took up his whole attention. She was really +radiant. She sang and played twice for the company, and her perfectly +true high soprano filled the whole house. To Maria it sounded as +meaningless as the trill of a canary-bird. In fact, when it came to +music, Ida, although she had a good voice, had the mortification of +realizing that her simulation of emotion failed her. Harry did not +like his wife's singing. He felt like a traitor, but he could not +help realizing that he did not like it. But the moment Ida stopped +singing, he looked at her, and fairly wondered that he had married +such a beautiful creature. He felt humble before her. Humility was +not a salutary condition of mind for him, but this woman inspired it +now, and would still more in the future. In spite of his first wife's +scolding, her quick temper, he had always felt himself as good as she +was. The mere fact of the temper itself had served to give him a +sense of equality and, perhaps, superiority, but this woman never +showed temper. She never failed to respond with her stereotyped smile +to everything that was said. She seemed to have no faults at all, to +realize none in herself, and not to admit the possibility of any one +else doing so. + +Harry felt himself distinctly in the wrong beside such unquestionable +right. He even did not think himself so good-looking as he had +formerly done. It seemed to him that he looked much older than Ida. +When they went out together he felt like a lackey in attendance on an +empress. In his own home, it came to pass that he seldom made a +remark when guests were present without a covert glance at his wife +to see what she thought of it. He could always tell what she thought, +even if her face did not change and she made no comment neither then +nor afterwards, and she always made him know, in some subtle fashion, +when he had said anything wrong. + +Maria felt very much in the same way at first, but she fought +involuntarily against it. She had a good deal of her mother in her. +Finally, she never looked at Ida when she said anything. She was full +of rebellion although she was quiet and obedient, and very +unobtrusive, in the new state of things. + +Ida entertained every Tuesday evening. There was not a caterer as at +the first reception, but Ida herself cooked dainty messes in a silver +chafing-dish, and Maria and the white-capped little maid passed +things. It was not especially expensive, but people in Edgham began +to talk. They said Harry was living beyond his means; but Ida kept +within his income. She had too good a head for reckless extravagance, +although she loved admiration and show. When there were no guests in +the house, Maria used to go to her own room early of an evening, and +read until it was time to go to bed. She realized that her father and +Ida found her somewhat superfluous, although Ida never made any +especial effort to entertain her father that Maria could see. She was +fond of fancy-work, and was embroidering a silk gown for herself. She +embroidered while Harry read the paper. She did not talk much. Maria +used to wonder that her father did not find it dull when he and She +were alone together of an evening. She looked at him reading his +paper, with frequent glances of admiration over it at his beautiful +wife, and thought that in his place, she should much prefer a woman +like her mother, who had kept things lively, even without company, +and even in a somewhat questionable fashion. However, Harry and Ida +themselves went out a good deal. People in Edgham aped city society, +they even talked about the "four hundred." The newly wedded pair were +frequent guests of honor at dinners and receptions, and Ida herself +was a member of the Edgham's Woman's Club, and that took her out a +good deal. Maria was rather lonely. Finally the added state and +luxury of her life, which had at first pleased her, failed to do so. +She felt that she hated all the new order of things, and her heart +yearned for the old. She began to grow thin; she did not sleep much +nor sleep well. She felt tired all the time. One day her father +noticed her changed looks. + +"Why, Maria is getting thin!" said he. + +"I think it is because she is growing tall," said Ida. "Everybody +seems thin when they are growing tall. I did myself. I was much +thinner than Maria at her age." She looked at Maria with her +invariable smile as she spoke. + +"She looks very thin to me," Harry said, anxiously. + +He himself looked thin and older. An anxious wrinkle had deepened +between his eyes. It was June, and the days were getting warm. He was +anxious about Ida's health also. Ida was not at all anxious. She was +perfectly placid. It did not seem to her that an overruling +Providence could possibly treat her unkindly. She was rather annoyed +at times, but still never anxious, and utterly satisfied with herself +to that extent that it precluded any doubt as to the final outcome of +everything. + +Maria continued to lose flesh. A sentimental interest in herself and +her delicacy possessed her. She used to look at her face, which +seemed to her more charming than ever, although so thin, in the +glass, and reflect, with a pleasant acquiescence, on an early death. +She even spent some time in composing her own epitaph, and kept it +carefully hidden away in a drawer of her dresser, under some linen. + +Maria felt a gloomy pride when the doctor, who came frequently to see +Ida, was asked to look at her; she felt still more triumphant when he +expressed it as his opinion that she ought to have a change of air +the moment school closed. The doctor said Maria was running down, +which seemed to her a very interesting state of things, and one which +ought to impress people. She told Gladys Mann the next day at school. + +"The doctor says I'm running down," said she. + +"You do look awful bad," replied Gladys. + +After recess Maria saw Gladys with her face down on her desk, +weeping. She knew that she was weeping because she looked so badly +and was running down. She glanced across at Wollaston Lee, and +wondered if he had noticed how badly she looked, and yet how +charming. All at once the boy shot a glance at her in return; then he +blushed and scowled and took up his book. It all comforted Maria in +the midst of her langour and her illness, which was negative and +unattended by any pain. If she felt any appetite she restrained it, +she became so vain of having lost it. + +It was decided that Maria should go and visit her aunt Maria, in New +England, and remain there all summer. Her father would pay her board +in order that she should not be any restraint on her aunt, with her +scant income. Just before Maria went, and just before her school +closed, the broad gossip of the school came to her ears. She +ascertained something which filled her at once with awe, and shame, +and jealousy, and indignation. If one of the girls began to speak to +her about it, she turned angrily away. She fairly pushed Gladys Mann +one day. Gladys turned and looked at her with loving reproach, like a +chidden dog. "What did you expect?" said she. Maria ran away, her +face burning. + +After she reached her aunt Maria's nothing was said to her about it. +Aunt Maria was too prudish and too indignant. Uncle Henry's wife, +Aunt Eunice, was away all summer, taking care of a sister who was ill +with consumption in New Hampshire; so Aunt Maria kept the whole +house, and she and Maria and Uncle Henry had their meals together. +Maria loved her uncle Henry. He was a patient man, with a patience +which at times turns to fierceness, of a man with a brain above his +sphere, who has had to stand and toil in a shoe-factory for his bread +and butter all his life. He was non-complainant because of a sort of +stern pride, and a sense of a just cause against Providence, but he +was very kind to Maria; he petted her as if she had been his own +child. Every pleasant night Uncle Henry took Maria for a +trolley-ride, or a walk, and he treated her to ice-cream soda and +candy. Aunt Maria also took good care of the child. She showed a sort +of vicious curiosity with regard to Maria's step-mother and all the +new household arrangements, which Maria did not gratify. She had too +much loyalty, although she longed to say all that she thought to her +aunt, being sure of a violent sympathizer. + +"Well, I'll say one thing, she has fixed your clothes nice," said +Aunt Maria. + +"She didn't do it, it was Miss Barnes," replied Maria. She could not +help saying that much. She did not want Aunt Maria to think her +step-mother took better care of her wardrobe than her own mother had +done. + +"Good land! She didn't hire all these things made?" said Aunt Maria. + +"Yes'm." + +"Good land! I don't see how your father is going to stand it. I'd +like to know what your poor mother would have said?" said Aunt Maria. + +Then Maria's loyalty came to the front. After all, she was her +father's wife, and to be defended. + +"I guess maybe father is making more money now," said she. + +"Well, I hope to the land he is," said Aunt Maria. "I guess if She +(Aunt Maria also treated Ida like a pronoun) had just one hundred +dollars and no more to get along with, she'd have to do different." + +Maria regained her strength rapidly. When she went home, a few days +before her school begun, in September, she was quite rosy and +blooming. She had also fallen in love with a boy who lived next to +Aunt Maria, and who asked her, over the garden fence, to correspond +with him, the week before she left. + +It was that very night that Aunt Maria had the telegram. She paid the +boy, then she opened it with trembling fingers. Her brother Henry and +Maria were with her on the porch. It was a warm night, and Aunt Maria +wore an ancient muslin. The south wind fluttered the ruffles on that +and the yellow telegram as she read. She was silent a moment, with +mouth compressed. + +"Well," said her brother Henry, inquiringly. + +Aunt Maria's face flushed and paled. She turned to Maria. + +"Well," she said, "you've got a little sister." + +"Good!" said Uncle Henry. "Ever so much more company for you than a +little brother would have been, Maria." + +Maria was silent. She trembled and felt cold, although the night was +so warm. + +"Weighs seven pounds," said Aunt Maria, in a hard voice. + +Maria returned home a week from that day. She travelled alone from +Boston, and her father met her in New York. He looked strange to her. +He was jubilant, and yet the marks of anxiety were deep. He seemed +very glad to see Maria, and talked to her about her little sister in +an odd, hesitating way. + +"Her name is Evelyn," said Harry. + +Maria said nothing. She and her father were crossing the city to the +ferry in a cab. + +"Don't you think that is a pretty name, dear?" asked Harry, with a +queer, apologetic wistfulness. + +"No, father, I think it is a very silly name," replied Maria. + +"Why, your mother and I thought it a very pretty name, dear." + +"I always thought it was the silliest name in the world," said Maria, +firmly. However, she sat close to her father, and realized that it +was something to have him to herself without Her, while crossing the +city. "I don't know as I think Evelyn is such a very silly name, +father," she said, presently, just before they reached the ferry. + +Harry bent down and kissed her. "Father's own little girl," he said. + +Maria felt that she had been magnanimous, for she had in reality +never liked Evelyn, and would not have named a doll that. + +"You will be a great deal happier with a little sister. It will turn +out for the best," said Harry, as the cab stopped. Harry always put a +colon of optimism to all his happenings of life. + +The next morning, when Ida was arrayed in a silk negligee, and the +baby was washed and dressed, Maria was bidden to enter the room which +had been her mother's. The first thing which she noticed was a faint +perfume of violet-scented toilet-powder. Then she saw Ida leaning +back gracefully in a reclining-chair, with her hair carefully +dressed. The nurse held the baby: a squirming little bundle of soft, +embroidered flannel. The nurse was French, and she awed Maria, for +she spoke no English, and nobody except Ida could understand her. She +was elderly, small, and of a damaged blond type. Maria approached Ida +and kissed her. Ida looked at her, smiling. Then she asked if she had +had a pleasant summer. She told the nurse, in French, to show the +baby to her. Maria approached the nurse timidly. The flannel was +carefully laid aside, and the small, piteously inquiring and puzzled +face, the inquiry and the bewilderment expressed by a thousand +wrinkles, was exposed. Maria looked at it with a sort of shiver. The +nurse laid the flannel apart and disclosed the tiny feet seeming +already to kick feebly at existence. The nurse said something in +French which Maria could not understand. Ida answered also in French. +Then the baby seemed to experience a convulsion; its whole face +seemed to open into one gape of expostulation at fate. Then its +feeble, futile wail filled the whole room. + +"Isn't she a little darling?" asked Ida, of Maria. + +"Yes'm," replied Maria. + +There was a curious air of aloofness about Ida with regard to her +baby, and something which gave the impression of wistfulness. It is +possible that she was capable of wishing that she had not that +aloofness. It did not in the least seem to Maria as if it were Ida's +baby. She had a vague impression, derived she could not tell in what +manner, of a rosebud laid on a gatepost. Ida did not seem conscious +of her baby with the woodeny consciousness of an apple-tree of a +blossom. When she gazed at it, it was with the same set smile with +which she had always viewed all creation. That smile which came from +without, not within, but now it was fairly tragic. + +"Her name is Evelyn. Don't you think it is a pretty name?" asked Ida. + +"Yes'm," replied Maria. She edged towards the door. The nurse, +tossing the wailing baby, rose and got a bottle of milk. Maria went +out. + +Maria went to school the next Monday, and all the girls asked her if +the baby was pretty. + +"It looks like all the babies I ever saw," replied Maria guardedly. +She did not wish to descry the baby which was, after all, her sister, +but she privately thought it was a terrible sight. + +Gladys Mann supported her. "Babies do all look alike," said she. +"We've had nine to our house, and I had ought to know." + +At first Maria used to dread to go home from school, on account of +the baby. She had a feeling of repulsion because of it, but gradually +that feeling disappeared and an odd sort of fascination possessed her +instead. She thought a great deal about the baby. When she heard it +cry in the night, she thought that her father and Ida might have +sense enough to stop it. She thought that she could stop its crying +herself, by carrying it very gently around the room. Still she did +not love the baby. It only appealed, in a general way, to her +instincts. But one day, when the baby was some six weeks old, and Ida +had gone to New York, she came home from school, and she went up to +her own room, and she heard the baby crying in the room opposite. It +cried and cried, with the insistent cry of a neglected child. Maria +said to herself that she did not believe but the French nurse had +taken advantage of Her absence, and had slipped out on some errand +and left the baby alone. + +The baby continued to wail, and a note of despair crept into the +wail. Maria could endure it no longer. She ran across the hall and +flung open the door. The baby lay crying in a little pink-lined +basket. Maria bent over it, and the baby at once stopped crying. She +opened her mouth in a toothless smile, and she held up little, waving +pink hands to Maria. Maria lifted the baby out of her basket and +pressed her softly, with infinite care, as one does something very +precious, to her childish bosom, and at once something strange seemed +to happen to her. She became, as it were, illuminated by love. + + + +Chapter XI + + +Maria had fallen in love with the baby, and her first impulse, as in +the case of all true love, was secrecy. Why she should have been +ashamed of her affection, her passion, for it was, in fact, passion, +her first, she could not have told. It was the sublimated infatuation +half compounded of dreams, half of instinct, which a little girl +usually has for her doll. But Maria had never had any particular love +for a doll. She had possessed dolls, of course, but she had never +been quite able to rise above the obvious sham of them, the cloth and +the sawdust and the paint. She had wondered how some little girls +whom she had known had loved to sleep with their dolls; as for her, +she would as soon have thought of taking pleasure in dozing off with +any little roll of linen clasped in her arms. It was rather singular, +for she had a vivid imagination, but it had balked at a doll. When, +as sometimes happened, she saw a little girl of her own age, wheeling +with solemnity a doll in a go-cart, she viewed her with amazement and +contempt, and thought privately that she was not altogether bright. +But this baby was different. It did not have to be laid on its back +to make its eyes close, it did not have to be shaken and squeezed to +make it vociferous. It was alive, and Maria, who was unusually alive +in her emotional nature, was keenly aware of that effect. This +little, tender, rosy thing was not stuffed with sawdust, it was +stuffed with soul and love. It could smile; the smile was not painted +on its face in a doll-factory. Maria was so thankful that this baby, +Ida's baby, did not have Her smile, unchanging and permanent for all +observers and all vicissitudes. When this baby smiled it smiled, and +when it cried it cried. It was honest from the crown of its fuzzy +head to the soles of its little pink worsted socks. + +At the first reception which Ida gave after the baby came, and when +it was on exhibition in a hand-embroidered robe, it screamed every +minute. Maria was secretly glad, and proud of it. It meant much to +her that _her_ baby should not smile at all the company, whether it +was smiling in its heart or not, the way She did. Maria had no room +in her heart for any other love, except that for her father and the +baby. She looked at Wollaston Lee, and wondered how she could ever +have had dreams about him, how she could ever have preferred a boy to +a baby like her little sister, even in her dreams. She ceased +haunting the post-office for a letter from that other boy in New +England, who had asked her to correspond over the garden fence, and +who had either never written at all, or had misdirected his letter. +She wondered how she had thought for a moment of doing such a thing +as writing to a boy like that. She remembered with disgust how +overgrown that boy was, and how his stockings were darned at the +knees; and how she had seen patches of new cloth on his trousers, and +had heard her aunt Maria say that he was so hard on his clothes on +account of his passion for bird-nesting, that it was all his mother +could do to keep him always decent. How could she have thought for a +moment of a bird-nesting sort of boy? She was so thankful that the +baby was a girl. Maria, as sometimes happens, had a rather inverted +system of growth. With most, dolls come first, then boys; with her, +dolls had not come at all. Boys came first, then her little baby +sister, which was to her in the place of a doll, and the boys got +promptly relegated to the background. + +Much to Maria's delight, the French nurse, whom she at once disliked +and stood in awe of, only remained until the baby was about two +months old, then a little nurse-girl was engaged. On pleasant days +the nurse-girl, whose name was Josephine, wheeled out the baby in her +little carriage, which was the daintiest thing of the kind to be +found, furnished with a white lace canopy lined with rose-colored +silk. It was on these occasions that Maria showed duplicity. On +Saturdays, when there was no school, she privately and secretly +bribed Josephine, who was herself under the spell of the baby, to go +home and visit her mother, and let her have the privilege of wheeling +it herself. Maria had a small sum every week for her pocket-money, +and a large part of it went to Josephine in the shape of chocolates, +of which she was inordinately fond; in fact, Josephine, who came of +the poor whites, like Gladys Mann, might have been said to be a +chocolate maniac. Maria used to arrange with Josephine to meet her on +a certain corner on Saturdays, and there the transfer was made: +Josephine became the possessor of half a pound of chocolates, and +Maria of the baby. Josephine had sworn almost a solemn oath to never +tell. She at once repaired to her mother's, sucking chocolates on the +way, and Maria blissfully wheeled the baby. She stood in very little +danger of meeting Her on these occasions, because the Edgham Woman's +Club met on Saturday afternoon. It often happened, however, that +Maria met some of the school-girls, and then nothing could have +exceeded her pride and triumph. Some of them had little brothers or +sisters, but none of them such a little sister as hers. + +The baby had, in reality, grown to be a beauty among babies. All the +inflamed red and aged puckers and creases had disappeared; instead of +that was the sweetest flush, like that of just-opened rosebuds. +Evelyn was a compact little baby, fat, but not overlapping and +grossly fat. It was such a matter of pride to Maria that the baby's +cheeks did not hang the least bit in the world, but had only lovely +little curves and dimples. She had become quite a connoisseur in +babies. When she saw a baby whose flabby cheeks hung down and touched +its bib, she was disgusted. She felt as if there was something +morally wrong with such a baby as that. Her baby was wrapped in the +softest white things: furs, and silk-lined embroidered cashmeres, and +her little face just peeped out from the lace frill of a charming +cap. There was only one touch of color in all this whiteness, beside +the tender rose of the baby's face, and that was a little knot of +pale pink baby-ribbon on the cap. Maria often stopped to make sure +that the cap was on straight, and she also stopped very often to tuck +in the white fur rug, and she also stopped often to thrust her own +lovely little girl-face into the sweet confusion of baby and lace and +embroidery and fur, with soft kisses and little, caressing murmurs of +love. She made up little love phrases, which she would have been +inexpressibly ashamed to have had overheard. "Little honey love" was +one of them--"Sister's own little honey love." Once, when walking on +Elm Street under the leafless arches of the elms, where she thought +she was quite alone, although it was a very bright, warm afternoon, +and quite dry--it was not a snowy winter--she spoke more loudly than +she intended, and looked up to see another, bigger girl, the daughter +of the Edgham lawyer, whose name was Annie Stone. Annie Stone was +large of her age--so large, in fact, that she had a nickname of +"Fatty" in school. It had possibly soured her, or her over-plumpness +may have been due to some physical ailment which rendered her +irritable. At all events, Annie Stone had not that sweetness and +placidity of temperament popularly supposed to be coincident with +stoutness. She had a bitter and sarcastic tongue for a young girl. +Maria inwardly shuddered when she saw Annie Stone's fat, malicious +face surveying her from under her fur-trimmed hat. Annie Stone was +always very well dressed, but even that did not seem to improve her +mental attitude. Her large, high-colored face was also distinctly +pretty, but she did not seemed to be cognizant of that to the result +of any satisfaction. + +"Sister's little honey love!" she repeated after Maria, with fairly a +snarl of satire. + +Maria had spirit, although she was for the moment dismayed. + +"Well, she is--so there," said she. + +"You wait till you have a few more little honey loves," said Annie +Stone, "and see how you feel." + +With that Annie Stone went her way, with soft flounces of her short, +stout body, and Maria was left. She was still defiant; her blood was +up. "Sister's little honey love," she said to the baby, in a tone so +loud that Annie Stone must have heard. "Were folks that didn't have +anything but naughty little brothers jealous of her?" Annie Stone +had, in fact, a notorious little brother, who at the early age of +seven was the terror of his sisters and all law-abiding citizens; but +Annie Stone was not easily touched. + +"Sister's little honey love," she shouted back, turning a malignant +face over her shoulder. She had that very morning had a hand-to-hand +fight with her naughty little brother, and finally come out +victorious, by forcing him to the ground and sitting on him until he +said he was sorry. It was not very reasonable that she should be at +all sensitive with regard to him. + +After Annie Stone had gone out of sight, Maria went around to the +front of the little carriage, adjusted the white fur rug carefully, +secured a tiny, white mitten on one of the baby's hands, and +whispered to the baby alone. "You _are_ sister's little honey love, +aren't you, precious?" and the baby smiled that entrancing smile of +honesty and innocence which sent the dimples spreading to the lace +frill of her cap, and reached out her arms, thereby displacing both +mittens, which Maria adjusted; then, after a fervent kiss, she went +her way. + +However, she was not that afternoon to proceed on her way long +uninterrupted. For some time Josephine, the nurse-girl, had either +been growing jealous, or chocolates were palling upon her. Josephine +had also found her own home locked up, and the key nowhere in +evidence. There would be a good half-hour to wait at the usual corner +for Maria. The wind had changed, and blew cold from the northwest. +Josephine was not very warmly clad. She wore her white gown and +apron, which Mrs. Edgham insisted upon, and which she resented. She +had that day felt a stronger sense of injury with regard to it, and +counted upon telling her mother how mean and set up she thought it +was for any lady as called herself a lady to make a girl wear a +summer white dress in winter. She shivered on her corner of waiting. +Josephine got more and more wroth. Finally she decided to start in +search of Maria and the baby. She gave her white skirts an angry +switch and started. It was not very long after she had turned her +second corner before she saw Maria and the baby ahead of her. +Josephine then ran. She was a stout girl, and she plunged ahead +heavily until she came up with Maria. The first thing Maria knew, +Josephine had grabbed the handle of the carriage--two red girl hands +appeared beside her own small, gloved ones. + +"Here, gimme this baby to once," gabbled Josephine in the thick +speech of her kind. + +Maria looked at her. "The time isn't up, and you know it isn't, +Josephine," said she. "I just passed by a clock in Melvin & Adams's +jewelry store, and it isn't time for me to be on the corner." + +"Gimme the baby," demanded Josephine. She attempted to pull the +carriage away from Maria, but Maria, although her strength was +inferior, had spirit enough to cope with any poor white. Her little +fingers clutched like iron. "I shall not give her up until four +o'clock," said she. "Go back to the corner." + +Josephine's only answer was a tug which dislodged Maria's fingers and +hurt her. But Maria came of the stock which believed in trusting the +Lord and keeping the powder dry. She was not yet conquered. The right +was clearly on her side. She and Josephine had planned to meet at the +corner at four o'clock, and it was not quite half-past three, and she +had given Josephine half a pound of chocolates. She did not stop to +reflect a moment. Maria's impulses were quick, and lack of decision +in emergencies was not a failing of hers. She made one dart to the +rear of Josephine. Josephine wore her hair in a braided loop, tied +with a bow of black ribbon. Maria seized upon this loop of brown +braids, and hung. She was enough shorter than Josephine to render it +effectual. Josephine's head was bent backward and she was helpless, +unless she let go of the baby-carriage. Josephine, however, had good +lungs, and she screamed, as she was pulled backward, still holding to +the little carriage, which was also somewhat tilted by the whole +performance. + +"Lemme be, you horrid little thing!" she screamed, "or I'll tell your +ma." + +"She isn't my mother," said Maria in return. "Let go of my baby." + +"She is your ma. Your father married her, and she's your ma, and you +can't help yourself. Lemme go, or I'll tell on you." + +"Tell, if you want to," said Maria, firmly, actually swinging with +her whole weight from Josephine's loop of braids. "Let go my baby." + +Josephine screamed again, with her head bent backward, and the +baby-carriage tilted perilously. Then a woman, who had been watching +from a window near by, rushed upon the scene. She was Gladys Mann's +mother. Just as she appeared the baby began to cry, and that +accelerated her speed. The windows of her house became filled with +staring childish faces. The woman, who was very small and lean but +wiry, a bundle of muscles and nerve, ran up to the baby-carriage, and +pulled it back to its proper status, and began at once quieting the +frightened baby and scolding the girls. + +"Hush, hush," cooed she to the baby. "Did it think it was goin' to +get hurted?" Then to the girls: "Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, two +great girls fightin' right in the street, and most tippin' the baby +over. S'posin' you had killed him?" + +Then Josephine burst forth in a great wail of wrath and pain. The +bringing down of the carriage had increased her agony, for Maria +still clung to her hair. + +"Oh, oh, oh!" howled Josephine, her head straining back. "She's most +killin' me." + +"An' I'll warrant you deserve it," said the woman. Then she added to +Maria--she was entirely impartial in her scolding--"Let go of her, +ain't you shamed." Then to the baby, "Did he think he was goin' to +get hurted?" + +"He's a girl!" cried Maria in a frenzy of indignation. "He is not a +boy, he is a girl." She still clung desperately to Josephine's hair, +who in her turn clung to the baby-carriage. + +Then Gladys came out of the house, in a miserable, thin, dirty gown, +and she was Maria's ally. + +"Let that baby go!" she cried to Josephine. She tugged fiercely at +Josephine's white skirt. + +"Gladys Mann, you go right straight into the house. What be you +buttin' in for!" screamed her mother. "You let that girl's hair +alone. Josephine, what you been up to. You might have killed this +baby." + +The baby screamed louder. It wriggled around in its little, white fur +nest, and stretched out imploring pink paws from which the mittens +had fallen off. Its little lace hood was awry, the pink rosette was +cocked over one ear. Maria herself began to cry. Then Gladys waxed +fairly fierce. She paid no attention whatever to her mother. + +"You jest go round an' ketch on to the kid's wagin," said she, "an' +I'll take care of her." With that her strong little hands made a +vicious clutch at Josephine's braids. + +Maria sprang for the baby-carriage. She straightened the lace hood, +she tucked in the fur robe, and put on the mittens. The baby's +screams subsided into a grieved whimper. "Did great wicked girls come +and plague sister's own little precious?" said Maria. But now she had +to reckon with Gladys's mother, who had recovered her equilibrium, +lost for a second by her daughter's manoeuvre. She seized in her turn +the handle of the baby-carriage, and gave Maria a strong push aside. +Then she looked at all three combatants, like a poor-white Solomon. + +"Who were sent out with him in the first place, that's what I want to +know?" she said. + +"I were," replied Josephine in a sobbing shout. Her head was aching +as if she had been scalped. + +"Shet up!" said Gladys's mother inconsistently. + +"Did your ma send her out with him?" she queried of her. + +"He is not a boy," replied Maria shiftily. + +"Yes, she did," said Josephine, still rubbing her head. + +Gladys, through a wholesome fear of her mother, had released her hold +on her braids, and stood a little behind. + +Mrs. Mann's scanty rough hair blew in the winter wind as she took +hold of the carriage. Maria again tucked in the white fur robe to +conceal her discomfiture. She was becoming aware that she was being +proved in the wrong. + +"Shet up!" said Mrs. Mann in response to Josephine's answer. There +was not the slightest sense nor meaning in the remark, but it was, so +to speak, her household note, learned through the exigency of being +in the constant society of so many noisy children. She told +everybody, on general principles, to "shet up," even when she wished +for information which necessitated the reverse. + +Mrs. Mann was thin and meagre, and wholly untidy. The wind lashed her +dirty cotton skirt around her, disclosing a dirtier petticoat and +men's shoes. The skin of her worn, blond face had a look as if the +soil of life had fairly been rubbed into it. All the lines of this +face were lax, displaying utter lassitude and no energy. She, +however, had her evanescent streaks of life, as now. Once in a while +a bubble of ancestral blood seemed to come to the surface, although +it soon burst. She had come, generations back, of a good family. She +was the run out weed of it, but still, at times, the old colors of +the blossom were evident. She turned to Maria. + +"If," said she, "your ma sent her out with this young one, I don't +see why you went to pullin' her hair fur?" + +"I gave her a whole half-pound of chocolates," returned Maria, in a +fine glow of indignation, "if she would let me push the baby till +four o'clock, and it isn't four o'clock yet." + +"It ain't more than half-past three," said Gladys. + +"Shet up!" said her mother. She stood looking rather helplessly at +the three little girls and the situation. Her suddenly wakened mental +faculties were running down like those of a watch which has been +shaken to make it go for a few seconds. The situation was too much +for her, and, according to her wont, she let it drop. Just then a +whiff of strong sweetness came from the house, and her blank face +lighted up. + +"We are makin' 'lasses candy," said she. "You young ones all come in +and hev' some, and I'll take the baby. He can get warm, and a little +of thet candy won't do him no harm, nuther." Mrs. Mann used the +masculine pronoun from force of habit; all her children with the +exception of Gladys were boys. + +Maria hesitated. She had a certain scorn for the Manns. She eyed Mrs. +Mann's dirty attire and face. But she was in fact cold, and the smell +of the candy was entrancing. "She said never to take the baby in +anywhere," said she, doubtfully. + +Josephine having tired of chocolate, realized suddenly an enormous +hunger for molasses candy. She sniffed like a hunting hound. "She +didn't say not to go into Mrs. Mann's," said she. + +"She said anywhere; I heard her tell you," said Maria. + +"Mrs. Mann's ain't anywhere," said Josephine, who had a will of her +own. She rushed around and caught up the baby. "She's most froze," +said she. "She'll get the croup if she don't get warmed up." + +With that, Josephine carrying the baby, Maria, Gladys, and Mrs. Mann +all entered the little, squalid Mann house, as hot as a conservatory +and reeking with the smell of boiled molasses. + +When Josephine and Maria and the baby started out again, Maria turned +to Josephine. + +"Now," said she, "if you don't let me push her as far as the corner +of our street, I'll tell how you took her into Mrs. Mann's. You know +what She'll say." + +Josephine, whose face was smeared with molasses candy, and who was +even then sucking some, relinquished her hold on the carriage. +"You'll be awful mean if you do tell," said she. + +"I will tell if you don't do what you say you'll do another time," +said she. + +When they reached home, Ida had not returned, but she came in radiant +some few minutes later. She had read a paper on a famous man, for the +pleasure and profit of the Edgham Woman's Club, and she had received +much applause and felt correspondingly elated. Josephine had taken +the baby up-stairs to a little room which had recently been fitted up +for a nursery, and, not following her usual custom, Ida went in there +after removing her outer wraps. She stood in her blue cloth dress +looking at the child with her usual air of radiant aloofness, seeming +to shed her own glory, like a star, upon the baby, rather than +receive its little light into the loving recesses of her own soul. +Josephine and also Maria were in a state of consternation. They had +discovered a large, sticky splash of molasses candy on the baby's +white embroidered cloak. They had washed the baby's sticky little +face, but they did not know what was to be done about the cloak, +which lay over a chair. Josephine essayed, with a dexterous gesture, +to so fold the cloak over that the stain would be for the time +concealed. But Ida Edgham had not been a school-teacher for nothing. +She saw the gesture, and immediately took up the cloak herself. + +"Why, what is this on her cloak?" said she. + +There was a miserable silence. + +"It looks like molasses candy. It is molasses candy," said Ida. +"Josephine, did you give this child molasses candy?" Ida's voice was +entirely even, but there was something terrible about it. + +Maria saw Josephine turn white. "She wouldn't have given her the +candy if it hadn't been for me," said she. + +Ida stood looking from one to the other. Josephine's face was white +and scared, Maria's impenetrable. + +"If you ever give this child candy again, either of you," said Ida, +"you will never take her out again." Then she went out, still smiling. + +Josephine looked at Maria with enormous gratitude. + +"Say," said she, "you're a dandy." + +"You're a cheat!" returned Maria, with scorn. + +"I'm awful sorry I didn't wait on the corner till four o'clock, +honest." + +"You'd better be." + +"Say, but you be a dandy," repeated Josephine. + + + +Chapter XII + + +Maria began to be conscious of other and more vital seasons than +those of the old earth on which she lived--the seasons of the human +soul. Along with her own unconscious and involuntary budding towards +bloom, the warm rush of the blood in her own veins, she realized the +budding progress of the baby. When little Evelyn was put into short +frocks, and her little, dancing feet were shod with leather instead +of wool, Maria felt a sort of delicious wonder, similar to that with +which she watched a lilac-bush in the yard when its blossoms deepened +in the spring. + +The day when Evelyn was put into short frocks, Maria glanced across +the school-room at Wollaston Lee, and her innocent passion, half +romance, half imagination, which had been for a time in abeyance, +again thrilled her. All her pulses throbbed. She tried to work out a +simple problem in her algebra, but mightier unknown quantities were +working towards solution in every beat of her heart. Wollaston shot a +sidelong glance at her, and she felt it, although she did not see it. +Gladys Mann leaned over her shoulder. + +"Say," she whispered, "Wollaston Lee is jest starin' at you!" + +Maria gave a little, impatient shrug of her shoulders, although a +blush shot over her whole face, and Gladys saw distinctly the back of +her neck turn a roseate color. + +"He's awful stuck on you, I guess," Gladys said. + +Maria shrugged her shoulders again, but she thought of Wollaston and +then of the baby in her short frock and she felt that her heart was +bursting with joy, as a bud with blossom. + +Ida, meantime, was curiously impassive towards her child's +attainments. There was something pathetic about this impassiveness. +Ida was missing a great deal, and more because she did not even know +what she missed. However, she began to be conscious of a settled +aversion towards Maria. Her manner towards her was unchanged, but she +became distinctly irritated at seeing her about. When anything +annoyed Ida, she immediately entertained no doubt whatever that it +was not in accordance with the designs of an overruling Providence. +It seemed manifest to her that if anything annoyed her, it should be +removed. However, in this case, the way of removal did not seem clear +for a long time. Harry was undoubtedly fond of Maria. That did not +trouble Ida in the least, although she recognized the fact. She was +not a woman who was capable of jealousy, because her own love and +admiration for herself made her impregnable. She loved herself so +much more than Harry could possibly love her that his feeling for +Maria did not ruffle her in the least. It was due to no jealousy that +she wished Maria removed, at least for a part of the time. It was +only that she was always conscious of a dissent, silent and helpless, +still persistent, towards her attitude as regarded herself. She knew +that Maria did not think her as beautiful and perfect as she thought +herself, and the constant presence of this small element of negation +irritated her. Then, too, while she was not in the least jealous of +her child, she had a curious conviction that Maria cared more for her +than she herself cared, and that in itself was a covert reproach. +When little Evelyn ran to meet her sister when she returned from +school, Ida felt distinctly disturbed. She had no doubt of her +ultimate success in her purpose of ridding herself of at least the +constant presence of Maria, and in the mean time she continued to +perform her duty by the girl, to that outward extent that everybody +in Edgham pronounced her a model step-mother. "Maria Edgham never +looked half so well in her own mother's time," they said. + +Lillian White spoke of it to her mother one Sunday. She had been to +church, but her mother had remained at home on account of a cold. + +"I tell you she looked dandy," said Lillian. Lillian was still as +softly and negatively pretty as ever. She was really charming because +she was not angular, because her skin was not thick and coarse, +because she did not look anaemic, but perfectly well fed and +nourished and happy. + +"Who?" asked her mother. + +"Maria Edgham. She was togged out to beat the band. Everything looked +sort of fadged up that she had before her own mother died. I tell you +she never had anything like the rig she wore to-day." + +"What was it?" asked her mother interestedly, wiping her rasped nose +with a moist ball of handkerchief. + +"Oh, it was the handsomest brown suit I ever laid my eyes on, with +hand-embroidery, and fur, and a big picture hat trimmed with fur and +chrysanthemums. She's an awful pretty little girl anyhow." + +"She always was pretty," said Mrs. White, dabbing her nose again. + +"If Ida don't look out, her step-daughter will beat her in looks," +said Lillian. + +"I never thought myself that Ida was anything to brag of, anyway," +said Mrs. White. She still had a sense of wondering injury that Harry +Edgham had preferred Ida to her Lillian. + +Lillian was now engaged to be married, but her mother did not feel +quite satisfied with the man. He was employed in a retail clothing +establishment in New York, and had only a small salary. "Foster +Simpkins" (that was the young man's name) "ain't really what you +ought to have," she often said to Lillian. + +But Lillian took it easily. She liked the young man very much as she +would have liked a sugar-plum, and she thought it high time for her +to be married, although she was scarcely turned twenty. "Oh, well, +ma," she said. "Men don't grow on every bush, and Foster is real +good-lookin', and maybe his salary will be raised." + +"You ain't lookin' very high," said her mother. + +"No use in strainin' your neck for things out of your own sky," said +Lillian, who had at times a shrewd sort of humor, inherited from her +father. + +"Harry Edgham would have been a better match for you," her mother +said. + +"Lord, I'd a good sight rather have Foster than another woman's +leavin's," replied Lillian. "Then there was Maria, too. It would have +been an awful job to dress her, and look out for her." + +"That's so," said her mother, "and then the two sets of children, +too." + +Lillian colored and giggled. "Oh, land, don't talk about children, +ma!" said she. "I'm contented as it is. But you ought to have seen +that young one to-day." + +"What did Ida wear?" asked Mrs. White. + +"She wore her black velvet suit, that she had this winter, and the +way she strutted up the aisle was a caution." + +"I don't see how Harry Edgham lives the way he does," said Mrs. +White. "Black velvet costs a lot. Do you s'pose it is silk velvet?" + +"You bet." + +"I don't see how he does it!" + +"He looks sort of worn-out to me. He's grown awful old, I noticed it +to-day." + +"Well, all Ida cares for is herself. _She_ don't see he's grown old, +you can be sure of that," said Mrs. White, with an odd sort of +bitterness. Actually the woman was so filled with maternal instincts +that the bare dream of Harry as her Lillian's husband had given her a +sort of motherly solicitude for him, which she had not lost. "It's a +shame," said she. + +"Oh, well, it's none of my funeral," said Lillian, easily. She took a +chocolate out of a box which her lover had sent her, and began +nibbling it like a squirrel. + +"Poor man," said Mrs. White. Tears of emotion actually filled her +eyes and mingled with the rheum of her cold. She took out her moist +ball of handkerchief again and dabbed both her eyes and nose. + +Lillian looked at her half amusedly, half affectionately. "Mother, +you do beat the Dutch," said she. + +Mrs. White actually snivelled. "I can't help remembering the time +when his poor first wife died," said she, "and how he and little +Maria came here to take their meals, poor souls. Harry Edgham was +just the one to be worked by a woman, poor fellow." + +Lillian sucked her chocolate with a full sense of its sweetness. "Ma, +you can't keep track of all creation, nor cry over it," said she. +"You've got to leave it to the Lord. Have you taken your pink pellet?" + +"Poor little Maria, too," said Mrs. White. + +"Good gracious, ma, don't you take to worryin' over her," said +Lillian. "Here's your pink pellet. A young one dressed up the way she +was to-day!" + +"Dress ain't everything, and nothin' is goin' to make me believe that +Ida Slome is a good mother to her, nor to her own child neither. It +ain't in her." + +Lillian, approaching her mother at the window with the pink pellet +and a glass of water, uttered an exclamation. "For the land's sake, +there she is now!" she said. "Look, ma, there is Maria in her new +suit, and she's got the baby in a little carriage on runners. Just +look at the white fur-tails hanging over the back. Ain't that a +handsome suit?" + +Mrs. White gazed out eagerly. "It must have cost a pile," said she. +"I don't see how he does it." + +"She sees you at the window," said Lillian. + +Both she and her mother smiled and waved at Maria. Maria bowed, and +smiled with a sweet irradiation of her rosy face. + +"She's a little beauty, anyhow," said Lillian. + +"Dear child," said Mrs. White, and she snivelled again. + +"Ma, either your cold or the stuff you are takin' is making you +dreadful nervous," said Lillian. "You cry at nothin' at all. How +straight she is! No stoop about her." + +Maria was, in fact, carrying herself with an extreme straightness +both of body and soul. She was conscious to the full of her own +beauty in her new suit, and of the loveliness of her little sister in +her white fur nest of a sledge. She was inordinately proud. She had +asked Ida if she might take the child for a little airing before the +early Sunday dinner, and Ida had consented easily. + +Ida also wished for an opportunity to talk with Harry about her +cherished scheme, and preferred doing so when Maria was not in the +house. For manifest reasons, too, Sunday was the best day on which to +approach her husband on a subject which she realized was a somewhat +delicate one. She was not so sure of his subservience when Maria was +concerned, as in everything else, and Sunday was the day when his +nerves were less strained, when he had risen late. Ida did not insist +upon his going to church, as his first wife had done. In fact, if the +truth was told, Harry wore his last winter's overcoat this year, and +she was a little doubtful about its appearance in conjunction with +her new velvet costume. He sat in the parlor when Ida entered after +Maria had gone out with Evelyn. Harry looked at her admiringly. + +"How stunning you do look in that velvet dress!" he said. + +Ida laughed consciously. "I rather like it myself," said she. "It's a +great deal handsomer than Mrs. George Henderson's, and I know she had +hers made at a Fifth Avenue tailor's, and it must have cost twice as +much." + +Ida had filled Harry with the utmost faith in her financial +management. While he was spending more than he had ever done, and +working harder, he was innocently unconscious of it. He felt a sense +of gratitude and wonder that Ida was such a good manager and +accomplished such great results with such a small expenditure. He was +unwittingly disloyal to his first wife. He remembered the rigid +economy under her sway, and owned to himself, although with +remorseful tenderness, that she had not been such a financier as this +woman. "You ought to go on Wall Street," he often told Ida. He gazed +after her now with a species of awe that he had such a splendid, +masterful creature for his wife, as she moved with the slow majesty +habitual to her out of the room, the black plumes on her hat softly +floating, the rich draperies of her gown trailing in sumptuous folds +of darkness. + +When she came down again, in a rose-colored silk tea-gown trimmed +with creamy lace, she was still more entrancing. She brought with her +into the room an atmosphere of delicate perfume. Harry had stopped +smoking entirely nowadays. Ida had persuaded him that it was bad for +him. She had said nothing about the expense, as his first wife had +been accustomed to do. Therefore there was no tobacco smoke to dull +his sensibilities to this delicate perfume. It was as if a living +rose had entered the room. Ida sank gracefully into a chair opposite +him. She was wondering how she could easily lead up to the subject in +her mind. There was much diplomacy, on a very small and selfish +scale, about Ida. She realized the expediency of starting from +apparently a long distance, to establish her sequences in order to +maintain the appearance of unpremeditativeness. + +"Isn't it a little too warm here, dear?" said she, presently, in the +voice which alone she could not control. Whenever she had an entirely +self-centred object in mind, an object which might possibly meet with +opposition, as now, her voice rang harsh and lost its singing quality. + +Harry did not seem to notice it. He started up immediately. The +portieres between the room and the vestibule were drawn. He had, in +fact, felt somewhat chilly. It was a cold day, and he had a touch of +the grip. "I will open the portieres, dear," he said. "I dare say you +are right." + +"I noticed it when I first came in," said Ida. "I meant to draw the +portieres apart myself, but going out through the library I forgot +it. Thank you, dear. How is your cold?" + +"It is nothing, dear," replied Harry. "There is only a little +soreness in my throat." + +He resumed his seat, and noticed the fragrance of roasted chicken +coming through the parted portieres from the kitchen. Harry was very +fond of roasted chicken. He inhaled that and the delicate perfume of +Ida's garments and hair. He regarded her glowing beauty with +affection which had no taint of sensuality. Harry had more of a +poetic liking for sweet odors and beauty than a sensual one. + +Harry Edgham in these days had a more poetic and spiritual look than +formerly. He had not lost his strange youthfulness of expression; it +was as if a child had the appearance of having been longer on the +earth. His hair had thinned, and receded from his temples, and the +bold, almost babyish fulness of his temples was more evident. His +face was thinner, too, and he had not much color. His mouth was drawn +down at the corner, and he frowned slightly, as a child might, in +helpless but non-aggressive dissent. His worn appearance was very +noticeable, in spite of his present happy mood, of which his wife +shrewdly took advantage. + +Ida Edgham did not care for books, although she never admitted that +fact, but she could read with her cold feminine astuteness the moods +and souls of men, with unerring quickness. Those last were to her +advantage or disadvantage, and in anything of that nature she was +gifted by nature. Ida Edgham might have been, as her husband might +have been, a poet, an adventuress, who could have made the success of +her age had she not been hindered, as well as aided, by her +self-love. She had the shrewdness which prognosticates as well as +discerns, and saw the inevitableness of the ultimatum of all +irregularities in a world which, however irregular it is in practice, +still holds regularity as its model of conduct and progression. Ida +Edgham would, in the desperate state of the earth before the flood, +have made herself famous. As it was, her irregular talents had a +limited field; however, she did all she could. It always seemed to +her that, as far as the right and wrong of things went, her own +happiness was eminently right, and that it was distinctly wrong for +her, or any one else, to oppose any obstacle to it. She allowed the +pleasant influences of the passing moment to have their full effect +upon her husband, and she continued her leading up to the subject by +those easy and apparently unrelated sequences which none but a +diplomat could have managed. + +"Thank you, dear," she said, when Harry resumed his seat. "The air is +cold but very clear and pleasant out to-day," she continued. + +"It looks so," said Harry. + +"Still, if I were you, I think I would not go out; it might make your +cold worse," said Ida. + +"No, I think it would be full as well for me to stay in to-day," +replied Harry happily. He hemmed a little as he spoke, realizing the +tickle in his throat with rather a pleasant sense of importance than +annoyance. He stretched himself luxuriously in his chair, and gazed +about the warm, perfumed, luxurious apartment. + +"You have to go out to-morrow, anyway," said Ida, and she increased +his sense of present comfort by that remark. + +"That is so," said Harry, with a slight sigh. + +Lately it had seemed harder than ever before for him to start early +in the black winter mornings and hurry for his train. Then, too, he +had what he had never had before, a sense of boredom, of ennui, so +intense that it was almost a pain. The deadly monotony of it wearied +him. For the first time in his life his harness of duty chafed his +spirit. He was so tired of seeing the same train, the same commuters, +taking the same path across the station to the ferry-boat, being +jostled by the same throng, going to the same office, performing the +same, or practically the same, duties, that his very soul was +irritated. He had reached a point where he not only needed but +demanded a change, but the change was as impossible, without +destruction, as for a planet to leave its orbit. + +Ida saw the deepening of the frown on his forehead and the +lengthening of the lines around his mouth. + +"Poor old man!" said she. "I wish I had a fortune to give you, so you +wouldn't have to go." + +The words were fairly cooing, but the tone was still harsh. However, +Harry brightened. He regarded this lovely, blooming creature and +inhaled again the odor of dinner, and reflected with a sense of +gratitude upon his mercies. Harry had a grateful heart, and was +always ready to blame himself. + +"Oh, I should be lost, go all to pieces, if I quit work," he said, +laughing. "If I were left a fortune, I should land in an insane +asylum very likely, or take to drink. No, dear, you can't teach such +an old bird new tricks; he's been in one tree too long, summer and +winter." + +"Well, after all, you have not got to go out to-day," remarked Ida, +skilfully, and Harry again stretched himself with a sense of present +comfort. + +"That is so, dear," he said. + +"I have something you like for supper, too," said Ida, "and I think +George Adams and Louisa may drop in and we can have some music." + +Harry brightened still more. He liked George Adams, and the wife had +more than a talent for music, of which Harry was passionately fond. +She played wonderfully on Ida's well-tuned grand piano. + +"I thought you might like it," said Ida, "and I spoke to Louisa as I +was coming out of church." + +"You were very kind, sweetheart," Harry said, and again a flood of +gratitude seemed to sweeten life for the man. + +Ida took another step in her sequence. + +"I think Maria had better stay up, if they do come," said she. "She +enjoys music so much. She can keep on her new gown. Maria is so +careful of her gowns that I never feel any anxiety about her soiling +them." + +"She is just like--" began Harry, then he stopped. He had been about +to state that Maria was just like her mother in that respect, but he +had remembered suddenly that he was speaking to his second wife. + +However, Ida finished his remark for him with perfect good-nature. +She had not the slightest jealousy of Harry's first wife, only a sort +of contempt, that she had gotten so little where she herself had +gotten so much. + +"Maria's own mother was very particular, wasn't she, dear?" she said. + +"Very," replied Harry. + +"Maria takes it from her, without any doubt," Ida said, smoothly. +"She looked so sweet in that new gown to-day, that I would like to +have the Adamses see her without her coat to-night; and Maria looks +even prettier without her hat, too, her hair grows so prettily on her +temples. Maria grows lovelier every day, it seems to me. I don't know +how many I saw looking at her in church this morning." + +"Yes, she is going to be pretty, I guess," said Harry, and again his +very soul seemed warm and light with pleasure and gratitude. + +"She _is_ pretty," said Ida, conclusively. "She is at the awkward +age, too. But there is no awkwardness about Maria. She is like a +little fairy." + +Harry beamed upon her. "She is as proud as punch when she gets a +chance to take the little one out, and they made a pretty picture +going down the street," said he, "but I hope she won't catch cold. Is +that new suit warm?" + +"Oh yes! it is interlined. I looked out for that." + +"You look out for my child as if she were your own, bless you, dear," +Harry said, affectionately. + +Then Ida thought that the time for her carefully-led-up-to coup had +arrived. "I try to," said she, meekly. + +"You _do_." + +Ida began to speak, then she hesitated, with timid eyes on her +husband's face. + +"What is it, dear?" asked he. + +"Well, I have been thinking a good deal lately about Maria and her +associates in school here." + +"Why, what is the matter with them?" Harry asked, uneasily. + +"Oh, I don't know that there is anything very serious the matter with +them, but Maria is at an age when she is very impressible, and there +are many who are not exactly desirable. There is Gladys Mann, for +instance. I saw Maria walking down the street with her the other day. +Now, Harry, you know that Gladys Mann is not exactly the kind of girl +whom Maria's own mother would have chosen for an intimate friend for +her." + +"You are right," Harry said, frowning. + +"Well, I have been thinking over the number of pupils of both sexes +in the school who can be called degenerates, either in mind or +morals, and I must say I was alarmed." + +"Well, what is to be done?" asked Harry, moodily. "Maria must go to +school, of course." + +"Yes, of course, Maria must have a good education, as good as if her +own mother had lived." + +"Well, what is to be done, then?" + +Then Ida came straight to the point. "The only way I can see is to +remove her from doubtful associates." + +"Remove her?" repeated Harry, blankly. + +"Yes; send her away to school. Wellbridge Hall, in Emerson, where I +went myself, would be a very good school. It is not expensive." + +Harry stared. "But, Ida, she is too young." + +"Not at all." + +"You were older when you went there." + +"A little older." + +"How far is Emerson from here?" + +"Only a night's journey from New York. You go to sleep in your berth, +and in the morning you are there. You could always see her off. It is +very easy." + +"Send Maria away! Ida, it is out of the question. Aside from anything +else, there is the expense. I am living up to my income as it is." + +"Oh," said Ida--she gave her head a noble toss, and spoke +impressively--"I am prepared to go without myself to make it possible +for you to meet her bills. You know I spoke the other day of a new +lace dress. Well, that would cost at least a hundred; I will go +without that. And I wanted some new portieres for my room; I will go +without them. That means, say, fifty more. And you know the +dining-room rug looks very shabby. I was thinking we must have an +Eastern rug, which would cost at least one hundred and fifty; I +thought it would pay in the end. Well, I am prepared to give that up +and have a domestic, which only costs twenty-five; that is a hundred +and twenty-five more saved. And I had planned to have my seal-skin +coat made over after Christmas, and you know you cannot have +seal-skin touched under a hundred; there is a hundred more. There are +three hundred and seventy-five saved, which will pay for Maria's +tuition for a year, and enough over for travelling expenses." Nothing +could have exceeded the expression of lofty virtue of Ida Edgham when +she concluded her speech. As for her own selfish considerations, +those, as always, she thought of only as her duty. Ida established +always a clear case of conscience in all her dealings for her own +interests. + +But Harry continued to frown. The childish droop of his handsome +mouth became more pronounced. "I don't like the idea," he said, quite +sturdily for him. + +"Suppose we leave it to Maria," said Ida. + +"I really think," said Harry, in almost a fretful tone, "that you +exaggerate. I hardly think there is anything so very objectionable +about her associates here. I will admit that many of the children +come from what we call the poor whites, but after all their main vice +is shiftlessness, and Maria is not very likely to become contaminated +with that." + +"Why, Harry, my dear, that is the very least of their vices." + +"What else?" + +"Why, you know that they are notoriously light-fingered." + +"My dear Ida, you don't mean to say that you think Maria--" + +"Why, of course not, Harry, but aside from that, their morals." + +Harry rose from his chair and walked across the room nervously. + +"My dear Ida," he said, "you are exaggerating now. Maria is simply +not that kind of a girl; and, besides, I don't know that she does see +so much of those people, anyway." + +"Gladys Mann--" + +"Well, I never heard any harm of that poor little runt. On the other +side, Ida, I should think Maria's influence over her for good was to +be taken into consideration." + +"I hope you don't mean Maria to be a home missionary?" said Ida. + +"She might go to school for a worse purpose," replied Harry, simply. +"Maria has a very strong character from her mother, if not from her +father. I actually think the chances are that the Mann girl will have +a better chance of getting good from Maria than Maria evil from her." + +"Well, dear, suppose we leave it to Maria herself," said Ida. "Nobody +is going to force the dear child away against her will, of course." + +"Very well," said Harry. His face still retained a slightly sulky, +disturbed expression. + +Ida, after a furtive glance at him, took up a sheet of the Sunday +paper, and began swaying back and forth gracefully in her +rocking-chair, as she read it. + +"How foolish all this sentiment about that murderer in the Tombs is," +said she presently. "They are actually going to give him a +Christmas-tree." + +"He is only a boy," said Harry absently. + +"I know that--but the idea!" + +Just then Maria passed the window, dragging little Evelyn in her +white sledge. Ida rose with a motion of unusual quickness for her, +but Harry stopped her as she was about to leave the room. + +"Don't go out, Ida," he said, with a peremptoriness which sat +strangely upon him. + +Ida stared at him. "Why, why not?" she asked. "I wanted to take +Evelyn out. You know Josephine is not here." + +"She is getting out all right with Maria's help; sit down, Ida," said +Harry, still with that tone of command which was so foreign to him. + +Ida hesitated a second, then she sat down. She realized the grace and +policy of yielding in a minor point, when she had a large one in +view. Then, too, she was in reality rather vulnerable to a sudden +attack, for a moment, although she was always as a rule sure of +ultimate victory. She was at a loss, moreover, to comprehend Harry's +manner, which was easily enough understood. He wished to be the first +to ascertain Maria's sentiments with regard to going away to school. +Without admitting it even to himself, he distrusted his wife's +methods and entire frankness. + +Presently Maria entered, leading little Evelyn, who was unusually +sturdy on her legs for her age. She walked quite steadily, with an +occasional little hop and skip of exuberant childhood. + +She could talk a little, in disconnected sentences, with fascinating +mistakes in the sounds of letters, but she preferred a gurgle of +laughter when she was pleased, and a wail of woe when things went +wrong. She was still in the limbos of primitivism. She was young with +the babyhood of the world. To-day she danced up to her father with +her little thrill of laughter, at once as meaningless and as full of +meaning as the trill of a canary. She pursed up her little lips for a +kiss, she flung frantic arms of adoration around his neck. She clung +to him, when he lifted her, with all her little embracing limbs; she +pressed her lovely, cool, rosy cheek against his, and laughed again. + +"Now go and kiss mamma," said Harry. + +But the baby resisted with a little, petulant murmur when he tried to +set her down. She still clung to him. Harry whispered in her ear. + +"Go and kiss mamma, darling." + +But Evelyn shook her head emphatically against his face. Maria, +almost as radiant in her youth as the child, stood behind her. She +glanced uneasily at Ida. She held the white fur robes and wraps which +she had brought in from the sledge. + +"Take those things out and let Emma put them away, dear," Ida said to +her. She smiled, but her voice still retained its involuntary +harshness. + +Maria obeyed with an uneasy glance at little Evelyn. She knew that +her step-mother was angry because the baby would not kiss her. When +she was out in the dining-room, giving the fluffy white things to the +maid, she heard a shriek, half of grief, half of angry dissent, from +the baby. She immediately ran back into the parlor. Ida was removing +the child's outer garments, smiling as ever, and with seeming +gentleness, but Maria had a conviction that her touch on the tender +flesh of the child was as the touch of steel. Little Evelyn struggled +to get to her sister when she saw her, but Ida held her firmly. + +"Stand still, darling," she said. It was inconceivable how she could +say darling without the loving inflection which alone gave the word +its full meaning. + +"Stand still and let mamma take off baby's things," said Harry, and +there was no lack of affectionate cadences in his voice. He privately +thought that he himself could have taken off the child's wraps better +than his wife, but he recognized her rights in the matter. Harry +remembering his first wife, with her child, was in a state of +constant bewilderment at the sight of his second with hers. He had +always had the masculine opinion that women, in certain primeval +respects, were cut on one pattern, and his opinion was being rudely +shaken. + +"Call Emma, please," said Ida to Maria, and Maria obeyed. + +When the maid came in, Ida directed her to take the child up-stairs +and put on another frock. + +Maria was about to follow, but Harry stopped her. "Maria," said he. + +Maria stopped, and eyed her father with surprise. + +"Maria," said Harry, bluntly, "your mother and I have been talking +about your going away to school." + +Maria turned slightly pale and continued to stare at him, but she +said nothing. + +"She thinks, and I don't know but she is right," said Harry, with +painful loyalty, "that your associates here are not just the proper +ones for you, and that it would be much better for you to go to +boarding-school." + +"How much would it cost?" asked Maria, in a dazed voice. The question +sounded like her own mother. + +"Father can manage that; you need not trouble yourself about that," +replied Harry, hurriedly. + +"Where?" said Maria, then. + +"To a nice school where your mother was educated." + +"My mother?" + +"Ida--to Wellbridge Hall." + +"How often should I come home and see you and Evelyn? Every week?" + +"I am afraid not, dear," said Harry, uneasily. + +"How long are the terms?" asked Maria. + +"Only about twelve weeks," said Ida. + +Maria stood staring from one to the other. Her face had turned deadly +pale, and had, moreover, taken on an expression of despair and +isolation. Somehow, although the little girl was only a few feet from +the others, she had a look as if she were leagues off, as if she were +outside something vital, which removed her, in fact, to immeasurable +distances. And, in fact, Maria had a feeling which never afterwards +wholly left her, of being outside the love of life in which she had +hitherto dwelt with confidence. + +"Maybe you would like it, dear," Harry said, feebly. + +"I will go," Maria said, in a choking voice. Then she turned without +another word and went out of the room, up-stairs to her own little +chamber. When there she sat down beside the window. She did not +think. She did not seem to feel her hands and feet. It was as if she +had fallen from a height. The realization that her father and his new +wife wanted to send her away, that she was not wanted in her home, +stunned her. + +But in a moment the door was flung open and her father entered. He +knelt down beside Maria and pulled her head to his shoulder and +kissed her, and she felt with a sort of dull wonder his face damp +against her own. + +"Father's little girl!" said Harry. "Father's own little girl! +Father's blessing! Did she think he wanted to send her away? I rather +guess he didn't. How would father get along without his own precious +baby, when he came home at night. She shan't go one step. She needn't +fret a bit about it." + +Maria turned and regarded him with a frozen look still on her face. +"It was She that wanted me to go?" she said, interrogatively. + +"She thought maybe it would be best for you, darling," said Harry. +"She means to do right by you, Maria; you must try to think so." + +Maria said nothing. + +"But father isn't going to let you go," said Harry. "He can't do +without his little girl." + +Then Maria's strange calm broke up. She clung, weeping, to her +father, as if he were her only stay. Harry continued to soothe her. + +"Father's blessing!" he whispered in her ear. "She was the best +little girl that ever was. She is just like her own dear mother." + +"I wish mother was back," Maria whispered, her whisper stifled +against his ear. + +"Oh, my God, so do I!" Harry said, with a half sob. For the minute +the true significance of his position overwhelmed him. He felt a +regret, a remembrance, that was a passion. He realized, with no +disguise, what it all meant: that he a man with the weakness of a +child in the hands of a masterly woman, had formerly been in the +leading-strings of love for himself, for his own best good, whereas +he was now in the grasp of the self-love of another who cared for him +only as he promoted her own interests. In a moment, however, he +recovered himself. After all, he had a sense of loyalty and duty +which amounted to positive strength. He put Maria gently from him +with another kiss. + +"Well, this won't bring your mother back, dear," he said, "and God +took her away, you know, and what He does is for the best; and She +means to do her duty by you, you know, dear. She thought it would be +better for you, but father can't spare you, that's all there is about +it." + + + +Chapter XIII + + +It was an utter impossibility for Ida Edgham to be entirely balked of +any purpose which she might form. There was something at once +impressive and terrible about the strength of this beautiful, smiling +creature's will, about its silence, its impassibility before +obstacles, its persistency. It was as inevitable and unswervable as +an avalanche or a cyclone. People might shriek out against it and +struggle, but on it came, a mighty force, overwhelming petty things +as well as great ones. It really seemed a pity, taking into +consideration Ida's tremendous strength of character, that she had +not some great national purpose upon which to exert herself, instead +of such trivial domestic ones. + +Ida realized that she could not send Maria to the school which she +had proposed. Her strength had that subtlety which acknowledges its +limitations and its closed doors, and can look about for other means +and ways. Therefore, when Harry came down-stairs that Sunday +afternoon, his face working with emotion but his eyes filled with a +steady light, and said, with no preface, "It's no use talking, Ida, +that child does not want to go, and she shall never be driven from +under my roof, while I live," Ida only smiled, and replied, "Very +well, dear, I only meant it for her good." + +"She is not going," Harry said doggedly. + +Harry resumed his seat with a gesture of defiance which was absurd, +from its utter lack of any response from his wife. It was like +tilting with a windmill. + +Ida continued to sway gently back and forth, and smile. + +"I think if the Adamses do come in to-night we will have a little +salad, there will be enough left from the chicken, and some cake and +tea," she observed presently. "We won't have the table set, because +both the maids have asked to go out, but Maria can put on my India +muslin apron and pass the things. I will have the salad made before +they go, and I will make the tea. We can have it on the table in +here." Ida indicated, by a graceful motion of her shoulder, a pretty +little tea-table loaded with Dresden china. + +"All right," replied Harry, with a baffled tone. He felt baffled +without knowing exactly why. + +Ida took up another sheet of the Herald, a fashion page was +uppermost. She read something and smiled. "It says that gowns made +like Maria's new one are the most fetching ones of the season," she +said. "I am so glad I have the skirt plaited." + +Harry made a gesture of assent. He felt, without in the least knowing +why, like a man who had been completely worsted in a hand-to-hand +combat. He felt humiliated and unhappy. His first wife, even with her +high temper and her ready tongue, had never caused him such a sense +of abjectness. He had often felt angry with her, but never with +himself. She had never really attacked his self-respect as this woman +did. He did not dare look up from his newspaper for a while, for he +realized that he should experience agony at seeing the beautiful, +radiant face of his second wife opposite him instead of the worn, +stern, but altogether loving and single-hearted face of his first. He +was glad when Maria came down-stairs, and looked up and greeted her +with a smile of reassuring confidence. Maria's pretty little face was +still tear-stained, although she had bathed it with cold water. She +also took up a sheet of the Sunday paper. + +"Did you see Alice Lundy's new hat in church to-day, dear?" Ida +presently asked her, and her manner was exactly as if nothing had +occurred to disturb anybody. + +Maria looked at her with a sort of wonder, which made her honest face +almost idiotic. + +"No, ma'am," said she. + +Maria had been taught to say "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am" by her own +mother, whose ideas of etiquette were old-fashioned, and dated from +the precepts of her own childhood. + +"It is a little better not to say ma'am," said Ida, sweetly. "I think +that expression is not used so much as formerly." + +Maria looked at her with a quick defiance, which gave her an almost +startling resemblance to her own mother. + +"Yes, ma'am," said she. + +Harry's mouth twitched behind his paper. Ida said no more. She +continued to smile, but she was not reading the paper which she held. +She was making new plans to gain her own ends. She was seeking new +doors of liberty for her own ways, in lieu of those which she saw +were closed to her, and by the time dinner was served she was quite +sure that she had succeeded. + +The next autumn, Maria began attending the Elliot Academy, in +Wardway. The Elliot Academy was an endowed school of a very high +standing, and Wardway was a large town, almost a city, about fifteen +miles from Edgham. When this plan was broached by Ida, Maria did not +make any opposition; she was secretly delighted. Wollaston Lee was +going to the Elliot Academy that autumn, and there was another Edgham +girl and her brother, besides Maria, who were going. + +"Now, darling, you need not go to the Elliot Academy any more than to +the other school she proposed, if you don't want to," Harry told +Maria, privately, one Saturday afternoon in September, shortly before +the term began. + +Ida had gone to her club, and Harry had come home early from the +city, and he and Maria were alone in the parlor. Evelyn was having +her nap up-stairs. A high wind was roaring about the house. A +cherry-tree beside the house was fast losing its leaves in a yellow +rain. In front of the window, a hydrangea bush, tipped with +magnificent green-and-rosy plumes, swayed in all its limbs like a +living thing. Somewhere up-stairs a blind banged. + +"I think I would like to go," Maria replied, hurriedly. Then she +jumped up. "That blind will wake Evelyn," she said, and ran out of +the room. + +She had colored unaccountably when her father spoke. When she +returned, she had a demure, secretive expression on her face which +made Harry stare at her in bewilderment. All his life Harry Edgham +had been helpless and bewildered before womenkind, and now his little +daughter was beginning to perplex him. She sat down and took up a +piece of fancy-work, and her father continued to glance at her +furtively over his paper. Presently he spoke of the academy again. + +"You need not go if you do not want to," he repeated. + +Then again Maria's delicate little face and neck became suffused with +pink. Her reply was not as loud nor more intelligible than the murmur +of the trees outside in the wind. + +"What did you say, darling?" asked Harry. "Father did not understand." + +"I would like to go there," Maria replied, in her sweet, decisive +little pipe. A fresh wave of color swept over her face and neck, and +she selected with great care a thread from a skein of linen floss. + +"Well, she thought you might like that," Harry said, with an air of +relief. + +"Maud Page is going, too," said Maria. + +"Is she? That will be nice. You won't have to go back and forth +alone," said Harry. + +Maria said nothing; she continued her work. + +Her father turned his paper and looked at the stock-list. Once he had +owned a hundred shares of one of the Industrials. He had long since +sold out, not at a loss, but the stock had risen since. He always +noted it with an odd feeling of proprietorship, in spite of not +owning any. He saw with pride that it had advanced half a point. + +Maria worked silently; and as she worked she dreamed, and the dream +was visible on her face, had any one been astute enough to understand +it. She was working a lace collar to wear with a certain blue blouse, +and upon that flimsy keystone was erecting an air-castle. She was +going to the Elliot Academy, wearing the blue blouse and the lace +collar, and looking so lovely that Wollaston Lee worshipped her. She +invented little love-scenes, love-words, and caresses. She blushed, +and dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth, the blue light of +her eyes under her downcast lids was like the light of living gems. +She viewed with complacency her little, soft white hands plying the +needle. Maria had hands like a little princess. She cast a glance at +the toe of her tiny shoe. She remembered how somebody had told her to +keep her shoulders straight, and she threw them back with a charming +motion, as if they had been wings. She was entirely oblivious of her +father's covert glances. She was solitary, isolated in the crystal of +her own thoughts. Presently, Evelyn woke and cried, and Maria roused +herself with a start and ran up-stairs. Soon the two came into the +room, Evelyn dancing with the uncertain motion of a winged seed on a +spring wind. She was charming. One round cheek was more deeply +flushed than the other, and creased with the pillow. Her yellow hair, +fine and soft and full of electric life, tossed like a little crest. +She ran with both fat little hands spread palms outward, and pounced +violently upon her father. Harry rolled her about on his knee, and +played with her as if she had been a kitten. Maria stood by laughing. +The child was fairly screaming with mirth. + +A graceful figure passed the window, its garments tightly wrapped by +the wind, flying out like a flag behind. Harry set the little girl +down at once. + +"Here is mamma coming," said he. "Go to sister and she will show you +the pictures in the book papa brought home the other day." + +Evelyn obeyed. She was a docile little thing, and she had a fear of +her mother without knowing why. She was sitting beside Maria, looking +demurely at the pictures which her sister pointed out to her, when +Ida entered. + +"See the horsey running away," said Maria. Then she added in a +whisper, "Go and kiss mamma, baby." + +The child hesitated, then she rose, and ran to her mother, who +stooped her radiant face over her and kissed her coolly. + +"Have you been a good little girl?" asked she. Ida was looking +particularly self-satisfied to day, and more disposed consequently to +question others as to their behavior. + +"Yeth," replied Evelyn, without the slightest hesitation. A happy +belief in her own merits was an inheritance from her mother. As yet +it was more charming than otherwise, for the baby had unquestionable +merits in which to believe. Harry and Maria laughed. + +"Mamma is very glad," said Ida. She did not laugh; she saw no humor +in it. She turned to Harry. "I think I will go in on the early train +with you to-morrow, dear," she said. "I want to see about Maria's +new dress." Then she turned to Maria. "I have been in to see Miss +Keeler," said she, "and she says she can make it for you next week, +so you can have it when you begin school. I thought of brown with a +touch of blue and burnt-orange. How would you like that?" + +"I think that would be perfectly lovely," said Maria with enthusiasm. +She cast a grateful look at her step-mother, almost a look of +affection. She was always very grateful to Ida for her new clothes, +and just now clothes had a more vital interest for her than ever. She +took another stitch in her collar, with Evelyn leaning against her +and kicking out first one chubby leg, then the other, and she +immediately erected new air-castles, in which she figured in her +brown suit with the touches of burnt-orange and blue. + +A week later, when she started on the train for Wardway in her new +attire, she felt entirely satisfied with herself and life in general. +She was conscious of looking charming in her new suit of brown, with +the touches of blue and burnt-orange, and her new hat, also brown +with blue and burnt-orange glimpses in the trimmings. Wollaston Lee +got on the same car and sat behind her. Maud Page, the other Edgham +girl who was going to the academy, had a cousin in Wardway, and had +gone there the night before. There were only Maria, Wollaston, and +Edwin Shaw, who sat by himself in a corner, facing the other +passengers with a slightly shamed, sulky expression. He was very +tall, and had blacked his shoes well, and the black light from them +seemed to him obtrusive, the more so because his feet were very +large. He looked out of the window as the train left the station, and +saw a very pretty little child with a fluff of yellow hair, carrying +a big doll, climbing laboriously on a train on the other track, with +the tender assistance of a brakeman. She was in the wake of a very +stout woman, who stumbled on her skirts going up the steps. Edwin +Shaw thought that the child looked like Maria's little sister, but +that she could not be, because the stout woman was a stranger to him. +Then he thought no more about it. He gazed covertly at Maria, with +the black sparkles of his shoes continuing to disturb him. He admired +Maria. Presently he saw Wollaston Lee lean over the back of her seat +and say something to her, and saw her half turn and dimple, and +noticed how the lovely rose flushed the curve of her cheek, and he +scowled at his shiny shoes. + +As for Maria, when she felt the boy's warm breath on her neck, her +heart beat fast. She realized herself on the portals of an air-castle. + +"Well, glad you are going to leave this old town?" said Wollaston. + +"I am not going to leave it, really," replied Maria. + +"Oh, of course not, but you are going to leave the old school, +anyhow. I had got mighty tired of it, hadn't you?" + +"Yes, I had, rather." + +"It's behind the times," said the boy; and, as he spoke he himself +looked quite up to the times. He had handsome, clearly cut features +and black eyes, which seemed at the same time to demand and question. +He had something of a supercilious air, although the expression of +youthful innocence and honesty was still evident on his face. He wore +a new suit as well as Maria, only his was gray instead of brown, and +he wore a red carnation in his button-hole. Maria inhaled the clovy +fragrance of it. At the next station more passengers got into the +train, and Wollaston seized upon that excuse to ask to share Maria's +seat. They talked incessantly--an utterly foolish gabble like that of +young birds. An old gentleman across the aisle cast an impatient +glance at them from time to time. Finally he arose stiffly and went +into the smoker. Their youth and braggadocio of innocence and +ignorance, and the remembrance of his own, irritated him. He did not +in the least regret his youth, but the recollection of the first +stages of his life, now that he was so near the end, was like looking +backward over a long road, which had led to absurdly different goals +from what he had imagined. It all seemed inconceivable, silly and +futile to him, what he had done, and what they were doing. He cast a +furious glance at them as he passed out, but neither noticed it. +Wollaston said something, and Maria laughed an inane little giggle +which was still musical, and trilled through the car. Maria's cheeks +were burning, and she seldom looked at the boy at her side, but +oftener at the young autumn landscape through which they were +passing. The trees had scarcely begun to turn, but here and there one +flamed out like a gold or red torch among the green, and all the +way-sides were blue and gold with asters and golden-rod. It was a +very warm morning for the season. When they stopped at one of the +stations, a yellow butterfly flew in through an open window and +flitted airily about the car. Maria removed her coat, with the +solicitous aid of her companion. She cast a conscious glance at the +orange and blue on her sleeves. + +"Say, that dress is a stunner!" whispered Wollaston. + +Maria laughed happily. "Glad you like it," said she. + +Before they reached Wardway, Wollaston's red carnation was fastened +at one side of her embroidered vest, making a discord of color which, +for Maria, was a harmony of young love and romance. + +"That is the academy," said Wollaston, as the train rolled into +Wardway. He pointed to a great brick structure at the right--a main +building flanked by enormous wings. "Are you frightened?" he asked. + +"I guess not," replied Maria, but she was. + +"You needn't be a bit," said the boy. "I know some of the boys that +go there, and I went to see the principal with father. He's real +pleasant. I know the Latin teacher, Miss Durgin, too. My Uncle Frank +married her cousin, and she has been to my house. You'll be in her +class." Wollaston spoke with a protective warmth for which Maria was +very grateful. + +She had a very successful although somewhat confused day. She was +asked this and that and led hither and yon, and so surrounded by +strange faces and sights that she felt fairly dizzy. She felt more +herself at luncheon, when she sat beside Maud Page in the +dining-hall, with Wollaston opposite. There was a restaurant attached +to the academy, for the benefit of the out-of-town pupils. + +When Maria went down to the station to take her train for home, Maud +Page was there, and Wollaston. There was a long time to wait. They +went out in a field opposite and picked great bunches of golden-rod, +and the girls pinned them on their coats. Edwin Shaw was lingering +about the station when they returned, but he was too shy to speak to +them. When the train at last came in, Maria, with a duplicity which +shamed her in thinking of it afterwards, managed to get away from +Maud, and enter the car at the same time with Wollaston, who seated +himself beside her as a matter of course. It was still quite light, +but it had grown cold. Everything had a cold look--the clear cowslip +sky, with its reefs of violet clouds; even the trees tossed crisply, +as if stiffened with cold. + +"Hope we won't have a frost," said Wollaston, as they got off at +Edgham. + +"I hope not," said Maria; and then Gladys Mann ran up to her, crying +out: + +"Say, Maria, Maria, did you know your little sister was lost?" + +Maria turned deadly white. Wollaston caught hold of her little arm in +its brown sleeve. + +"When was she lost?" he asked, fiercely, of Gladys. "Don't you know +any better than to rush right at anybody with such a thing as that? +Don't you be frightened, Maria. I'll find her." + +A little knot of passengers from the train gathered around them. +Gladys was pale herself, and had a strong sense of the sadness of the +occasion, still she had a feeling of importance. Edwin Shaw came +lumbering up timidly, and Maud Page pressed quickly to Maria's side +with a swirl of her wide skirts. + +"Gladys Mann, what on earth are you talking about?" said she, +sharply. "Who's lost?" + +"Maria's little sister." + +"Hm! I don't believe a word of it." + +"She is, so there! Nobody has seen a sign of her since morning, and +Maria's pa's most crazy. He's been sending telegrams all round. +Maria's step-mother, she telegraphed for him to come home, and he +come at noon, and he sent telegrams all round, and then he went +himself an hour ago." + +"Went where?" + +"Back to New York. Guess he's gone huntin' himself. Guess he thought +he could hunt better than policemen. Maria's step-mother don't act +scared, but I guess she is, awful. My mummer says that folks that +bear up the best are the ones that feel things most. My mummer went +over to see if she could do anything and see how she took it." + +"When was she lost?" gasped Maria. She was shaking from head to foot. + +"Your step-mother went down to the store, and when she got back the +baby was gone. Josephine said she hadn't seen her after you had +started for Wardway. She took her doll with her." + +"Where?" gasped Maria. + +"Nobody knows where," said Gladys, severely, although the tears were +streaming down her own grimy cheeks. "She wouldn't be lost, would +she, if folks knew where she was? Nothin' ain't never lost when you +know where it is unless you drop it down a well, and you 'ain't got +no well, have you, Maria Edgham?" + +"No," said Maria. She was conscious of an absurd thankfulness and +relief that she had no well. + +"And there ain't no pond round here big enough to drown a baby +kitten, except that little mud-puddle up at Fisher's, and they've +dragged every inch of that. I see 'em." + +All this time Edwin Shaw had been teetering on uncertain toes on the +borders of the crowd. He remembered the child with the doll whom he +had seen climbing into the New York train in the morning, and he was +eager to tell of it, to make himself of importance, but he was +afraid. After all, the child might not have been Evelyn. There were +so many little, yellow-haired things with dolls to be seen about, and +then there was the stout woman to be accounted for. Edwin never +doubted that the child had been with the stout woman whom he had seen +stumbling over her voluminous skirts up the car steps. At last he +stepped forward and spoke, with a moist blush overspreading his face, +toeing in and teetering with embarrassment. + +"Say," he began. + +The attention of the whole company was at once riveted upon him. He +wriggled; the blood looked as if it would burst through his face. +Great drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead. He stammered +when he spoke. He caught a glimpse of Maria's blue-and-orange +trimmings, and looked down, and again the black light of his shoes, +which all the dust of the day had not seemed to dim, flashed in his +eyes. He came of a rather illiterate family with aspirations, and +when he was nervous he had a habit of relapsing into the dialect in +common use in his own home, regardless of his educational +attainments. He did so now. + +"I think she has went to New York," he said. + +"Who?" demanded Wollaston, eagerly. His head was up like a hunting +hound; he kept close hold of Maria's little arm. + +"Her." + +"Who?" + +"Her little sister-in-law." Edwin pointed to Maria. + +Gladys Mann went peremptorily up to Edwin Shaw, seized his +coat-collar, and shook him. "For goodness sake! when did she went?" +she demanded. "When did you see her? If you know anythin', tell it, +an' not stand thar like a fool!" + +"I saw a little girl jest about her size, a-carryin' of a doll, that +clim on the New York train jest as we went out this mornin'," replied +Edwin with a gasp, as if the information were wrung from him by +torture. "And she was with a awful fat woman. Leastways--" + +"A fat woman!" cried Wollaston Lee. "Who was the fat woman?" + +"I hadn't never saw her afore. She was awful fat, and was a steppin' +on her dress." + +Wollaston was keen-witted, and he immediately grasped at the truth of +the matter. + +"You idiot!" he said. "What makes you think she was with the stout +woman--just because she was climbing into the train after her?" + +"Little girls don't never go to New York alone with dolls," +vouchsafed Edwin, more idiotically than ever. "Leastways--" + +"If you don't stop saying leastways, I'll punch your head," said +Wollaston. "Are you sure the child was Maria's little sister?" + +"Looked like her," said Edwin, shrinking back a little. "Leastways--" + +"What was she dressed in?" asked Maria, eagerly. + +"I didn't see as she had nothin' on." + +"You great gump!" said Gladys, shaking him energetically. "Of course +she had something on." + +"She had a big doll." + +"What did she have on? You answer me this minute!" said Gladys. + +"She might have had on a blue dress," admitted Edwin, with a frantic +grasp at his memory, "but she didn't have nothin' on her, nohow. +Leastways--" + +"Oh!" sobbed Maria, "she did wear her little blue dress this morning. +She did! Was her hair light?" + +"Yes, it were," said Edwin, quite positively. "Leastways--" + +"It was Evelyn," sobbed Maria. "Oh, poor little Evelyn, all alone in +New York! She never went but once with Her and me, and she wouldn't +know where to go. Oh, oh!" + +"Where did she go when she went with your step-ma and you?" demanded +Gladys, who seemed to have suddenly developed unusual acumen. Her +face was streaming with tears but her voice was keen. + +"She went to Her cousin's, who lives in an apartment in West +Forty-ninth Street," said Maria. + +"She'd try to go there again," said Gladys. "Did she know the woman's +name?" + +"Yes, she did." + +"You bet she did. She was an awful bright kid," said Gladys. "Now, I +tell you what, Maria, I shouldn't a mite wonder if your step-ma had +had a telegram from her cousin by this time, that she was to her +house. You'd better jest run home an' see." + +"She was only her third cousin," said Maria, "and She hardly ever +heard from her. It was only the other day I heard Her say that she +didn't know but she had left New York. I don't think Her cousin liked +her very well." + +"What was the cousin's name?" + +"She called her Alice, but her name was Mrs. George B. Edison." + +"That's jest where the kid has went," said Gladys. "You go right +home, M'ria. We'll go with you, and I'll bet a cooky you'll find that +your step-ma has had a telegram." + +Maria hesitated a moment; then she started, Wollaston Lee still +keeping close hold of her arm. Gladys was on the other side. + + + +Chapter XIV + + +When Maria reached home, she pushed open the front door, which was +unlocked, and rushed violently in. Wollaston and Gladys followed her, +after a slight hesitation, but remained standing in the vestibule. +When Maria had come in sight of the house, she had perceived the +regular motion of a rocking female head past the parlor light, and +she knew that it was Ida. Ida nearly always occupied a rocking-chair, +and was fond of the gentle, swaying motion. + +"There she is, rocking just as if the baby wasn't lost," Maria +thought, with the bitterest revulsion and sarcasm. When she opened +the door she immediately smelled tea, the odor of broiling beefsteak +and fried potatoes. "Eating just as if the baby wasn't lost," she +thought. She rushed into the parlor, and there was Ida swaying back +and forth in her rocking-chair, and there were three ladies with her. +One was Mrs. Jonas White; one was a very smartly dressed woman, Mrs. +Adams, perhaps the most intimate friend whom Ida had in Edgham; one +was the wife of the minister whose church the Edghams attended, Mrs. +Applegate, or, as she was called, Mrs. Dr. Applegate--her husband had +a degree. Her sister had just died and she was dressed in the deepest +mourning; sitting in the shade in a corner, she produced a curious +effect of a vacuum of grief. Mrs. Adams, who was quite young and very +pretty, stout and blond, was talking eagerly; Mrs. Jonas White was +sniffing quietly; Mrs. Applegate, who was ponderously religious, +asked once in a while, in a subdued manner, if Mrs. Edgham did not +think it would be advisable to unite in prayer. + +Ida made no reply. She continued to rock, and she had a curious set +expression. Her lips were resolutely compressed, as if to restrain +that radiant smile of hers, which had become habitual with her. She +looked straight ahead, keeping her eyes fastened upon a Tiffany vase +which stood on a little shelf, a glow of pink and gold against a +skilful background of crimson velvet. It was as if she were having +her photograph taken and had been requested by the photographer to +keep her eyes fixed upon that vase. + +"The detective system of New York is so lax," said Mrs. Adams. "I do +wish there was more system among them and among the police. One would +feel--" She heaved a deep sigh. + +Mrs. Jonas White sobbed audibly. + +"Do you not think, dear friends, that it would be a good plan to +offer up our voices at the Throne of Grace for the dear child's +return?" asked Mrs. Applegate in a solemn voice, albeit somewhat +diffidently. She was a corpulent woman, and was richly dressed, in +spite of her deep mourning. A jet brooch rimmed with pearls, gleamed +out of the shadow where she sat. + +Ida continued to rock. + +"But," said Mrs. Adams, "a great many children are lost every year +and found. Sometimes the system does really work in a manner to +astonish any one. I should not be surprised at any minute to see Mr. +Edgham or a policeman walking in with her. But--well--there is so +much to be done. The other night, when Mr. Adams and I went in to +hear Mrs. Fiske, we drove eight blocks after the performance without +seeing one policeman." + +"I suppose, though, if you had been really attacked, a dozen would +have sprung out from somewhere," said Mrs. White, in a tearful voice. +Mrs. White could not have heard Satan himself assailed without a word +in his defence, such was the maternal pity of her heart. + +"That was what Mr. Adams said," retorted Mrs. Adams, with some +asperity, "and I told him that I would rather the dozen policemen +were in evidence before I was shot and robbed than after. I had on +all my rings, and my diamond sunburst." + +"Do you not think, dear friend, that it would be a good plan to offer +up our voices at the Throne of Grace for the safe restoration of the +dear child?" asked Mrs. Applegate again. Her voice was sonorous, very +much like her husband's. She felt that, so far as in her lay, she was +taking his place. He was out of town. + +It was then that Maria rushed into the room. She ran straight up to +her step-mother. The other women started. Ida continued to rock, and +look at the Tiffany vase. It seemed as if she dared not take her eyes +from it for fear of losing her expression. Then Maria spoke, and her +voice did not sound like her own at all. It was accusatory, menacing. + +"Where is my little sister?" she cried. "Where is she?" + +Mrs. Jonas White rose, approached Maria, and put her arms around her +caressingly. "You poor, dear child," she sobbed, "I guess you do feel +it. You did set a heap by that blessed little thing, didn't you?" + +"She is in the hands of the Lord," said Mrs. Applegate. + +"If the police of New York were worth anything, she would be in the +police station by this time," said Mrs. Adams, with a fierce toss of +her pretty blond head. + +"We know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in air; we +only know we cannot drift beyond His love and care," said Mrs. +Applegate, with a solemn aside. Tears were in her own eyes, but she +resolutely checked her impulse to weep. She felt that it would show a +lack of faith. She was entirely in earnest. + +"Mebbe she _is_ in the police-station," sobbed Mrs. White, continuing +to embrace Maria. But Maria gave her a forcible push away, and again +addressed herself to her step-mother. + +"Where is she?" she demanded. + +"Oh, you poor, dear child! Your ma don't know where she is, and she +is so awful upset, she sets there jest like marble," said Mrs. White. + +"She isn't upset at all. You don't know her as well as I do," said +Maria, mercilessly. "She thinks she ought to act upset, so she sits +this way. She isn't upset." + +"Oh, Maria!" gasped Mrs. White. + +"The child is out of her head," said Mrs. Adams, and yet she looked +at Maria with covert approval. She was Ida's intimate friend, but in +her heart of hearts she doubted her grief. She had once lost by death +a little girl of her own. She kept thinking of her little Alice, and +how she should feel in a similar case. It did not seem to her that +she should rock, and look at a Tiffany vase. She inveighed against +the detectives and police with a reserve meaning of indignation +against Ida. It seemed to her that any woman whose child was lost +should be up and generally making a tumult, if she were doing nothing +else. + +The Maria, standing before the beautiful woman swaying gently, with +her eyes fixed upon the pink and gold of the vase, spoke out for the +first time what was in her heart of hearts with regard to her. + +"You are a wicked woman," said she; "that is what you are. I don't +know as you can help being wicked. I guess you were made wicked; but +you _are_ a wicked woman. Your mouth smiles, but your heart never +does. You act now as if you were sorry," said she, "but you are not +sorry, the way my mother would have been sorry if she had lost me, +the way she would have been sorry if Evelyn had been her little girl +instead of yours. You are a wicked woman. I have always known it, but +I have never told you so before. Now I am going to tell you. Your own +child is lost, you let her be lost. You didn't look out for her. Yes, +your own child is lost, and you sit there and rock!" + +Ida for a moment made no reply. The other women, and Gladys and +Wollaston in the vestibule, listened with horror. + +"You have had beefsteak and fried potatoes cooked, too," continued +Maria, sniffing, "and you have eaten them. You have been eating +beefsteak and fried potatoes when your own child was lost and you did +not know where she was!" It might have been ridiculous, this last +accusation in the thin, sweet, childish voice, but it was not. It was +even more terrible than anything else. + +Ida turned at last. "I hate you," she said slowly. "I have always +hated you. You have hated me ever since I came into this house," she +said, "though I have done more than your own mother ever did for you." + +"You have not!" cried Maria. "You have got nice clothes for me, but +my own mother loved me. What are nice clothes to love? You have not +even loved Evelyn. You have only got her nice clothes. You have never +loved her. Poor papa and I were the only ones that loved her. You +never even loved poor papa. You saw to it that he had things to eat, +but you never loved him. You are not made right. All the love in your +heart is for your own self. You are turned the wrong way. I don't +know as you can help it, but you are a dreadful woman. You are +wicked. You never loved the baby, and now you have let her be lost. +She is my own little sister, and papa's child, a great deal more than +she is anything to you. Where is she?" Maria's voice rang wild. Her +face was blazing. She had an abnormal expression in her blue eyes +fixed upon her step-mother. + +Ida, after her one outburst, gazed upon her with a sort of fear as +well as repulsion. She again turned to the Tiffany vase. + +Mrs. White, sobbing aloud like a child, again put her arms around +Maria. + +"Come, come," she said soothingly, "you poor child, I know how you +feel, but you mustn't talk so, you mustn't, dear! You have no right +to judge. You don't know how your mother feels." + +"I know how She doesn't feel!" Maria burst out, "and She isn't my +mother. My mother loves me more way off in heaven than that woman +loves Her own child on earth. She doesn't feel. She just rocks, and +thinks how She looks. I hate Her! Let me go!" With that Maria was out +of the room, and ran violently up-stairs. + +When she had gone, the three visiting women looked at one another, +and the same covert expression of gratified malice, at some one +having spoken out what was in their inmost hearts, was upon all three +faces. Ida was impassive, with her smiling lips contracted. Mrs. +Applegate again murmured something about uniting in prayer. + +Maria came hurrying down-stairs. She had in her hand her purse, which +contained ten dollars, which her father had given her on her +birthday, also a book of New York tickets which had been a present +from Ida, and which Ida herself had borrowed several times since +giving them to Maria. Maria herself seldom went to New York, and Ida +had a fashion of giving presents which might react to her own +benefit. Maria, as she passed the parlor door, glanced in and saw her +step-mother rocking and staring at the vase. Then she was out of the +front-door, racing down the street with Wollaston Lee and Gladys +hardly able to keep up with her. Wollaston reached her finally, and +again caught her arm. The pressure of the hard, warm boy hand was +grateful to the little, hysterical thing, who was trembling from head +to foot, with a strange rigidity of tremors. Gladys also clutched her +other sleeve. + +"Say, M'ria Edgham, where be you goin'?" she demanded. + +"I'm going to find my little sister," gasped out Maria. She gave a +dry sob as she spoke. + +"My!" said Gladys. + +"Now, Maria, hadn't you better go back home?" ventured Wollaston. + +"No," said Maria, and she ran on towards the station. + +"Come home with me to my mother," said Wollaston, pleadingly, but a +little timidly. A girl in such a nervous strait as this was a new +experience for him. + +"She can go home with me," said Gladys. "My mother's a heap better +than Ida Slome. Say, M'ria, all them things you said was true, but +land! how did you darse?" + +Maria made no reply. She kept on. + +"Say, M'ria, you don't mean you're goin' to New York?" said Gladys. + +"Yes, I am. I am going to find my little sister." + +"My!" said Gladys. + +"Now, Maria, don't you think you had better go home with me, and see +mother?" Wollaston said again. + +But Maria seemed deaf. In fact, she heard nothing but the sound of +the approaching New York train. She ran like a wild thing, her +little, slim legs skimming the ground like a bird's, almost as if +assisted by wings. + +When the train reached the station, Maria climbed in, Wollaston and +Gladys after her. Neither Wollaston nor Gladys had the slightest +premeditation in the matter; they were fairly swept along by the +emotion of their companion. + +When the train had fairly started, Gladys, who had seated herself +beside Maria, while Wollaston was in the seat behind them, heaved a +deep sigh of bewilderment and terror. "My!" said she. + +Wollaston also looked pale and bewildered. He was only a boy, and had +never been thrown much upon his own responsibility. All that had been +uppermost in his mind was the consideration that Maria could not be +stopped, and she must not go alone to New York. But he did not know +what to think of it all. He felt chaotic. The first thing which +seemed to precipitate his mentality into anything like clearness was +the entrance of the conductor. Then he thought instinctively about +money. Although still a boy, money as a prime factor was already +firmly established in his mind. He reflected with dismay that he had +only his Wardway tickets, and about three dollars beside. It was now +dark. The vaguest visions of what they were to do in New York were in +his head. The fare to New York was a little over a dollar; he had +only enough to take them all in, then what next? He took out his +pocket-book, but Gladys looked around quickly. + +"She's got a whole book of tickets," she said. + +However, Wollaston, who was proud, started to pay the conductor, but +he had reached Maria first, and she had said "Three," peremptorily. +Then she handed the book to Wollaston, with the grim little ghost of +a smile. "You please keep this," said she. "I haven't got any pocket." + +Wollaston was so bewildered that the possession of pockets seemed +instantly to restore his self-respect. He felt decidedly more at his +ease when he had Maria's ticket-book in his innermost pocket. Then +she gave him her purse also. + +"I wish you would please take this," said she. "There are ten dollars +in it, and I haven't any pocket." Wollaston took that. + +"All right," he said. He buttoned his gray vest securely over Maria's +pretty little red purse. Then he leaned over the seat, and began to +speak, but he absolutely did not know what to say. He made an idiotic +remark about the darkness. "Queer how quick it grows dark, when it +begins," said he. + +Maria ignored it, but Gladys said: "Yes, it is awful queer." + +Gladys's eyes looked wild. The pupils were dilated. She had been to +New York but once before in her life, and now to be going in the +evening to find Maria's little sister was almost too much for her +intelligence, which had its limitations. + +However, after a while, Wollaston Lee spoke again. He was in reality +a keen-witted boy, only this was an emergency into which he had been +surprised, and which he had not foreseen, and Maria's own abnormal +mood had in a measure infected him. Presently he spoke to the point. + +"What on earth are you going to do when you get to New York, anyhow?" +said he to Maria. + +"Find her," replied Maria, laconically. + +"But New York is a mighty big city. How do you mean to go to work? +Now I--" + +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 Saturday. 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 impassible. + +"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, asserted 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 cock 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?" + +"I don't know who these people are," the young woman said, faintly, +to the man. "I think they must be burglars." + +"Burglars, nothin'!" said Gladys, who had suddenly assumed the +leadership of the party. Opposition and suspicion stimulated her. She +loved a fight. "Be you her ma-in-law's cousin, and have you got her +little sister?" + +Wollaston looked inquiringly at Maria, who was very pale. + +"It isn't Her cousin," she gasped. "I don't know who she is. I never +saw her." + +Then Wollaston spoke, hat in hand, and speaking up like a man. +"Pardon us, sir," he said, "we did not intend to intrude, but--" + +"Get out of this," said the man, with a sudden dart towards the door. + +His wife screamed again, and put her hand over a little diamond +brooch at her throat. "I just know they are sneak-thieves," she +gasped. "Do send them away, Tom!" + +Wollaston tried to speak again. "We merely wished to ascertain," said +he, "if a lady by the name of Mrs. George A.--" + +"B." interrupted Gladys. + +"B. Edison lived here. This young lady's little sister is lost, and +Mrs. Edison is a relative, and we thought--" + +The man made another dart. "Don't care what you thought," he shouted. +"Keep your thoughts to yourself! Get out of here!" + +"Do you know where Mrs. George B. Edison lives now?" asked Wollaston, +courteously, but his black eyes flashed at the man. + +"No, I don't." + +"No, we don't," said the young woman in pink. "Do make them go, Tom." + +"We are perfectly willing to go," said Wollaston. "We have no desire +to remain any longer where people are not willing to answer civil +questions." + +Maria all this time had said nothing. She was perfectly overcome with +the conviction that Ida's cousin was not there, and consequently not +Evelyn. Moreover, she was frightened at the little man's fierce +manner. She clung to Wollaston's arm as they retreated, but Gladys +turned around and deliberately stuck her tongue out at the man and +the young woman in rose. The man slammed the door. + +The three met on the stoop of the house two people in gay attire. + +"Go up and see your friends that don't know how to treat folks +decent," said Gladys. The woman looked wonderingly at her from under +the shade of a picture hat. Her escort opened the door. "Ten chances +to one they had the kid hid somewhere," said Gladys, so loudly that +both turned and looked at her. + +"Hush up," said Wollaston. + +"Well, what be you goin' to do now?" asked Gladys. + +"I am going to a drug-store, and see if I can find out where Maria's +relatives have moved to," replied Wollaston. He walked quite alertly +now. Maria's discomfiture had reassured him. + +They walked along a few blocks until they saw the lights of a +drug-store on the corner. Then Wollaston led them in and marched up +to the directory chained to the counter. + +"What's that?" Gladys asked. "A Bible?" + +"No, it's a directory," Maria replied, in a dull voice. + +"What do they keep it chained for? Books don't run away." + +"I suppose they are afraid folks will steal it." + +"My!" said Gladys, eying the big volume. "I don't see what on earth +they'd do with it when they got it stole," she remarked, in a low, +reflective voice. + +Maria leaned against the counter and waited. + +Finally, Wollaston turned to her with an apologetic air. "I can't +find any George B. here," he said. "You are sure it was B?" + +"Yes," replied Maria. + +"Well, there's no use," said Wollaston. "There is no George B. Edison +in this book, anyhow." + +He came forward, and stood looking at Maria. Maria gazed absently at +the crowds passing on the street. Gladys watched them both. + +"Well," said Gladys, presently, "you ain't goin' to stand here all +night, be you? What be you goin' to do next? Go to the police-station?" + +"I don't see that there is any use," replied Wollaston. "Maria's +father must have been there by this time. This is a wild-goose chase +anyhow." Wollaston's tone was quite vicious. He scowled +superciliously at the salesman who stepped forward and asked if he +wanted anything. "No, we don't, thank you," he said. + +"What be you goin' to do?" asked Gladys, again. She looked at the +soda-fountain. + +"I don't see anything to do but to go home," said Wollaston. "There +is no sense in our chasing around New York any longer, that I can +see." + +"You can't go home to-night, anyhow," Gladys said, quite calmly. +"They've took off that last train, and there ain't more'n ten minutes +to git down to the station." + +Wollaston turned pale, and looked at her with horror. "What makes you +think they've taken off that last train?" he demanded. + +"Ain't my pa brakeman when he's sober, and he's been real sober for +quite a spell now." + +Wollaston seized Maria by the arm. "Come, quick!" he said, and +leaving the drug-store he broke into a run for the Elevated, with +Gladys following. + +"There ain't no use in your runnin'," said she. "You know yourself +you can't git down to Cortlandt Street, and walk to the ferry in ten +minutes. I never went but oncet, but I know it can't be did." + +Wollaston slackened his pace. "That is so," he said. Then he looked +at Maria in a kind of angry despair. He felt, in spite of his +romantic predilection for her, that he wished she were a boy, so he +could say something forcible. He realized his utter helplessness with +these two girls in a city where he knew no one, and he again thought +of the three dollars in his pocket-book. He did not suppose that +Maria had more than fifty cents in hers. Then, too, he was worldly +wise enough to realize the difficulty of the situation, the possible +danger even. It was ten o'clock at night, and here he was with two +young girls to look out for. + +Then Gladys, who had also worldly wisdom, although of a crude and +vulgar sort, spoke. "Folks are goin' to talk like the old Harry if we +stay in here all night," said she, "and besides, there's no knowin' +what is a safe place to go into." + +"That is so," said Wollaston, gloomily, "and I--have not much money +with me." + +"I've got money enough," Maria said, suddenly. "There are ten dollars +in my pocket-book I gave you to keep." + +"My!" said Gladys. + +Wollaston brightened for a moment, then his face clouded again. +"Well, I don't know as that makes it much better," said he. "I don't +quite see how to manage. They are so particular in hotels now, that I +don't know as I can get you into a decent one. As for myself, I don't +care. I can look out for myself, but I don't know what to do with +you, Maria." + +Gladys made a little run and stepped in front of them. "There ain't +but one thing you can do, so Maria won't git talked about all the +rest of her life, and I kin tell you what it is," said she. + +"What is it?" asked Wollaston, in a burst of anger. "I call it a +pretty pickle we are in, for my part. Ten chances to one, Mr. Edgham +has got the baby back home safe and sound by this time, anyway, and +here we are, here is Maria!" + +"There ain't but one thing you can do," said Gladys. Her tone was +forcible. She was full of the vulgar shrewdness of a degenerate race, +for the old acumen of that race had sharpened her wits. + +"What! in Heaven's name?" cried Wollaston. + +The three had been slowly walking along, and had stopped near a +church, which was lighted. As they were talking the lights went out. +A thin stream of people ceased issuing from the open doors. A man in +a clerical dress approached them, walking quite rapidly. He was +evidently bound, from the trend of his steps, to a near-by house, +which was his residence. + +"Git married," said Gladys, abruptly. Then, before the others +realized what she was doing, she darted in front of the approaching +clergyman. "They want to git married," said she. + +The clergyman stopped and stared at her, then at the couple beyond, +who were quite speechless with astonishment. He was inconceivably +young for his profession. He was small, and had a round, rollicking +face, which he was constantly endeavoring to draw down into lines of +asceticism. + +"Who wants to get married?" asked the clergyman. + +"Them two," replied Gladys, succinctly. She pointed magisterially at +Wollaston and Maria. + +Wollaston was tall and manly looking for his age, Maria's dress +touched the ground. The clergyman had not, at the moment, a doubt as +to their suitable age. He was not a brilliant young man, naturally. +He had been pushed through college and into his profession by wealthy +relatives, and, moreover, with his stupidity, he had a certain spirit +of recklessness and sense of humor which gave life a spice for him. + +"Want to get married, eh?" he said. + +Then Wollaston spoke. "No, we do not want to get married," he said, +positively. Then he said to Gladys, "I wish you would mind your own +business." + +But he had to cope with the revival of a wonderful feminine wit of a +fine old race in Gladys. "I should think you would be plum ashamed of +yourself," she said, severely, "after you have got that poor girl in +here; and if she stays and you ain't married, she'll git talked +about." + +The clergyman approached Wollaston and Maria. Maria had begun to cry. +She was trembling from head to foot with fear and confusion. +Wollaston looked sulky and angry. + +"Is that true--did you induce this girl to come to New York to be +married?" he inquired, and his own boyish voice took on severe tones. +He was very strong in moral reform. + +"No, I did not," replied Wollaston. + +"He did," said Gladys. "She'll get talked about if she ain't, too, +and the last train has went, and we've got to stay in New York all +night." + +"Where do you come from?" inquired the young clergyman, and his tone +was more severe still. + +"From Edgham, New Jersey," replied Gladys. + +"Who are you?" inquired the clergyman. + +"I ain't no account," replied Gladys. "All our folks git talked +about, but she's different." + +"I suppose you are her maid," said the clergyman, noting with quick +eye the difference in the costumes of the two girls. + +"Call it anything you wanter," said Gladys, indifferently. "I ain't +goin' to have her talked about, nohow." + +"Come, Maria," said Wollaston, but Maria did not respond even to his +strong, nervous pull on her arm. She sobbed convulsively. + +"No, that girl does not go one step, young man," said the clergyman. +He advanced closely, and laid a hand on Maria's other arm. Although +small in body and mind, he evidently had muscle. "Come right in the +house," said he, and Maria felt his hand on her arm like steel. She +yielded, and began following him, Wollaston in vain trying to hold +her back. + +Gladys went behind Wollaston and pushed vigorously. "You git right in +there, the way he says, Wollaston Lee," said she. "You had ought to +be ashamed of yourself." + +Before the boy well knew what he was doing he found himself in a +small reception-room lined with soberly bound books. All that was +clear in his mind was that he could not hinder Maria from entering, +and that she must not go into the house alone with Gladys and this +strange man. + +A man had been standing in the doorway of the house, waiting the +entrance of the clergyman. He was evidently a servant, and his master +beckoned him. + +"Call Mrs. Jerrolds, Williams," he said. + +"What is your name?" he asked Maria, who was sobbing more wildly than +ever. + +"Her name is Maria Edgham," replied Gladys, "and his is Wollaston +Lee. They both live in Edgham." + +"How old are you?" the clergyman asked of Wollaston; but Gladys cut +in again. + +"He's nineteen, and she's goin' on," she replied, shamelessly. + +"We are neither of us," began Wollaston, whose mind was in a whirl of +anger of confusion. + +But the clergyman interrupted him. "I am ashamed of you, young man," +he said, "luring an innocent young girl to New York and then trying +to lie out of your responsibility." + +"I am not," began Wollaston again; but then the man who had stood in +the door entered with a portly woman in a black silk tea-gown. She +looked as if she had been dozing, or else was naturally slow-witted. +Her eyes, under heavy lids, were dull; her mouth had a sleepy, +although good-natured pout, like a child's, between her fat cheeks. + +"I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Jerrolds," said the clergyman, "but +I need you and Williams for witnesses." Then he proceeded. + +Neither Wollaston nor Maria were ever very clear in their minds how +it was done. Both had thought marriage was a more complicated +proceeding. Neither was entirely sure of having said anything. +Indeed, Wollaston was afterwards quite positive that Gladys Mann +answered nearly all the clergyman's questions; but at all events, the +first thing he heard distinctly was the clergyman's pronouncing him +and Maria man and wife. Then the clergyman, who was zealous to the +point of fanaticism, and who honestly considered himself to have done +an exceedingly commendable thing, invited them to have some +wedding-cake, which he kept ready for such emergencies, and some +coffee, but Wollaston replied with a growl of indignation and +despair. This time Maria followed his almost brutally spoken command +to follow him, and the three went out of the house. + +"See that you treat your wife properly, young man," the clergyman +called out after him, in a voice half jocular, half condemnatory, "or +there will be trouble." + +Wollaston growled an oath, the first which he had ever uttered, under +his breath, and strode on. He had released his hold on Maria's arm. +Ahead of them, a block distant, was an Elevated station, and Maria, +who seemed to suddenly recover her faculties, broke into a run for it. + +"Where be you goin'?" called out Gladys. + +"I am going down to the Jersey City station, quick," replied Maria, +in a desperate voice. + +"I thought you'd go to a hotel. There ain't no harm, now you're +married, you know," said Gladys, "and then we could have some supper. +I'm awful hungry. I ain't eat a thing sence noon." + +"I am going right down to the station," repeated Maria. + +"The last train has went. What's the use?" + +"I don't care. I'm going down there." + +"What be you goin' to do when you git there?" + +"I am going to sit there, and wait till morning." + +"My!" said Gladys. + +However, she went on up the Elevated stairs with Maria and Wollaston. +Wollaston threw down the fares and got the tickets, and strode on +ahead. His mouth was set. He was very pale. He probably realized to a +greater extent than any of them what had taken place. It was +inconceivable to him that it had taken place, that he himself had +been such a fool. He felt like one who has met with some utterly +unexplainable and unaccountable accident. He felt as he had done once +when, younger, he had stuck his own knife, with which he was +whittling, into his eye, to the possible loss of it. It seemed to him +as if something had taken place without his volition. He was like a +puppet in a show. He looked at Maria, and realized that he hated her. +He wondered how he could ever have thought her pretty. He looked at +Gladys Mann, and felt murderous. He had a high temper. As the train +approached, he whispered in her ear, + +"Damn you, Gladys Mann, it's a pretty pickle you have got us into." + +Gladys was used to being sworn at. She was not in the least +intimidated. + +"Do you s'pose I was goin' to have M'ria talked about?" she said. +"You can cuss all you want to." + +They got into the train. Wollaston sat by himself, Gladys and Maria +together. Maria was no longer weeping, but she looked terrified +beyond measure, and desperate. A horrible imagination of evil was +over her. She never glanced at Wollaston. She thought that she wished +there would be an accident on the train and he might be killed. She +hated him more than he hated her. + +They were just in time for a boat at Cortlandt Street. When they +reached the Jersey City side Wollaston went straight to the +information bureau, and then returned to Gladys and Maria, seated on +a bench in the waiting-room. + +"Well, there _is_ a train," he said, curtly. + +"'Ain't it been took off?" asked Gladys. + +"No, but we've got to wait an hour and a half." Then he bent down and +whispered in Gladys's ear, "I wish to God you'd been dead before you +got us into this, Gladys Mann!" + +"My father said it had been took off," said Gladys. "You sure there +is one?" + +"Of course I'm sure!" + +"My!" said Gladys. + +Wollaston went to a distant seat and sat by himself. The two girls +waited miserably. Gladys had suffered a relapse. Her degeneracy of +wit had again overwhelmed her. She looked at Maria from time to time, +then she glanced around at Wollaston, and her expression was almost +idiotic. The people who were on the seat with them moved away. Maria +turned suddenly to Gladys. + +"Gladys Mann," said she, "if you ever tell of this--" + +"Then you ain't goin' to--" said Gladys. + +"Going to what?" + +"Live with him?" + +"Live with him! I hate him enough to wish he was dead. I'll never +live with him; and if you tell, Gladys Mann, I'll tell you what I'll +do." + +"What?" asked Gladys, in a horrified whisper. + +"I'll go and drown myself in Fisher's Pond, that's what I'll do." + +"I never will tell, honest, M'ria," said Gladys. + +"You'd better not." + +"Hope to die, if I do." + +"You _will_ die if you do," said Maria, "for I'll leave a note saying +you pushed me into the pond, and it will be true, too. Oh, Gladys +Mann! it's awful what you've done!" + +"I didn't mean no harm," said Gladys. + +"And there's a train, too." + +"Father said there wasn't." + +"Your father!" + +"I know it. There ain't never tellin' when father lies," said Gladys. +"I guess father don't know what lies is, most of the time. I s'pose +he's always had a little, if he 'ain't had a good deal. But I'll +never tell, Maria, not as long as I live." + +"If you do, I'll drown myself," said Maria. + +Then the two sat quietly until the train was called out, when they +went through the gate, Maria showing her tickets for herself and +Gladys. Wollaston had purchased his own and returned Maria's. He kept +behind the two girls as if he did not belong to their party at all. +On the train he rode in the smoking-car. + +The car was quite full at first, but the passengers got off at the +way-stations. When they drew near Edgham there were only a few left. +Wollaston had not paid the slightest attention to the passengers. He +could not have told what sort of a man occupied the seat with him, +nor even when he got off. He was vaguely conscious of the reeking +smoke of the car, but that was all. When the conductor came through +he handed out his ticket mechanically, without looking at him. He +stared out of the window at the swift-passing, shadowy trees, at the +green-and-red signal-lights, and the bright glare from the lights of +the stations through which they passed. Once they passed by a large +factory on fire, surrounded by a shouting mob of men, and engines. +Even that did not arrest his attention, although it caused quite a +commotion in the car. He sat huddled up in a heap, staring out with +blank eyes, all his consciousness fixed upon his own affairs. He felt +as if he had made an awful leap from boyhood to manhood in a minute. +He was full of indignation, of horror, of shame. He was conscious of +wishing that there were no girls in the world. After they had passed +the last station before reaching Edgham he looked wearily away from +the window, and recognized, stupidly, Maria's father in a seat in the +forward part of the car. Harry was sitting as dejectedly hunched upon +himself as was the boy. Wollaston recognized the fact that he could +not have found little Evelyn, and realized wickedly and furiously +that he did not care, that a much more dreadful complication had come +into his own life. He turned again to the window. + +Maria, in the car behind the smoker, sat beside Gladys, and looked +out of the window very much as Wollaston was doing. She also was +conscious of an exceeding horror and terror, and a vague shame. It +was, to Maria, as if she had fallen through the fairy cobweb of +romance and struck upon the hard ground of reality with such force +that her very soul was bleeding. Wollaston, in the smoker, wished no +more devoutly that there were no girls in the world, than Maria +wished there were no boys. Her emotions had been, as it were, thrust +back down her own throat, and she was choked and sickened with them. +She would not look at nor speak to Gladys. Once, when Gladys +addressed a remark to her, Maria thrust out an indignant shoulder +towards her. + +"You needn't act so awful mad," whispered Gladys. "I ain't goin' to +tell, and I was doin' it on your account. My mother will give it to +me when I git home." + +"What are you going to tell her?" asked Maria, with sudden interest. + +"I'm goin' to tell her I've been out walkin' with Ben Jadkins. She's +told me not to, and she'll lick me for all she's wuth," said Gladys, +angrily. "But I don't care. It's lucky father 'ain't been through +this train. It's real lucky to have your father git drunk sometimes. +I'll git licked, but I don't care." + +Maria, sitting there, paid no more attention. The shock of her own +plight had almost driven from her mind the thought of Evelyn, but +when a woman got on the train leading a child about her age, the old +pain concerning her came back. She began to weep again quietly. + +"I don't see what you are cryin' for," said Gladys, in an accusing +voice. "You might have been an old maid." + +"I don't believe she is found," Maria moaned, in a low voice. + +"Oh, the kid! You bet your life she'll turn up. Your pa 'll find her +all right. I didn't know as you were cryin' about that." + +When they reached Edgham, Maria and Gladys got off the train, +Wollaston Lee also got off, and Harry Edgham, and from a rear car a +stout woman, yanking, rather than leading, by the hand, a little girl +with a fluff of yellow hair. The child was staggering with sleep. The +stout woman carried on her other arm a large wax-doll whose face +smiled inanely over her shoulder. + +Suddenly there was a rush and cry, and Maria had the little girl in +her arms. She was kneeling beside her on the dusty platform, +regardless of her new suit. + +"Sister! Sister!" screamed the child. + +"Sister's own little darling!" said Maria, then she began to sob +wildly. + +"It's her little sister. Where did you get her?" Gladys asked, +severely, of the stout woman, who stood holding the large doll and +glowering, while Harry Edgham came hurrying up. Then there was +another scream from the baby, and she was in her father's arms. There +were few at the station at that hour, but a small crowd gathered +around. On the outskirts was Wollaston Lee, looking on with his +sulky, desperate face. + +The stout woman grasped Harry vehemently by the arm. "Look at here," +said she. "I want to know, an' I ain't got no time to fool around, +for I want to take the next train back. Is that your young one? Speak +up quick." + +Harry, hugging the child to his breast, looked at the stout woman. + +"Yes," he replied, "she is mine, and I have been looking for her all +day. Where--Did you?" + +"No, I didn't," said the stout woman, emphatically. "_She_ did. I +don't never meddle with other folks' children. I 'ain't never been +married, and I 'ain't never wanted to be. And I 'ain't never cared +nothin' about children; always thought they was more bother than they +were worth. And when I changed cars here this mornin', on my way from +Lawsons, where I've been to visit my married sister, this young one +tagged me onto the train, and nothin' I could say made anybody +believe she wa'n't mine. I told 'em I wa'n't married, but it didn't +make no difference. I call it insultin'. There I was goin' up to +Tarrytown to-day to see my aunt 'Liza. She's real feeble, and they +sent for me, and there I was with this young one. I had a cousin in +New York, and I took her to her house, and she didn't know any better +what to do than I did. She was always dreadful helpless. We waited +till her husband got home. He runs a tug down the harbor, and he said +take her to the police-station, and mebbe I'd find out somebody had +been tryin' to find her. So my cousin's husband and me went to the +station, and he was so tuckered out and mad at the whole performance +that I could hear him growlin' cuss words under his breath the whole +way. We took her and this great doll down to the station, and we +found out there who she was most likely, and who she belonged to. And +my cousin's husband said I'd got to take her out here. He looked it +up and found out I could git back to New York to-night. He said he +wouldn't come nohow." Suddenly a light flashed on the woman. "Say," +she said, "you don't mean to say you've been on the train yourself +all the way out from New York?" + +"Yes, I came out on the train," admitted Harry, meekly. "I am sorry--" + +"Well, you'd better be," said the woman. "Here I've traipsed out here +for nothin' this time of night. I call you all a set of numskulls. I +don't call the young one very bright, either. Couldn't tell where she +lived, nor what her father's name was. Jest said it was papa, and her +name was peshious, or some such tomfoolery. I advise you to tag her +if she is in the habit of runnin' away. Here I ought to have been up +in Tarrytown, and I've been foolin' round in New York all day with +your young one and this big doll." With that the stout woman thrust +the doll at Maria. "Here, take this thing," said she. "I've had +enough of it! There ain't any sense in lettin' a child of her size +lug around a doll as big as that, anyhow. When does my train come? +Hev I got to cross to the other side? My cousin's husband said it +would be about twenty minutes I'd have to wait." + +"I'll take you round to the other side, and I cannot be grateful +enough for your care," began Harry, but the woman stopped him again. + +"I suppose you'll be willin' to pay my fare back to New York; that's +all I want," said she. "I don't want no thanks. I 'ain't no use for +children, but I ain't a heathen." + +"I'll be glad to give you a great deal more than your fare to New +York," Harry said, in a broken voice. Evelyn was already fast asleep +on his shoulder. He led the way down the stairs towards the other +track. + +"I don't want nothin' else, except five cents for my car-fare. I can +get a transfer, and it won't be more'n that," said the woman, +following. "I've got enough to git along with, and I ain't a heathen." + +Harry, with Evelyn asleep in his arms, and Maria and Gladys, waited +with the stout woman until the train came. The station was closed, +and the woman sat down on a bench outside and immediately fell asleep +herself. + +When the train came, Harry thrust a bank-note into the woman's hand, +having roused her with considerable difficulty, and she stumbled on +to the train over her skirts just as she had done in the morning. + +Harry knew the conductor. "Look out for that woman," he called out to +him. "She found my little girl that was lost." + +The conductor nodded affably as the train rolled out. + +Wollaston Lee had gone home when the others descended the stairs and +crossed to the other track. When Harry, with Evelyn in his arms, her +limp little legs dangling, and Maria and Gladys, were on their way +home, the question, which he in his confusion had not thought to put +before, came. + +"Why, Maria, where did you come from?" he asked. + +"From New York," replied Maria, meekly. + +"Her and me went up to her ma-in-law's cousin's, on Forty-ninth +Street, to find the kid," Gladys cut in, glibly, "but the cousin had +moved." + +Harry stared at them. "Why, how happened you to do such a thing?" he +asked. + +"I couldn't wait home and not do anything," Maria sobbed, nervously. + +"Her ma-in-law's cousin had moved," said Gladys. + +"How did you find your way?" + +"I had been there before," sobbed Maria. She felt for her father's +hand, and grasped it with a meaning of trust and fear which he did +not understand. + +"Well, you must never do such a thing again, no matter what happens," +he said, and held the poor little girl's hand firmly. "Thank God +father's got you both back safe and sound." + +Gladys made an abrupt departure on a corner. + +"Good-night, M'ria!" she sung out, and was gone, a slim, flying +figure in the gloom. + +"Are you afraid to go alone?" Harry called after her, in some +uncertainty. + +"Land, no!" came cheerily back. + +"How happened she to be with you?" asked Harry. + +"She was down at the station when I came home from Wardway," replied +Maria, faintly. Her strength was almost gone. She could hardly +stagger up the steps of the house with her father, he bearing his +recovered child, she bearing her secret. + + + +Chapter XV + + +Ida was still to be seen rocking when Harry, with Evelyn and Maria, +came in sight of the house. The visiting ladies had gone. Josephine, +with her face swollen and tear-stained, was standing watching at a +window in the dark dining-room. When she saw the three approaching +she screamed: + +"Oh, Mis' Edgham, they've found her! They're comin'! They've got +her!" and rushed to open the door. + +Ida rose, and came gracefully to meet them with a sinuous movement +and a long sweep of her rose-colored draperies. Her radiant smile lit +up her face again. She looked entirely herself when Harry greeted her. + +"Well, Ida, our darling is found," he said, in a broken voice. + +Ida reached out her arms, from which hung graceful pendants of lace +and ribbons, but the sleepy child clung to her father and whimpered +crossly. + +"She is all tired out, poor little darling! Papa's poor little +darling!" said Harry, carrying her into the parlor. + +"Josephine, tell Annie to heat some milk at once," Ida said, sharply. + +Annie, whose anxious face had been visible peeping through the dark +entrance of the dining-room, hastened into the kitchen. + +"Josephine, go right up-stairs and get Miss Evelyn's bed ready," +ordered Ida. Then she followed Harry into the parlor and began +questioning him, standing over him, and now and then touching the +yellow head of the child, who always shrank crossly at her touch. + +Harry told his story. "I had the whole police force of New York on +the outlook, although I did not really think myself she was in the +city, and there papa's precious darling was all the time right on the +train with him and he never knew it. And here was poor little Maria," +added Harry, looking at Maria, who had sunk into a corner of a +divan--"here was poor little Maria, Ida, and she had gone hunting her +little sister on her own account. She thought she might be at your +cousin Alice's. If I had known that both my babies were wandering +around New York I should have been crazy. When I got off the train, +there was Maria and that little Mann girl. She was down at the +station when she got home from Wardway, Maria says, and those two +children went right off to New York." + +"Did they?" said Ida, in a listless voice. She had resumed her seat +in her rocking-chair. + +"Edwin Shaw said he thought he saw Evelyn getting on the New York +train this morning," said Maria, faintly. + +"She is all used up," Harry said. "You had better drink some hot milk +yourself, Maria. Only think of that child and that Mann girl going +off to New York on their own accounts, Ida!" + +"Yes," said Ida. + +"Wollaston Lee went, too," Maria said, suddenly. A quick impulse for +concealment in that best of hiding-places, utter frankness and +openness, came over her. "He got off the train here. You know he +began school, too, at Wardway this morning, and he and Gladys both +went." + +"Well, I'm thankful you had him along," said Harry. "The Lord only +knows what you two girls would have done alone in a city like New +York. You must never do such a thing again, whatever happens, Maria. +You might as well run right into a den of wild beasts. Only think of +that child going to New York, and coming out on the last train, with +that Mann girl; and Wollaston is only a boy, though he's bright and +smart. And your cousin has moved, Ida." + +"I thought she had," said Ida. + +"And to think of what those children might have got into," said +Harry, "in a city like New York, which is broken out all over with +plague spots instead of having them in one place! Only think of it, +Ida!" + +Harry's voice was almost sobbing. It seemed as if he fairly appealed +to his wife for sympathy, with his consciousness of the dangers +through which his child had passed. But Ida only said, "Yes." + +"And the baby might have fallen into the worst hands," said Harry. +"But, thank God, a good woman, although she was coarse enough, got +hold of her." + +"Yes, we can't be thankful enough," Ida said, smoothly, and then +Josephine came in with a tray and a silver cup of hot milk for Evelyn. + +"Is that all the milk Annie heated?" asked Harry. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, tell Annie to go to the sideboard and get that bottle of +port-wine and pour out a glass for Miss Maria; and, Josephine, you +had better bring her something to eat with it. You haven't had any +supper, have you, child?" + +Maria shook her head. "I don't want any, thank you, papa," said she. + +"Is there any cold meat, Josephine, do you know?" + +Josephine said there was some cold roast beef. + +"Well, bring Miss Maria a plate, with a slice of bread-and-butter, +and some beef." + +"Have you had any supper yourself, dear?" Ida asked. + +"I declare I don't know, dear," replied Harry, who looked unutterably +worn and tired. "No, I think not. I don't know when I could have got +it. No, I know I have not." + +"Josephine," said Ida, "tell Annie to broil a piece of beefsteak for +Mr. Edgham, and make a cup of tea." + +"Thank you, dear," poor Harry said, gratefully. Then he said to +Maria, "Will you wait and have some hot beefsteak and tea with papa, +darling?" + +Maria shook her head. + +"I think she had better eat the cold beef and bread, and drink the +wine, and go at once to bed, if she is to start on that early train +to-morrow," Ida said. + +"Maybe you are right, dear," Harry said. "Hurry with the roast beef +and bread and wine for Miss Maria, Josephine, and Annie can see to my +supper afterwards." + +All this time Harry was coaxing the baby to imbibe spoonfuls of the +hot milk. It was hard work, for Evelyn was not very hungry. She had +been given a good deal of cake and pie from a bakery all day. + +However, at last she was roused sufficiently to finish her little +meal, and Maria drank her glass of wine and ate a little of the bread +and meat, although it seemed to her that it would choke her. She was +conscious of her father's loving, anxious eyes upon her as she ate, +and she made every effort. + +Little Evelyn had recently had her own little room fitted up. It was +next to Maria's; indeed, there was a connecting door between the two +rooms. Evelyn's room was a marvel. It was tiny, but complete. Ida had +the walls hung with paper with a satin gloss, on which were strewn +garlands of rose-buds. There was a white matting and a white fur rug. +The small furniture was white, with rose-bud decorations. There was a +canopy of rose silk over the tiny bed, and a silk counterpane of a +rose-bud pattern. + +After Evelyn had finished her hot milk, her father carried her +up-stairs into this little nest, and Josephine undressed her and put +her to bed. The child's head drooped as helplessly as a baby's all +the time, she was so overcome with sleep. When she was in bed, Ida +came in and kissed her. She was so fast asleep that she did not know. +She and Harry stood for a moment contemplating the little thing, with +her yellow hair spread over the white pillow and her round rose of a +face sunken therein. Harry put his arm around his wife's waist. + +"We ought to be very thankful, dear," he said, and he almost sobbed. + +"Yes," said Ida. To do her justice, she regarded the little +rosy-and-white thing sunk in slumber with a certain tenderness. She +was even thankful. She had been exceedingly disturbed the whole day. +She was very glad to have this happy termination, and to be able to +go to rest in peace. She bent again over the child, and touched her +lips lightly to the little face, and when she looked up her own was +softened. "Yes," she whispered, with more of womanly feeling than +Harry had ever seen in her--"yes, you are right, we have a great deal +to be thankful for." + +Maria, in the next room, heard quite distinctly what Ida said. It +would once have aroused in her a contemptuous sense of her +step-mother's hypocrisy, but now she felt too humbled herself to +blame another, even to realize any fault in another. She felt as if +she had undergone a tremendous cataclysm of spirit, which had cast +her forever from her judgment-seat as far as others were concerned. +Was she not deceiving as never Ida had deceived? What would Ida say? +What would her father say if he knew that she was--? She could not +say the word even to herself. When she was in bed and her light out, +she was overcome by a nervous stress which almost maddened her. Faces +seemed to glower at her out of the blackness of the night, faces +which she knew were somehow projected out of her own consciousness, +but which were none the less terrific. She even heard her name +shouted, and strange, isolated words, and fragments of sentences. She +lay in a deadly fear. Now was the time when, if her own mother had +been alive, she would have screamed aloud for some aid. But now she +could call to no one. She would have spoken to her father. She would +not have told him--she was gripped too fast by her sense of the need +of secrecy--but she would have obtained the comfort and aid of his +presence and soothing words; but there was Ida. She remembered how +she had talked to Ida, and her father was with her. A dull wonder +even seized her as to whether Ida would tell her father, and she +should be allowed to remain at home after saying such dreadful +things. There was no one upon whom she could call. All at once she +thought of the maid Annie, whose room was directly over hers. Annie +was kindly. She would slip up-stairs to her, and make some excuse for +doing so--ask her if she did not smell smoke, or something. It seemed +to her that if she did not hear another human voice, come in contact +with something human, she should lose all control of herself. + +Maria, little, slender, trembling girl, with all the hysterical +fancies of her sex crowding upon her, all the sufferings of her sex +waiting for her in the future, and with no mother to soften them, +slipped out of bed, stole across her room, and opened the door with +infinite caution. Then she went up the stairs which led to the third +story. Both maids had rooms on the third story. Josephine went home +at night, and Hannah, the cook, had gone home with her after the +return of the wanderers, and was to remain. She was related to +Josephine's mother. She knocked timidly at Annie's door. She waited, +and knocked again. She was trembling from head to foot in a nervous +chill. She got no response to her knock. Then she called, "Annie," +very softly. She waited and called again. At last, in desperation, +she opened the door, which was not locked. She entered, and the room +was empty. Suddenly she remembered that Annie, kind-hearted as she +was, and a good servant, had not a character above suspicion. She +remembered that she had heard Gladys intimate that she had a +sweetheart, and was not altogether what she should be. She gazed +around the empty, forlorn little room, with one side sloping with the +slope of the roof, and an utter desolation overcame her, along with a +horror of Annie. She felt that if Annie were there she would be no +refuge. + +Maria turned, and slipped as silently as a shadow down the stairs +back to her room. She looked at her bed, and it seemed to her that +she could not lie down again in it. Then suddenly she thought of +something else. She thought of little Evelyn asleep in the next room. +She opened the connecting door softly and stole across to the baby's +little bed. It was too small, or she would have crept in beside her. +Maria hesitated a moment, then she slid her arms gently under the +little, soft, warm body, and gathered the child up in her arms. She +was quite heavy. At another time Maria, who had slender arms, could +scarcely have carried her. Now she bore her with entire ease into her +own room and laid her in her own bed. Then she got in beside her and +folded her little sister in her arms. Directly a sense of safety and +peace came over her when she felt the little snuggling thing, who had +wakened just enough to murmur something unintelligible in her baby +tongue, and cling close to her with all her little, rosy limbs, and +thrust her head into the hollow of Maria's shoulder. Then she gave a +deep sigh and was soundly asleep again. Maria lay awake a little +while, enjoying that sense of peace and security which the presence +of this little human thing she loved gave her. Then she fell asleep +herself. + +She waked early. The thought of the early train was in her mind, and +Maria was always one who could wake at the sub-recollection of a +need. Evelyn was still asleep, curled up like a flower. Maria raised +her and carried her back to her own room and put her in her bed +without waking her. Then she dressed herself in her school costume +and went down-stairs. She had smelled coffee while she was dressing, +and knew that Hannah had returned. Her father was in the dining-room +when she entered. He usually took an earlier train, but this morning +he had felt utterly unable to rise. Maria noticed, with a sudden +qualm of fear, how ill and old and worn-out he looked, but Harry +himself spoke first with concern for her. + +"Papa's poor little girl!" he said, kissing her. "She looks tired +out. Did you sleep, darling?" + +"Yes, after a while. Are you sick, papa?" + +"No, dear. Why?" + +"Because you did not go on the other train." + +"No, dear, I am all right, just a little tired," replied Harry. Then +he added, looking solicitously at Maria, "Are you sure you feel able +to go to school to-day?--because you need not, you know." + +"I am all right," said Maria. + +She and her father had seated themselves at the table. Harry looked +at his watch. + +"We shall neither of us go if we don't get our breakfast before +long," he said. + +Then Hannah came in, with a lowering look, bringing the coffee-pot +and the chops and rolls. + +"Where is Annie?" asked Harry. + +"I don't know," replied Hannah, with a toss of her head and a +compression of her lips. She was a large, solid woman, with a cast in +her eyes. She had never been married. + +"You don't know?" said Harry, helping Maria to a chop and a roll, +while Hannah poured the coffee. + +"No," said Hannah again, and this time her face was fairly malicious. +"I don't know how long I can stand such doin's, and that's the +truth," she said. + +Hannah had come originally from New England, and had principles, in +which she took pride, perhaps the more because they had never in one +sense been assailed. Annie was a Hungarian, and considered by Hannah +to have no principles. She was also pretty, in a rough, half-finished +sort of fashion, and had no cast in her eyes. Hannah privately +considered that as against her. + +Harry began sipping his coffee, which Hannah had set down with such +impetus that she spilled a good deal in the saucer, and he looked +uneasily at her. + +"What do you mean, Hannah?" he asked. + +"I mean that I am not used to being throwed in with girls who stays +out all night, and nobody knows where they be, and that's the truth," +said Hannah, with emphasis. + +"Do you mean to say that Annie--" + +"Yes, I do. She wa'n't in, and they do say she's married, and--" + +"Hush, Hannah, we'll talk about this another time," Harry said, with +a glance at Maria. + +Just then a step was heard in the kitchen. + +"There she is now, the trollop," said Hannah, but she whispered the +last word under her breath, and she also gave a glance at Maria, as +one might at any innocent ignorance which must be shielded even from +knowledge itself. + +Annie came in directly. Her pretty, light hair was nicely arranged; +she was smiling, but she looked doubtful. + +Hannah went with a flounce into the kitchen. Annie had removed her +hat and coat and tied on a white apron in a second, and she began +waiting exactly as if she had come down the back stairs after a night +spent in her own room. Indeed, she did not dream that either Harry or +Maria knew that she had not, and she felt quite sure of Hannah's +ignorance, since Hannah herself had been away all night. + +Maria from time to time glanced at Annie, and, although she had +always liked her, a feeling of repulsion came over her. She shrank a +little when Annie passed the muffins to her. Harry gave one keen, +scrutinizing glance at the girl's face, but he said nothing. After +breakfast he went up-stairs to bid Ida, who had a way of rising late, +good-bye, and he whispered to her, "Annie was out all last night." + +"Oh, well," replied Ida, sleepily, with a little impatience, "it does +not happen very often. What are we going to do about it?" + +"Hannah is kicking," said Harry, "and--" + +"I can't help it if she is," said Ida. "Annie does her work well, and +it is so difficult to get a maid nowadays; and I cannot set up as a +moral censor, I really cannot, Harry." + +"I hate the example, that is all," said Harry. "There Hannah said, +right before Maria, that Annie had been out." + +"It won't hurt Maria any," Ida replied, with a slight frown. "Maria +wouldn't know what she meant. She is not only innocent, but ignorant. +I can't turn off Annie, unless I see another maid as good in +prospect. Good-bye, dear." + +Harry and Maria walked to the station together. Their trains reached +Edgham about the same time, although going in opposite directions. It +was a frosty morning. There had been a slight frost the night before. +A light powder of glistening white lay over everything. The roofs +were beginning to smoke as it melted. Maria inhaled the clear air, +and her courage revived a little--still, not much. Nobody knew how +she dreaded the day, the meeting Wollaston. She could not yet bring +herself to call him her husband. It seemed at once horrifying and +absurd. The frosty air brought a slight color to the girl's cheeks, +but she still looked wretched. Harry, who himself looked more than +usually worn and old, kept glancing at her, as they hastened along. + +"See here, darling," he said, "hadn't you better not go to school +to-day? I will write a note of explanation myself to the principal, +at the office, and mail it in New York. Hadn't you better turn around +and go home and rest to-day?" + +"Oh no," replied Maria. "I would much rather go, papa." + +"You look as if you could hardly stand up, much less go to school." + +"I am all right," said Maria; but as she spoke she realized that her +knees fairly bent under her, and her heart beat loudly in her ears, +for they had come in sight of the station. + +"You are sure?" Harry said, anxiously. + +"Yes, I am all right. I want to go to school." + +"Well, look out that you eat a good luncheon," said Harry, as he +kissed her good-bye. + +Maria had to go to the other side to take her Wardway train. She left +her father and went under the bridge and mounted the stairs. When she +gained the platform, the first person whom she saw, with a grasp of +vision which seemed to reach her very heart, although she apparently +did not see him at all, was Wollaston Lee. He also saw her, and his +boyish face paled. There were quite a number waiting for the train, +which was late. Maud Page was among them. Maria at once went close to +her. Maud asked about her little sister. She had heard that she was +found, although it was almost inconceivable how the news had spread +at such an early hour. + +"I am real glad she's found," said Maud. Then she stared curiously at +Maria. "Say, was it so?" she asked. + +"Was what true?" asked Maria, trembling. + +"Was it true that you and Wollaston Lee and Gladys Mann all went to +New York looking for your sister, and came out on the last train?" + +"Yes, it is true," replied Maria, quite steadily. + +"What ever made you?" + +"I thought she might have gone to a cousin of Hers who used to live +on Forty-ninth Street, but we found the cousin had moved when we got +there." + +"Gracious!" said Maud. "And you didn't come out till that last train?" + +"No." + +"I should think you would be tired to death, and you don't look any +too chipper." Maud turned and stared at Wollaston, who was standing +aloof. "I declare, he looks as if he had been up a week of Sundays, +too," said she. Then she called out to him, in her high-pitched +treble, which sounded odd coming from her soft circumference of +throat. Maud's voice ought, by good rights, to have been a rich, +husky drone, instead of bearing a resemblance to a parrot's. "Say, +Wollaston Lee," she called out, and the boy approached perforce, +lifting his hat--"say," said Maud, "I hear you and Maria eloped last +night." Then she giggled. + +The boy cast a glance of mistrust and doubt at Maria. His face turned +crimson. + +"You are telling awful whoppers, Maud Page," Maria responded, +promptly, and his face cleared. "We just went in to find Evelyn." + +"Oh!" said Maud, teasingly. + +"You are mean to talk so," said Maria. + +Maud laughed provokingly. + +"What made Wollaston go for, then?" she asked. + +"Do you suppose anybody would let a girl go alone to New York on a +night train?" said Maria, with desperate spirit. "He went because he +was polite, so there." + +Wollaston said nothing. He tried to look haughty, but succeeded in +looking sheepish. + +"Gladys Mann went, too," said Maria. + +"I don't see what makes you go with a girl like that anywhere?" said +Maud. + +"She's as good as anybody," said Maria. + +"Maybe she is," returned Maud. Then she glanced at Wollaston, who was +looking away, and whispered in Maria's ear: "They talk like fury +about her, and her mother, too." + +"I don't care," Maria said, stoutly. "She was down at the station and +told me how Evelyn was lost, and then she went in with me." + +Maud laughed her aggravating laugh again. + +"Well, maybe it was just as well she did," she said, "or else they +would have said you and Wollaston had eloped, sure." + +Maria began to speak, but her voice was drowned by the rumble of the +New York train on the other track. The Wardway train was late. +Usually the two trains met at the station. + +However, the New York train had only just pulled out of sight before +the Wardway train came in. As Maria climbed on the train she felt a +paper thrust forcibly into her hand, which closed over it +instinctively. She sat with Maud, and had no opportunity to look at +it all the way to Wardway. She slipped it slyly into her Algebra. + +Maud's eyes were sharp. "What's that you are putting in your +Algebra?" she asked. + +"A marker," replied Maria. She felt that Maud's curiosity was such +that it justified a white lie. + +She had no chance to read the paper which Wollaston had slipped into +her hand until she was fairly in school. Then she read it under cover +of a book. It was very short, and quite manly, although manifestly +written under great perturbation of spirit. + +Wollaston wrote: "Shall I tell your folks to-night?" + +Wollaston was not in Maria's classes. He was older, and had entered +in advance. She had not a chance to reply until noon. Going into the +restaurant, she in her turn slipped a paper forcibly into his hand. + +"Good land! look out!" said Maud Page. "Why, Maria Edgham, you butted +right into Wollaston Lee and nearly knocked him over." + +What Maria had written was also short, but desperate. She wrote: + +"If you ever tell your folks or my folks, or anybody, I will drown +myself in Fisher's Pond." + +A look of relief spread over the boy's face. Maria glanced at him +where he sat at a distant table with some boys, and he gave an almost +imperceptible nod of reassurance at her. Maria understood that he had +not told, and would not, unless she bade him. + +On the train going home that night he found a chance to speak to her. +He occupied the seat behind her, and waited until a woman who sat +with Maria got off the train at a station, and also a man who had +occupied the seat with him. Then he leaned over and said, +ostentatiously, so he could be heard half the length of the car, "It +is a beautiful day, isn't it?" + +Maria did not turn around at all, but her face was deadly white as +she replied, "Yes, lovely." + +Then the boy whispered, and the whisper seemed to reach her inmost +soul. "Look here, I want to do what is right, and--honorable, you +know, but hang me if I know what is. It is an awful pickle." + +Maria nodded, still with her face straight ahead. + +"I don't know how it happened, for my part," the boy whispered. + +Maria nodded again. + +"I didn't say anything to my folks, because I didn't know how you +would feel about it. I thought I ought to ask you first. But I am not +afraid to tell, you needn't think that, and I mean to be honorable. +If you say so, I will go right home with you and tell your folks, and +then I will tell mine, and we will see what we can do." + +Maria made no answer. She was in agony. It seemed to her that the +whisper was deafening her. + +"I will leave school, and go to work right away," said the boy, and +his voice was a little louder, and full of pathetic manliness; "and I +guess in a year's time I could get so I could earn enough to support +you. I mean to do what is right. All is I want to do what you want me +to do. I didn't know how you felt about it." + +Then Maria turned slightly. He leaned closer. + +"I told you how I felt," she whispered back. + +"You mean what you wrote?" + +"Yes, what I wrote." + +"You don't want me to tell at all?" + +"Never, as long as you live." + +"How about her?" + +"Gladys?" + +"Yes, confound her!" + +"She won't tell. She won't dare to." + +Wollaston was silent for a moment, then he whispered again. "Well," +he said, "I want to do what you want me to and what is honorable. Of +course, we are both young, and I haven't any money except what father +gives me, but I am willing to quit school to-morrow and go to work. +You needn't think I mean to back out and show the white feather. I am +not that kind. We have got into this, and I am ready and willing to +do all I can." + +"I meant what I wrote," whispered Maria again. "I never want you to +tell, and--" + +"And what?" + +"I wish you would go and sit somewhere else, and not speak to me +again. I hate the very sight of you." + +"All right," said the boy. There was a slight echo of rancor in his +own voice, still it was patient, with the patience of a man with a +woman and her unreason. All his temper of the night before had +disappeared. He was quite honest in saying that he wished to do what +was right and honorable. He was really much more of a man than he had +been the day before. He was conscious of not loving Maria--his +budding boy-love for her had been shocked out of life. He was even +repelled by her, but he had a strong sense of his duty towards her, +and he was full of pity for her. He saw how pale and nervous and +frightened she was. He got up to change his seat, but before he went, +he leaned over her and whispered again: "You need not be a mite +afraid, Maria. All I want is what will please you and what is right. +I will never tell, unless you ask me to. You need not worry. You had +better put it all out of your mind." + +Maria nodded. She felt very dizzy. She was glad when Wollaston not +only left his seat, but the car, going into the smoker. She heard the +door slam after him with a sense of relief. She felt a great relief +at his assurance that he would keep their secret. Wollaston Lee was a +boy whose promises had weight. She looked out of the window and a +little of her old-time peace seemed to descend upon her. She saw how +lovely the landscape was in the waning light. She saw the new moon +with a great star attendant, and reflected that it was over her right +shoulder. After all, youth is hard to down, and hope finds a rich +soil in it. Then, too, a temporization to one who is young means +eternity. If Wollaston did not tell, and Gladys did not tell, and she +did not tell, it might all come right somehow in the end. + +She looked at the crescent of the moon, and the great depth of light +of the star, and her own affairs seemed to quiet her with their very +littleness. What was little Maria Edgham and her ridiculous and +tragic matrimonial tangle compared with the eternal light of those +strange celestial things yonder? She would pass, and they would +remain. She became comforted. She even reflected that she was hungry. +She had not obeyed her father's injunction, and had eaten very little +luncheon. She thought with pleasure of the good dinner which would be +awaiting her. Then suddenly she remembered how she had talked to Her. +How would she be treated? But she remembered that Ida could not have +said anything against her to her father, or, if she had done so, it +had made no difference to him. She considered Ida's character, and it +seemed to her quite probable that she would make no further reference +to the subject. Ida was averse even to pursuing enmities, because of +the inconvenience which they might cause her. It was infinitely less +trouble to allow birds which had pecked at her to fly away than to +pursue them; then, too, she always remained unshaken in her belief in +herself. Maria's tirade would not in the least have disturbed her +self-love, and it is only a wound in self-love which can affect some +people. Maria was inclined to think that Ida would receive her with +the same coldly radiant smile as usual, and she was right. That +night, when she entered the bright parlor, glowing with soft lights +under art-shades, Ida, in her pretty house-gown--scarlet cashmere +trimmed with medallions of cream lace--greeted her in the same +fashion as she had always done. Evelyn ran forward with those squeals +of love which only a baby can accomplish. Maria, hugging her little +sister, saw that Ida's countenance was quite unchanged. + +"So you have got home?" said she. "Is it very cold?" + +"Not very," replied Maria. + +"I have not been out, and I did not know," Ida said, in her usual +fashion of making commonplaces appear like brilliances. + +"There may be a frost, I don't know," Maria said. She was actually +confused before this impenetrability. Remembering the awful things +she had said to Her, she was suddenly conscience-stricken as she saw +Ida's calm radiance of demeanor. She began to wonder if she had not +been mistaken, if Ida was not really much better than she herself. +She knew that is she had had such things said to her she could not +have appeared so forgiving. Such absolute self-love, and self-belief, +was incomprehensible to her. She had accused Ida of more than she +could herself actually comprehend. She began to think Ida had a +forgiving heart, and that she herself had been the wicked one, not +She. She responded to everything which Ida said with a conciliatory +air. Presently Harry came in. He was late. He looked very worn and +tired. Ida sent Josephine up-stairs to get his smoking-jacket and +slippers, and Maria thought She was very kind to her father. Evelyn +climbed into his arms, but he greeted even her rather wearily. Ida +noticed it. + +"Come away, darling," she said. "Papa is tired, and you are a heavy +little lump of honey," Ida smiled, entrancingly. + +Harry looked at her with loving admiration, then at Maria. + +"I tell you what it is, I feel pretty thankful to-night, when I think +of last night--when I realize I have you all home," said he. + +Ida smiled more radiantly. "Yes, we ought to be very thankful," she +said. + +Maria made up her mind that she would apologize to her if she had a +chance. She did not wish to speak before her father, not because she +did not wish him to know, but because she did not wish to annoy him, +he looked so tired. She had a chance after dinner, when Josephine was +putting Evelyn to bed, and Harry had been called to the door to speak +to a man on business. + +"I am sorry I spoke as I did to you," she said, in a low voice, to +Ida. + +They were both in the parlor. Maria had a school-book in her hand, +and Ida was embroidering. The rosy shade of the lamp intensified the +glow on her beautiful face. She looked smilingly at Maria. + +"Why, my dear," she said, "I don't know what you said. I have +forgotten." + + + +Chapter XVI + + +Now commenced an odd period of her existence for Maria Edgham. She +escaped a transition stage which comes to nearly every girl by her +experience in New York, the night when Evelyn was lost. There is +usually for a girl, if not for a boy, a stage of existence when she +flutters, as it were, over the rose of life, neither lighting upon it +nor leaving it, when she is not yet herself, when she does not +comprehend herself at all, except by glimpses of emotions, as one may +see one facet of a diamond but never the complete stone. Maria had, +in a few hours, become settled, crystallized, and she gave evidence +of it indisputably in one way--she had lost her dreams. When a girl +no longer dreams of her future she has found herself. Maria had +always been accustomed to go to sleep lulled by her dreams of +innocent romance. Now she no longer had them, it was as if a child +missed a lullaby. She was a long time in getting to sleep at all, and +she did not sleep well. She no longer stared over the page of a +lesson-book into her own future, as into a crystal well wherein she +saw herself glorified by new and strange happiness. She studied, and +took higher places in her classes, but she did not look as young or +as well. She grew taller and thinner, and she looked older. People +said Maria Edgham was losing her beauty, that she would not be as +pretty a woman as she had promised to make, after all. Maria no +longer dwelt so long and pleasurably upon her reflection in the +glass. She simply arranged her hair and neck-gear tidily and went her +way. She did not care so much for her pretty clothes. A girl without +her dreams is a girl without her glory of youth. She did not quite +realize what was the matter, but she knew that she was no longer so +fair to see, and that the combination of herself and a new gown was +not what it had been. She felt as if she had reached the last page of +her book of life, and the _ennui_ of middle age came over her. She +had not reached the last page; she was, of course, mistaken; but she +had reached a paragraph so tremendous that it seemed to her the +climax, as if there could be nothing beyond it. She was married--that +is, she had been pronounced a wife! There was, there could be, +nothing further. She was both afraid of, and disliked, the boy who +had married her. There was nothing ahead that she could see but a +commonplace existence without romance and without love. She as yet +did not dwell upon the possible complications which might arise from +her marriage. It simply seemed to her that she should always live a +spinster, although the marriage ceremony had been pronounced over +her. She began to realize that in order to live in this way she must +take definite steps. She knew that her father was not rich. The +necessity for work and earning her own living in the future began to +present itself. She made up her mind to fit herself for a teacher. + +"Papa, I am going to teach," she told her father one afternoon. + +Ida had gone out. It was two years after her marriage, and Maria +looked quite a woman. She and her father were alone. Evelyn had gone +to bed. Maria had tucked her in and kissed her good-night. Josephine +was no longer a member of the family. In a number of ways expenses +had been retrenched. Harry would not admit it, and Ida did not seem +aware of it, but his health was slowly but surely failing. That very +day he had consulted a specialist in New York, taking his turn in the +long line of waiting applicants in the office. When he came out he +had a curious expression on his face, which made more than one of the +other patients, however engrossed in their own complaints, turn +around and look after him. He looked paler than when he had entered +the office, but not exactly cast down. He had rather a settled +expression, as of one who had come in sight, not of a goal of +triumph, but of the end of a long and wearisome journey. In these +days Harry Edgham was so unutterably weary, he drove himself to his +work with such lashes of spirit, that he was almost incapable of +revolt against any sentence of fate. There comes a time to every one, +to some when young, to some when old, that too great a burden of +labor, or of days, renders the thought of the last bed of earth +unterrifying. The spirit, overcome with weariness of matter, +droops earthward with no rebellion. Harry, who had gotten his +death-sentence, went out of the doctor's office and hailed his +ferry-bound car, and realized very little difference in his attitude +from what he had done before. He had still time before him, possibly +quite a long time. He thought of leaving Ida and the little one and +Maria, but he had a feeling as if he were beginning the traversing of +a circle which would in the end bring him back, rather than of +departure. It was as if he were about to circumnavigate life itself. +Suddenly, however, his forehead contracted. Material matters began to +irritate him. He thought of Maria, and how slight a provision he had +made for her. His life was already insured for the benefit of Ida. +Ida would have that and her widow's share. Little Evelyn would also +have her share of his tiny estate, which consisted of nothing more +than his house and lot in Edgham and a few hundreds in the bank, and +poor Maria would have nothing except the paltry third remaining. When +Maria, sitting alone with him in the parlor, announced her intention +of fitting herself for a teacher, he viewed her with quick interest. +It was the evening of the very day on which he had consulted the +specialist. + +"Let me see, dear," he returned; "how many years more have you at the +academy?" + +"I can graduate next year," Maria replied, with pride. This last year +she had been taking enormous strides, which had placed her ahead of +her class. "At least, I can if I work hard," she added. + +"I don't want you to work too hard," Harry said, anxiously. + +"I am perfectly well," said Maria. And she did in reality look +entirely well, in spite of her thinness and expression of premature +maturity. There was a wiriness about her every movement which argued, +if not actual robustness, the elasticity of bending and not breaking +before the stresses of life. + +"Let me see, you will be pretty young to teach, then," said Harry. + +"I think I can get a school," Maria said. + +"Where?" + +"Aunt Maria said she thought I could get that little school near her +in Amity. The teacher is engaged, and she said she thought she would +get married before so very long. She said she thought she must have +almost enough money for her wedding outfit. That is what she has been +working for." + +Harry smiled a little. + +"Aunt Maria said she was to marry a man with means, and she was +working quite a while in order to buy a nice trousseau," said Maria. +"Aunt Maria said she was a very high-spirited young lady. But she +said she thought she had been engaged so long that she would probably +not wait more than a year longer, and she could get the school for +me. Uncle Henry is one of the committee, you know." + +"You are pretty young to begin teaching," Harry said, thoughtfully. + +"Aunt Maria said she thought I did not look as young as I really was, +and there wouldn't be any difficulty about it," said Maria. "She said +she thought I would have good government, and Uncle Henry thought so, +too, and Aunt Eunice." + +Aunt Eunice was Maria's Uncle Henry's wife. Maria had paid a visit to +Amity the summer before, renewing her acquaintance with her relatives. + +"Well, we will see," said Harry, after a pause. Then he added, +somewhat pitifully: "Father wishes there was no need for his little +girl to work. He wishes he had been able to put more by, but if--" + +Maria looked at her father with quick concern. + +"Father, what is the matter with you?" she asked. "I don't care about +the working part. I want to work. I shall like to go to Amity, and +board with Aunt Maria, and teach, except for leaving you and Evelyn, +but--what is the matter with you, father?" + +"Nothing is the matter. Why?" asked Harry; and he tried to smile. + +"What made you speak so, father?" + +Maria had sprung to her feet, and was standing in front of her +father, with pale face and dilated eyes. Her father looked at her and +hesitated. + +"Tell me, father; I ought to know," said Maria. + +"There is nothing immediate, as far as I know," said Harry, "but--" + +"But what?" + +"Well, dear, nobody can live always, and of course you can't realize +it, young as you are, and with no responsibilities; but father is +older, and sometimes he can't help thinking. He wishes he had been +able to save a little more, in case anything happened to him, and he +can't help planning what you would do if--anything happened to him. +You know, dear," Harry hesitated a little, then he continued--"you +know, dear, that father had his life insured for--Ida, and I doubt +if--I am older, you know, now, and those companies don't like to +take chances. I doubt if I could, or I would have an additional +insurance put on my life for you. Then Ida would have by law her +share of this property, and Evelyn her share, and all you would have +would be a very little, and--Well, father can't help thinking that +perhaps it would be wise for you to make some plans so you can help +yourself a little, but--it almost breaks father's heart to think +that--his--little girl--" Poor Harry fairly broke down and sobbed. + +Maria's arm was around his neck in a moment, and his poor gray head, +which had always been, in a way, the head of an innocent boy, was on +her young girl breast. She did not ask him any more questions. She +knew. "Poor father!" she said. Her own voice broke, then she steadied +it again with a resolute effort of her will. There was a good deal of +her mother in Maria. The sight of another's weakness always aroused +her own strength. "Father," she said, "now you just listen to me. I +won't hear any more talk of anything happening to you. You have not +eaten enough lately. I have noticed it. That is all that ails you. +You have not had enough nourishment. I want you to go to-morrow to +Dr. Wells and get some of that tonic that helped you so much before, +and, father, I want you to stop worrying about me. I honestly want to +teach. I want to be independent. I should, if you were worth a +million. It does not worry me at all to think I am not going to have +enough money to live on without working, not at all. I want you to +remember that, and not fret any more about it." + +For answer, Harry sobbed against the girl's shoulder. "It seems as if +I might have saved more," he said, pitifully, "but--I have had heavy +expenses, and somehow I didn't seem to have the knack that some men +have. I made one or two investments that didn't turn out well. I +didn't say anything about them to--Ida." + +"I sha'n't say a word, father," Maria responded, quickly. + +"Well, I thought maybe--if they turned out all right, I might have +something to leave you, but--they didn't. There's never any counting +on those things, and I wasn't on the inside of the market. I thought +they were all right. I meant it for the best." + +Maria stroked the gray head, as her mother might have done. "Of +course you did, father," said she. "Now, don't you worry one bit more +about it. You get that tonic. You don't look just right, and you need +something to give you an appetite; and don't you ever have another +thought as far as I am concerned. I have always wanted to teach, or +do something to make myself independent." + +"You may marry somebody who will look out for you after father has +gone," half whimpered Harry. His disease and his distress were making +him fairly childish, now he realized a supporting love beside him. + +Maria quivered a little. "I shall never marry, father," she said. + +Harry laughed a little, even in the midst of his distress. "Well, +dear, we won't worry about that now," he said; "only, if you ever do +marry, I hope you will marry a good, honest man who can take care of +you." + +"I never shall marry," Maria said again. There was an odd inflection +in her voice which her father did not understand. Her cheeks burned +hot against his, but it was not due to the modesty of young girlhood, +which flees even that which it secretly desires. Maria was reflecting +upon her horrible deception, how every day and every minute of her +life she was deceiving her father, but she dared not tell him. She +dared less now than ever, in the light of her sudden conviction +concerning his ill-health. Maria had been accustomed so long to +seeing her father look tired and old that the true significance of it +had not struck her. She had not reflected that her father was not in +reality an old man--but scarcely past middle age--and that there must +be some disease to account for his appearance. Now she knew; but +along with the knowledge came the conviction that he must not know +that she had it, that it would only add to his distress. She kissed +him, and took up the evening paper which had fallen from his knees to +the floor. + +"Suppose I read to you, father?" she said. + +Harry looked gratefully at her. "But you have to learn your lesson." + +"Oh, I can finish that in school to-morrow. I don't feel like working +any more to-night, and I do feel like reading the paper." + +"Won't it tire you, dear?" + +"Tire me? Now, father, what do you take me for?" Maria settled +herself in a chair. Harry leaned back his head contentedly; he had +always like to be read to, and lately reading to himself had hurt his +eyes. "Now, what shall I read, father?" she said. + +Poor Harry, remembering his own futile investments, asked for the +stock-list, and Maria read it very intelligently for a young girl who +knew nothing about stocks. + +"Once I owned some of that stock," said Harry, proudly. + +"Did you, father?" Maria responded, admiringly. + +"Yes, and only look where it is now! If I could only have held on to +it, I might have been quite a rich man." + +Harry spoke, oddly enough, with no regret. Such was the childishness +of the man that a possession once his never seemed wholly lost to +him. It seemed to him that he had reason to be proud of having made +such a wise investment, even if he had never actually reaped any +benefit from it. + +"I don't see how you knew what to invest in," Maria said, fostering +his pride. + +"Oh, I had to study the stock-lists and ask brokers," Harry replied. +He looked brighter. This little reinstatement in his self-esteem +acted like a tonic. In some fashion Ida always kept him alive to his +own deficiencies, and that was not good for a man who was naturally +humble-minded. Harry sat up straighter. He looked at Maria with +brighter eyes as she continued reading. "Now _that_ is a good +investment," said he--"that bond. If I had the money to spare I would +buy one of those bonds to-morrow morning." + +"Are bonds better than stocks, father?" asked Maria. + +"Yes," replied Harry, importantly. "Always remember that, if you have +any money to invest. A man can afford to buy stocks, because he has +better opportunities of judging of the trend of the market, but bonds +are always safer for a woman." + +Maria regarded her father again with that innocent admiration for his +wisdom, which seemed to act like a nerve stimulant. A subtle +physician might possibly have reached the conclusion, had he been +fully aware of all the circumstances, that Ida, with her radiant +superiority, her voiceless but none the less positive self-assertion +over her husband, was actually a means of spiritual depression which +had reacted upon his physical nature. Nobody knows exactly to what +extent any of us are responsible for the lives of others, and how far +our mere existences may be derogatory to our fellow-beings. Harry was +visibly brighter. + +"You don't look half as tired as you did, father," Maria said. + +"I don't feel so tired," replied Harry. "It has rested me to hear you +read. Remember what I have told you, dear, about bonds--always bonds, +and never stocks, for a woman." + +"Yes, father," said Maria. Then she added, "I am going to save all I +can when I begin to earn." + +"Your aunt Maria will only ask you enough board to make it possible +for her to pay the bills? You know she has only a hundred a year to +live on. Of course your uncle Henry lets her have her rent free, or +she couldn't do it, but she is a fine manager. She manages very much +as your mother did." As he spoke, Harry looked around the luxurious +apartment and reflected that, had his first wife lived, he himself +could have saved, and there might have been no need for this little, +delicate girl to earn her own living. He sighed, and the weary look +settled over his face again. + +Maria rose. "Father," said she, "Annie has gone out, and so has +Hannah, and I am going out in the kitchen and make a cup of that +thick chocolate that you like, for you." + +"It is too much trouble, dear." + +"Nonsense!" said Maria. "I would like to do it, and it won't take a +minute. There is a good fire in the range." + +While Maria was gone, Harry sat gazing out of the window. He had +always now, when he looked out of a window, the sensation of a man +who was passing in rapid motion all the old familiar objects, all the +landmarks of his life, or rather--for one never rids one's self of +that particular optical delusion--it was as if they were passing. The +conviction of one's own transit is difficult to achieve. Harry gazed +out of the window, and it was to him as if the familiar trees which +bordered the sidewalk, the shrubs in the yard, the houses which were +within view, were flitting past him in a mad whirl. He was glad when +Maria entered with the chocolate, in his own particular cup, and a +dainty plate of cheese sandwiches. + +"I thought perhaps you could eat a sandwich, father," she said. "I +don't believe you had anything decent for lunch in New York." + +"I didn't have much," said Harry. He did not add, what was the truth, +that lately he had been stinting himself on his luncheons in the +effort to save a little more of his earnings. He ate nearly all the +sandwiches, and drank two cups of chocolate, and really looked much +better. + +"You need more nourishment, father," said Maria, with a wise, +maternal air, which was also half accusatory, and which made Harry +think so strongly of his first wife that he regarded Maria as he +might have regarded her mother. + +"You grow more and more like your own mother, dear," he said. + +"Well, I am glad of that," replied Maria. "Mother was a good woman. +If I can only be half as good as mother was." + +"Your mother _was_ a good woman," said Harry, reflectively; and as he +spoke he seemed to feel the arms of strong, almost stern, feminity +and faithfulness which had encompassed his childlike soul for so many +years. He owned to himself that Maria's mother had been a much more +suitable wife for him than this other woman. Then he had a little +qualm of remorse, for Ida came in sight, richly dressed and elegant, +as usual, with Evelyn dancing along beside her. Mrs. Adams was with +her. Mrs. Adams was talking and Ida was smiling. It was more becoming +to Ida to smile than to talk. She had discovered long since that she +had not so very much to say, and that her smiles were better coin of +her little realm; she therefore generally employed them in preference. + +Maria got up hastily and took the tray and the chocolate-cups. "I +guess Mrs. Adams is coming in," said she. + +"You didn't make enough chocolate to give them?" Harry said, +hesitatingly. + +"No," replied Maria, and her tone was a little curt even to her +father. "And I used up the last bit of chocolate in the house, too." +Then she scudded out of the room with her tray and passed the front +door as the sound of Ida's latch-key was heard in the lock. Maria set +her tray on the kitchen-table and hurried up the back stairs to her +own room. She entered it and locked both doors, the one communicating +with the hall and the one which connected it with Evelyn's room. She +had no sooner done so than she heard the quick patter of little feet, +and the door leading into Evelyn's room was tried, then violently +shaken. "Let me in, sister; let me in," cried the sweet little flute +of a voice on the other side. Evelyn could now talk plainly, but she +still kept to her baby appellation for her sister. + +"No, darling, sister can't let you in now," replied Maria. + +"Why not? Let me in, sister." + +"Sister is going to study," said Maria, in a firm voice. "She can't +have Evelyn. Run down-stairs, darling; run down to mamma." + +"Evelyn don't want mamma. Evelyn wants sister." + +"Papa is down there, too. Put on your clothes, like a nice girl, and +show papa how smart you can be; then run down." + +"Evelyn can't button up her dress." + +"Put everything on but that, then run down, and mamma can do it for +you." + +"Let me in, sister." + +"No, dear," Maria said again. "Evelyn can't come in now." + +There came a little whimper of grief and anger which cut Maria's +heart, but she was firm. She could not have even Evelyn then. She had +to be alone with the knowledge she had just gained of her father's +state of health. She sat down in her little chair by the window; it +was her own baby chair, which she had kept all these years, and in +which she could still sit comfortably, she was so slender. Then she +put her face in her hands and began to weep. She had never wept as +she did then, not even when her mother died. She was so much younger +when her mother died that her sensibilities had not acquired their +full acumen; then, too, she had not had at that time the awful +foretaste of a desolate future which tinctured with bitter her very +soul. Somehow, although Maria had noticed for a long time that her +father did not look as he had done, it had never occurred to her that +that which had happened to her mother could happen to her father. She +had been like one in a house which has been struck by lightning, and +had been rendered thereby incredulous of a second stroke. It had not +occurred to her that whereas she had lost her mother, she could also +lose her father. It seemed like too heavy a hammer-stroke of +Providence to believe in and keep her reason. She had thought that +her father was losing his youth, that his hair turning gray had much +to do with his altered looks. She had never thought of death. It +seemed to her monstrous. A rage against Providence, like nothing +which she had known before, was over her. Why should she lose +everything? What had she done? She reviewed her past life, and she +defended herself like Job, with her summary of self-righteousness. +She had always done right, so far as she knew. Her sins had been so +petty as hardly to deserve the name of sins. She remembered how she +had once enjoyed seeing her face in her looking-glass, how she had +liked pretty, new dresses, and she could not make that seem very +culpable. She remembered how, although she had never loved her +step-mother, she had observed, except on that one occasion when +Evelyn was lost, the utmost respect and deference for her--how she +had been, after the first, even willing to love her had she met with +the slightest encouragement. She could not honestly blame herself for +her carefully concealed attitude of disapproval towards Ida, for she +said to herself, with a subtlety which was strange for a girl so +young, that she had merited it, that she was a cold, hard, +self-centred woman, not deserving love, and that she had in reality +been injurious for her father. She was convinced that, had her own +mother lived, with her half-censorious yet wholly loving care for +him, he might still have preserved his youth and his handsome +boyishness and health. She thought of the half-absurd, half-tragic +secret which underlay her life, and she could not honestly think +herself very much to blame for that. She always thought of that with +bewilderment, as one might think of some dimly remembered vagary of +delirium. Sometimes it seemed to her now that it could not be true. +Maria realized that she was full of self-righteousness, but she was +also honest. She saw no need for her to blame herself for faults +which she had not committed. She thought of the doctrine which she +had heard, that children were wholly evil from their birth, and it +did not seem to her true. She could _say_ that she had been wholly +evil from her birth, but she felt that she should, if she did say so, +tell a lie to God and herself. She honestly could not see why, for +any fault of hers, her father should die. Then suddenly her mind gave +a leap from her own standing-point to that of her father. She +suddenly reflected that it was not wholly her own grief for his loss +which was to be considered, but her father's grief at quitting the +world wherein he had dwelt so long, and his old loves of life. She +reflected upon his possible fear of the Unknown into which he was to +go. There was in Maria's love for her father, as there had been in +her mother's, a strong element of the maternal. She thought of her +father with infinite pity, as one might think of a little child about +to go on a long, strange journey to an unknown place, all alone by +himself. It seemed to her an awful thing for God to ask one like her +father to die a lingering death, to realize it all fully, what he had +to do, then to go off by himself, alone. She remembered what she had +heard from the pulpit on Sundays, but somehow that Unknown seemed so +frightfully wide and vast for a soul like her father's, which had +always been so like the soul of a child, to find her mother in. Then +she got some comfort from the memory of her mother, of her great +strength. It seemed to her that her mother, wherever she was, would +not let her father wander alone very long. That she would meet him +with that love and chiding which is sometimes the very concert-pitch +of love itself, its key-note, and lead him into those green pastures +and beside those still waters of the Psalmist. Maria, at that moment, +got more comfort from her memory of the masterliness of her mother, +whom she had known, than from her conception of God, towards whom her +soul reached out, it is true, but whom it no more comprehended than a +flower comprehends the sun. The very love of God needs a human +trellis whereby His creatures can reach Him, and Maria now climbed +towards a trust in Him, by the reflection of her mother's love, and +strength in spite of love. + +Then racking pity for herself and her own loss, and rage because of +it, and a pity for her father which almost roused her to a fury of +rebellion, again swept away every other consideration. + +"Poor father! poor father!" she sobbed, under her breath. "There he +is going to die, and he hasn't got mother to take care of him! _She_ +won't do anything. She will try not to smile, that is all. And I +can't do anything, the way mother could. Father don't want me to even +act as if I knew it; but if mother were alive he would tell her, and +she would help him." Then Maria thought of herself, poor, solitary, +female thing travelling the world alone, for she never thought, at +that time, of her marriage being anything which would ever be a +marriage in reality, but as of something which cast her outside the +pale of possibilities and made her more solitary still, and she wept +silently, or as silently as she could; once in awhile a murmur of +agony or a sob escaped her. She could not help it. She got up out of +her little chair and flung herself on the floor, and fairly writhed +with the pain of her awful grief and sense of loss. She became deaf +to any sound; all her senses seemed to have failed her. She was alive +only to that sense of grief which is the primeval sense of the +world--the grief of existence itself and the necessity of death and +loss. + +All at once she felt a little, soft touch, and another little, +weeping, human thing, born like herself to all the awful chances of +love and grief, flung itself down beside her. + +Maria had locked her doors, but she had forgotten her window, which +opened on an upper balcony, and was easily accessible to any one +climbing out of the hall window. Evelyn had been listening at her +door and had heard her sobs. Knowing from experience that her sister +meant what she said, she had climbed out of the hall window, scudded +along the little balcony, and into Maria's window. She flung herself +down on the floor, and wept so violently that Maria was alarmed. + +"Why, baby, darling, what is it? Tell sister," she said, hushing her +own sobs. + +The child continued to sob. Her whole little frame was shaken +convulsively. + +"Tell sister," whispered Maria. + +"I'm cryin' 'cause--'cause--" panted the child. + +"Because what, darling?" + +"Because you are crying, and--and--" + +"And what?" + +"'Cause I 'ain't got anything to cry for." + +"Why, you precious darling!" said Maria. She hugged the child close, +and all at once a sense of peace and comfort came over her, even in +the face of approaching disaster. She sensed the love and pity which +holds the world, through this little human key-note of it which had +struck in her ears. + + + +Chapter XVII + + +Harry Edgham's disease proved to be one of those concerning which no +physician can accurately calculate its duration or termination. It +had, as diseases often have, its periods of such utter quiescence +that it seemed as if it had entirely disappeared. It was not a year +after Harry had received his indeterminate death sentence before he +looked better than he had done for a long while. The color came back +to his cheeks, his expression regained its youthful joyfulness. +Everybody said that Harry Edgham was quite well again. He had +observed a certain diet and taken remedies; then, in the summer, he +took, for the first time for years, an entire vacation of three +weeks, and that had its effect for the better. + +Maria began to be quite easy with regard to her father's health. It +seemed to her that, since he looked so well, he must be well. Her +last winter at the Lowe Academy was entirely free from that +worriment. Then, too, Wollaston Lee had graduated and begun his +college course, and she no longer had him constantly before her eyes, +bringing to memory that bewildering, almost maddening experience of +theirs that night in New York. She was almost happy, in an odd, +middle-aged sort of fashion, during her last term at the academy +before her graduation. She took great pride in her progress in her +studies. She was to graduate first of her class. She did not even +have to work very hard to accomplish it. Maria had a mind of +marvellous quickness of grasp. Possibly her retentive powers were not +entirely in proportion, but, at all events, she accomplished much +with comparatively little labor. + +Harry was very proud of her. The evening before her graduation Ida +had gone to New York to the theatre and Evelyn was in bed, and Maria +dressed herself in her graduation gown, which was charming--Ida had +never neglected her, in respect to dress, at least--and came down to +show herself to her father. He would not be able to be present at the +graduation on account of an unusual press of business. Maria came so +lightly that she almost seemed to float into the room, with her fine +white draperies trailing behind her and her knots of white ribbon +fluttering, and stood before her father. + +"Father," said she, "I want you to see the way I'll look to-morrow. +Isn't this dress pretty?" + +"Lovely," said Harry. "It is very becoming, too," he added. + +Indeed, Maria really looked pretty again in this charming costume. +During the last few months her cheeks had filled out and she had +gotten some lovely curves of girlhood. Her eyes shone with a peculiar +brilliancy, her red lips trembled into a smile, her hair, in a fluff +above her high forehead, caught the light. + +Maria laughed gayly. "Take care, father, or you will make me vain," +she said. + +"You have some reason to be," Harry said, honestly. "You are going to +graduate first in your class, and--well, you are pretty, dear--at +least you are to father, and, I guess, to other folks." + +Maria blushed. "Only to father, because he is partial," she said. +Then she went up to him and rubbed her blooming cheek against his. +"Do you know what makes me happier than anything else?" she +said--"happier than graduating first, happier than my pretty dress, +happier than anything?" + +"No. What, dear?" + +"Feeling that you are well again." + +There was an almost imperceptible pause before Harry replied. Then he +said, in his pleasant voice, which had never grown old, "Yes, dear; I +am better, dear, I think." + +"Think," Maria said, gayly. "Why, you are well, father. Don't you +know you are well?" + +"Yes, I think I am better, dear." + +"Better? You are well. Nobody can look as young and handsome as you +do and be ill, possibly. You are well, father. I know you can't quite +get what that horrid old croaking doctor told you out of your mind, +but doctors don't know everything. You are well, and that makes me +happier than anything else in the world." + +Harry laughed a little faintly. "Well, I dare say you are right, +dear," he said. + +"Right?--of course I am right," said Maria. Then she danced off to +change her gown. + +After she had gone, Harry rose from the chair; he had been sitting +beside the centre-table with the evening paper. He walked over to the +window and looked out at the night. It was bright moonlight. The +trees were in full leaf, and the shadows were of such loveliness that +they fairly seemed celestial. Harry gazed out at the night scene, at +the moon riding through the unbelievable and unfathomable blue of the +sky, like a crystal ball, with a slight following of golden clouds; +he gazed at the fairy shadows which transformed the familiar village +street into something beyond earth, and he sighed. The conviction of +his approaching dissolution had never been so strong as at that +moment. He seemed fairly to see his own mortality--that gate of death +which lay wide open for him. Yet, all at once, a sense of peace and +trust almost ineffable came over him. Death seemed merely the +going-out into the true open, the essence of the moonlight and the +beauty. It seemed the tasting and absorbing the food for his own +spiritual hunger, which had been upon him from birth, that which had +always been just out of his reach. When Maria returned in her pink +gingham school-gown, she found her father seated beside the table as +he had been when she left. He looked up at her with a bright smile +which somehow chilled her, although she tried to drive the conviction +of the chill from her mind. She got a new book from the case, and +proposed reading aloud to him. + +"Hadn't you better go to bed, dear?" said Harry. "You will have a +hard day to-morrow." + +"No; I am going to sit up with you till She comes home," said Maria, +"and we might as well amuse ourselves." She began to read, and Harry +listened happily. But Maria, whenever she glanced over her book at +her father's happy face, felt the same undefinable chill. + +However, when Ida came home and they had a little supper of sardines +and crackers, she did not think any more of it. She went to bed with +her head full of the morrow and her new gown and the glories awaiting +her. She tried not to be vain, but was uncomfortably conscious that +she was glad that she was first in her class, instead of some other +girl or instead of a boy. Maria felt especially proud of ranking +ahead of the boys. + +The next day was, as she had anticipated, one of happy triumph for +her. She stood on the stage in her lovely dress and read her +valedictory, which, although trite enough, was in reality rather +better in style than most valedictories. She received a number of +presents, a tiny gold watch from her father among them, and a ring +with a turquoise stone from Ida, and quantities of flowers. The day +after the graduation Maria had her photograph taken, with all her +floral offerings around her, with a basket of roses on her arm and +great bouquets in her lap and on a little photographic table beside +her. The basket of roses was an anonymous offering. It came with no +card. If Maria had dreamed that Wollaston Lee had sent it, she would +never have sat for her photograph with it on her arm. But she did not +think of Wollaston at all that day. He was completely out of her mind +for the time, swallowed up in her sense of personal joy and triumph. +Wollaston had not graduated first in his class in the academy the +year before. A girl had headed that class also. Maria had felt a +malicious joy at the fact, at the time, and it was entirely beyond +her imagination now that Wollaston, who had seemed to dislike her, +although she was forced to admit that he had been exceedingly +honorable, had sent roses to her. She suspected that one of the +teachers, a young man who had paid, in a covert and shamefaced way, a +little attention to her, had sent the basket. She thought the roses +lovely, and recognized the inadvisability of thanking this teacher, +since he had not enclosed his card. She did not like him very +well--indeed, she felt a certain repugnance to him--but roses were +roses, and she was a young girl. + +"Who gave you the basket of roses, dear?" her father asked when she +was displaying her trophies the day after her graduation. + +Maria blushed. "I don't know," said she; "there wasn't any card with +them." As she spoke she seemed to see the face of the young history +teacher, Mr. Latimer, with his sparse, sandy beard, and she felt how +very distasteful he was to her, even if gilded, so to speak, by roses. + +"I think some enamoured boy in her class who was too shy to send his +card with his floral offering was the one," Ida said to Harry when +Maria had gone out. She laughed a softly sarcastic laugh. + +Harry looked at her uneasily. + +"Maria is too young to get such ideas into her head," he said. + +"My dear," said Ida, "you forget that such ideas do not get into +girls' heads; they are born in them." + +"I presume one of the other girls sent them," said Harry, almost +angrily. + +"Perhaps," replied Ida, and again she laughed her soft, sarcastic +laugh, which grated terribly on Harry. It irritated him beyond +measure that any boy should send roses to this little, delicate, fair +girl of his. For all he had spoken of her marriage, the very idea of +confiding her to any other man than himself made him furious. +Especially the idea of some rough school-boy, who knew little else +than to tumble about in a football game and was not his girl's mental +equal, irritated him. He went over in his mind all the boys in her +class. The next morning, going to New York, Edwin Shaw, who had lost +much of his uncouthness and had divorced himself entirely from his +family in the matter of English, was on the train, and he scowled at +him with such inscrutable fierceness that the boy fairly trembled. He +always bowed punctiliously to Maria's father, and this morning Maria +was with her father. She was to have a day off: sit in her father's +office and read a book until noon, then go to lunch with him at a +French restaurant, then go to the matinee. She wore a festive silk +waist, and looked altogether lovely, the boy thought. + +"Who is that great gawk of a fellow?" asked Harry of Maria. + +"Edwin Shaw. He was in my class," replied Maria, and she blushed, for +no earthly reason except that her father expected her to do so. Young +girls are sometimes very ready, even to deceit, to meet the emotional +expectations of their elders. Harry then and there made up his mind +that Edwin Shaw was the sender of the basket of roses. + +"He comes of a family below par, and he shows it," he said, +viciously, to Maria. He scowled again at Edwin's neck, which was +awkwardly long above his collar, but the boy did not see it. He sat +on the opposite side of the car a seat in advance. + +Harry said again to Maria, when they had left the train, and Edwin, +conscious of his back, which he was straightening, was striding in +front of them, what a great gawk of a fellow he was, and how he came +of a family below par. Maria assented indifferently. She did not +dream of her father's state of mind, and, as for Edwin Shaw, he was +no more to her than a set of car-steps, not so much, because the +car-steps were of obvious use. + +That very night, when Maria and her father reached home after a +riotous day in the city, there was a letter in the post-office from +Aunt Maria, to the effect that there was no doubt that Maria could +have the school in Amity in the fall. The teacher who had held the +position was to be married in a few weeks. The salary was not +much--Amity was a poor little country village--but Maria felt as if +she had expectations of untold wealth. She was sorry at the prospect +of leaving her father and Evelyn, but the idea of self-support and +independence, and taking a little of the burden from her father, +intoxicated her. Maria had the true spirit of the women of her race. +She liked the feel of her own muscles and nerves of individuality and +self-reliance. She felt a head taller after she had read her aunt's +letter. + +"She says she will board me for four dollars a week," she said. "I +shall have quite a lot of money clear." + +"Well, four dollars a week will recompense her, and help her, too," +said Harry, a little gloomily. To tell the truth, he did not in the +least like the idea of Maria's going to Amity to teach. Nothing +except the inner knowledge of his own failing health could have led +him to consent to it. Ida was delighted at the news, but she +concealed her delight as well as her annoyance under her smiling +mask, and immediately began to make plans for Maria's wardrobe. + +"Whatever I have new I am going to pay you back, father, now I am +going to earn money," Maria said, proudly. + +After she went up-stairs to bed that night, Evelyn, who was now a +slim, beautiful little girl, rather tall for her age, and going to a +private school in the village, came into her room, and Maria told +Evelyn how much she was going to do with the money which she was to +earn. Maria, at this time, was wholly mercenary. She had not the +least ambition to benefit the young. She was, in fact, young herself, +but her head was fairly turned with the most selfish of +considerations. It was true that she planned to spend the money which +she would earn largely upon others, but that was, in itself, a +subtle, more rarefied form of selfishness. + +"I remember Aunt Maria's parlor carpet was worn almost threadbare, +and I mean to buy her a new one with the very first money I earn," +Maria said to little Evelyn; and she thought, as she met Evelyn's +beautiful, admiring eyes, how very kind and thoughtful she, Maria, +would be with her wealth. + +"I suppose Aunt Maria is very poor," Evelyn remarked, in her charming +little voice. + +"Oh, very. She lives on a hundred dollars a year." + +"Will you get enough to eat?" asked Evelyn, anxiously. + +"Oh yes. I shall pay her four dollars a week, and if she got along +with only a hundred a year, only think what she can do with that. I +know Aunt Eunice, Uncle Henry's wife, hasn't a good dress, either. I +think I shall buy a brown satin for her." + +"How awful good you are, sister!" said little Evelyn, and Maria quite +agreed with her. The conviction of her own goodness, and her +forthcoming power to exercise it, filled her soul with a gentle, +stimulating warmth after she was in bed. The moonlight shone brightly +into her room. She gazed at the bright shaft of silver it made across +all her familiar possessions, and, notwithstanding her young girl +dreams were gone, she realized that, although she had lost all the +usual celestial dreams and rafters of romance which go to make a +young girl's air-castle, she had still left some material, even if of +less importance. + +She spent, on the whole, a very happy summer. Her father looked +entirely well; she was busy in preparations for her life in Amity; +and, what relieved her the most, Wollaston Lee was not at home for +more than five days during the entire vacation. He went camping-out +with a party of college-boys. Maria was, therefore, not subjected to +the nervous strain of seeing him. During the few days he was at home +he had his chum with him, and Maria only saw him twice--once on the +street, when she returned his bow distantly and heard with no +pleasure the other boy ask who that pretty girl was, and once in +church. She gave only the merest side-glance at him in church, and +she was not sure that he looked at her at all, but she went home pale +and nervous. A secret of any kind is a hard thing for a girl to bear +about with her, and Maria's, which was both tragic and absurd, was +severer than most. At times it seemed to her, when she looked in her +glass, that all she saw was the secret; it seemed to her, when other +people looked at her, that it was all they saw. It was one reason for +her readiness to go to Amity. She would there be out of reach of +people who could in any way have penetrated her secret. She would not +run the risk of meeting Wollaston; of meeting his father and mother, +and wondering if he had, after all, told; of meeting Gladys Mann, and +wondering if she had told, and knowing that she knew. + +Maria, in these last months, saw very little of Gladys, who had +sunken entirely into the lower stratum of society in which she +belonged. Gladys had left school, where she had not learned much, and +she went out cleaning and doing house-work, at seventy-five cents a +day. Sometimes Maria met her going to and fro from a place of +employment, and at such times there was fear in Maria's face and a +pathetic admiration and reassurance in the other girl's. Gladys had +grown hard and large as to her bones and muscles, but she did not +look altogether well. She had a half-nourished, spiritually and +bodily, expression, which did not belie the true state of affairs +with her. She had neither enough meat nor enough ideality. She was +suffering, and the more because she did not know. Gladys was of the +opinion that she was, on the whole, enjoying life and having a pretty +good time. She earned enough to buy herself some showy clothes, and +she had a lover, a "steady," as she called him. It is true that she +was at times a little harassed by jealousy concerning another girl +who had a more fully blown beauty than she, and upon whom she +sometimes suspected her lover was casting admiring eyes. + +It was at this time that Gladys, whose whole literature consisted of +the more pictorial of the daily papers, wrote some badly spelled and +very pathetic little letters, asking advice as to whether a girl of +her age, who had been keeping steady company with a young man of her +lover's age, whom she dearly loved, should make advances if he seemed +to exhibit a preference for another girl, and she inquired pitifully +of the editor, as of some deity, as to whether she thought her lover +did really prefer the other girl to her. These letters, and the +answers, were a source of immense comfort to Gladys. Sometimes, when +she met Maria, they made her feel almost on terms of equality with +her. She doubted if Maria, smart as she was, had ever really appeared +in the papers. She wrote her letters under different names, and even +sent them from neighboring towns, and walked long distances, when she +felt that she wanted to save car-fare, to post them. Once Maria met +her as she was walking along with an evening paper in her hand, +reading the reply to one of her letters, and Maria wondered at the +expression on Gladys's face. She at once pitied, feared, and detested +Gladys. She doubted if she were a good girl; she herself, like a nun +without even dreams, seemed living in another sphere, she felt so far +removed. She was in reality removed, although Gladys, if the truth +were told, was not so bad, and she got some good advice from the +answers in response to her letters, which restrained her. Still, her +view of everything was different. She was different. Black was not as +black to her as to Maria; a spade was not so truly a spade. She +recognized immorality as a fact, but it did not seem to her of so +much importance. In one sense she was more innocent even than Maria, +for she had never felt the true living clutch of vice on her soul, +even in imagination; she could not. The devil to her was not of +enough consequence to enable her to sin in the truest sense of the +word. All her family were immoral, and a constant living in an +atmosphere of immorality may, in one sense, make one incapable of +spiritual sin. One needs to fully sense a sin in order to actually +commit it. Gladys could hardly sense sin as Maria could. Still she +had a sense of proud virtue after reading the paragraphs of good +advice in reply to her letters to the paper, and she felt that it +placed her nearer Maria's level. On the occasion when Maria met her +reading the paper, she even spoke. + +"Hullo, M'ria!" said she. + +"Good-evening," Maria replied, politely and haughtily. + +But Gladys did not seem to notice the haughtiness. She pressed close +to Maria. + +"Say!" said she. + +"What?" asked Maria. + +"Ain't you ever goin' to--?" + +"No, I am not," replied Maria, deadly pale, and trembling from head +to foot. + +"Why don't you write to this paper and ask what you had better do?" +said Gladys. "It's an awful good plan. You do git awful good advice." + +"I don't wish to," replied Maria, trying to pass, but Gladys stood in +her way. + +"But say, M'ria, you be in an awful box," said she. "You can't never +marry nobody else without you get locked up, you know." + +"I don't want to," Maria said, shortly. + +"Mebbe you will." + +"I never shall." + +"Well, if you do, you had better write to this paper, then you can +find out just what to do. It won't tell you to do nothin' wrong, and +it's awful sensible. Say, M'ria." + +"Well, what?" + +"I 'ain't never told a living soul, and I never shall, but I don't +see what you are goin' to do if either you or him wants to git +married to anybody else." + +"I am not worrying about getting married," said Maria. This time she +pushed past Gladys. Her knees fairly knocked together. + +Gladys looked at her with sympathy and the old little-girl love and +adoration. "Well, don't you worry about me tellin'," said she. + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +Maria began her teaching on a September day. It was raining hard, but +there was all about an odd, fictitious golden light from the spray of +maple-leaves which overhung the village. Amity was a typical little +New England village--that is, it had departed but little from its +original type, although there was now a large plant of paper-mills, +which had called in outsiders. The outsiders were established by +themselves on a sort of Tom Tidler's ground called "Across the +River." The river was little more than a brook, except in spring, +when, after heavy snows, it sometimes verified its name of the Ramsey +River. Ramsey was an old family name in Amity, as Edgham was in +Edgham. Once, indeed, the little village had been called Ramsey Four +Corners. Then the old Ramsey family waned and grew less in popular +esteem, and one day the question of the appropriateness of naming the +village after them came up. There was another old family, by the name +of Saunders, between whom and the Ramseys had always been a dignified +New England feud. The Saunders had held their own much better than +the Ramseys. There was one branch especially, to which Judge Josiah +Saunders belonged, which was still notable. Judge Josiah had served +in the State legislature, he was a judge of the superior court, and +he occupied the best house in Amity, a fine specimen of the old +colonial mansion house, which had been in the Saunders family for +generations. Judge Saunders had made additions to this old mansion, +conservative, modern colonial additions, and it was really a noble +building. It was shortly after he had made the additions to his +house, and had served his first term as judge of the superior court, +that the question of changing the name of the village from Ramsey +Four Corners to Saunders had been broached. Meetings had been held, +in which the name of our celebrated townsman, the Honorable Josiah +Saunders, had been on every tongue. The Ramsey family obtained scant +recognition for past merits, but a becoming silence had been +maintained as to their present status. The only recognized survivors +of the old house of Ramsey at that time were the widow, Amelia +Ramsey, the wife of Anderson Ramsey, deceased, as she appeared in the +minutes of the meetings, and her son George, a lad of sixteen, and +the same who, in patched attire, had made love to Maria over the +garden fence when she was a child. It was about that time that the +meetings were taking place, and the name of the village had been +changed to Amity. It had been held to be a happy, even a noble and +generous thought, on the part of Josiah Saunders. "Would that in such +wise, by a combination of poetical aspirations and practical deeds, +all differences might be adjusted upon this globe," said the Amity +Argus, in an account of the meeting. Thenceforth, Ramsey Four Corners +became Amity, and the most genteel of the ladies had Amity engraved +on their note-paper. + +Mrs. Amelia Ramsey and George, who had suffered somewhat in their +feelings, in spite of the poetical adjustment of the difference, had +no note-paper. They were poor, else Amity might never have been. They +lived in a house which had been, in its day, as pretentious as the +Saunders mansion. At the time of Maria's first visit to Amity it had +been a weather-beaten old structure, which had not been painted for +years, and had a curious effect as of a blur on the landscape, with +its roof and walls of rain and sun stained shingles and clapboards, +its leaning chimneys, and its Corinthian pillars widely out of the +perpendicular, supporting crazily the roofs of the double veranda. +When Maria went to Amity to begin teaching, the old house had +undergone a transformation. She gazed at it with amazement out of the +sitting-room window, which faced it, on the afternoon of her arrival. + +"Why, what has happened to the old Ramsey house?" she asked her aunt +Maria. + +"Well, in the first place, a cousin died and left them some money," +replied Aunt Maria. "It was a matter of ten thousand dollars. Then +Amelia and George went right to work and fixed up the house. It was +none of my business, but it seemed dreadful silly to me. If I had +been in their place, I'd have let that old ramshackle of a place go +to pot and bought a nice little new house. There was one they could +have got for fifteen hundred dollars, on this side of the river; but +no, they went to work, and they must have laid out three thousand +clear on that old thing." + +"It is beautiful!" said Maria, regarding it with admiration. + +"Well, I don't think it's very beautiful, but everybody to their +liking," replied Aunt Maria, with a sniff of her high, transparent +nostrils. "For my part, I'd rather have a little, clean new house +before all the old ones, that folks have died in and worried in, in +creation." + +But Maria continued to regard the renovated Ramsey house with +admiration. It stood close to the street, as is the case with so many +old houses in rural New England. It had a tiny brick strip of yard in +front, on which was set, on either side of the stoop, a great +century-plant in a pot. Above them rose a curving flight of steps to +a broad veranda, supported with Corinthian pillars, which were now +upright and glistening with white paint, as was the entire house. + +"They had it all fixed up, inside and out," said Aunt Maria. "There +wasn't a room but was painted and papered, and a good many had to be +plastered. They did not get much new furniture, though. I should have +thought they'd wanted to. All they've got is awful old. But I heard +George Ramsey say he wouldn't swap one of those old mahogany pieces +for the best new thing to be bought. Well, everybody to their taste. +If I had had my house all fixed up that way, I should have wanted new +furniture to correspond." + +"What is George Ramsey doing?" asked Maria, with a little, conscious +blush of which she was ashamed. Maria, all her life, would blush +because people expected it of her. She knew as plainly as if she had +spoken, that her aunt Maria was considering suddenly the advantages +of a possible match between herself and George Ramsey. What Aunt +Maria said immediately confirmed this opinion. She spoke with a sort +of chary praise of George. Aunt Maria had in reality never liked the +Ramseys; she considered that they felt above her, and for no good +reason; still, she had an eye for the main chance. It flashed swiftly +across her mind that her niece was pretty, and George might lose his +heart to her and marry her, and then Mrs. Amelia Ramsey might have to +treat her like an equal and no longer hold her old, aristocratic head +so high. + +"Well," said she, "I suppose George Ramsey is pretty smart. They say +he is. I guess he favors his grandfather. His father wasn't any too +bright, if he was a Ramsey. George Ramsey, they say, worked his way +through college, used to be bell-boy or waiter or something in a +hotel summers, unbeknown to his mother. Amelia Ramsey would have had +a conniption fit if she had known that her precious boy was working +out. She used to talk as grand as you please about George's being +away on his vacation. Maybe she did know, but if she did she never +let on. I don't know as she let on even to herself. Amelia Ramsey is +one of the kind who can shut their eyes even when they look at +themselves. There never was a lookin'-glass made that could show +Amelia Ramsey anything she didn't want to see. I never had any +patience with her. I believe in being proud if you've got anything to +be proud of, but I don't see any sense in it otherwise. Anyhow, I +guess George is doing pretty well. A distant relation of his mother, +an Allen, not a Ramsey, got a place in a bank for him, they say, and +he gets good pay. I heard it was three thousand a year, but I don't +believe it. He ain't much over twenty, and it ain't likely. I don't +know jest how old he is. He's some older than you." + +"He's a good deal older than I," said Maria, remembering sundry +confidences with the tall, lanky boy over the garden fence. + +"Well, I don't know but he is," said Aunt Maria, "but I don't believe +he gets three thousand a year, anyhow." + +The next morning Maria, on her way to school in the rain, passing +under the unconquerable golden glow of the maples, cast a +surreptitious glance at the old Ramsey house as she passed. It had +been wonderfully changed for the better. Even the garden at the side +next her aunt's house was no longer a weedy enclosure, but displayed +an array of hardy flowers which the frost had not yet affected. +Marigolds tossed their golden and russet balls through the misty wind +of the rain, princess-feathers waved bravely, and chrysanthemums +showed in gorgeous clumps of rose and yellow and white. As she +passed, a tidy maid emerged from the front door and began sweeping +out the rain which had lodged in the old hollows of the stone stoop, +worn by the steps of generations. The rain flew before her plying +broom in a white foam. The maid wore a cap and a wide, white apron. +Maria reflected that the Ramseys had indeed come into palmier days, +since they kept a maid so attired. She thought of George Ramsey with +his patched trousers, and again the old feeling of repulsion and +wonder at herself that she could have had romantic dreams about him +came over her. Maria felt unutterably old that morning, and yet she +had a little, childish dread of her new duties. She was in reality +afraid of the school-children, although she did not show it. She got +through the day very creditably, although that night she was tired as +she had never been in her life, and, curiously enough, her sense of +smell seemed to be the most affected. Many of her pupils came from +poor families, the families of operatives in the paper-mills, and +their garments were shabby and unclean. Soaked with rain, they gave +out pungent odors. Maria's sense of smell was very highly developed. +It seemed to her that her very soul was permeated, her very thoughts +and imagination, with the odor of damp, unclean clothing, of draggled +gowns and wraps and hats and wet leather. She could not eat her +supper; she could not eat the luncheon which her aunt had put up for +her, since the school being a mile away, it was too far to walk home +for the noonday dinner in the rain. + +"You 'ain't eat hardly a mite of luncheon," Aunt Maria said when she +opened the box. + +"I did not feel very hungry," Maria replied, apologetically. + +"If you don't eat, you'll never hold out school-teaching in the +world," said Aunt Maria. + +She repeated it when Maria scarcely tasted her supper, although it +was a nice one--cold ham, and scrambled eggs, scrambled with cream, +and delicious slabs of layer-cake. "You'll never hold out in the +world if you don't eat," said she. + +"To tell the truth," replied Maria, "I can smell those poor +children's wet clothes so that it has taken away all my appetite." + +"Land! you'll have to get over that," said Aunt Maria. + +"It seems to me that everything smells and tastes of wet, dirty +clothes and shoes," said Maria. + +"You'll have to learn not to be so particular," said Aunt Maria, and +she spoke with the same affectionate severity that Maria remembered +in her mother. "Put it out of your mind," she added. + +"I can't," said Maria, and a qualm of nausea came over her. It was as +if the damp, unclean garments and the wet shoes were pressed close +under her nostrils. She looked pale. + +"Well, drink your tea, anyhow," said Aunt Maria, with a glance at her. + +After supper Aunt Maria, going into the other side of the house to +borrow some yeast, said to her brother Henry that she did not believe +that Maria would hold out to teach school. "She has come home sick on +account of the smells the very first day," said she, "and she hasn't +eat her supper, and she scarcely touched her luncheon." + +Henry Stillman laughed, a bitter, sardonic laugh which he had +acquired of late years. "Oh, well, she will get used to it," he +replied. "Don't you worry, Maria. She will get used to it. The smell +of the poor is the smell of the world. Heaven itself must be full of +it." + +His wife eyed him with a half-frightened air. "Why, don't talk so, +Henry!" she said. + +Henry Stillman laughed, half sardonically, half tenderly. "It is so, +my dear," he said, "but don't you worry about it." + +In these days Henry Stillman, although always maintaining his gentle +manner towards children and women, had become, in the depths of his +long-suffering heart, a rebel against fate. He had borne too long +that burden which is the heaviest and most ignoble in the world, the +burden of a sense of injury. He knew that he was fitted for better +things than he had. He thought that it was not his own personal fault +that he did not have them, and his very soul was curdling with a +conviction of wrong, both at the hands of men and God. In these days +he ceased going to church. He watched his wife and sister set out +every Sunday, and he stayed at home. He got a certain satisfaction +out of that. All who realize an injury have an amount of childishness +in acts of retaliation. He, Henry Stillman, actually had a conviction +that he was showing recrimination and wounding fate, which had so +injured him, if only with a pin-prick, by staying away from church. +After Maria came to live with them, she, too, went to church, but he +did not view her with the same sardonic air that he did the older +women, who had remained true to their faith in the face of disaster. +He looked at Maria, in her pretty little best gowns and hats, setting +forth, and a sweet tenderness for her love of God and belief +sweetened his own agnosticism. He would not for the world have said a +word to weaken the girl's faith nor to have kept her away from +church. He would have urged her to go had she manifested the +slightest inclination to remain at home. He was in a manner jealous +of the girl's losing what he had himself lost. He tried to refrain +from airing his morbid, bitter views of life to his wife, but once in +a while he could not restrain himself as now. However, he laughed so +naturally, and asked Maria, who presently came in, how many pupils +had been present, and how she liked school-teaching, that his wife +began to think that he had not been in earnest. + +"They are such poor, dirty little things," Maria said, "and their +clothes were wet, and--and--" A look of nausea overspread her face. + +"You will get used to that," said her uncle, laughing pleasantly. +"Eunice, haven't we got some cologne somewhere?" + +Eunice got a bottle of cologne, which was seldom used, being a +luxury, from a closet in the sitting-room, and put some on Maria's +handkerchief. "You won't think anything about it after a little," +said she, echoing her husband. + +"I suppose the scholars in Lowe Academy were a different class," said +Aunt Maria, who had seated herself as primly as ever, with her hands +crossed but not touching the lap of her black gown. The folds of the +skirt were carefully arranged, and she did not move after having once +seated herself, for fear of creasing it. + +"They were clean, at least," said Maria, with a little grimace of +disgust. "It does seem as if people might be clean, if they are poor." + +"Some folks here are too poor to buy soap and wash-cloths and +towels," her uncle said, still not bitterly. "You must take that into +account, Maria. It takes a little extra money even to keep clean; +people don't get that into their heads, generally speaking, but it is +so." + +"Well, I haven't had much money," said Aunt Maria, "but I must say I +have kept myself in soap and wash-rags and towels." + +"You might not have been able to if you had had half a dozen children +and a drinking husband, or one who was out of work half the time," +her brother said. + +An elderly blush spread over his sister's face. "Well, the Lord knows +I'd rather have the soap and towels and wash-rags than a drunken +husband and half a dozen dirty children," she retorted, sharply. + +"Lucky for you and the children that you have," said Henry. Then he +turned again to his niece, of whom he was very fond. "It won't rain +every day, dear," he said, "and the smells won't be so bad. Don't +worry." + +Maria smiled back at him bravely. "I shall get used to it," she said, +sniffing at the cologne, which was cheap and pretty bad. + +Maria was in reality dismayed. Her experience with children--that is, +her personal experience--had been confined to her sister Evelyn. +She compared dainty little Evelyn with the rough, uncouth, +half-degenerates which she had encountered that morning, sitting +before her with gaping mouths of stupidity or grins of impish +impudence, in their soiled, damp clothing, and her heart sank. There +was nothing in common except youth between these children, the +offspring of ignorance and often drunken sensuality, and Evelyn. At +first it seemed to her that there was absolutely no redeeming quality +in the whole. However, the next morning the sun shone through the +yellow maple boughs, and was reflected from the golden carpet of +leaves which the wind and rain of the day before had spread beneath. +The children were dry; some of them had become ingratiating, even +affectionate. She discovered that there were a number of pretty +little girls and innocent, honest little boys, whose mothers had made +pathetic attempts to send them clean and whole to school. She also +discovered that some of them had reasonably quick intelligence, +especially one girl, by name Jessy Ramsey. She was of a distant +branch of the old Ramseys, and had a high, spiritual forehead, from +which the light hair was smoothly combed in damp ridges, and a +delicate face with serious, intent blue eyes, under brows strangely +pent for a child. Maria straightway took a fancy to Jessy Ramsey. +When, on her way home at night, the child timidly followed in her +wake, she reached out and grasped her tiny hand with a warm pressure. + +"You learned your lessons very well, Jessy," she said, and the +child's face, as she looked up at her, grew positively brilliant. + +When Maria got home she enthused about her. + +"There is one child in the school who is a wonder," said she. + +"Who?" asked Aunt Maria. She was in her heart an aristocrat. She +considered the people of Amity--that is, the manufacturing people +(she exempted her own brother as she might have exempted a prince of +the blood drawn into an ignoble pursuit from dire necessity)--as +distinctly below par. Maria's school was across the river. She +regarded all the children below par. "I do wish you could have had a +school this side of the river," she added, "but Miss Norcross has +held the other ten years, and I don't believe she will ever get +married, she is so mortal homely, and they like her. Who is the child +you are talking about?" + +"Her name is Ramsey, Jessy Ramsey." + +Aunt Maria sniffed. "Oh!" said she. "She belongs to that Eugene +Ramsey tribe." + +"Any relation to the Ramseys next door?" asked Maria. + +"About a tenth cousin, I guess," replied Aunt Maria. "There was a +Eugene Ramsey did something awful years ago, before I was born, and +he got into state-prison, and then when he came out he married as low +as he could. They have never had anything to do with these Ramseys. +They are just as low as they can be--always have been." + +"This little girl is pretty, and bright," said Maria. + +Aunt Maria sniffed again. "Well, you'll see how she'll turn out," she +said. "Never yet anything good came of that Eugene Ramsey tribe. That +child's father drinks like a fish, and he's been in prison, and her +mother's no better than she should be, and she's got a sister that +everybody talks about--has ever since she was so high." + +"This seems like a good little girl," said Maria. + +"Wait and see," said Aunt Maria. + +But for all that Maria felt herself drawn towards this poor little +offspring of the degenerate branch of the Ramseys. There was +something about the child's delicate, intellectual, fairly noble cast +of countenance which at once aroused her affection and pity. It was +in December, on a bitterly cold day, when Maria had been teaching in +Amity some two months, when this affection and pity ripened into +absolute fondness and protection. The children were out in the bare +school-yard during the afternoon recess, when Maria, sitting huddled +over the stove for warmth, heard such a clamor that she ran to the +window. Out in the desolate yard, a parallelogram of frozen soil +hedged in with a high board fence covered with grotesque, and even +obscene, drawings of pupils who had from time to time reigned in +district number six, was the little Ramsey girl, surrounded by a +crowd of girls who were fairly yelping like little mongrel dogs. The +boys' yard was on the other side of the fence, but in the fence was a +knot-hole wherein was visible a keen boy-eye. One girl after another +was engaged in pulling to the height of her knees Jessy Ramsey's +poor, little, dirty frock, thereby disclosing her thin, naked legs, +absolutely uncovered to the freezing blast. Maria rushed bareheaded +out in the yard and thrust herself through the crowd of little girls. + +"Girls, what are you doing?" she asked, sternly. + +"Please, teacher, Jessy Ramsey, she 'ain't got nothin' at all on +under her dress," piped one after another, in accusing tones; then +they yelped again. + +Tears of pity and rage sprang to Maria's eyes. She caught hold of the +thin little shoulder, which was, beyond doubt, covered by nothing +except her frock, and turned furiously upon the other girls. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" said she; "great girls like +you making fun of this poor child!" + +"She had ought to be ashamed of herself goin' round so," retorted the +biggest girl in school, Alice Sweet, looking boldly at Maria. "She +ain't no better than her ma. My ma says so." + +"My ma says I mustn't go with her," said another girl. + +"Both of you go straight into the school-house," said Maria, at a +white heat of anger as she impelled poor little Jessy Ramsey out of +the yard. + +"I don't care," said Alice Sweet, with quite audible impudence. + +The black eye at the knot-hole in the fence which separated the +girls' yard from the boys' was replaced by a blue one. Maria's +attention was attracted towards it by an audible titter from the +other side. + +"Every one of you boys march straight into the school-house," she +called. Then she led Jessy into a little room which was dedicated to +the teacher's outside wraps. The room was little more than a closet, +and very cold. Maria put her arm around Jessy and felt with horror +the little, naked body under the poor frock. + +"For Heaven's sake, child, why are you out with so little on such a +day as this?" she cried out. + +Jessy began to cry. She had heretofore maintained a sullen silence of +depression under taunts, but a kind word was too much for her. + +"I 'ain't got no underclothes, teacher; I 'ain't, honest," she +sobbed. "I'd outgrowed all my last year's ones, and Mamie she's got +'em; and my mother she 'ain't got no money to buy any more, and my +father he's away on a drunk. I can't help it; I can't, honest, +teacher." + +Maria gazed at the little thing in a sort of horror. "Do you mean to +say that you have actually nothing to put on but your dress, Jessy +Ramsey?" said she. + +"I can't help it, honest, teacher," sobbed Jessy Ramsey. + +Maria continued to gaze at her, then she led her into the school-room +and rang the bell furiously. When the scholars were all in their +places, she opened her lips to express her mind to them, but a +second's reflection seemed to show her the futility of it. Instead, +she called the geography class. + +After school that night, Maria, instead of going home, went straight +to Jessy Ramsey's home, which was about half a mile from the +school-house. She held Jessy, who wore a threadbare little cape over +her frock, by the hand. Franky Ramsey and Mamie Ramsey, Jessy's +younger brother and sister, tagged timidly behind her. Finally, Maria +waited for them to come up with her, which they did with a cringing +air. + +"I want to know," said Maria to Mamie, "if you are wearing all your +sister's underclothes this winter?" + +Mamie whimpered a little as she replied. Mamie had a habitual whimper +and a mean little face, with a wisp of flaxen hair tied with a dirty +blue ribbon. + +"Yes, ma'am," she replied. "Jessy she growed so she couldn't git into +'em, and mummer--" + +The boy, who was very thin, almost to emaciation, and looked +consumptive, but who was impishly pert, cut in. + +"I had to wear Jessy's shirts," he said. "Mamie she couldn't wear +them 'ere." + +"So you haven't any flannel shirts?" Maria asked of Mamie. + +"I'm wearin' mummer's," said Mamie. "Mummer's they shrunk so she +couldn't wear 'em, and Jessy couldn't nuther." + +"What is your mother wearing?" asked Maria. + +"Mr. John Dorsey he bought her some new ones," replied Mamie, and a +light of evil intelligence came into the mean little face. + +"Who is Mr. John Dorsey?" asked Maria. + +"Oh, he's to our house considerable," replied Mamie, still with that +evil light, which grew almost confidential, upon her face. + +The boy chuckled a little and dug his toes into the frozen earth, +then he whistled. + +The Ramsey house was the original old homestead of the family. It was +unspeakably decrepit and fallen from a former high estate. The old +house presented to Maria's fancy something in itself degraded and +loathsome. It seemed to partake actually of the character of its +inmates--to be stained and swollen and out of plumb with +unmentionable sins of degeneration. It was a very poisonous fungus of +a house, with blotches of paint here and there, with its front +portico supported drunkenly on swaying pillars, with its roof +hollowed about the chimney, with great stains here and there upon the +walls, which seemed like stains of sin rather than of old rains. +Maria marched straight to the house, leading Jessy, with Mamie and +Franky at her heels. She knocked on the door; there was no bell, of +course. But Franky pushed past her and opened the door, and sang out, +in his raucous voice: + +"Hullo, mummer! Mummer!" + +Mamie echoed him in her equally raucous voice, full of dissonances. +"Mummer! Mummer!" + +A woman, large and dirty, but rather showily clad, with a brave +display of cheap jewelry, appeared in the doorway of a room on the +right, from which also issued a warm, spirituous odor, mingled with +onions and boiling meat. The woman, who had at one time been weakly +pretty, and even now was not bad-looking, stared with a sort of +vacant defiance at Maria. + +"It's teacher, mummer," volunteered Mamie. + +Franky chuckled again, and again whistled. Franky's chuckles and +whistles were characteristic of him. He often disturbed the school in +such fashion. + +Maria had a vision of a man in his shirt-sleeves, smoking beside a +red-hot stove, on which boiled the meat and onions. She began at once +upon her errand. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Ramsey?" said she. + +The woman mumbled something inarticulate and backed a little. The man +in the room leaned forward and rolled bloodshot eyes at her. Maria +began at once. She had much of her mother's spirit, which, when it +was aroused, balked at nothing. She pointed at Jessy, then she +extended her small index-finger severely at Mrs. Ramsey. + +"Mrs. Ramsey," said she, and she stood so straight that she looked +much taller, her blue eyes flashed like steel at the slinking ones of +the older woman, "I want to inquire why you sent this child to school +such a day as this in such a condition?" + +Mrs. Ramsey again murmured something inarticulate and backed still +farther. Maria followed her quite into the room. A look of insolent +admiration became evident in the bloodshot eyes of the man beside the +stove. Maria had no false modesty when she was righteously incensed. +She would have said just the same before a room full of men. + +"That child," she said, and she again pointed at Jessy, shivering in +her little, scanty frock--"that child came to school to-day without +any clothing under her dress; one of the coldest days of the year, +too. I don't see what you are thinking of, you, her own mother, to +let a child go out in such a condition! You ought to be ashamed of +yourself!" + +Then the woman crimsoned with wrath and she found speech, the patois +of New England, instead of New Jersey, to which Maria was accustomed, +and which she understood. This woman, instead of half speaking, ran +all her words together in a coarse, nasal monotone. + +"Hadn't nothin' to put on her," she said. "She'd outgrowed all she +had, hadn't nothin', mind your own business, go 'long home, where you +b'long." + +Maria understood the last words, and she replied, fiercely, "I am not +going home one step until you promise me you'll get decent underwear +for this child to wear to school," said she, "and that you won't +allow her to go out-of-doors in this condition again. If you do, I'll +have you arrested." + +The woman's face grew redder. She made a threatening movement towards +Maria, but the man beside the stove unexpectedly arose and slouched +between them, grinning and feeling in his pocket, whence he withdrew +two one-dollar notes. + +"Here," he said, in a growling voice, which was nevertheless intended +to be ingratiating. "Go 'n' buy the young one somethin' to go to +school in. Don't yer mind." + +Maria half extended her hand, then she drew it back. She looked at +the man, who exhaled whiskey as a fungus an evil perfume. She glanced +at Mrs. Ramsey. + +"Is this man your father?" she asked of Jessy. + +Immediately the boy burst into a peal of meaning laughter. The man +himself chuckled, then looked grave, with an effort, as he stood +extending the money. + +"Better take 'em an' buy the young one some clothes," he said. + +"Who is this man?" demanded Maria, severely, of the laughing boy. + +"It's Mr. John Dorsey," replied Franky. + +Then a light of the underneath evil fire of the world broke upon +Maria's senses. She repelled the man haughtily. + +"I don't want your money," said she. "But"--she turned to the +woman--"if you send that child to school again, clothed as she is +to-day, I will have you arrested. I mean it." With that she was gone, +with a proud motion. Laughter rang out after her, also a scolding +voice and an oath. She did not turn her head. She marched straight on +out of the yard, to the street, and home. + +She could not eat her supper. She had a sick, shocked feeling. + +"What is the matter?" her aunt Maria asked. "It's so cold you can't +have been bothered with the smells to-day." + +"It's worse than smells," replied Maria. Then she told her story. + +Her aunt stared at her. "Good gracious! You didn't go to that awful +house, a young girl like you?" she said, and her prim cheeks burned. +"Why, that man's livin' right there with Mrs. Ramsey, and her husband +winking at it! They are awful people!" + +"I would have gone anywhere to get that poor child clothed decently," +said Maria. + +"But you wouldn't take his money!" + +"I rather guess I wouldn't!" + +"Well, I don't blame you, but I don't see what is going to be done." + +"I don't," said Maria, helplessly. She reflected how she had disposed +already of her small stipend, and would not have any more for some +time, and how her own clothing no more than sufficed for her. + +"I can't give her a thing," said Aunt Maria. "I'm wearin' flannels +myself that are so patched there isn't much left of the first of 'em, +and it's just so with the rest of my clothes. I'm wearin' a petticoat +made out of a comfortable my mother made before Henry was married. It +was quilted fine, and had a small pattern, if it is copperplate, but +I don't darse hold my dress up only just so. I wouldn't have anybody +know it for the world. And I know Eunice ain't much better off. They +had that big doctor's bill, and I know she's patched and darned so +she'd be ashamed of her life if she fell down on the ice and broke a +bone. I tell you what it is, those other Ramseys ought to do +something. I don't care if they are such distant relations, they +ought to do something." + +After supper Maria and her aunt went into the other side of the +house, and Aunt Maria, who had been waxing fairly explosive, told the +tale of poor little Jessy Ramsey going to school with no +undergarments. + +"It's a shame!" said Eunice, who was herself nervous and easily +aroused to indignation. She sat up straight and the hollows on her +thin cheeks blazed, and her thin New England mouth tightened. + +"George Ramsey ought to do something if he is earning as much as they +say he is," said Aunt Maria. + +"That is so," said Eunice. "It doesn't make any difference if they +are so distantly related. It is the same name and the same blood." + +Henry Stillman laughed his sardonic laugh. "You can't expect the +flowers to look out for the weeds," he said. "George Ramsey and his +mother are in full blossom; they have fixed up their house and are +holding up their heads. You can't expect them to look out for poor +relations who have gone to the bad, and done worse--got too poor to +buy clothes enough to keep warm." + +Maria suddenly sprang to her feet. "I know what I am going to do," +she announced, with decision, and made for the door. + +"What on earth are you going to do?" asked her aunt Maria. + +"I am going straight in there, and I am going to tell them how that +poor little thing came to school to-day, and tell them they ought to +be ashamed of themselves." + +Before the others fairly realized what she was doing, Maria was out +of the house, running across the little stretch which intervened. Her +aunt Maria called after her, but she paid no attention. She was at +that moment ringing the Ramsey bell, with her pretty, uncovered hair +tossing in the December wind. + +"She will catch her own death of cold," said Aunt Maria, "running out +without anything on her head." + +"She will just get patronized for her pains," said Eunice, who had a +secret grudge against the Ramseys for their prosperity and their +renovated house, a grudge which she had not ever owned to her inmost +self, but which nevertheless existed. + +"She doesn't stop to think one minute; she's just like her father +about that," said Aunt Maria. + +Henry Stillman said nothing. He took up his paper, which he had been +reading when Maria and his sister entered. + +Meantime, Maria was being ushered into the Ramsey house by a maid who +wore a white cap. The first thing which she noticed as she entered +the house was a strong fragrance of flowers. That redoubled her +indignation. + +"These Ramseys can buy flowers in midwinter," she thought, "while +their own flesh and blood go almost naked." + +She entered the room in which the flowers were, a great bunch of pink +carnations in a tall, green vase. The room was charming. It was not +only luxurious, but gave evidences of superior qualities in its +owners. It was empty when Maria entered, but soon Mrs. Ramsey and her +son came in. Maria recognized with a start her old acquaintance, or +rather she did not recognize him. She would not have known him at all +had she not seen him in his home. She had not seen him before, for he +had been away ever since she had come to Amity. He had been West on +business for his bank. Now he at once stepped forward and spoke to +her. + +"You are my old friend, Miss Edgham, I think," he said. "Allow me to +present my mother." + +Maria bowed perforce before the very gentle little lady in a soft +lavender cashmere, with her neck swathed in laces, but she did not +accept the offered seat, and she utterly disregarded the glance of +astonishment which both mother and son gave at her uncovered +shoulders and head. Maria's impetuosity had come to her from two +sides. When it was in flood, so to speak, nothing could stop it. + +"No, thank you, I can't sit down," she said. "I came on an errand. +You are related, I believe, to the other Ramseys. The children go to +my school. There are Mamie and Franky and Jessy." + +"We are very distantly related, and, on the whole, proud of the +distance rather than the relationship," said George Ramsey, with a +laugh. + +Then Maria turned fiercely upon him. "You ought to be ashamed of +yourself," said she. + +The young man stared at her. + +Maria persisted. "Yes, you ought," she said. "I don't care how +distant the relationship is, the same blood is in your veins, and you +bear the same name." + +"Why, what is the matter?" asked George Ramsey, still in a puzzled, +amused voice. + +Maria spoke out. "That poor little Jessy Ramsey," said she, "and she +is the prettiest and brightest scholar I have, too, came to school +to-day without a single stitch of clothing under her dress. It is a +wonder she didn't die. I don't know but she will die, and if she does +it will be your fault." + +George Ramsey's face suddenly sobered; his mother's flushed. She +looked at him, then at Maria, almost with fright. She felt really +afraid of this forcible girl, who was so very angry and so very +pretty in her anger. Maria had never looked prettier than she did +then, with her cheeks burning and her blue eyes flashing with +indignation and defiance. + +"That is terrible, such a day as this," said George Ramsey. + +"Yes; I had no idea they were quite so badly off," murmured his +mother. + +"You ought to have had some idea," flashed out Maria. + +"We had not, Miss Edgham," said George, gently. "You must remember +how very distant the relationship is. I believe it begins with the +fourth generation from myself. And there are other reasons--" + +"There ought not to be other reasons," Maria said. + +Mrs. Ramsey looked with wonder and something like terror and aversion +at this pretty, violent girl, who was espousing so vehemently, not to +say rudely, the cause of the distant relatives of her husband's +family. The son, however, continued to smile amusedly at Maria. + +"Won't you sit down, Miss Edgham?" he said. + +"Yes, won't you sit down?" his mother repeated, feebly. + +"No, thank you," said Maria. "I only came about this. I--I would do +something for the poor little thing myself, but I haven't any money +now, and Aunt Maria would, and Uncle Henry, and Aunt Eunice, but +they--" + +All at once Maria, who was hardly more than a child herself, and who +had been in reality frightfully wrought up over the piteous plight of +the other child, lost control of herself. She began to cry. She put +her handkerchief to her face and sobbed helplessly. + +"The poor little thing! oh, the poor little thing!" she panted, "with +nobody in the world to do anything for her, and her own people so +terribly wicked. I--can't bear it!" + +The first thing she knew, Maria was having a large, soft cloak folded +around her, and somebody was leading her gently to the door. She +heard a murmured good-night, to which she did not respond except by a +sob, and was led, with her arm rather closely held, along the +sidewalk to her own door. At the door George Ramsey took her hand, +and she felt something pressed softly into it. + +"If you will please buy what the poor little thing needs to make her +comfortable," he whispered. + +"Thank you," Maria replied, faintly. She began to be ashamed of her +emotion. + +"You must not think that my mother and I were knowing to this," +George Ramsey said. "We are really such very distant relations that +the name alone is the only bond between us; still, on general +principles, if the name had been different, I would do what I could. +Such suffering is terrible. You must not think us hard-hearted, Miss +Edgham." + +Maria looked up at the young fellow's face, upon which an electric +light shone fully, and it was a good face to see. She could not at +all reconcile it with her memory of the rather silly little boy with +the patched trousers, with whom she had discoursed over the garden +fence. This face was entirely masterly, dark and clean-cut, with fine +eyes, and a distinctly sweet expression about the mouth which he had +inherited from his mother. + +"I suppose I was very foolish," Maria said, in a low voice. "I am +afraid I was rude to your mother. I did not mean to be, but the poor +little thing, and this bitter day, and I went home with her, and +there was a dreadful man there who offered me money to buy things for +her--" + +"I hope you did not take it," George Ramsey said, quickly. + +"No." + +"I am glad of that. They are a bad lot. I don't know about this +little girl. She may be a survival of the fittest, but take them all +together they are a bad lot, if they are my relatives. Good-night, +Miss Edgham, and I beg you not to distress yourself about it all." + +"I am very sorry if I was rude," Maria said, and she spoke like a +little girl. + +"You were not rude at all," George responded, quickly. "You were only +all worked up over such suffering, and it did you credit. You were +not rude at all." He shook hands again with Maria. Then he asked if +he might call and see her sometime. Maria said yes, and fled into the +house. + +She went into her aunt Maria's side of the house, and ran straight +up-stairs to her own room. Presently she heard doors opening and +shutting and knew that her aunt was curiously following her from the +other side. She came to Maria's door, which was locked. Aunt Maria +was not surprised at that, as Maria always locked her door at +night--she herself did the same. + +"Have you gone to bed?" called Aunt Maria. + +"Yes," replied Maria, who had, indeed, hurriedly hustled herself into +bed. + +"Gone to bed early as this?" said Aunt Maria. + +"I am dreadfully tired," replied Maria. + +"Did they give you anything? Why didn't you come into the other side +and tell us about it?" + +"Mr. George Ramsey gave me ten dollars." + +"Gracious!" said Aunt Maria. + +Presently she spoke again. "What did they say?" she asked. + +"Not much of anything." + +"Gave you ten dollars?" said Aunt Maria. "Well, you can get enough to +make her real comfortable with that. Didn't you get chilled through +going over there without anything on?" + +"No," replied Maria, and as she spoke she realized, in the moonlit +room, a mass of fur-lined cloak over a chair. She had forgotten to +return it to George Ramsey. "I had Mrs. Ramsey's cloak coming home," +she called. + +"Well, I'm glad you did. It's awful early to go to bed. Don't you +want something?" + +"No, thank you." + +"Don't you want me to heat a soapstone and fetch it up to you?" + +"No, thank you." + +"Well, good-night," said Aunt Maria, in a puzzled voice. + +"Good-night," said Maria. Then she heard her aunt go away. + +It was a long time before Maria went to sleep. She awoke about two +o'clock in the morning and was conscious of having been awakened by a +strange odor, a combined odor of camphor and lavender, which came +from Mrs. Ramsey's cloak. It disturbed her, although she could not +tell why. Then all at once she saw, as plainly as if he were really +in the room, George Ramsey's face. At first a shiver of delight came +over her; then she shuddered. A horror, as of one under conviction of +sin, came over her. It was as if she repelled an evil angel from her +door, for she remembered all at once what had happened to her, and +that it was a sin for her even to dream of George Ramsey; and she had +allowed him to come into her waking dreams. She got out of bed, took +up the soft cloak, thrust it into her closet, and shut the door. Then +she climbed shivering back into bed, and lay there in the moonlight, +entangled in the mystery of life. + + + +Chapter XIX + + +The very next day, which was Saturday, and consequently a holiday, +Maria went on the trolley to Westbridge, which was a provincial city +about six miles from Amity. She proposed buying some clothing for +Jessy Ramsey with the ten dollars which George Ramsey had given her. +Her aunt Eunice accompanied her. + +"George Ramsey goes over to Westbridge on the trolley," said Eunice, +as they jolted along--the cars were very well equipped, but the road +was rough--"and I shouldn't wonder if he was on our car coming back." + +Maria colored quickly and looked out of the window. The cars were +constructed like those on steam railroads, with seats facing towards +the front, and Maria's aunt had insisted upon her sitting next to the +window because the view was in a measure new to her. She had not been +over the road many times since she had come to Amity. She stared out +at the trimly kept country road, lined with cheap Queen Anne houses +and the older type of New England cottages and square frame houses, +and it all looked strange to her after the red soil and the lapse +towards Southern ease and shiftlessness of New Jersey. But nothing +that she looked upon was as strange as the change in her own heart. +Maria, from being of an emotional nature, had many times considered +herself as being in love, young as she was, but this was different. +When her aunt Eunice spoke of George Ramsey she felt a rigid shiver +from head to foot. It seemed to her that she could not see him nor +speak to him, that she could not return to Amity on the same car. She +made no reply at first to her aunt's remark, but finally she said, in +a faint voice, that she supposed Mr. Ramsey came home after bank +hours at three o'clock. + +"He comes home a good deal later than that, as a general thing," said +Eunice. "Oftener than not I see him get off the car at six o'clock. I +guess he stays and works after bank hours. George Ramsey is a worker, +if there ever was one. He's a real likely young man." + +Maria felt Eunice's eyes upon her, and realized that she was +thinking, as her aunt Maria had done, that George Ramsey would be a +good match for her. A sort of desperation seized upon her. + +"I don't know what you mean by likely," Maria said, impertinently, in +her shame and defiance. + +"Don't know what I mean by likely?" + +"No, I don't. People in New Jersey don't say likely." + +"Why, I mean he is a good young man, and likely to turn out well," +responded Eunice, rather helplessly. She was a very gentle woman, and +had all her life been more or less intimidated by her husband's and +sister-in-laws' more strenuous natures; and, if the truth were told, +she stood in a little awe of this blooming young niece, with her +self-possession and clothes of the New York fashion. + +"I don't see why he is more _likely_, as you call it, than any other +young man," Maria returned, pitilessly. "I should call him a very +ordinary young man." + +"He isn't called so generally," Eunice said, feebly. + +They were about half an hour reaching Westbridge. Eunice by that time +had plucked up a little spirit. She reflected that Maria knew almost +nothing about the shopping district, and she herself had shopped +there all her life since she had been of shopping age. Eunice had a +great respect for the Westbridge stores, and considered them +distinctly superior to those of Boston. She was horrified when Maria +observed, shortly before they got off the car, that she supposed they +could have done much better in Boston. + +"I guess you will find that Adams & Wood's is as good a store as any +you could go to in New York," said Eunice. "Then there is the Boston +Store, too, and Collins & Green's. All of them are very good, and +they have a good assortment. Hardly anybody in Amity goes anywhere +else shopping, they think the Westbridge stores so much better." + +"Of course it is cheaper to come here," said Maria, as they got off +the car in front of Adams & Wood's. + +"That isn't the reason," said Eunice, eagerly. "Why, Mrs. Judge +Saunders buys 'most everything here; says she can do enough sight +better than she can anywhere else." + +"If the dress Mrs. Saunders had on at the church supper was a sample, +she dresses like a perfect guy," said Maria, as they entered the +store, with its two pretentious show-windows filled with waxen ladies +dressed in the height of the fashion, standing in the midst of +symmetrically arranged handkerchiefs and rugs. + +Maria knew that she was even cruelly pert to her aunt, but she felt +like stinging--like crowding some of the stings out of her own heart. +She asked herself was ever any girl so horribly placed as she was, +married, and not married; and now she had seen some one else whom she +must shun and try to hate, although she wished to love him. Maria +felt instinctively, remembering the old scenes over the garden fence, +and remembering how she herself had looked that very day as she +started out, with her puffy blue velvet turban rising above the soft +roll of her fair hair and her face blooming through a film of brown +lace, and also remembering George Ramsey's tone as he asked if he +might call, that if she were free that things might happen with her +as with other girls; that she and George Ramsey might love each +other, and become engaged; that she might save her school money for a +trousseau, and by-and-by be married to a man of whom she should be +very proud. The patches on George Ramsey's trousers became very dim +to her. She admired him from the depths of her heart. + +"I guess we had better look at flannels first," Eunice said. "It +won't do to get all wool, aside from the expense, for with that +Ramsey woman's washing it wouldn't last any time." + +She and her aunt made most of their purchases in Adams & Wood's. They +succeeded in obtaining quite a comfortable little outfit for Jessy +Ramsey, and at last boarded a car laden with packages. Eunice had a +fish-net bag filled to overflowing, but Maria, who, coming from the +vicinity of New York, looked down on bags, carried her parcels in her +arms. + +Directly they were seated in the car Eunice gave Maria a violent +nudge with her sharp elbow. "He's on this car," she whispered in her +ear, with a long hiss which seemed to penetrate the girl's brain. + +Maria made an impatient movement. + +"Don't you think you ought to just step over and thank him?" +whispered Eunice. "I'll hold your bundles. He's on the other side, a +seat farther back. He raised his hat to me." + +"Hush! I can't here." + +"Well, all right, but I thought it would look sort of polite," said +Eunice. Then she subsided. Once in a while she glanced back at George +Ramsey, then uneasily at her niece, but she said nothing more. + +The car was crowded. Workmen smelling of leather clung to the straps. +One, in the aisle next Maria, who sat on the outside this time, +leaned fairly against her. He was a good-looking young fellow, but he +had a heavy jaw. He held an unlighted pipe in his mouth, and carried +a two-story tin dinner-pail. Maria kept shrinking closer to her aunt, +but the young man pressed against her all the more heavily. His eyes +were fixed with seeming unconsciousness ahead, but a furtive smile +lurked around his mouth. + +George Ramsey was watching. All at once he arose and quietly and +unobtrusively came forward, insinuated himself with a gentle force +between Maria and the workman, and spoke to her. The workman muttered +something under his breath, but moved aside. He gave an ugly glance +at George, who did not seem to see him at all. Presently he sat down +in George's vacated seat beside another man, who said something to +him with a coarse chuckle. The man growled in response, and continued +to scowl furtively at George, who stood talking to Maria. He said +something about the fineness of the day, and Maria responded rather +gratefully. She was conscious of an inward tumult which alarmed her, +and made her defiant both at the young man and herself, but she could +not help responding to the sense of protection which she got from his +presence. She had not been accustomed to anything like the rudeness +of the young workman. In New Jersey caste was more clearly defined. +Here it was not defined at all. An employe in a shoe-factory had not +the slightest conception that he was not the social equal of a +school-teacher, and indeed in many cases he was. There were by no +means all like this one, whose mere masculine estate filled him with +entire self-confidence where women were concerned. In a sense his +ignorance was pathetic. He had honestly thought that the pretty, +strange girl must like his close contact, and he felt aggrieved that +this other young man, who did not smell of leather and carried no +dinner-pail, had ousted him. He viewed Maria's delicate profile with +a sort of angry tenderness. + +"Say, she's a beaut, ain't she?" whispered the man beside him, with a +malicious grin, and again got a surly growl in response. + +Maria finally, much to her aunt's delight, said to George that they +had been shopping, and thanked him for the articles which his money +had enabled them to buy. + +"The poor little thing can go to school now," said Maria. There was +gratitude in her voice, and yet, oddly enough, still a tinge of +reproach. + +"If mother and I had dreamed of the true state of affairs we would +have done something before," George Ramsey said, with an accent of +apology; and yet he could not see for the life of him why he should +be apologetic for the poverty of these degenerate relatives of his. +He could not see why he was called upon to be his brother's keeper in +this case, but there was something about Maria's serious, accusing +gaze of blue eyes, and her earnest voice, that made him realize that +he could prostrate himself before her for uncommitted sins. Somehow, +Maria made him feel responsible for all that he might have done wrong +as well as his actual wrong-doing, although he laughed at himself for +his mental attitude. Suddenly a thought struck him. "When are you +going to take all these things (how you ever managed to get so much +for ten dollars I don't understand) to the child?" he asked, eagerly. + +Maria replied, unguardedly, that she intended to take them after +supper that night. "Then she will have them all ready for Monday," +she said. + +"Then let me go with you and carry the parcels," George Ramsey said, +eagerly. + +Maria stiffened. "Thank you," she said, "but Uncle Henry is going +with me, and there is no need." + +Maria felt her aunt Eunice give a sudden start and make an +inarticulate murmur of remonstrance, then she checked herself. Maria +knew that her uncle walked a mile from his factory to save car-fare; +she knew also that she was telling what was practically an untruth, +since she had made no agreement with her uncle to accompany her. + +"I should be happy to go with you," said George Ramsey, in a boyish, +abashed voice. + +Maria said nothing more. She looked past her aunt out of the window. +The full moon was rising, and all at once all the girl's sweet light +of youthful romance appeared again above her mental horizon. She felt +that it would be almost heaven to walk with George Ramsey in that +delicious moonlight, in the clear, frosty air, and take little Jessy +Ramsey her gifts. Maria was of an almost abnormal emotional nature, +although there was little that was material about the emotion. She +dreamed of that walk as she might have dreamed of a walk with a fairy +prince through fairy-land, and her dream was as innocent, but it +unnerved her. She said again, in a tremulous voice, that she was very +much obliged, and murmured something again about her uncle Henry; and +George Ramsey replied, with a certain sober dignity, that he should +have been very happy. + +Soon after that the car stopped to let off some passengers, and +George moved to a vacant seat in front. He did not turn around again. +Maria looked at his square shoulders and again gazed past her aunt at +the full orb of the moon rising with crystalline splendor in the pale +amber of the east. There was a clear gold sunset which sent its +reflection over the whole sky. + +Presently, Eunice spoke in her little, deprecating voice, which had a +slight squeak. + +"Did you speak to your uncle Henry about going with you this +evening?" she asked. + +"No, I didn't," admitted Maria, reddening, "but I knew he would be +willing." + +"I suppose he will be," said Eunice. "But he does get home awful +tuckered out Saturday nights, and he always takes his bath Saturday +nights, too." + +Eunice looked out of the window with a slight frown. She adored her +husband, and the thought of that long walk for him on his weary +Saturday evening, and the possible foregoing of his bath, troubled +her. + +"I don't believe George Ramsey liked it," she whispered, after a +little. + +"I can't help it if he didn't," replied Maria. "I can't go with him, +Aunt Eunice." + +As they jolted along, Maria made up her mind that she would not ask +her uncle to go with her at all; that she would slip out unknown to +Aunt Maria and ask the girl who lived in the house on the other side, +Lily Merrill, to go with her. She thought that two girls need not be +afraid, and she could start early. + +As she parted from her aunt Eunice at the door of the house, after +they had left the car (Eunice's door was on the side where the +Ramseys lived, and Maria's on the Merrill side), she told her of her +resolution. + +"Don't say anything to Uncle Henry about going with me," said she. + +"Why, what are you going to do?" + +"I'll get Lily Merrill. I know she won't mind." + +Maria and Lily Merrill had been together frequently since Maria had +come to Amity, and Eunice accounted them as intimate. She looked +hesitatingly a second at her niece, then she said, with an evident +air of relief: + +"Well, I don't know but you can. It's bright moonlight, and it's late +in the season for tramps. I don't see why you two girls can't go +together, if you start early." + +"We'll start right after supper," said Maria. + +"I would," said Eunice, still with an air of relief. + +Maria took her aunt's fish-net bag, as well as her own parcels, and +carried them around to her aunt Maria's side of the house, and +deposited them on the door-step. There was a light in the kitchen, +and she could see her aunt Maria's shadow moving behind the curtain, +preparing supper. Then she ran across the yard, over the frozen +furrows of a last year's garden, and knocked at the side-door of the +Merrill house. + +Lily herself opened the door, and gave a little, loving cry of +surprise. "Why, is it you, dear?" she said. + +"Yes. I want to know if you can go over the river with me to-night on +an errand?" + +"Over the river? Where?" + +"Oh, only to Jessy Ramsey's. Aunt Eunice and I have been to +Westbridge and bought these things for her, and I want to carry them +to her to-night. I thought maybe you would go with me." + +Lily hesitated. "It's a pretty lonesome walk," said she, "and there +are an awful set of people on the other side of the river." + +"Oh, nonsense!" cried Maria. "You aren't afraid--we two together--and +it's bright moonlight, as bright as day." + +"Yes, I know it is," replied Lily, gazing out at the silver light +which flooded everything, but she still hesitated. A light in the +house behind gave her a background of light. She was a beautiful +girl, prettier than Maria, taller, and with a timid, pliant grace. +Her brown hair tossed softly over her big, brown eyes, which were +surmounted by strongly curved eyebrows, her nose was small, and her +mouth, and she had a fascinating little way of holding her lips +slightly parted, as if ready for a loving word or a kiss. Everybody +said that Lily Merrill had a beautiful disposition, albeit some +claimed that she lacked force. Maria dominated her, although she did +not herself know it. Lily continued to hesitate with her beautiful, +startled brown eyes on Maria's face. + +"Aren't you afraid?" she said. + +"Afraid? No. What should I be afraid of? Why, it's bright moonlight! +I would just as soon go at night as in the daytime when the moon is +bright." + +"That is an awful man who lives at the Ramseys'!" + +"Nonsense! I guess if he tried to bother us, Mrs. Ramsey would take +care of him," said Maria. "Come along, Lily. I would ask Uncle Henry, +but it is the night when he takes his bath, and he comes home tired." + +"Well, I'll go if mother will let me," said Lily. + +Then Lily called to her mother, who came to the sitting-room door in +response. + +"Mother," said Lily, "Maria wants me to go over to the Ramseys', +those on the other side of the river, after supper, and carry these +things to Jessy." + +"Aren't you afraid?" asked Lily's mother, as Lily herself had done. +She was a faded but still pretty woman who had looked like her +daughter in her youth. She was a widow with some property, enough for +her Lily and herself to live on in comfort. + +"Why, it's bright moonlight, Mrs. Merrill," said Maria, "and the +Ramseys live just the other side of the river." + +"Well, if Lily isn't afraid, I don't care," said Mrs. Merrill. She +had an ulterior motive for her consent, of which neither of the two +girls suspected her. She was smartly dressed, and her hair was +carefully crimped, and she had, as always in the evening, hopes that +a certain widower, the resident physician of Amity, Dr. Ellridge, +might call. He had noticed her several times at church suppers, and +once had walked home with her from an evening meeting. Lily never +dreamed that her mother had aspirations towards a second husband. Her +father had been dead ten years; the possibility of any one in his +place had never occurred to her; then, too, she looked upon her +mother as entirely too old for thoughts of that kind. But Mrs. +Merrill had her own views, which she kept concealed behind her +pretty, placid exterior. She always welcomed the opportunity of being +left alone of an evening, because she realized the very serious +drawback that the persistent presence of a pretty, well-grown +daughter might be if a wooer would wish to woo. She knew perfectly +well that if Dr. Ellridge called, Lily would wonder why he called, +and would sit all the evening in the same room with her fancy-work, +entirely unsuspicious. Lily might even think he came to see her. Mrs. +Merrill had a measure of slyness and secrecy which her daughter did +not inherit. Lily was not brilliant, but she was as entirely sweet +and open as the flower for which she was named. She was emotional, +too, with an innocent emotionlessness, and very affectionate. Mrs. +Merrill made almost no objection to Lily's going with Maria, but +merely told her to wrap up warmly when she went out. Lily looked +charming, with a great fur boa around her long, slender throat, and +red velvet roses nestling under the brim of her black hat against the +soft puff of her brown hair. She bent over her mother and kissed her. + +"I hope you won't be very lonesome, mother dear," she said. + +Mrs. Merrill blushed a little. To-night she had confident hopes of +the doctor's calling; she had even resolved upon a coup. "Oh no, I +shall not be lonesome," she replied. "Norah isn't going out, you +know." + +"We shall not be gone long, anyway," Lily said, as she went out. She +had not even noticed her mother's blush. She was not very acute. She +ran across the yard, the dry grass of which shone like a carpet of +crisp silver in the moonlight, and knocked on Maria's door. Maria +answered her knock. She was all ready, and she had her aunt Eunice's +fish-net bag and her armful of parcels. + +"Here, let me take some of them, dear," said Lily, in her cooing +voice, and she gathered up some of the parcels under her long, supple +arm. + +Maria's aunt Maria followed her to the door. "Now, mind you don't go +into that house," said she. "Just leave the things and run right +home; and if you see anybody who looks suspicious, go right up to a +house and knock. I don't feel any too safe about you two girls going, +anyway." + +Aunt Maria spoke in a harsh, croaking voice; she had a cold. Maria +seized her by the shoulders and pushed her back, laughingly. + +"You go straight in the house," said she. "And don't you worry. Lily +and I both have hat-pins, and we can both run, and there's nothing to +be afraid of, anyway." + +"Well, I don't half like the idea," croaked Aunt Maria, retreating. + +Lily and Maria went on their way. Lily looked affectionately at her +companion, whose pretty face gained a singular purity of beauty from +the moonlight. + +"How good you are, dear," she said. + +"Nonsense!" replied Maria. Somehow all at once the consciousness of +her secret, which was always with her, like some hidden wound, stung +her anew. She thought suddenly how Lily would not think her good at +all if she knew what an enormous secret she was hiding from her, of +what duplicity she was guilty. + +"Yes, you are good," said Lily, "to take all this trouble to get that +poor little thing clothes." + +"Oh, as for that," said Maria, "Mr. George Ramsey is the one to be +thanked. It was his money that bought the things, you know." + +"He is good, too," said Lily, and her voice was like a song with +cadences of tenderness. + +Maria started and glanced at her, then looked away again. A qualm of +jealousy, of which she was ashamed, seized her. She gave her head a +toss, and repeated, with a sort of defiance, "Yes, he is good enough, +I suppose." + +"I think you are real sweet," said Lily, "and I do think George +Ramsey is splendid." + +"I don't see anything very remarkable about him," said Maria. + +"Don't you think he is handsome?" + +"I don't know. I don't suppose I ever think much about a man being +handsome. I don't like handsome men, anyway. I don't like men, +anyway, when it comes to that." + +"George Ramsey is very nice," said Lily, and there was an accent in +her speech which made the other girl glance at her. Lily's face was +turned aside, although she was clinging close to Maria's arm, for she +was in reality afraid of being out in the night with another girl. + +They walked along in silence after that. When they came to the +covered bridge which crossed the river, Lily forced Maria into a run +until they reached the other side. + +"It is awful in here," she said, in a fearful whisper. + +Maria laughed. She herself did not feel the least fear, although she +was more imaginative than the other girl. At that time a kind of rage +against life itself possessed her which made her insensible to +ordinary fear. She felt that she had been hardly used, and she was, +in a measure, at bay. She knew that she could fight anything until +she died, and beyond that there was nothing certainly to fear. She +had become abnormal because of her strained situation as regarded +society. However, she ran because Lily wished her to do so, and they +soon emerged from the dusty tunnel of the bridge, with its strong +odor of horses, and glimpses between the sides of the silver current +of the river, into the moon-flooded road. + +After the bridge came the school-house, then, a half-mile beyond +that, the Ramsey house. The front windows were blazing with light, +and the sound of a loud, drunken voice came from within. + +Lily shrank and clung closely to Maria. + +"Oh, Maria, I am awfully afraid to go to the door," she whispered. +"Just hear that. Eugene Ramsey must be home drunk, and--and perhaps +the other man, too. I am afraid. Don't let's go there." + +Maria looked about her. "You see that board fence, then?" she said to +Lily, and as she spoke she pointed to a high board fence on the other +side of the street, which was completely in shadow. + +"Yes." + +"Well, if you are afraid, just go and stand straight against the +fence. You will be in shadow, and if you don't move nobody can +possibly see you. Then I will go to the door and leave the things." + +"Oh, Maria, aren't you afraid?" + +"No, I am not a bit afraid." + +"You won't go in, honest?" + +"No, I won't go in. Run right over there." + +Lily released her hold of Maria's arm and made a fluttering break for +the fence, against which she shrank and became actually invisible as +a shadow. Maria marched up to the Ramsey door and knocked loudly. +Mrs. Ramsey came to the door, and Maria thrust the parcels into her +hands and began pulling them rapidly out of the fish-net bag. Mrs. +Ramsey cast a glance behind her at the lighted room, through which +was visible the same man whom Maria had seen before, and also +another, and swung the door rapidly together, so that she stood in +the dark entry, only partly lighted by the moonlight. + +"I have brought some things for Jessy to wear to school, Mrs. +Ramsey," said Maria. + +"Thank you," Mrs. Ramsey mumbled, doubtfully, with still another +glance at the closed door, through which shone lines and chinks of +light. + +"There are enough for her to be warmly clothed, and you will see to +it that she has them on, won't you?" said Maria. Her voice was quite +sweet and ingratiating, and not at all patronizing. + +Suddenly the woman made a clutch at her arm. "You are a good young +one, doin' so much for my young one," she whispered. "Now you'd +better git up and git. They've been drinkin'. Git!" + +"You will see that Jessy has the things to wear Monday, won't you?" +said Maria. + +"Sure." Suddenly the woman wiped her eyes and gave a maudlin sob. +"You're a good young one," she whimpered. "Now, git." + +Maria ran across the road as the door closed after her. She did not +know that Mrs. Ramsey had given the parcels which she had brought a +toss into another room, and when she entered the room in which the +men were carousing and was asked who had come to the door, had +replied, "The butcher for his bill," to be greeted with roars of +laughter. She did, indeed, hear the roars of laughter. Lily slunk +along swiftly beside the fence by her side. Maria caught her by the +arm. Curiously enough, while she was not afraid for herself, she did +feel a little fear now for her companion. The two girls hurried until +they reached the bridge, and ran the whole length. On the other side, +coming into the lighted main street of Amity, they felt quite safe. + +"Did you see any of those dreadful men?" gasped Lily. + +"I just caught a glimpse of them, then Mrs. Ramsey shut the door," +said Maria. + +"They were drunk, weren't they?" + +"I shouldn't wonder." + +"I do think it was an awful place to go to," said Lily, with a little +sigh of relief that she was out of it. + +The girls went along the street until they reached the Ramsey house, +next the one where Maria lived. Suddenly a man's figure appeared from +the gate. It was almost as if he had been watching. + +"Good-evening," he said, and the girls saw that he was George Ramsey. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Ramsey," responded Maria. She felt Lily's arm +tremble in hers. George walked along with them. "I have been to carry +the presents which I bought with your money," said Maria. + +"Good heavens! You don't mean that you two girls have been all alone +up there?" said George. + +"Why, yes," said Maria. "Why not?" + +"Weren't you afraid?" + +"Maria isn't afraid of anything," Lily's sweet, little, tremulous +voice piped on the other side. + +George was walking next Maria. There was a slight and very gentle +accusation in the voice. + +"It wasn't safe," said George, soberly, "and I should have been glad +to go with you." + +Maria laughed. "Well, here we are, safe and sound," she said. "I +didn't see anything to be much afraid of." + +"All the same, they are an awful set there," said George. They had +reached Maria's door, and he added, "Suppose you walk along with me, +Miss Edgham, and I will see Lily home." George had been to school +with Lily, and had always called her by her first name. + +Maria again felt that little tremor of Lily's arm in hers, and did +not understand it. "All right," she said. + +The three walked to Lily's door, and had said good-night, when Lily, +who was, after all, the daughter of her mother, although her little +artifices were few and innocent, had an inspiration. She discovered +that she had lost her handkerchief. + +"I think I took it out when we reached your gate, Mr. Ramsey," she +said, timidly, for she felt guilty. + +It was quite true that the handkerchief was not in her muff, in which +she had carried it, but there was a pocket in her coat which she did +not investigate. + +They turned back, looking along the frozen ground. + +"Never mind," Lily said, cheerfully, when they had reached the Ramsey +gate and returned to the Edgham's, and the handkerchief was not +forthcoming, "it was an old one, anyway. Good-night." + +She knew quite well that George Edgham would do what he did--walk +home with her the few steps between her house and Maria's, and that +Maria would not hesitate to say good-night and enter her own door. + +"I guess I had better go right in," said Maria. "Aunt Maria has a +cold, and she may worry and be staying up." + +Lily was entirely happy at walking those few steps with George +Ramsey. He had pulled her little hand through his arm in a school-boy +sort of fashion. He left her at the door with a friendly good-night, +but she had got what she wanted. He had not gone those few steps +alone with Maria. Lily loved Maria, but she did not want George +Ramsey to love her. + +When Lily entered the house, to her great astonishment she found Dr. +Ellridge there. He was seated beside her mother, who was lying on the +sofa. + +"Why, mother, what is it--are you sick?" Lily cried, anxiously, while +the doctor looked with admiration at her face, glowing with the cold. + +"I had one of my attacks after supper, and sent Norah for Dr. +Ellridge. I thought I had better," Mrs. Merrill explained, feebly. +She sighed and looked at the doctor, who understood perfectly, but +did not betray himself. He was, in fact, rather flattered. + +"Yes, your mother has been feeling quite badly, but she will be all +right now," he said to Lily. + +"I am sorry you did not feel well, mother," Lily said, sweetly. Then +she got her fancy-work from her little silk bag on the table and +seated herself, after removing her wraps. + +Her mother sighed. The doctor's mouth assumed a little, humorous +pucker. + +Lily looked at her mother with affectionate interest. She was quite +accustomed to slight attacks of indigestion which her mother often +had, and was not much alarmed, still she felt a little anxious. "You +are sure you are better, mother?" she said. + +"Oh yes, she is much better," the doctor answered for her. "There is +nothing for you to be alarmed about." + +"I am so glad," said Lily. + +She took another stitch in her fancy-work, and her beautiful face +took on an almost seraphic expression; she was thinking of George +Ramsey. She hardly noticed when the doctor took his leave, and she +did not in the least understand her mother's sigh when the door +closed. For her the gates of love were wide open, but she had no +conception that for her mother they were not shut until she should go +to heaven to join her father. + + + +Chapter XX + + +The next evening Maria, as usual, went to church with her two aunts. +Henry Stillman remained at home reading the Sunday paper. He took a +certain delight in so doing, although he knew, in the depths of his +soul, that his delight was absurd. He knew perfectly well that it did +not make a feather's weight of difference in the universal scheme of +things that he, Henry Stillman, should remain at home and read the +columns of scandal and politics in that paper, instead of going to +church, and yet he liked to think that his small individuality and +its revolt because of its injuries at the hands of fate had its +weight, and was at least a small sting of revenge. + +He watched his wife adjust her bonnet before the looking-glass in the +sitting-room, and arrange carefully the bow beneath her withered +chin, and a great pity for her, because she was no longer as she had +been, but was so heavily marked by time, and a great jealousy that +she should not lose the greatest of all things, which he himself had +lost, came over him. As she--a little, prim, mild woman, in her +old-fashioned winter cape and her bonnet, with its stiff tuft of +velvet pansies--passed him, he caught her thin, black-gloved hand and +drew her close to him. + +"I'm glad you are going to church, Eunice," he said. + +Eunice colored, and regarded him with a kind of abashed wonder. + +"Why don't you come, too, Henry?" she said, timidly. + +"No, I've quit," replied Henry. "I've quit begging where I don't get +any alms; but as for you, if you get anything that satisfies your +soul, for God's sake hold on to it, Eunice, and don't let it go." +Then he pulled her bonneted head down and kissed her thin lips, with +a kind of tenderness which was surprising. "You've been a good wife, +Eunice," he said. + +Eunice laid her hand on his shoulder and looked at him a second. She +was almost frightened. Outward evidences of affection had not been +frequent between them of late years, or indeed ever. They were +New-Englanders to the marrow of their bones. Anything like an +outburst of feeling or sentiment, unless in case of death or +disaster, seemed abnormal. Henry realized his wife's feeling, and he +smiled up at her. + +"We are getting to be old folks," he said, "and we've had more bitter +than sweet in life, and we have neither of us ever said much as to +how we felt to each other, but--I never loved you as much as I love +you now, Eunice, and I've taken it into my head to say it." + +Eunice's lips quivered a little and her eyes reddened. "There ain't a +woman in Amity who has had so good a husband as I have all these +years, if you don't go to meeting," she replied. Then she added, +after a second's pause: "I didn't know as you did feel just as you +used to, Henry. I didn't know as any man did. I know I've lost my +looks, and--" + +"I can seem to see your looks, brighter than ever they were, in your +heart," said Henry. He colored himself a little at his own sentiment. +Then he pulled her face down to his again and gave her a second kiss. +"Now run along to your meeting," he said. "Have you got enough on? +The wind sounds cold." + +"Yes," replied Eunice. "This cape's real thick. I put a new lining in +it this winter, you know, and, besides, I've got my crocheted jacket +under it. I'm as warm as toast." + +Eunice, after she had gone out in the keen night air with her +sister-in-law and her niece, reflected with more uneasiness than +pleasure upon her husband's unwonted behavior. + +"Does it seem to you that Henry looks well lately?" she asked the +elder Maria, as they hurried along. + +"Yes; why not?" returned Maria. + +"I don't know. It seems to me he's been losing flesh." + +"Nonsense!" said Maria. "I never saw him looking better than he does +now. I was thinking only this morning that he was making a better, +healthier old man than he was as a young man. But I do wish he would +go to meeting. I don't think his mind is right about some things. +Suppose folks do have troubles. They ought to be led to the Lord by +them, instead of pulling back. Henry hasn't had anything more to +worry him, nor half as much, as most men. He don't take things right. +He ought to go to meeting." + +"I guess he's just as good as a good many who do go to meeting," +returned Eunice, with unwonted spirit. + +"I don't feel competent to judge as to that," replied Maria, with a +tone of aggravating superiority. Then she added, "'By their works ye +shall know them.'" + +"I would give full as much for Henry's chances as for some who go to +meeting every Sunday of their lives," said Eunice, with still more +spirit. "And as for trials, they weigh heavier on some than on +others." + +Then young Maria, who had been listening uneasily, broke in. She felt +herself a strong partisan of her Aunt Eunice, for she adored her +uncle, but she merely said that she thought Uncle Henry did look a +little thin, and she supposed he was tired Sunday, and it was the +only day he had to rest; then she abruptly changed the whole subject +by wondering if the Ramseys across the river would let Jessy go to +church if she trimmed a hat for her with some red velvet and a +feather which she had in her possession. + +"No, they wouldn't!" replied her aunt Maria, sharply, at once +diverted. "I can tell you just exactly what they would do, if you +were to trim up a hat with that red velvet and that feather and give +it to that young one. Her good-for-nothing mother would have it on +her own head in no time, and go flaunting out in it with that man +that boards there." + +Nothing could excel the acrimonious accent with which Aunt Maria +weighed down the "man who boards there," and the acrimony was +heightened by the hoarseness of her voice. Her cold was still far +from well, but Aunt Maria stayed at home from church for nothing +short of pneumonia. + +The church was about half a mile distant. The meeting was held in a +little chapel built out like an architectural excrescence at the side +of the great, oblong, wooden structure, with its piercing steeple. +The chapel windows blazed with light. People were flocking in. As +they entered, a young lady began to play on an out-of-tune piano, +which Judge Josiah Saunders had presented to the church. She played a +Moody-and-Sankey hymn as a sort of prologue, although nobody sang it. +It was a curious custom which prevailed in the Amity church. A +Moody-and-Sankey hymn was always played in evening meetings instead +of the morning voluntary on the great organ. + +Maria and her two aunts moved forward and seated themselves. Maria +looked absently at the smooth expanse of hair which showed below the +hat of the girl who was playing. The air was played very slowly, +otherwise the little audience might have danced a jig to it. Maria +thought of the meetings which she used to attend in Edgham, and how +she used to listen to the plaint of the whippoorwill on the +river-bank while the little organ gave out its rich, husky drone. +This, somehow, did not seem so religious to her. She remembered how +she had used to be conscious of Wollaston Lee's presence, and how she +had hoped he would walk home with her, and she reflected with what +shame and vague terror she now held him constantly in mind. Then she +thought of George Ramsey, and directly, without seeing him, she +became aware that he was seated on her right and was furtively +glancing at her. A wild despair seized her at the thought that he +might offer to accompany her home, and how she must not allow it, and +how she wanted him to do so. She kept her head steadfastly averted. +The meeting dragged on. Men rose and spoke and prayed, at intervals +the out-of-tune piano was invoked. A woman behind Maria sang +contralto with a curious effect, as if her head were in a tin-pail. +There were odd, dull, metallic echoes about it which filled the whole +chapel. The woman's daughter had some cheap perfume on her +handkerchief, and she was incessantly removing it from her muff. A +man at the left coughed a good deal. Maria saw in front of her Lily +Merrill's graceful brown head, in a charming hat with red roses under +the brim, and a long, soft, brown feather. Lily's mother was not with +her. Dr. Ellridge did not attend evening meetings, and Mrs. Merrill +always remained at home in the hope that he might call. + +After church was over, Maria stuck closely to her aunts. She even +pushed herself between them, but they did not abet her. Both Eunice +and Aunt Maria had seen George Ramsey, and they had their own views. +Maria could not tell how it happened, but at the door of the chapel +she found herself separated from both her aunts, and George Ramsey +was asking if he might accompany her home. Maria obeyed her +instincts, although the next moment she could have killed herself for +it. She smiled, and bowed, and tucked her little hand into the crook +of the young man's offered arm. She did not see her aunts exchanging +glances of satisfaction. + +"It will be a real good chance for her," said Eunice. + +"Hush, or somebody will hear you," said Maria, in a sharp, pleased +tone, as she and her sister-in-law walked together down the moonlit +street. + +Maria did not see Lily Merrill's start and look of piteous despair as +she took George's arm. Lily was just behind her. Maria, in fact, saw +nothing. She might have been walking in a vacuum of emotion. + +"It is a beautiful evening," said George Ramsey, and his voice +trembled a little. + +"Yes, beautiful," replied Maria. + +Afterwards, thinking over their conversation, she could not remember +that they had talked about anything else except the beauty of the +evening, but had dwelt incessantly upon it, like the theme of a song. + +The aunts lagged behind purposely, and Maria went in Eunice's door. +She thought that her niece would ask George to come in and she would +not be in the way. Henry looked inquiringly at the two women, who had +an air of mystery, and Maria responded at once to his unspoken +question. + +"George Ramsey is seeing her home," she said, "and the front-door key +is under the mat, and I thought Maria could ask him in, and I would +go home through the cellar, and not be in the way. Three is a +company." Maria said the last platitude with a silly simper. + +"I never saw anything like you women," said Henry, with a look of +incredulous amusement. "I suppose you both of you have been making +her wedding-dress, and setting her up house-keeping, instead of +listening to the meeting." + +"I heard every word," returned Maria, with dignity, "and it was a +very edifying meeting. It would have done some other folks good if +they had gone, and as for Maria, she can't teach school all her days, +and here is her father with a second wife." + +"Well, you women do beat the Dutch," said her brother, with a +tenderly indulgent air, as if he were addressing children. + +Aunt Maria lingered in her brother's side of the house, talking about +various topics. She hesitated even about her stealthy going through +the cellar, lest she should disturb Maria and her possible lover. Now +and then she listened. She stood close to the wall. Finally she said, +with a puzzled look to Eunice, who was smoothing out her +bonnet-strings, "It's queer, but I can't hear them talking." + +"Maybe he didn't come in," said Eunice. + +"If they are in the parlor, you couldn't hear them," said Henry, +still with his half-quizzical, half-pitying air. + +"She would have taken him in the parlor--I should think she would +have known enough to," said Eunice; "and you can't always hear +talking in the parlor in this room." + +Maria made a move towards her brother's parlor, on the other side of +the tiny hall. + +"I guess you are right," said she, "and I know she would have taken +him in there. I started a fire in there on purpose before I went to +meeting. It was borne in upon me that somebody might come home with +her." + +Maria tiptoed into the parlor, with Eunice, still smoothing her +bonnet-strings, at her heels. Both women stood close to the wall, +papered with white-and-gold paper, and listened. + +"I can't hear a single thing," said Maria. + +"I can't either," said Eunice. "I don't believe he did come in." + +"It's dreadful queer, if he didn't," said Maria, "after the way he +eyed her in meeting." + +"Suppose you go home through the cellar, and see," said Eunice. + +"I guess I will," said Maria. "I'll knock low on the wall when I get +home, if he isn't there." + +The cellar stairs connected with the kitchen on either side of the +Stillman house. Both women flew out into the kitchen, and Maria +disappeared down the cellar stairs, with a little lamp which Eunice +lit for her. Then Eunice waited. Presently there came a muffled knock +on the wall. + +"No, he didn't come in," Eunice said to her husband, as she +re-entered the sitting-room. + +Suddenly Eunice pressed her ear close to the sitting-room wall. Two +treble voices were audible on the other side, but not a word of their +conversation. "Maria and she are talking," said Eunice. + +What Aunt Maria was saying was this, in a tone of sharp wonder: + +"Where is he?" + +"Who?" responded Maria. + +"Why, you know as well as I do--George Ramsey." Aunt Maria looked +sharply at her niece. "I hope you asked him in, Maria Edgham?" said +she. + +"No, I didn't," said Maria. + +"Why didn't you?" + +"I was tired, and I wanted to go to bed." + +"Wanted to go to bed? Why, it's only a little after nine o'clock!" + +"Well, I can't help it, I'm tired." Maria spoke with a weariness +which was unmistakable. She looked away from her aunt with a sort of +blank despair. + +Aunt Maria continued to regard her. "You do act the queerest of any +girl I ever saw," said she. "There was a nice fire in the parlor, and +I thought you could offer him some refreshments. There is some of +that nice cake, and some oranges, and I would have made some cocoa." + +"I didn't feel as if I could sit up," Maria said again, in her weary, +hopeless voice. She went out into the kitchen, got a little lamp, and +returned. "Good-night," she said to her aunt. + +"Good-night," replied Aunt Maria. "You are a queer girl. I don't see +what you think." + +Maria went up-stairs, undressed, and went to bed. After she was in +bed she could see the reflection of her aunt's sitting-room lamp on +the ground outside, in a slanting shaft of light. Then it went out, +and Maria knew that her aunt was also in bed in her little room out +of the sitting-room. Maria could not go to sleep. She heard the clock +strike ten, then eleven. Shortly after eleven she heard a queer +sound, as of small stones or gravel thrown on her window. Maria was a +brave girl. Her first sensation was one of anger. + +"What is any one doing such a thing as that for?" she asked herself. +She rose, threw a shawl over her shoulders, and went straight to the +window next the Merrill house, whence the sound had come. She opened +it cautiously and peered out. Down on the ground below stood a long, +triangle-shaped figure, like a night-moth. + +"Who is it?" Maria called, in a soft voice. She was afraid, for some +reason which she could not define, of awakening her aunt. She was +more afraid of that than anything else. + +A little moan answered her; the figure moved as if in distress. + +"Who is it? What do you want?" Maria asked again. + +A weak voice answered her then, "It's I." + +"Who's I? Lily?" + +"Yes. Oh, do let me in, Maria." Lily's voice ended in a little, +hysterical sob. + +"Hush," said Maria, "or Aunt Maria will hear you. Wait a minute." +Maria unlocked her door with the greatest caution, opened it, and +crept down-stairs. Then she unlocked and opened the front door. +Luckily Aunt Maria's room was some feet in the rear. "Come quick," +Maria whispered, and Lily came running up to her. Then Maria closed +and locked the front door, while Lily stood trembling and waiting. +Then she led her up-stairs in the dark. Lily's slender fingers closed +upon her with a grasp of ice. When they were once in Maria's room, +with the door closed and locked, Maria took hold of Lily violently by +the shoulders. She felt at once rage and pity for her. + +"What on earth is the matter, Lily Merrill, that you come over here +this time of night?" she asked. Then she added, in a tone of horror, +"Lily Merrill, you haven't a thing on but a skirt and your night-gown +under your shawl. Have you got anything on your feet?" + +"Slippers," answered Lily, meekly. Then she clung to Maria and began +to sob hysterically. + +"Come, Lily Merrill, you just stop this and get into bed," said +Maria. She unwound Lily's shawl, pulled off her skirt, and fairly +forced her into bed. Then she got in beside her. "What on earth is +the matter?" she asked again. + +Lily's arm came stealing around her and Lily's cold, wet cheek +touched her face. "Oh, Maria!" she sobbed, under her breath. + +"Well, what is it all about?" + +"Oh, Maria, are--are you--" + +"Am I what?" + +"Are you going with him?" + +"With whom?" + +"With George--with George Ramsey?" A long, trembling sob shook Lily. + +"I am going with nobody," answered Maria, in a hard voice. + +"But he came home with you. I saw him; I did, Maria." Lily sobbed +again. + +"Well, what of it?" asked Maria, impatiently. "I didn't care anything +about his going home with me." + +"Didn't he come in?" + +"No, he didn't." + +"Didn't you--ask him?" + +"No, I didn't." + +"Maria." + +"Well, what?" + +"Maria, aren't you going to marry him if he asks you?" + +"No," said Maria, "I am never going to marry him, if that is what you +want to know. I am never going to marry George Ramsey." + +Lily sobbed. + +"I should think you would be ashamed of yourself. I should think any +girl would, acting so," said Maria. Her voice was a mere whisper, but +it was cruel. She felt that she hated Lily. Then she realized how icy +cold the girl was and how she trembled from head to feet in a nervous +chill. "You'll catch your death," she said. + +"Oh, I don't care if I do!" Lily said, in her hysterical voice, which +had now a certain tone of comfort. + +Maria considered again how much she despised and hated her, and again +Lily shook with a long tremor. Maria got up and tiptoed over to her +closet, where she kept a little bottle of wine which the doctor had +ordered when she first came to Amity. It was not half emptied. A +wineglass stood on the mantel-shelf, and Maria filled it with the +wine by the light of the moon. Then she returned to Lily. + +"Here," she said, still in the same cruel voice. "Sit up and drink +this." + +"What is it?" moaned Lily. + +"Never mind what it is. Sit up and drink it." + +Lily sat up and obediently drank the wine, every drop. + +"Now lie down and keep still, and go to sleep, and behave yourself," +said Maria. + +Lily tried to say something, but Maria would not listen to her. + +"Don't you speak another word," said she. "Keep still, or Aunt Maria +will be up. Lie still and go to sleep." + +It was not long before, warmed by the wine and comforted by Maria's +assertion that she was never going to marry George Ramsey, that Lily +fell asleep. Maria lay awake hearing her long, even breaths, and she +felt how she hated her, how she hated herself, how she hated life. +There was no sleep for her. Just before dawn she woke Lily, bundled +her up in some extra clothing, and went with her across the yard, +home. + +"Now go up to your own room just as still as you can," said she, and +her voice sounded terrible even in her own ears. She waited until she +heard the key softly turn in the door of the Merrill house. Then she +sped home and up to her own room. Then she lay down in bed again and +waited for broad daylight. + + + +Chapter XXI + + +When Maria dressed herself the next morning, she had an odd, shamed +expression as she looked at herself in her glass while braiding her +hair. It actually seemed to her as if she herself, and not Lily +Merrill, had so betrayed herself and given way to an unsought love. +She felt as if she saw Lily instead of herself, and she was at once +humiliated and angered. She had to pass Lily's house on her way to +school, and she did not once look up, although she had a conviction +that Lily was watching her from one of the sitting-room windows. It +was a wild winter day, with frequent gusts of wind swaying the trees +to the breaking of the softer branches, and flurries of snow. It was +hard work to keep the school-house warm. Maria, in the midst of her +perturbation, had a comforted feeling at seeing Jessy Ramsey in her +warm clothing. She passed her arm around the little girl at recess; +it was so cold that only a few of the boys went outside. + +"Have you got them on, dear?" she whispered. + +"Yes'm," said Jessy. Then, to Maria's consternation, she caught her +hand and kissed it, and began sobbing. "They're awful warm," sobbed +Jessy Ramsey, looking at Maria with her little, convulsed face. + +"Hush, child," said Maria. "There's nothing to cry about. Mind you +keep them nice. Have you got a bureau-drawer you can put them +in?--those you haven't on? Don't cry. That's silly." + +"I 'ain't got no bureau," sobbed Jessy. "But--" + +"Haven't any," corrected Maria. + +"Haven't any bureau-drawer," said the child. "But I got a box what +somethin'--" + +"That something," said Maria. + +"That something came from the store in, an' I've got 'em--" + +"Them." + +"Them all packed away. They're awful warm." + +"Don't cry, dear," said Maria. + +The other children did not seem to be noticing them. Suddenly Maria, +who still had her arm around the thin shoulders of the little girl, +stooped and kissed her rather grimy but soft little cheek. As she did +so, she experienced the same feeling which she used to have when +caressing her little sister Evelyn. It was a sort of rapture of +tenderness and protection. It was the maternal instinct glorified and +rendered spiritual by maidenhood, and its timid desires. Jessy +Ramsey's eyes looked up into Maria's like blue violets, and Maria +noticed with a sudden throb that they were like George Ramsey's. +Jessy, coming as she did from a degenerate, unbeautiful branch of the +family-tree, had yet some of the true Ramsey features, and, among +others, she had the true Ramsey eyes. They were large and very dark +blue, and they were set in deep, pathetic hollows. As she looked up +at Maria, it was exactly as if George were looking at her with +pleading and timid love. Maria took her arm sudden away from the +child. + +"Be you mad?" asked Jessy, humbly. + +"No, I am not," replied Maria. "But you should not say 'be you mad'; +you should say are you angry." + +"Yes'm," said Jessy Ramsey. + +Jessy withdrew, still with timid eyes of devotion fixed upon her +teacher, and Maria seated herself behind her desk, took out some +paper, and began to write an exercise for the children to copy upon +the black-board. She was trembling from head to foot. She felt +exactly as if George Ramsey had been looking at her with eyes of +love, and she remembered that she was married, and it seemed to her +that she was horribly guilty. + +Maria never once looked again at Jessy Ramsey, at least not fully in +the eyes, during the day. The child's mouth began to assume a piteous +expression. After school that afternoon she lingered, as usual, to +walk the little way before their roads separated, so to speak, in her +beloved teacher's train. But Maria spoke quite sharply to her. + +"You had better run right home, Jessy," she said. "It is snowing, and +you will get cold. I have a few things to see to before I go. Run +right home." + +Poor little Jessy Ramsey, who was as honestly in love with her +teacher as she would ever be with any one in her life, turned +obediently and went away. Maria's heart smote her. + +"Jessy," she called after her, and the child turned back half +frightened, half radiant. Maria put her arm around her and kissed +her. "Wash your face before you come to school to-morrow, dear," she +said. "Now, good-bye." + +"Yes'm," said Jessy, and she skipped away quite happy. She thought +teacher had rebuffed her because her face was not washed, and that +did not trouble her in the least. Lack of cleanliness or lack of +morals, when brought home to them, could hardly sting any scion of +that branch of the Ramseys. Lack of affection could, however, and +Jessy was quite happy in thinking that teacher loved her, and was +only vexed because her face was dirty. Jessy had not gone a dozen +paces from the school-house before she stopped, scooped up some snow +in a little, grimy hand, and rubbed her cheeks violently. Then she +wiped them on her new petticoat. Her cheeks tingled frightfully, but +she felt that she was obeying a mandate of love. + +Maria did not see her. She in reality lingered a little over some +exercises in the school-house before she started on her way home. It +was snowing quite steadily, and the wind still blew. The snow made +the wind seem as evident as the wings of a bird. Maria hurried along. +When she reached the bridge across the Ramsey River she saw a girl +standing as if waiting for her. The girl was all powdered with snow +and she had on a thick veil, but Maria immediately knew that she was +Lily Merrill. Lily came up to her as she reached her with almost an +abject motion. She had her veiled face lowered before the storm, and +she carried herself as if her spirit also was lowered before some +wind of fate. She pressed timidly close to Maria when she reached her. + +"I've been waiting for you, Maria," she said. + +"Have you?" returned Maria, coldly. + +"Yes, I wanted to see you, and I didn't know as I could, unless I met +you. I didn't know whether you would have a fire in your room +to-night, and I thought your aunt would be in the sitting-room, and I +thought you wouldn't be apt to come over to my house, it storms so." + +"No, I shouldn't," Maria said, shortly. + +Then Lily burst out in a piteous low wail, a human wail piercing the +wail of the storm. The two girls were quite alone on the bridge. + +"Oh, Maria," said Lily, "I did want you to know how dreadfully +ashamed I was of what I did last night." + +"I should think you would be," Maria said, pitilessly. She walked on +ahead, with her mouth in a straight line, and did not look at the +other girl. + +Lily came closer to her and passed one of her arms through Maria's +and pressed against her softly. "I wanted to tell you, too," she +said, "that I made an excuse about--that handkerchief the other +night. I thought it was in my coat-pocket all the time. I did it just +so he would go home with me last." + +Maria looked at her. "I never saw such a girl as you are, Lily +Merrill," she said, contemptuously, but in spite of herself there was +a soft accent in her voice. It was not in Maria's nature to be hard +upon a repentant sinner. + +Lily leaned her face against Maria's snow-powdered shoulder. "I was +dreadfully ashamed of it," said she, "and I thought I must tell you, +Maria. You don't think so very badly of me, do you? I know I was +awful." The longing for affection and approbation in Lily's voice +gave it almost a singing quality. She was so fond of love and +approval that the withdrawal of it smote her like a frost of the +spirit. + +"I think it was terribly bold of you, if you want to know just what I +think," Maria said; "and I think you were very deceitful. Before I +would do such a thing to get a young man to go home with me, I +would--" Maria paused. Suddenly she remembered that she had her +secret, and she felt humbled before this other girl whom she was +judging. She became conscious to such an extent of the beam in her +own eye that she was too blinded to see the mote in that of poor +Lily, who, indeed, was not to blame, being simply helpless before her +own temperament and her own emotions. + +"I know I did do a dreadful thing," moaned Lily. + +Then Maria pressed the clinging arm under her own. + +"Well," said she, as she might have spoken to a child, "if I were you +I would not think any more about it, Lily, I would put it out of my +mind. Only, I would not, if I were you, and really wanted a young man +to care for me, let him think I was running after him." + +As she said the last, Maria paled. She glanced at Lily's beautiful +face under the veil, and realized that it might be very easy for any +young man to care for such a girl, who had, in reality, a sweet +nature, besides beauty, if she only adopted the proper course to win +him, and that it was obviously her (Maria's) duty to teach her to win +him. + +"I know it. I won't again," Lily said, humbly. + +The two girls walked on; they had crossed the bridge. Suddenly Lily +plucked up a little spirit. + +"Say, Maria," said she. + +"What is it, dear?" + +"I just happened to think. Mother was asked to tea to Mrs. Ralph +Wright's to-night, but she isn't going. Is your aunt going?" + +"Yes, I believe she is," said Maria. + +"She won't be home before eight o'clock, will she?" + +"No, I don't suppose she will. They are to have tea at six, I +believe." + +"Then I am coming over after mother and I have tea. I have something +I want to tell you." + +"All right, dear," replied Maria, hesitatingly. + +When Maria got home she found her aunt Maria all dressed, except for +her collar-fastening. She was waiting for Maria to attend to that. +Her thin gray-blond hair was beautifully crimped, and she wore her +best black silk dress. She was standing by the sitting-room window +when Maria entered. + +"I am glad you have come, Maria," said she. "I have been standing +quite awhile. You are late." + +"Yes, I am rather late," replied Maria. "But why on earth didn't you +sit down?" + +"Do you suppose I am going to sit down more than I can help in this +dress?" said her aunt. "There is nothing hurts a silk dress more than +sitting down in it. Now if you will hook my collar, Maria. I can do +it, but I don't like to strain the seams by reaching round, and I +didn't want to trail this dress down the cellar stairs to get Eunice +to fasten it up." Aunt Maria bewailed the weather in a deprecating +fashion while Maria was fastening the collar at the back of her +skinny neck. "I never want to find fault with the weather," said she, +"because, of course, the weather is regulated by Something higher +than we are, and it must be for our best good, but I do hate to wear +this dress out in such a storm, and I don't dare wear my cashmere. +Mrs. Ralph Wright is so particular she would be sure to think I +didn't pay her proper respect." + +"You can wear my water-proof," said Maria. "I didn't wear it to-day, +you know. I didn't think the snow would do this dress any harm. The +water-proof will cover you all up." + +"Well, I suppose I can, and can pin my skirt up," said Aunt Maria, in +a resigned tone. "I don't want to find fault with the weather, but I +do hate to pin up a black silk skirt." + +"You can turn it right up around your waist, and fasten the braid to +your belt, and then it won't hurt it," said Maria, consolingly. + +"Well, I suppose I can. Your supper is all ready, Maria. There's +bread and butter, and chocolate cake, and some oysters. I thought you +wouldn't mind making yourself a little stew. I couldn't make it +before you came, because it wouldn't be fit to eat. You know how. Be +sure the milk is hot before you put the oysters in. There is a good +fire." + +"Oh yes, I know how. Don't you worry about me," said Maria, turning +up her aunt's creaseless black silk skirt gingerly. It was rather +incomprehensible to her that anybody should care so much whether a +black silk skirt was creased or not, when the terrible undertone of +emotions which underline the world, and are its creative motive, were +in existence, but Maria was learning gradually to be patient with the +small worries of others which seemed large to them, and upon which +she herself could not place much stress. She stood at the window, +when her aunt at last emerged from the house, and picked her way +through the light snow, and her mouth twitched a little at the +absurd, shapeless figure. Her Aunt Eunice had joined her, and she was +not so shapeless. She held up her dress quite fashionably on one +side, with a rather generous display of slender legs. Aunt Maria did +not consider that her sister-in-law was quite careful enough of her +clothes. "Henry won't always be earning," she often said to Maria. +To-day she had eyed with disapproval Eunice's best black silk +trailing from under her cape, when she entered the sitting-room. She +had come through the cellar. + +"Are you going that way, in such a storm, in your best black silk?" +she inquired. + +"I haven't any water-proof," replied Eunice, "and I don't see what +else I can do." + +"You might wear my old shawl spread out." + +"I wouldn't go through the street cutting such a figure," said +Eunice, with one of her occasional bursts of spirit. She was +delighted to go. Nobody knew how this meek, elderly woman loved a +little excitement. There were red spots on her thin cheeks, and she +looked almost as if she had used rouge. Her eyes snapped. + +"I should think you would turn your skirt up, anyway," said Aunt +Maria. "You've got your black petticoat on, haven't you?" + +"Yes," replied Eunice. "But if you think I am going right through the +Main Street in my petticoat, you are mistaken. Snow won't hurt the +silk any. It's a dry snow, and it will shake right off." + +So Eunice, at the side of Aunt Maria, went with her dress kilted +high, and looked as preternaturally slim as her sister-in-law looked +stout. Maria, watching them, thought how funny they were. She herself +was elemental, and they, in their desires and interests, were like +motes floating on the face of the waters. Maria, while she had always +like pretty clothes, had come to a pass wherein she relegated them to +their proper place. She recognized many things as externals which she +had heretofore considered as essentials. She had developed +wonderfully in a few months. As she turned away from the window she +caught a glimpse of Lily Merrill's lovely face in a window of the +opposite house, above a mass of potted geraniums. Lily nodded, and +smiled, and Maria nodded back again. Her heart sank at the idea of +Lily's coming that evening, a sickening jealous dread of the +confidence which she was to make to her was over her, and yet she +said to herself that she had no right to have this dread. She +prepared her supper and ate it, and had hardly cleared away the table +and washed the dishes before Lily came flying across the yard before +the storm-wind. Maria hurried to the door to let her in. + +"Your aunt went, didn't she?" said Lily, entering, and shaking the +flakes of snow from her skirts. + +"Yes." + +"I don't see why mother wouldn't go. Mother never goes out anywhere, +and she isn't nearly as old as your aunts." + +Lily and Maria seated themselves in the sitting-room before the +stove. Lily looked at Maria, and a faint red overspread her cheeks. +She began to speak, then she hesitated, and evidently said something +which she had not intended. + +"How pretty that is!" she said, pointing to a great oleander-tree in +flower, which was Aunt Maria's pride. + +"Yes, I think it is pretty." + +"Lovely. The very prettiest one I ever saw." Lily hesitated again, +but at last she began to speak, with the red on her cheeks brighter +and her eyes turned away from Maria. "I wanted to tell you something, +Maria," said she. + +"Well?" said Maria. Her own face was quite pale and motionless. She +was doing some fancy-work, embroidering a centre-piece, and she +continued to take careful stitches. + +"I know you thought I was awful, doing the way I did last night," +said Lily, in her sweet murmur. She drooped her head, and the flush +on her oval cheeks was like the flush on a wild rose. Lily wore a +green house-dress, which set her off as the leaves and stem set off a +flower. It was of some soft material which clung about her and +displayed her tender curves. She wore at her throat an old cameo +brooch which had belonged to her grandmother, and which had upon its +onyx background an ivory head as graceful as her own. Maria, beside +Lily, although she herself was very pretty, looked ordinary in her +flannel blouse and black skirt, which was her school costume. + +Maria continued taking careful stitches in the petals of a daisy +which she was embroidering. "I think we have talked enough about it," +she said. + +"But I want to tell you something." + +"Why don't you tell it, then?" + +"I know you thought I did something awful, running across the yard +and coming here in the night the way I did, and showing you that +I--I, well, that I minded George Ramsey's coming home with you; +but--look here, Maria, I--had a little reason." + +Maria paled perceptibly, but she kept on steadily with her work. + +Lily flushed more deeply. "George Ramsey has been home with me from +evening meeting quite a number of times," she said. + +"Has he?" said Maria. + +"Yes. Of course we were walking the same way. He may not really have +meant to see me home." There was a sort of innate honesty in Lily +which always led her to retrieve the lapses from the strict truth +when in her favor. "Maybe he didn't really mean to see me home, and +sometimes he didn't offer me his arm," she added, with a childlike +wistfulness, as if she desired Maria to reassure her. + +"I dare say he meant to see you home," said Maria, rather shortly. + +"I am not quite sure," said Lily. "But he did walk home with me quite +a number of times, first and last, and you know we used to go to the +same school, and a number of times then, when we were a good deal +younger, he really did see me home, and--he kissed me good-night +then. Of course he hasn't done that lately, because we were older." + +"I should think not, unless you were engaged," said Maria. + +"Of course not, but he has said several things to me. Maybe he didn't +mean anything, but they sounded--I thought I would like to tell you, +Maria. I have never told anybody, not even mother. Once he said my +name just suited me, and once he asked me if I thought married people +were happier, and once he said he thought it was a doubtful +experiment for a man to marry and try to live either with his wife's +mother or his own. You know, if he married me, it would have to be +one way or the other. Do you think he meant anything, Maria?" + +"I don't know," said Maria. "I didn't hear him." + +"Well, I thought he spoke as if he meant it, but, of course, a girl +can never be sure. I suppose men do say so many things they don't +mean. Don't you?" + +"Yes, I suppose they do." + +"Do you think he did, Maria?" asked Lily, piteously. + +"My dear child, I told you I didn't hear him, and I don't see how I +can tell," repeated Maria, with a little impatience. It did seem hard +to her that she should be so forced into a confidence of this kind, +but an odd feeling of protective tenderness for Lily was stealing +over her. She reached a certain height of nobility which she had +never reached before, through this feeling. + +"I know men so often say things when they mean nothing at all," Lily +said again. "Perhaps he didn't mean anything. I know he has gone home +with Agnes Sears several times, and he has talked to her a good deal +when we have been at parties. Do you think she is pretty, Maria?" + +"Yes, I think she is quite pretty," replied Maria. + +"Do you think--she is better-looking than--I am?" asked Lily, feebly. + +"No, of course I don't," said Maria. "You are a perfect beauty." + +"Oh, Maria, do you think so?" + +"Of course I do! You know it yourself as well as I do." + +"No, honest, I am never quite sure, Maria. Sometimes it does seem to +me when I am dressed up that I am really better-looking than some +girls, but I am never quite sure that it isn't because it is I who am +looking at myself. A girl wants to think she is pretty, you know, +Maria, especially if she wants anybody to like her, and I can't ever +tell." + +"Well, you can rest easy about that," said Maria. "You are a perfect +beauty. There isn't a girl in Amity to compare with you. You needn't +have any doubt at all." + +An expression of quite innocent and naive vanity overspread Lily's +charming face. She cast a glance at herself in a glass which hung on +the opposite wall, and smiled as a child might have done at her own +reflection. "Do you think this green dress is becoming to me?" said +she. + +"Very." + +"But, Maria, do you suppose George Ramsey thinks I am so pretty?" + +"I should think he must, if he has eyes in his head," replied Maria. + +"But you are pretty yourself, Maria," said Lily, with the most open +jealousy and anxiety, "and you are smarter than I am, and he is so +smart. I do think he cares a great deal more for you than for me. I +think he must, Maria." + +"Nonsense!" said Maria. "Just because a young man walks home with me +once you think he is in love with me." Maria tried to speak lightly +and scornfully, but in spite of herself there was an accent of +gratification in her tone. In spite of herself she forgot for the +moment. + +"I think he does, all the same," said Lily, dejectedly. + +"Nonsense! He doesn't; and if he did, he would have to take it out in +caring." + +"Then you were in earnest about what you said last night?" said Lily, +eagerly. "You really mean you wouldn't have George Ramsey if he asked +you?" + +"Not if he asked every day in the year for a hundred years." + +"I guess you must have seen somebody else whom you liked," said Lily, +and Maria colored furiously. Then Lily laughed. "Oh, you have!" she +cried, with sudden glee. "You are blushing like anything. Do tell me, +Maria." + +"I have nothing to tell." + +"Maria Edgham, you don't dare tell me you are not in love with +anybody?" + +"I should not answer a question of that kind to any other girl, +anyway," Maria replied, angrily. + +"You are. I know it," said Lily. "Don't be angry, dear. I am real +glad." + +"I didn't say I was in love, and there is nothing for you to be glad +about," returned Maria, fairly scarlet with shame and rage. She +tangled the silk with which she was working, and broke it short off. +Maria was as yet not wholly controlled by herself. + +"Why, you'll spoil that daisy," Lily said, wonderingly. She herself +was incapable of any such retaliation upon inanimate objects. She +would have carefully untangled her silk, no matter how deeply she +suffered. + +"I don't care if I do!" cried Maria. + +"Why, Maria!" + +"Well, I don't care. I am fairly sick of so much talk and thinking +about love and getting married, as if there were nothing else." + +"Maybe you are different, Maria," admitted Lily, in a humiliated +fashion. + +"I don't want to hear any more about it," Maria said, taking a fresh +thread from her skein of white silk. + +"But do you mean what you said?" + +"Yes, I do, once for all. That settles it." + +Lily looked at her wistfully. She did not find Maria as sympathetic +as she wished. Then she glanced at her beautiful visage in the glass, +and remembered what the other girl had said about her beauty, and +again she smiled her childlike smile of gratified vanity and +pleasure. Then suddenly the door-bell rang. + +Lily gave a great start, and turned white as she looked at Maria. +"It's George Ramsey," she whispered. + +"Nonsense! How do you know?" asked Maria, laying her work on the +table beside the lamp, and rising. + +"I don't know. I do know." + +"Nonsense!" Still Maria stood looking irresolutely at Lily. + +"I know," said Lily, and she trembled perceptibly. + +"I don't see how you can tell," said Maria. She made a step towards +the door. + +Lily sprang up. "I am going home," said she. + +"Going home? Why?" + +"He has come to see you, and I won't stay. I won't. I know you +despised me for what I did the other night, and I won't do such a +thing as to stay when he has come to see another girl. I am not quite +as bad as that." Lily started towards her cloak, which lay over a +chair. + +Maria seized her by the shoulders with a nervous grip of her little +hands. "Lily Merrill," said she, "if you stir, if you dare to stir to +go home, I will not go to the door at all!" + +Lily gasped and looked at her. + +"I won't!" said Maria. + +The bell rang a second time. + +"You have got to go to the door," said Maria, with a sudden impulse. + +Lily quivered under her hands. + +"Why? Oh, Maria!" + +"Yes, you have. You go to the door, and I will run up-stairs the back +way to my room. I don't feel well to-night, anyway. I have an awful +headache. You go to the door, and if it is--George Ramsey, you tell +him I have gone to bed with a headache, and you have come over to +stay with me because Aunt Maria has gone away. Then you can ask him +in." + +A flush of incredulous joy came over Lily's face. + +"You don't mean it, Maria?" she whispered, faintly. + +"Yes, I do. Hurry, or he'll go away." + +"Have you got a headache, honest?" + +"Yes, I have. Hurry, quick! If it is anybody else do as you like +about asking him in. Hurry!" + +With that Maria was gone, scudding up the back stairs which led out +of the adjoining room. She gained her chamber as noiselessly as a +shadow. The room was very dark except for a faint gleam on one wall +from a neighbor's lamp. Maria stood still, listening, in the middle +of the floor. She heard the front door opened, then she heard voices. +She heard steps. The steps entered the sitting-room. Then she heard +the voices in a steady flow. One of them was undoubtedly a man's. The +bass resonances were unmistakable. A peal of girlish laughter rang +out. Maria noiselessly groped her way to her bed, threw herself upon +it, face down, and lay there shaking with silent sobs. + + + +Chapter XXII + + +Maria did not hear Lily laugh again, although the conversation +continued. In reality, Lily was in a state of extreme shyness, and +was, moreover, filled with a sense of wrong-doing. There had been +something about Maria's denial which had not convinced her. In her +heart of hearts, the heart of hearts of a foolish but loving girl, +who never meant anybody any harm, and, on the contrary, wished +everybody well, although naturally herself first, she was quite sure +that Maria also loved George Ramsey. She drooped before him with this +consciousness when she opened the door, and the young man naturally +started with a little surprise at the sight of her. + +"Maria has gone to bed with a headache," she faltered, before George +had time to inquire for her. Then she added, in response to the young +man's look of astonishment, the little speech which Maria had +prepared for her. "Her aunt has gone out, and so I came over to stay +with her." Lily was a born actress. It was not her fault that a +little accent of tender pity for Maria in her lonely estate, with her +aunt away, and a headache, crept into her voice. She at the moment +almost believed what she said. It became quite real to her. + +"I am sorry Miss Edgham has a headache," said George, after a barely +perceptible second of hesitation, "but, as long as she has, I may as +well come in and make you a little call, Lily." + +Lily quivered perceptibly. She tried to show becoming pride, but +failed. "I should be very happy to have you," she said, "but--" + +"Well, it _is_ asking you to play second fiddle, and no mistake," +laughed George Ramsey, "for I did think I would make Miss Edgham a +little call. But, after all, the second fiddle is an indispensable +thing, and you and I are old friends, Lily." + +He could not help the admiration in his eyes as he looked at Lily. +She carried a little lamp, and the soft light was thrown upon her +lovely face, and her brown hair gleamed gold in it. No man could have +helped admiring her. Lily had never been a very brilliant scholar, +but she could read admiration for herself. She regained her +self-possession. + +"I don't mind playing second fiddle," said she. "I should be glad if +I could play any fiddle. Come in, Mr. Ramsey." + +"How very formal we have grown!" laughed George, as he took off his +coat and hat in the icy little hall. "Why, don't you remember we went +to school together? What is the use?" + +"George, then," said Lily. Her voice seemed to caress the name. + +The young man colored. He was of a stanch sort, but he was a man, and +the adulation of such a beautiful girl as this touched him. He took +the lamp out of her hand. + +"Come in, then," he said; "but it is rather funny for me to be +calling on you here, isn't it?" + +"Funnier than it would be for you to call on me at my own house," +said Lily, demurely, with a faint accent of reproach. + +"Well, I must admit I am not very neighborly," George replied, with +an apologetic air. "But, you see, I am really busy a good many +evenings with accounts, and I don't go out very much." + +Lily reflected that he had come to call on Maria, in spite of being +busy, but she said nothing. She placed Maria's vacant chair for him +beside the sitting-room stove. + +"It is a hard storm," she said. + +"Very. It is a queer night for Miss Edgham's aunt to go out, it seems +to me." + +"Mrs. Ralph Wright has a tea-party," said Lily. "Maria's aunt Eunice +has gone, too. My mother was invited, but mother never goes out in +the evening." + +After these commonplace remarks, Lily seated herself opposite George +Ramsey, and there was a little silence. Again the expression of +admiration came into the young man's face, and the girl read it with +delight. Sitting gracefully, her slender body outlined by the soft +green of her dress, her radiant face showing above the ivory cameo +brooch at her throat, she was charming. George Ramsey owned to +himself that Lily was certainly a great beauty, but all the same he +thought regretfully of the other girl, who was not such a beauty, but +who had somehow appealed to him as no other girl had ever done. Then, +too, Maria was in a measure new. He had known Lily all his life; the +element of wonder and surprise was lacking in his consciousness of +her beauty, and she also lacked something else which Maria had. Lily +meant no more to him--that is, her beauty meant no more to him--than +a symmetrical cherry-tree in the south yard, which was a marvel of +scented beauty, humming with bees every spring. He had seen that tree +ever since he could remember. He always looked upon it with pleasure +when it was in blossom, yet it was not to him what a new tree, +standing forth unexpectedly with its complement of flowers and bees, +would have been. It was very unfortunate for Lily that George had +known her all his life. In order really to attract him it would be +necessary for him to discover something entirely new in her. + +"It was very good of you to come in and stay with Miss Edgham while +her aunt was gone," said George. + +He felt terribly at a loss for conversation. He had, without knowing +it, a sense of something underneath the externals which put a +constraint upon him. + +Lily had one of the truth-telling impulses which redeemed her from +the artifices of her mother. + +"Oh," said she, "I wanted to come. I proposed coming myself. It is +dull evenings at home, and I did not know that Maria would go to bed +or that you would come in." + +"Well, mother has gone to that tea-party, too," said George, "and I +looked over here and saw the light, and I thought I would just run in +a minute." + +For some unexplained reason tears were standing in Lily's eyes and +her mouth quivered a little. George could not see, for the life of +him, why she should be on the verge of tears. He felt a little +impatient, but at the same time she became more interesting to him. +He had never seen Lily weeping since the time when she was a child at +school, and used to conceal her weeping little face in a ring of her +right arm, as was the fashion among the little girls. + +"This light must shine right in your sitting-room windows," said +Lily, in a faint voice. She was considering how pitiful it was that +George had not had the impulse to call upon her, Lily, when she was +so lovely and loving in her green gown; and how even this little +happiness was not really her own, but another girl's. She had not the +least realization of how Maria was suffering, lying in her room +directly overhead. + +Maria suffered as she had never suffered before. George Ramsey was +her first love; the others had been merely childish playthings. She +was strangling love, and that is a desperate deed, and the strangler +suffers more than love. Maria, with the memory of that marriage which +was, indeed, no marriage, but the absurd travesty of one, upon her, +was in almost a suicidal frame of mind. She knew perfectly well that +if it had not been for that marriage secret which she held always in +mind, that George Ramsey would continue to call, that they would +become engaged, that her life might be like other women's. And now he +was down there with Lily--Lily, in her green gown. She knew just how +Lily would look at him, with her beautiful, soft eyes. She hated her, +and yet she hated herself more than she hated her. She told herself +that she had no good reason for hating another girl for doing what +she herself had done--for falling in love with George Ramsey. She +knew that she should never have made a confidant of another girl, as +Lily had made of her. She realized a righteous contempt because of +her weakness, and yet she felt that Lily was the normal girl, that +nine out of ten would do exactly what she had done. And she also had +a sort of pity for her. She could not quite believe that a young man +like George Ramsey could like Lily, who, however beautiful she was, +was undeniably silly. But then she reflected how young men were +popularly supposed not to mind a girl's being silly if she was +beautiful. Then she ceased to pity Lily, and hated her again. She +became quite convinced that George Ramsey would marry her. + +She had locked her door, and lay on her bed fully dressed. She made +up her mind that when Aunt Maria came she would pretend to be asleep. +She felt that she could not face Aunt Maria's wondering questions. +Then she reflected that Aunt Maria would be home soon, and a +malicious joy seized her that Lily would not have George Ramsey long +to herself. Indeed, it was scarcely half-past eight before Maria +heard the side-door open. Then she heard, quite distinctly, Aunt +Maria's voice, although she could not distinguish the words. Maria +laughed a little, smothered, hysterical laugh at the absurdity of the +situation. + +It was, in fact, ludicrous. Aunt Maria entered the sitting-room, a +grotesque figure in her black skirt bundled up under Maria's +waterproof, which was powdered with snow. She wore her old black +bonnet, and the wind had tipped that rakishly to one side. She stared +at Lily and George Ramsey, who both rose with crimson faces. + +"Good-evening," Lily ventured, feebly. + +"Good-evening, Miss Stillman," George said, following the girl's +lead. Then, as he was more assured, he added that it was a very +stormy night. + +George had been sitting on one side of the stove, Lily on the other, +in the chairs which Maria and Lily had occupied before the young +man's arrival. They had both sprung up with a guilty motion when Aunt +Maria entered. Aunt Maria stood surveying them. She did not return +their good-evenings, nor George's advance with regard to the weather. +Her whole face expressed severe astonishment. Her thin lips gaped +slightly, her pale eyes narrowed. She continued to look at them, and +they stood before her like culprits. + +"Where's Maria gone?" said Aunt Maria, finally, in a voice which +seemed to have an edge to it. + +Then Lily spoke with soft and timid volubility. "Maria said her head +ached so she thought she had better go to bed, Miss Stillman," she +said. + +"I didn't hear anything about any headache before I went away. Must +have come on mighty sudden," said Aunt Maria. + +"She said it ached very hard," repeated Lily. "And when the door-bell +rang, when Mr. Ramsey came--" + +"It's mighty queer she should have had a headache when George Ramsey +rang the door-bell," said Aunt Maria. + +"I guess it must have ached before," said Lily, faintly. + +"I should suppose it must have," Aunt Maria said, sarcastically. "I +don't see any reason why Maria's head should begin to ache when the +door-bell rang." + +"Of course," said Lily. "I suppose she just felt she couldn't talk, +that was all." + +"It's mighty queer," said Aunt Maria. She stood quite immovable. She +was so stern that even her rakishly tipped bonnet did not seem at all +funny. She looked at Lily and George Ramsey, and did not make a +movement to remove her wraps. + +Lily took a little, faltering step towards her. "You are all covered +with snow, Miss Stillman," she said, in her sweet voice. + +"I don't mind a little snow," said Aunt Maria. + +"Won't you take this chair?" asked George Ramsey, pointing to the one +which he had just vacated. + +"No, thank you," replied Aunt Maria. "I ain't going to sit down. I've +got on my best black silk, and I don't ever sit down in it when I can +help it. I'm going to take it off and go to bed." + +Then George Ramsey immediately made a movement towards his coat and +hat, which lay on the lounge beside Lily's wraps. "Well," he said, +with an attempt to laugh and be easy, "I must be going. I have to +take an early car to-morrow." + +"I must go, too," said Lily. + +They both hustled on their outer garments. They said good-evening +when they went out, but Aunt Maria did not reply. She immediately +took off Maria's water-proof and her bonnet, and slipped off her best +black silk gown. Then she took the little lamp which was lighted in +the kitchen and went up-stairs to Maria's room. She had an old shawl +over her shoulders, otherwise she was in her black quilted petticoat. +She stepped softly, and entered the spare room opposite Maria's. It +was icy cold in there. She set the lamp on the bureau and went out, +closing the door softly. It was then quite dark in the little +passageway between the spare room and Maria's. Aunt Maria stood +looking sharply at Maria's door, especially at the threshold, which +was separated from the floor quite a space by the shrinkage of the +years. The panels, too, had their crevices, through which light might +be seen. It was entirely dark. Aunt Maria opened the door of the +spare room very softly and got the little lamp off the bureau, and +tiptoed down-stairs. Then she sat down before the sitting-room stove +and pulled up her quilted petticoat till her thin legs were exposed, +to warm herself and not injure the petticoat. She looked unutterably +stern and weary. Suddenly, as she sat there, tears began to roll over +her ascetic cheeks. + +"Oh, Lord!" she sighed to herself; "to think that child has got to go +through the world just the way I have, when she don't need to!" + +Aunt Maria rose and got a handkerchief out of her bureau-drawer in +her little bedroom. She did not take the one in the pocket of her +gown because that was her best one, and very fine. Then she sat down +again, pulled up her petticoat again, put the handkerchief before her +poor face, and wept for herself and her niece, because of a +conviction which was over her that for both the joy of life was to +come only from the windows of others. + + + +Chapter XXIII + + +Lily Merrill, going home across the yard through the storm, leaning +on George Ramsey's arm, gave a little, involuntary sob. It was a sob +half of the realization of slighted affection, half of shame. It gave +the little element of strangeness which was lacking to fascinate the +young man. He had a pitiful heart towards women, and at the sound of +the little, stifled sob he pressed Lily's arm more closely under his +own. + +"Don't, Lily," he said, softly. + +Lily sobbed again; she almost leaned her head towards George's +shoulder. She made a little, irresistible, nestling motion, like a +child. + +"I can't help it," she said, brokenly. "She did look at me so." + +"Don't mind her one bit, Lily," said George. He half laughed at the +memory of Aunt Maria's face, even while the tender tone sounded in +his voice. "Don't mind that poor old maid. Neither of us were to +blame. I suppose it did look as if we had taken possession of her +premises, and she was astonished, that was all. How funny she looked, +poor thing, with her bonnet awry!" + +"I know she must think I have done something dreadful," sobbed Lily. + +"Nonsense!" George said again, and his pressure of her arm tightened. +"I was just going when she came in, anyway. There is nothing at all +to be ashamed of, only--" He hesitated. + +"What?" asked Lily. + +"Well, to tell you the truth, Lily," he said then, "it does look to +me as if Miss Edgham's headache was only another way of telling me +she did not wish to see me." + +"Oh, I guess not," said Lily. + +"For some reason or other she does not seem to like me," George said, +with rather a troubled voice; but he directly laughed. + +"I don't see any reason why she shouldn't like you," Lily said. + +They had reached Lily's door, and the light from the sitting-room +windows shone on her lovely face, past which the snow drifted like a +white veil. + +"Well, I think she doesn't," George said, carelessly, "but you are +mighty good to say you see no reason why she shouldn't. You and I +have always been good friends, haven't we, Lily, ever since we went +to school together?" + +"Yes," replied Lily, eagerly, although she did not like the word +friends, which seemed to smite on the heart. She lifted her face to +the young man's, and her lips pouted almost imperceptibly. It could +not have been said that she was inviting a kiss, but no man could +have avoided kissing her. George Ramsey kissed her as naturally as he +breathed. There seemed to be nothing else to do. It was one of the +inevitables of life. Then Lily opened the door and slid into the +house with a tremulous good-night. + +George himself felt tremulous, and also astonished and vexed with +himself. He had certainly not meant to kiss Lily Merrill. But it +flashed across his mind that she would not think anything of it, that +he had kissed her often when they were children, and it was the same +thing now. As he went away he glanced back at the lighted windows, +and a man's shadow was quite evident. He wondered who was calling on +Lily's mother, and then wondered, with a slight shadow of jealousy, +if it could be some one who had come to see Lily herself. He +reflected, as he went homeward through the storm, that a girl as +pretty as Lily ought to have some one worthy of her. He went over in +his mind, as he puffed his cigar, all the young men in Amity, and it +did not seem to him that any one of them was quite the man for her. + +When he reached home he found his mother already there, warming +herself by the sitting-room register. She had gone to the tea-party +in a carriage (George would not have her walk), but she was chilled. +She was a delicate, pretty woman. She looked up, shivering, as George +entered. + +"Where have you been, dear?" she asked. + +George laughed, and colored a little. "Well, mother, I went to see +one young lady and saw another," he replied. + +Just then the maid came in with some hot chocolate, which Mrs. Ramsey +always drank before she went to bed, and she asked no more questions +until the girl had gone; then she resumed the conversation. + +"What do you mean, dear?" she inquired, looking over the rim of the +china cup at her son, with a slight, anxious contraction of her +forehead. + +"Well, I felt a little lonely after you went, mother, and I had +nothing especial to do, and it occurred to me that I would go over +and call on our neighbor." + +"On young Maria Edgham?" + +"Yes, mother." + +"Well, I suppose it was a polite thing for you to do," said his +mother, mildly, "but I don't quite care for her has I do for some +girls. She is so very vehement. I do like a young girl to be gentle." + +"Well, I didn't see her, mother, in either a gentle or vehement +mood," said George. "As nearly as I can find out, she had a +premonition who it was when I rang the door-bell, and said she had a +headache, and ran up-stairs to bed." + +"Why, how do you know?" asked his mother, staring at him. "Her aunt +was at the tea. Who told you?" + +"Lily Merrill was there," replied George, and again he was conscious +of coloring. "She had come to stay with Maria because her aunt was +going out. She answered my ring, and so I made a little call on her +until Miss Stillman returned, and was so surprised to see her +premises invaded and her niece missing that I think she inferred a +conspiracy or a burglar. At all events, Lily and I were summarily +dismissed. I have just seen Lily home." + +"Lily Merrill is pretty, and I think she is a nice, lady-like girl," +said Mrs. Ramsey, and she regarded her son more uneasily than before, +"but I don't like her mother, George." + +"Why, what is the matter with Lily's mother?" + +"She isn't genuine. Adeline Merrill was never genuine. She has always +had her selfish ends, and she has reached them by crooks and turns." + +"I think Lily is genuine enough," said George, carelessly, putting +another lump of sugar in his cup of chocolate. "I have seen more +brilliant girls, but she is a beauty, and I think she is genuine." + +"Well, perhaps she is," Mrs. Ramsey admitted. "I don't know her very +well, but I do know her mother. I know something now." + +"What?" + +"I know you don't like gossip, but if ever a woman was--I know it is +a vulgar expression--but if ever a woman was setting her cap for a +man, she is setting hers for Dr. Ellridge. She never goes anywhere +evenings, in the hope that he may call, and she sends for him when +there is nothing whatever the matter with her, if he doesn't. I know, +because Dr. Ellridge's wife's sister, Miss Emmons, who has kept house +for him since his wife died, told me so. He goes home and tells her, +and laughs, but I know she isn't quite sure that the doctor won't +marry her." + +"Miss Emmons is jealous, perhaps," said George. "Perhaps Mrs. Merrill +is really ill." + +"No, the doctor says she is not, and Miss Emmons is not jealous. She +told me that as far as she was concerned, although she would lose her +home, she should be glad to see the doctor married, if he chose a +suitable woman; but I don't think she likes Mrs. Merrill. I don't see +how anybody can like a woman who so openly proclaims her willingness +to marry a man before he has done her the honor to ask her. It seems +shameless to me." + +"Perhaps she doesn't," George said again. Then he added, "It would be +rather hard for Lily if her mother did marry the doctor. He is a good +man enough, but with his own three girls, the oldest older than Lily, +she would have a hard time." + +George looked quite sober, reflecting upon the possible sad lot of +poor Lily if her mother married the second time. + +"Adeline Merrill wouldn't stop for such a thing as the feelings of +her own daughter, if she had her mind set on anything," said his +mother, in her soft voice, which seemed to belie the bitterness of +her words. She was not in reality bitter at all, not even towards +Mrs. Merrill, but she had clearly defined rules of conduct for +gentlewomen, and she mentioned it when these rules were transgressed. + +"Well, mother dear, I can't see that it is likely to make much +difference to either you or me, anyway," said George, and his mother +felt consoled. She told herself that it was not possible that George +thought seriously of Lily, or he would not speak so. + +"Miss Stillman is very eccentric," she remarked, departing from the +subject. "I offered to bring her home with me in the carriage. I knew +you would not mind the extra money. She has such a cold that I really +wondered that she came at all in such a storm; but, no, she seemed +fairly indignant at the idea. I never saw any one so proud. I asked +Mrs. Henry Stillman, but she did not like to have her sister-in-law +to go alone, so she would not accept, either; but Miss Stillman +walked herself, and made her sister walk, too, and I am positive it +was because she was proud. Do you really mean you think young Maria +did not want to see you, George?" + +"It looked like it," George replied, laughing. + +"Why?" asked his mother. + +"How do I know, mother dear? I don't think Miss Edgham altogether +approves of me for some reason." + +"I should like to know what reason she has for not approving of you," +cried his mother, jealously. She looked admiringly at her son, who +was handsome, with a sort of rugged beauty, and whose face displayed +strength, and honesty not to be questioned. "I would like to know who +Maria Edgham thinks she is. She is rather pretty, but she cannot +compare with Lily Merrill as far as that goes, and she is teaching a +little district school, and from what I have seen of her, her manners +are subject to criticism. She is not half as lady-like as other girls +in Amity. When I think of the way she flew in here and attacked us +for not clothing those disreputable people across the river, just +because they have the same name, I can't help being indignant. I +never heard of a young girl's doing such a thing. And I think that if +she ran off when the bell rang, because she thought it was you, it +was certainly very rude. I think she virtually ascribed more meaning +to your call than there was." + +"Lily said she had a headache," said George, but his own face assumed +an annoyed expression. That version of Maria's flight had not +occurred to him, and he was a very proud fellow. When he went +up-stairs to his own room he continued wondering whether it was +possible that Maria, remembering their childish love-affair, could +have really dreamed that he had called that evening with serious +intentions, and he grew more and more indignant at the idea. Then the +memory of that soft, hardly returned kiss which he had given Lily +came to him, and now he did not feel vexed with himself because of +it. He was quite certain that Lily was too gentle and timid to think +for a minute that he meant anything more than their old childish +friendship. The memory of the kiss became very pleasant to him, and +he seemed to feel Lily's lips upon his own like a living flower which +thrilled the heart. The next morning, when he took the trolley-car in +front of his house, Maria was just passing on her way to school. She +was wading rather wearily, yet still sturdily, through the snow. It +had cleared during the night, and there were several inches of +drifted snow in places, although some portions of the road were as +bare as if swept by a broom of the winds. + +Maria, tramping through the snow, which was deep just there, merely +glanced at George Ramsey, and said good-morning. She had plenty of +time, if she had chosen to do so, to express her regrets at not +seeing him the evening before, for the car had not yet reached him. +But she said nothing except good-morning, and George responded rather +curtly, raising his hat, and stepping forward towards the car. He +felt it to be unmistakable that Maria wished him to understand that +she did not care for his particular acquaintance, and the sting which +his mother had suggested the evening before, that she must consider +that his attentions were significant, or she would not take so much +trouble to repulse them, came over him again. He boarded the car, +which was late, and moving sluggishly through the snow. It came to a +full stop in front of the Merrill house, and George saw Lily's head +behind a stand of ferns in one of the front windows. He raised his +hat, and she bowed, and he could see her blush even at that distance. +He thought again, comfortably, that Lily, remembering their childish +caresses, could attach no importance to what had happened the night +before, and yet a thrill of tenderness and pleasure shot through him, +and he seemed to feel again the flower-like touch of her lips. It was +a solace for any man, after receiving such an unmistakable rebuff as +he had just received from Maria Edgham. He had no conception of the +girl plodding through the snow to her daily task. He did not dream +that she saw, instead of the snowy road before, a long stretch of +dreary future, brought about by that very rebuff. But she was quite +merciless with herself. She would not yield for a moment to regrets. +She accepted that stretch of dreary future with a defiant +acquiescence. She bowed pleasantly to the acquaintances whom she met. +They were not many that morning, for the road was hardly passable in +places, being overcurved here and there with blue, diamond-crested, +snowlike cascades, and now presenting ridges like graves. Half-way to +the school-house, Maria saw the village snow-plough, drawn by a +struggling horse and guided by a red-faced man. She stood aside to +let it pass. The man did not look at her. He frowned ahead at his +task. He was quite an old man, and bent, but with the red of youth +brought forth in his cheeks by the frosty air. + +"Everybody has to work in some way," Maria thought, "and very few get +happiness for their labor." + +She reflected how soon that man would be lying stiff and stark under +the wintry snows and the summer heats, and how nothing which might +trouble him now would matter. She reflected that, although she +herself was younger and had presumably longer to live, that the time +would inevitably come when even such unhappiness as weighed her down +this morning would not matter. She continued in the ineffectual track +which the snow-plough had made, with a certain pleasure in the +exertion. All Maria's heights of life, her mountain-summits which she +would agonize to reach, were spiritual. Labor in itself could never +daunt her. Always her spirit, the finer essence of her, would soar +butterfly-like above her toiling members. + +It was a beautiful morning; the trees were heavily bent with snow, +which gave out lustres like jewels. The air had a very purity of life +in it. Maria inhaled the frosty, clear air, and regarded the trees as +one might have done who was taking a stimulant. She kept her mind +upon them, and would not think of George Ramsey. As she neared the +school-house, the first child who ran to meet her, stumbling through +the snow, was little Jessy Ramsey. Maria forced herself to meet +smilingly the upward, loving look of those blue Ramsey eyes. She bent +down and kissed Jessy, and the little thing danced at her side in a +rapture. + +"They be awful warm, my close, teacher," said she. + +"My clothes are very warm, teacher," corrected Maria, gravely. + +"My clothes are very warm, teacher," said Jessy, obediently. + +Maria caught the child up in her arms (she was a tiny, half-fed +little thing), and kissed her again. Somehow she got a measure of +comfort from it. After all, love was love, in whatever guise it came, +and this was an innocent love which she could admit with no question. + +"That's a good little girl, dear," she said, and set Jessy down. + + + +Chapter XXIV + + +Maria did not go home for the Christmas holidays. She was very +anxious to do so, but she received a letter from Ida Edgham which +made her resolve to remain where she was. + +"We should be so very glad to have you come home for the holidays, +dear," wrote Ida, "but of course we know how long the journey is, and +how little you are earning, and we are all well. Your father seems +quite well, and so we shall send you some little remembrance, and try +to console ourselves as best we can for your absence." + +Maria read the letter to her aunt Maria. + +"You won't go one step?" said Aunt Maria, interrogatively. + +"No," said Maria. She was quite white. Nobody knew how she had longed +to see her father and little Evelyn, and she had planned to go, and +take Aunt Maria with her, defraying the expenses out of her scanty +earnings. + +"I wouldn't go if you were to offer me a thousand dollars," said Aunt +Maria. + +"I would not, either," responded Maria. She opened the stove door and +thrust the letter in, and watched it burn. + +"How your father ever came to marry that woman--" said Aunt Maria. + +"There's no use talking about that now," said Maria, arousing to +defence of her father. "She was very pretty!" + +"Pretty enough," said Aunt Maria, "and I miss my guess if she didn't +do most of the courting. Well, as you say, there is no use talking it +over now. What's done is done." + +Aunt Maria watched Maria's pitiful young face with covert glances. +Maria was finishing a blouse which she had expected to wear on her +journey. She continued her work with resolution, but every line on +her face took a downward curve. + +"You don't need to hurry so on that waist now," said Aunt Maria. + +"I want the waist, anyway," replied her niece. "I may as well get it +done." + +"You will have to send the Christmas presents," said Aunt Maria. "I +don't very well see how you can pack some of them." + +"I guess I can manage," said Maria. + +The next day her week of vacation began. She packed the gifts which +she had bought for her father and Evelyn and Ida, and took them to +the express office. The day after that she received the remembrances +of which Ida spoke. They were very pretty. Aunt Maria thought them +extravagant. Ida had sent her a tiny chatelaine watch, and her father +a ring set with a little diamond. Maria knew perfectly well how her +father's heart ached when he sent the ring. She never for one moment +doubted him. She wrote him a most loving letter, and even a deceptive +letter, because of her affection. She repeated what Ida had written, +that it was a long journey, and expensive, and she did not think it +best for her to go home, although she had longed to do so. + +Ida sent Aunt Maria a set of Shakespeare. When it was unpacked, Aunt +Maria looked shrewdly at her niece. + +"How many sets of Shakespeare has she got?" she inquired. "Do you +know, Maria?" + +Maria admitted that she thought she had two. + +"I miss my guess but she has another exactly just like this," said +Aunt Maria. "Well, I don't mean to be ungrateful, and I know +Shakespeare is called a great writer, and they who like him can read +him. I would no more sit down and read all those books through, +myself, than I would read Webster's Dictionary." + +Maria laughed. + +"You can take this set of books up in your room, if you want them," +said Aunt Maria. "For my part I consider it an insult for her to send +Shakespeare to me. She must have known I had never had anything to do +with Shakespeare. She might just as well have sent me a crown. Now, +your father he has more sense. He sent me this five-dollar gold-piece +so I could buy what I wanted with it. He knew that he didn't know +what I wanted. Your father's a good man, Maria, but he was weak when +he married her; I've got to say it." + +"I don't think father was weak at all!" Maria retorted, with spirit. + +"Of course, I expect you to stand up for your father, that is right. +I wouldn't have you do anything else," Aunt Maria said approvingly. +"But he was weak." + +"She could have married almost anybody," said Maria, gathering up the +despised set of books. She was very glad of them to fill up the small +bamboo bookcase in her own room, and, beside, she did not share her +aunt's animosity to Shakespeare. She purchased some handkerchiefs for +her aunt, with the covert view of recompensing her for the loss of +Ida's present, and Aunt Maria was delighted with them. + +"If she had had the sense to send me half a dozen handkerchiefs like +these," said she, "I should have thanked her. Anybody in their senses +would rather have half a dozen nice handkerchiefs than a set of +Shakespeare. That is, if they said just what they meant. I know some +folks would be ashamed of not thinking much of Shakespeare. As for +me, I say what I mean." Aunt Maria tossed her head as she spoke. + +She grew daily more like her brother Henry. The family traits in each +became more accentuated. Each posed paradoxically as not being a +poser. Aunt Maria spoke her mind so freely and arrogantly that she +was not much of a favorite in Amity, although she commanded a certain +measure of respect from her strenuous exertions at her own trumpet, +which more than half-convinced people of the accuracy of her own +opinion of herself. Sometimes Maria herself was irritated by her +aunt, but she loved her dearly. She was always aware, too, of Aunt +Maria's unspoken, but perfect approbation and admiration for herself, +Maria, and of a certain sympathy for her, which the elder woman had +the delicacy never to speak of. She had become aware that Maria, +while she repulsed George Ramsey, was doing so for reasons which she +could not divine, and that she suffered because of it. + +One afternoon, not long after Christmas, when Maria returned from +school, almost the first words which her aunt said to her were, "I do +hate to see a young man made a fool of." + +Maria turned pale, and looked at her aunt. + +"George Ramsey went past here sleigh-riding with Lily Merrill a +little while ago," said Aunt Maria. "That girl's making a fool of +him!" + +"Lily is a nice girl, Aunt Maria," Maria said, faintly. + +"Nice enough, but she can't come up to him. She never can. And when +one can't come up, the other has to go down. I've seen it too many +times not to know. There's sleigh-bells now. I guess it's them coming +back. Yes, it is." + +Maria did not glance out of the window, and the sleigh, with its +singing bells, flew past. She went wearily up to her own room, and +removed her wraps before supper. Maria had a tiny coal-stove in her +room now, and that was a great comfort to her. She could get away by +herself, when she chose, and sometimes the necessity for so doing was +strong upon her. She wished to think, without Aunt Maria's sharp eyes +upon her, searching her thoughts. Emotion in Maria was reaching its +high-water mark; the need for concealing, lest it be profaned by +other eyes, was over her. Maria felt, although she was conscious of +her aunt's covert sympathy for something that troubled her which she +did not know about, and grateful for it, that she should die of shame +if Aunt Maria did know. After supper that night she returned to her +own room. She said she had some essays to correct. + +"Well, I guess I'll step into the other side a minute," said Aunt +Maria. "Eunice went to the sewing-meeting this afternoon, and I want +to know what they put in that barrel for that minister out West. I +don't believe they had enough to half fill it. Of all the things they +sent the last time, there wasn't anything fit to be seen." + +Maria seated herself in her own room, beside her tiny stove. She had +a pink shade on her lamp, which stood on her little centre-table. The +exercises were on the table, but she had not touched them when she +heard doors opening and shutting below, then a step on the stairs. +She knew at once it was Lily. Her room door opened, after a soft +knock, and Lily glided gracefully in. + +"I knew you were up here, dear," she said. "I saw your light, and I +saw your aunt's sitting-room lamp go out." + +"Aunt Maria has only gone in Uncle Henry's side. Sit down, Lily," +said Maria, rising and returning Lily's kiss, and placing a chair for +her. + +"Does she always put her lamp out when she goes in there?" asked Lily +with innocent wonder. + +"Yes," replied Maria, rather curtly. That was one of poor Aunt +Maria's petty economies, and she was sensitive with regard to it. A +certain starvation of character, which had resulted from the lack of +material wealth, was evident in Aunt Maria, and her niece recognized +the fact with exceeding pity, and a sense of wrong at the hands of +Providence. + +"How very funny," said Lily. + +Maria said nothing. Lily had seated herself in the chair placed for +her, and as usual had at once relapsed into a pose which would have +done credit to an artist's model, a pose of which she was innocently +conscious. She cast approving glances at the graceful folds of +crimson cashmere which swept over her knees; she extended one little +foot in its pointed shoe; she raised her arms with a gesture peculiar +to her and placed them behind her head in such a fashion that she +seemed to embrace herself. Lily in crimson cashmere, which lent its +warm glow to her tender cheeks, and even seemed to impart a rosy +reflection to the gloss of her hair, was ravishing. To-night, too, +her face wore a new expression, one of triumphant tenderness, which +caused her to look fairly luminous. + +"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" she said. + +"Very pleasant," said Maria. + +"Did you know I went sleigh-riding this afternoon?" + +"Did you?" + +"Yes; George took me out." + +"That was nice," said Maria. + +"We went to Wayland. The sleighing is lovely." + +"I thought it looked so," said Maria. + +"It is. Say, Maria!" + +"Well?" + +"He said things to me this afternoon that sounded as if he did mean +them. He did, really." + +"Did he?" + +"Do you want me to tell you?" asked Lily, eying Maria happily and yet +a little timidly. + +Maria straightened herself. "If you want to know what I really think, +Lily," she said, "I think no girl should repeat anything a man says +to her, if she does think he really means it. I think it is between +the two. I think it should be held sacred. I think the girl cheapens +it by repeating it, and I don't think it is fair to the man. I don't +care to hear what Mr. Ramsey said, if you want the truth, Lily." + +Lily looked abashed. "I dare say you are right, Maria," she said, +meekly. "I won't repeat anything he said if you don't think I ought, +and don't want to hear it." + +"Is your new dress done?" asked Maria, abruptly. + +"It is going to be finished this week," said Lily. "Do you think I am +horrid, proposing to tell you what he said, Maria?" + +"No, only I don't care to hear any more about it." + +"Well, I hope you don't think I am horrid." + +"I don't, dear," said Maria, with an odd sensation of tenderness for +the other, weaker girl, whom she had handled in a measure roughly +with her own stronger character. She looked admiringly at her as she +spoke. "Nobody can ever really think you horrid," she said. + +"If they did, I should think I was horrid my own self," said Lily, +with the ready acquiescence in the opinion of another which signified +the deepest admiration, even to her own detriment, and was the +redeeming note in her character. + +Maria laughed. "I declare, Lily," said she, "I hope you will never be +accused of a crime, for I do believe even if you were innocent, you +would side with the lawyer for the prosecution." + +"I don't know but I should," said Lily. + +Then she ventured to say something more about George Ramsey, +encouraged by Maria's friendliness, but she met with such scanty +sympathy that she refrained. She arose soon, and said she thought she +must go home. + +"I am tired to-night, and I think I had better go to bed early," she +said. + +"Don't hurry," Maria said, conventionally; but Lily kissed Maria and +went. + +Maria knew that her manner had driven Lily away, but she did not feel +as if she could endure hearing her confidences, and Lily's +confidences had all the impetus of a mountain stream. Had she +remained, they could not have been finally checked. Maria moved her +window curtains slightly and watched Lily flitting across the yard. +She saw her enter the door, and also saw, quite distinctly the shadow +of a man upon the white curtain as he rose to greet her when she +entered. She wondered whether the man was Dr. Ellridge, or George +Ramsey. The shadow looked like that of the older man, she thought, +and she was not mistaken. + +Lily, on entering the sitting-room, found Dr. Ellridge with her +mother, and her mother's face was flushed, and she had a conscious +simper. Lily said good-evening, and sat down as usual with her +fancy-work, after she had removed her wraps, but soon her mother said +to her that there was a good fire in her own room, and she thought +that she had better go to bed early, as she must be tired, and Dr. +Ellridge echoed her with rather a foolish expression. + +"I don't think you ought to sit up late working on embroidery, Lily," +he said. "You are looking tired to-night. You must let me prescribe +for you a glass of hot milk and bed." + +Lily looked at both of them with wondering gentleness, then she rose. + +"There is a good fire in the kitchen," said her mother, "and Hannah +will heat the milk for you. You had better do as Dr. Ellridge said. +You are going out to-morrow night, too, you know." + +Lily said good-night, and went out with a smouldering disquiet in her +heart. When she asked Hannah out in the kitchen to heat the milk for +her, because Dr. Ellridge said she must drink it and then go to bed, +the girl, who had been long with the family and considered that she +in reality was the main-spring of the house, eyed her curiously. + +"Said you had better go to bed?" said she. "Why, it isn't nine +o'clock!" + +"He said I looked tired, Hannah," said Lily faintly. + +Hannah, who was a large, high-shouldered Nova Scotia girl, with a +large, flat face obscured with freckles, sniffed. Lily heard her say +quite distinctly as she went into the pantry for the milk, that she +called it a shame when there were so many grown-up daughters to think +of, for her part. + +Lily knew what she meant. She sat quite pale and still while the milk +was heating, and then drank it meekly, said good-night to Hannah and +went up-stairs. + +She could not go to sleep, although she went at once to bed, and +extinguished her lamp. She lay there and heard a clock down in the +hall strike the hours. The clock had struck twelve, and she had not +heard Dr. Ellridge go. The whole situation filled her with a sort of +wonder of disgust. She could not imagine her mother and Dr. Ellridge +sitting up until midnight as she might sit up with George Ramsey. She +felt as if she were witnessing a ghastly inversion of things, as if +Love, instead of being in his proper panoply of wings and roses, was +invested with a medicine-case, an obsolete frock-coat, and elderly +obesity. Dr. Ellridge was quite stout. She wondered how her mother +could, and then she wondered how Dr. Ellridge could. Lily loved her +mother, but she had relegated her to what she considered her proper +place in the scheme of things, and now she was overstepping it. Lily +called to mind vividly the lines on her mother's face, her matronly +figure. It seemed to her that her mother had had her time of love +with her father, and this was as abnormal as two springs in one year. +Shortly after twelve, Lily heard a soft murmur of voices in the hall, +then the front door close. Then her mother came up-stairs and entered +her room. + +"Are you asleep, Lily?" she whispered, softly, and Lily recognized +with shame the artificiality of the whisper. + +"No, mother, I am not asleep," she replied, quite loudly. + +Her mother came and sat down on the bed beside her. She patted Lily's +cheeks, and felt for her hand. Lily's impulse was to snatch it away, +but she was too gentle. She let it remain passively in her mother's +nervous clasp. + +"Lily, my dear child, I have something to tell you," whispered Mrs. +Merrill. + +Lily said nothing. + +"Lily, my precious child," said her mother, in her strained whisper. +"I don't know whether you have suspected anything or not, but I am +meditating a great change in my life. I have been very lonely since +your dear father died, and I never had a nature to live alone and be +happy. You might as well expect the vine to live without its tree. I +have made up my mind that I shall be much happier, and Dr. Ellridge +will. He needs the sympathy and love of a wife. His daughters do as +well as they can, but a daughter is not like a wife." + +"Oh, mother!" said Lily. Then she gave a little sob. Her mother bent +over and kissed her, and Lily smelled Dr. Ellridge's cigar, and she +thought also medicine. She shrank away from her mother, and sobbed +convulsively. + +"My dear child," said Mrs. Merrill, "you need not feel so badly. +There will be no change in your life until you yourself marry. We +shall live right along here. This house is larger and more convenient +than the doctor's. He will rent his house, and we shall live here." + +"And all those Ellridge girls," sobbed Lily. + +"They are very nice girls, dear. Florence and Amelia will room +together; they can have the southeast room. Mabel, I suppose, will +have to go in the best chamber. Perhaps, by-and-by, Dr. Ellridge will +finish off another room for her. I don't quite like the idea of +having no spare room. But you will keep your own room, and you will +be all the happier for having three nice sisters." + +"I never liked them," sobbed Lily. It really seemed to her that she +was called upon to marry the Ellridge girls, and that was the main +issue. + +"They are very nice girls," repeated Mrs. Merrill, and there was +obstinacy in her artificially sweet tone. "Everybody says they are +very nice girls. You certainly would not wish your mother to give up +her chance of a happy life, because you have an unwarrantable +prejudice against the poor doctor's daughters." + +"You have been married once," said Lily, feebly. It was as if she +made a faint remonstrance because of her mother, who had already had +her reasonable share of cake, taking a second slice. She had too +sweet a disposition to say bitter things, but the bitterness of the +things she might have said was in her heart. + +"I suppose you think because I am older it is foolish," said her +mother, in an aggressive voice. "Wait till you yourself are older and +you may know how I feel. You may find out that you cannot give up all +the joys of life because you have been a few years longer in the +world. You may not feel so very different from what you do now." Mrs. +Merrill's voice rang true in this last. There was even a pathetic +appeal to her daughter for sympathy. But Lily continued to sob +weakly, and did not say any more. + +"Well, good-night, my dear child," Mrs. Merrill said finally. "You +will feel very differently about all this later on. You will come to +see, as I do, that it is for the best. You will be much happier." +Mrs. Merrill kissed Lily again, and went out. She closed the door +with a slight slam. + +Lily knew that her mother was angry with her. As for herself, she +considered that she had never been so unhappy in her whole life. She +thought of living with the Ellridge girls, who were really of a +common cast, and always with Dr. Ellridge at the head of the table, +dictating to her as he had done to-night, in his smooth, slightly +satirical way, and her whole soul rose in revolt. She felt sure that +Dr. Ellridge was not at all in love with her mother, as George Ramsey +might be in love with herself. All the romance had been sucked out of +them both years before. She called to mind again her mother's lined +face, her too aggressive curves, her tightly frizzed hair, and she +knew that she was right. She remembered hearing that Dr. Ellridge's +daughters were none of them domestic, that he had hard work to keep a +house-keeper, that his practice was declining. She remembered how +shabby and mean his little house had looked when she had passed it in +the sleigh with George Ramsey, that very day. She said to herself +that Dr. Ellridge was only marrying her mother for the sake of the +loaves and fishes, for a pretty, well-kept home for himself and his +daughters. Lily had something of a business turn in spite of her +feminity. She calculated how much rent Dr. Ellridge could get for his +own house. That will dress the girls, she thought. She knew that her +mother's income was considerable. Dr. Ellridge would be immeasurably +better off as far as this world's goods went. There was no doubt of +that. Lily felt such a measure of revolt and disgust that it was +fairly like a spiritual nausea. Her own maiden innocence seemed +assaulted, and besides that there was a sense of pitiful grief and +wonder that her mother, besides whom she had nobody in the world, +could so betray her. She was like the proverbial child with its poor +little nose out of joint. She lay and wept like one. The next +morning, when she went down to breakfast, her pretty face was pale +and woe-begone. Her mother gave one defiant glance at her, then +spooned out the cereal with vehemence. Hannah gave a quick, shrewd +glance at her when she set the saucer containing the smoking mess +before her. + +"Her mother has told her," she thought. She also thought that she +herself would give notice were it not for poor Miss Lily. + +Lily's extreme gentleness, even when she was distressed, was +calculated to inspire faithfulness in every one. Hannah gave more +than one pitying, indignant glance at the girl's pretty, sad face. +Lily did not dream of sulking to the extent of not eating her +breakfast. She ate just as usual. She even made a remark about the +weather to her mother, although in a little, weeping voice, as if the +weather itself, although it was a brilliant morning, were a source of +misery. Mrs. Merrill replied curtly. Lily took another spoonful of +her cereal. + +She remained in her own room the greater part of the day. In the +afternoon her mother, without saying anything to her, took the +trolley for Westbridge. Lily thought with a shiver that she might be +going over there to purchase some article for her trousseau. The +thought of her mother with a trousseau caused her to laugh a little, +hysterical laugh, as she sat alone in her chamber. That evening she +and her mother went to a concert in the town hall. Lily knew that Dr. +Ellridge would accompany her mother home. She wondered what she +should do, what she should be expected to do--take the doctor's other +arm, or walk behind. She had seen the doctor with two of his +daughters seated, when she and her mother passed up the aisle. She +knew that the two daughters would go home together, and the doctor +would go with her mother. She thought of George Ramsey. Now and then +as the concert proceeded she twisted her neck slightly and peered +around, but she saw nothing of him. She concluded that he was not +there. But when the concert was over, and she and her mother were +passing out the door, and Dr. Ellridge was pressing close to her +mother, under a fire of hostile glances from his daughters, Lily felt +a touch on her own arm. She turned, and saw George Ramsey's handsome +face with a quiver of unutterable bliss. She took his arm, and +followed her mother and Dr. Ellridge. When they were out in the +frosty air, under a low sky sparkling with multitudinous stars +traversed by its mysterious nebulous highway of the gods, this poor +little morsel of a mortal, engrossed with her poor little troubles, +answered a remark of George's concerning the weather in a trembling +voice. Then she began to weep unreservedly. George with a quick +glance around, drew her around a corner which they had just reached +into a street which afforded a circuitous route home, and which was +quite deserted. + +"Why Lily, what in the world is the matter?" he said. There was +absolutely nothing in his voice or his heart at the time except +friendliness and honest concern for his old playmate's distress. + +"Mother is going to be married to Dr. Ellridge," whispered Lily, "and +he and his three horrid daughters are all coming to live at our +house." + +George whistled. + +Lily sobbed quite aloud. + +"Hush, poor little girl," said George. He glanced around; there was +not a soul to be seen. Lily's head seemed to droop as naturally +towards his shoulder as a flower towards the sun. A sudden impulse of +tenderness, the tenderness of the strong for the weak, of man for +woman, came over the young fellow. Before he well knew what he was +doing, his arm had passed around Lily's waist, and the pretty head +quite touched his shoulder. George gave one last bitter thought +towards Maria, then he spoke. + +"Well," he said, "don't cry, Lily dear. If your mother is going to +marry Dr. Ellridge, suppose you get married too. Suppose you marry +me, and come and live at my house." + + + +Chapter XXV + + +The next morning, before Maria had started for school, Lily Merrill +came running across the yard, and knocked at the side door. She +always knocked unless she was quite sure that Maria was alone. She +was afraid of her aunt. Aunt Maria opened the door, and Lily shrank a +little before her, in spite of the wonderful glowing radiance which +lit her lovely face that morning. + +"Good-morning, Miss Stillman," said Lily, timidly. + +"Well?" said Aunt Maria. The word was equivalent to "What do you +want?" + +"Has Maria gone?" asked Lily. + +"No, she is getting dressed." + +"Can I run up to her room and see her a minute? I have something +particular I want to tell her." + +"I don't know whether she'd want anybody to come up while she's +dressing or not," said Aunt Maria. + +"I don't believe she'd mind me," said Lily, pleadingly. "Would you +mind calling up and asking her, please, Miss Stillman?" + +"Well," said Aunt Maria. + +She actually closed the door and left Lily standing in the bitter +wind while she spoke to Maria. Lily heard her faintly calling. + +"Say, Maria, that Merrill girl is at the door, and wants to know if +she can come a minute. She's got something she wants to tell you." + +Then Aunt Maria opened the door. "I suppose you can go up," she said, +ungraciously. The radiance in Lily's face filled her with hostility, +she did not know why. + +"Oh, thank you!" cried Lily; and ran into the house and up the stairs +to Maria's room. + +Maria was standing before the glass brushing her hair, which was very +long, and bright, and thick. Lily went straight to her and threw her +arms around her and began to weep. Maria pushed her aside gently. + +"Why, what is the matter, Lily?" she asked. "Excuse me, but I must +finish my hair; I have no more than time. What is the matter?" + +"Nothing is the matter," sobbed Lily, "only--Oh Maria I am so happy! +I have not slept a wink all night I was so happy. Oh, you don't know +how happy I am!" + +Maria's face turned deadly white. She swept the glowing lengths of +her hair over it with a deft movement. "Why, what makes you so +happy?" she asked, coolly. + +"Oh, Maria, he was in earnest, he was. I am engaged to George." + +Maria brushed her hair. "I am very glad," she said, in an unfaltering +voice. She bent her head, bringing her hair entirely over her face, +preparatory to making a great knot on the top of her head. "I hope +you will be very happy." + +"Happy!" said Lily. "Oh, Maria, you don't know how happy I am!" + +"I am very glad," Maria repeated, brushing her hair smoothly from her +neck. "He seems like a very fine young man. I think you have made a +wise choice, Lily." + +Lily flung herself into a chair and looked at Maria. "Oh, Maria +dear," she said, "I wish you were as happy as I. I hope you will be +some time." + +Maria laughed, and there was not a trace of bitterness in her laugh. +"Well, I shall not cry if I never am," she said. "What a little goose +you are, Lily, to cry!" She swept the hair back from her face, and +her color had returned. She looked squarely at Lily's reflection in +the glass, and there was an odd, triumphant expression on her face. + +"I can't help it," sobbed Lily. "I always have cried when I was very +happy, and I never was so happy as this; and last night, before +he--before George asked me--I was so miserable I wanted to die. Only +think, Maria, mother is going to marry Dr. Ellridge, and he and his +three horrid girls are coming to live at our house. I don't know how +I could have stood it if George hadn't asked me. Now I shall live +with him in his house, of course, with his mother. I have always +liked George's mother. I think she is sweet." + +"Yes, she is a very sweet woman, and I should think you could live +very happily with her," said Maria, twisting her hair carefully. +Maria had a beautiful neck showing above the lace of her underwaist. +Lily looked at it. Her tears had ceased, and left not a trace on her +smooth cheeks. The lace which Maria's upward-turned hair displayed +had set her flexible mind into a new channel. + +"Say, Maria," she said, "it is to be a very short engagement. It will +have to be, on account of mother. A double wedding would be too +ridiculous, and I want to get away before all those Ellridges come +into our house. Dr. Ellridge can't let his house before spring, and +so I think in a month, if I can get ready." Lily blushed until her +face was like the heart of a rose. + +"Well, you have a number of very pretty dresses now," said Maria. "I +should think you could get ready." + +"I shall have to get a wedding-dress made, and a tea-gown, and one +besides for receiving calls," said Lily. "Then I must have some +underwear. Will you go shopping with me in Westbridge some Saturday, +Maria?" + +"I should be very glad to do so, dear," replied Maria. + +"That is a very pretty lace on your waist," Lily said, meditatively. +"I think I shall get ready-made things. It takes so much time to make +them one's self, and besides I think they are just as pretty. Don't +you?" + +"I think one can buy very pretty ready-made things," Maria said. She +slipped on her blouse and fastened her collar. + +"I shall be so much obliged to you if you will go," said Lily. "I +won't ask mother. To tell you the truth, Maria, I think it is +dreadful that she is going to marry again--a widower with three +grown-up daughters, too." + +"I don't see why," Maria said, dropping her black skirt over her head. + +"You don't see why?" + +"No, not if it makes her happy. People have a right to all the +happiness they can get, at all ages. I used to think myself that +older people were silly to want things like young people, but now I +have changed my mind. Dr. Ellridge is a good man, and I dare say your +mother will be happier, especially if you are going away." + +"Oh, if she had not been going to get married herself, I should +rather have lived at home, after I was married," said Lily. She +looked reflectively at Maria as she fastened her belt. "It's queer," +she said, "but I do believe my feeling so terribly about mother's +marrying made George ask me sooner. Of course, he must have meant to +ask me some time, or he would not have asked me at all." + +"Of course," said Maria, getting her hat from the closet-shelf. + +"But he walked home with me from the concert last night, and I +couldn't help crying, I felt so dreadfully. Then he asked me what the +matter was, and I told him, and then he asked me right away. I think +maybe he had thought of waiting a little, but that hastened him. Oh, +Maria, I am so happy!" + +Maria fastened on her hat carefully. "I am very glad, dear," she +said. She turned from the glass, and Lily's face, smiling at her, +seemed to give out light like a star. It might not have been the +highest affection which the girl, who was one of clear and limpid +shadows rather than depths, felt; it might have had its roots in +selfish ends; but it fairly glorified her. Maria with a sudden +impulse bent over her and kissed her. "I am very glad, dear," she +said, "and now I must run, or I shall be late. My coat is +down-stairs." + +"Don't say anything before your aunt Maria, will you?" said Lily, +rising and following her. + +"No, of course, if you don't want me to." + +"Of course it will be all over town before night," said Lily, "but +someway I would rather your aunt Maria did not hear it from me. She +doesn't like me a bit." Lily said the last in a whisper. + +Both girls went down-stairs, and Maria took her coat from the rack in +the hall. + +Aunt Maria opened the sitting-room door. She had a little satchel +with Maria's lunch. "Here is your luncheon," said she, in a hard +tone, "and you'd better hurry and not stop to talk, or you'll be +late." + +"I am going right away, Aunt Maria," said Maria. She took the +satchel, and kissed her aunt on her thin, sallow cheek. + +"Good-morning, Miss Stillman," said Lily, sweetly, as she followed +Maria. + +Aunt Maria said nothing at all; she gave Lily a grim nod, while her +lips were tightly compressed. She turned the key in the door with an +audible snap. + +"Well, good-bye, dear," said Lily to Maria. "I hope you will be as +happy as I am some day, and I know you will." + +Lily's face was entirely sweet and womanly as she turned it towards +Maria for a kiss, which Maria gave her. + +"Good-bye, dear," she said, gently, and was off. + +Nobody knew how glad she was to be off. She had a stunned, shocked +feeling; she realized that her knees trembled, but she held up her +head straight and went on. She realized that worse than anything else +would be the suspicion on the part of any one that Lily's engagement +to George Ramsey troubled her. All the time, as she hurried along the +familiar road, she realized that strange, shocked feeling, as of some +tremendous detonation of spirit. She bowed mechanically to people +whom she met. She did not fairly know who they were. She kept on her +way only through inertia. She felt that if she stopped to think, she +would scarcely know the road to the school-house. She wondered when +she met a girl somewhat older than herself, just as she reached the +bridge, if that girl, who was plain and poorly dressed, one of those +who seem to make no aspirations to the sweets of life, if she had +ever felt as she herself did. Such a curiosity possessed her +concerning it that she wished she could ask the girl, although she +did not know her. She dreaded lest Jessy Ramsey should run to meet +her, and her dread was realized. However, Maria was not as distressed +by it as she thought. She stooped and kissed Jessy quite easily. + +"Good-morning, dear," she said. + +A shock of any kind has the quality of mercy in that it benumbs as to +pain. Maria's only realization was that something monstrous had +happened, something like mutilation, but there was no sting of agony. +She entered the school-house and went about her duties as usual. The +children realized no difference in her, but all the time she realized +the difference in herself. Something had gone from her, some +essential part which she could never recover, not in itself, no +matter what her future life might be. She was shorn of her first +love, and that which has been never can be again. + +When Maria reached the bridge on her way home, there was Lily waiting +for her, as she had half expected she would be. + +"Maria, dear," said Lily, with a pretty gesture of pleading, "I had +to come and meet you, because I am so happy, and nobody else knows, +except mother, and, somehow, her being pleased doesn't please me. I +suppose I am wicked, but it makes me angry. I know it is awful to say +such a thing of my own mother, but I can't help feeling that she +thinks now she can have my room for Mabel Ellridge, and won't have to +give up the spare chamber. I have nobody to talk to but you, Maria. +George won't come over before evening, and I am scared to go in and +see his mother. I am so afraid she won't like me. Do you think she +will like me, Maria dear?" + +"I don't see why she should not," replied Maria. Lily had hold of her +arm and was nestling close to her. + +"Don't you, honest?" + +"No, dear. I said so." + +"You don't mind my coming to meet you and talk it over, do you, +Maria?" + +"Of course I don't! Why should I?" asked Maria, almost angrily. + +"I thought you wouldn't. Maria, do you think a blue tea-gown or a +pink one would be prettier?" + +"I think pink is your color," said Maria. + +"Well, I rather like the idea of pink myself. Mother says I shall +have enough money to get some nice things. I suppose it is very +silly, but I always thought that one of the pleasantest things about +getting married, must be having some pretty, new clothes. Do you +think I am very silly, Maria?" + +"I dare say most girls feel so," said Maria, patiently. + +As she spoke she looked away from the other girl at the wintry +landscape. There was to the eastward of Amity a low range of hills, +hardly mountains. These were snow-covered, and beneath the light of +the setting sun gave out wonderful hues and lights of rose and blue +and pearl. It was to Maria as if she herself, being immeasurably +taller than Lily and the other girls whom she typified, could see +farther and higher, even to her own agony of mind. It is a great deal +for a small nature to be pleased with the small things of life. A +large nature may miss a good deal in not being pleased with them. +Maria realized that she herself, in Lily's place, could have no grasp +of mind petty enough for pink and blue tea-gowns, that she had +outgrown that stage of her existence. She still liked pretty things, +but they had now become dwarfed by her emotions, whereas, in the case +of the other girl, the danger was that the emotions themselves should +become dwarfed. Lily was typical, and there is after all a certain +security as to peace and comfort in being one of a kind, and not +isolated. + +Lily talked about her bridal wardrobe all the way until they reached +the Ramsey house; then she glanced up at the windows and bowed, +dimpling and blushing. "That's his mother," she said to Maria. "I +wonder if George has told her." + +"I should think he must have," said Maria. + +"I am so glad you think she will like me. I wonder what room we shall +have, and whether there will be new furniture. I don't know how the +up-stairs rooms are furnished, do you?" + +"No, how should I? I was never up-stairs in the house in my life," +said Maria. Again she gazed away from Lily at the snow-covered hills. +Her face wore an expression of forced patience. It really seemed to +her as if she were stung by a swarm of platitudes like bees. + +Lily kissed her at her door. "I should ask if I couldn't come over +this evening, and sit up in your room and talk it over," said she, +"but I suppose he will be likely to come. He didn't say so, but I +suppose he will." + +"I should judge so," said Maria. + +When she entered the sitting-room, her aunt, who was knitting with a +sort of fierce energy, looked up. "Oh, it's you!" said she. Her face +had an expression of hostility and tenderness at once. + +"Yes, Aunt Maria." + +Aunt Maria surveyed her scrutinizingly. "You don't mean to say you +didn't wear your knit jacket under your coat, such a bitter day as +this?" said she. + +"I have been warm enough." + +Aunt Maria sniffed. "I wonder when you will ever be old enough to +take care of yourself?" said she. "You need to be watched every +minute like a baby." + +"I was warm enough, Aunt Maria," Maria repeated, patiently. + +"Well, sit down here by the stove and get heated through while I see +to supper," said Aunt Maria, crossly. "I've got a hot beef-stew with +dumplings for supper, and I guess I'll make some chocolate instead of +tea. That always seems to me to warm up anybody better." + +"Don't you want me to help?" said Maria. + +"No; everything is all done except to make the chocolate. I've had +the stew on hours. A stew isn't good for a thing unless you have it +on long enough to get the goodness out of the bone." + +Aunt Maria opened the door leading to the dining-room. In winter it +served the two as both kitchen and dining-room, having a compromising +sort of stove on which one could cook, and which still did not look +entirely plebeian and fitted only for the kitchen. Maria saw through +the open door the neatly laid table, with its red cloth and Aunt +Maria's thin silver spoons and china. Aunt Maria had a weakness in +one respect. She liked to use china, and did not keep that which had +descended to her from her mother stored away, to be taken out only +for company, as her sister-in-law thought she properly should do. The +china was a fine Lowestoft pattern, and it was Aunt Maria's pride +that not a piece was missing. + +"As long as I take care of my china myself, and am not dependent on +some great, clumsy girl, I guess I can afford to use it," she said. + +As Maria eyed the delicate little cups a savory odor of stew floated +through the room. She realized that she was not hungry, that the odor +of food nauseated her with a sort of physical sympathy with the +nausea of her soul, with life itself. Then she straightened herself, +and shut her mouth hard. The look of her New England ancestresses who +had borne life and death without flinching was on her face. + +"I will be hungry," Maria said to herself. "Why should I lose my +appetite because a man who does not care for me is going to marry +another girl, and when I am married, too, and have no right even to +think of him for one minute even if he had been in earnest, if he had +thought of me? Why should I lose my appetite? Why should I go without +my supper? I will eat. More than that, I will enjoy eating, and +neither George Ramsey nor Lily Merrill shall prevent it, neither they +nor my own self." + +Maria sniffed the stew, and she compelled herself, by sheer force of +will, to find the combined odor of boiling meat and vegetables +inviting. She became hungry. + +"That stew smells so good," she called out to her aunt, and her voice +rang with triumph. + +"I guess it _is_ a good stew," her aunt called back in reply. "I've +had it on four hours, and I've made dumplings." + +"Lovely!" cried Maria. She said to herself defiantly and proudly, +that there were little zests of life which she might have if she +could not have the greatest joys, and those little zests she would +not be cheated out of by any adverse fate. She said practically to +herself, that if she could not have love she could have a stew, and +it might be worse. She smiled to herself over her whimsical conceit, +and her face lost its bitter, strained look which it had worn all +day. She reflected that even if she could not marry George Ramsey, +and had turned the cold shoulder to him, he had been undeniably +fickle; that his fancy had been lightly turned aside by a pretty face +which was not accompanied by great mental power. She had felt a +contempt for George, and scorn for Lily, but now her face cleared, +and her attitude of mind. She had gained a petty triumph over +herself, and along with that came a clearer view of the situation. +When Aunt Maria called her to supper, she jumped up, and ran into the +dining-room, and seated herself at the table. + +"I am as hungry as a bear," said she. + +Aunt Maria behind her delicate china teacups gave a sniff of +satisfaction, and her set face softened. "Well, I'm glad you are," +said she. "I guess the stew is good." + +"Of course it is," said Maria. She lifted the cover of the dish and +began ladling out the stew with a small, thin, silver ladle which had +come to Aunt Maria along with the china from her mother. She passed a +plate over to her aunt, and filled her own, and began eating. "It is +delicious," said she. The stew really pleased her palate, and she had +the feeling of a conqueror who has gained one of the outposts in a +battle. Aunt Maria passed her a thin china cup filled with frothing +chocolate, and Maria praise that too. "Your chocolate is so much +nicer than our cook used to make," said she, and Aunt Maria beamed. + +"I've got some lemon-cake, too," said she. + +"I call this a supper fit for a queen," said Maria. + +"I thought I would make the cake this afternoon. I thought maybe you +would like it," said Aunt Maria, smiling. Her own pride was appeased. +The feeling that Maria, her niece whom she adored, had been slighted, +had rankled within her all day. Now she told herself that Maria did +not care; that she might have been foolish in not caring and taking +advantage of such a matrimonial chance, but that she did not care, +and that she consequently was not slighted. + +"Well, I s'pose Lily told you the news this morning?" she said, +presently. "I s'pose that was why she wanted to see you. I s'pose she +was so tickled she couldn't wait to tell of it." + +"You mean her engagement to Mr. Ramsey?" said Maria, helping herself +to more stew. + +"Yes. Eunice came in and told before you'd been gone half an hour. +She'd been down to the store, and I guess Lily's mother had told it +to somebody there. I s'pose Adeline Merrill is tickled to death to +get Lily out of the way, now she's going to get married herself. She +would have had to give up her spare chamber if she hadn't." + +"It seems to me a very nice arrangement," said Maria, taking a +spoonful of stew. "It would have been hard for poor Lily, and now she +will live with Mr. Ramsey and his mother, and Mrs. Ramsey seems to be +a lovely woman." + +"Yes, she is," assented Aunt Maria. "She was built on a different +plan from Adeline Merrill. She came of better stock. But I don't see +what George Ramsey is thinking of, for my part." + +"Lily is very pretty and has a very good disposition," said Maria. "I +think she will make him a good wife." + +Aunt Maria sniffed. "Now, Maria Edgham," said she, "what's the use. +You know it's sour grapes he's getting. You know he wanted somebody +else." + +"Whom?" asked Maria, innocently, sipping her chocolate. + +"You know he wanted you, Maria Edgham." + +"He got over it pretty quickly then," said Maria. + +"Maybe he hasn't got over it. Lily Merrill is just one of the kind of +girls who lead a man on when they don't know they're being led. He is +proud, too; he comes of a family that have always held their heads +high. He wanted you." + +"Nonsense!" + +"You can't tell me. I know." + +"Aunt Maria," said Maria, with sudden earnestness, "if you ever tell +such a thing as that out, I don't know what I shall do." + +"I ain't going to have folks think you're slighted," said Aunt Maria. +She had made up her mind, in fact, to tell Eunice after supper. + +"Slighted!" said Maria, angrily. "There is no question of slight. Do +you think I was in love with George Ramsey?" + +"No, I don't, for if you had been you would have had him instead of +letting a little dolly-pinky, rosy-like Lily Merrill get him. I think +he was a good match, and I don't know what possessed you, but I don't +think you wanted him." + +"If you talk about it you will make people think so," said Maria, +passionately; "and if they do I will go away from Amity and never +come back as long as I live." + +Aunt Maria looked with sharp, gleaming eyes at her niece. "Maria +Edgham, you've got something on your mind," said she. + +"I have not." + +"Yes, you have, and I want to know what it is." + +"My mind is my own," said Maria, indignantly, even cruelly. Then she +rose from the table and ran up-stairs to her own room. + +"You have gone off without touching the lemon-cake," her aunt called +after her, but Maria made no response. + +Lemon-cake was an outpost which she could not then take. She had +reached her limit, for the time being. She sat down beside her window +in the dark room, lighted only by the gleam from the Merrill house +across the yard and an electric light on the street corner. There +were curious lights and shadows over the walls; strange flickerings +and wavings as of intangible creatures, unspoken thoughts. Maria +rested her elbows on the window-sill, and rested her chin in her +hands, and gazed out. Presently, with a quiver of despair, she saw +the door of the Merrill house open and Lily come flitting across the +yard. She thought, with a shudder, that she was coming to make a few +more confidences before George Ramsey arrived. She heard a timid +little knock on the side door, then her aunt's harsh and +uncompromising, "No, Maria ain't at home," said she, lying with the +utter unrestraint of one who believes in fire and brimstone, and yet +lies. She even repeated it, and emphasized and particularized her +lie, seemingly with a grim enjoyment of sin, now that she had taken +hold of it. + +"Maria went out right after supper," said she. Then, evidently in +response to Lily's low inquiry of where she had gone and when she +would be home, she said: "She went to the post-office. She was +expecting a letter from a gentleman in Edgham, I guess, and I +shouldn't wonder if she stopped in at the Monroes' and played cards. +They've been teasing her to. I shouldn't be surprised if she wasn't +home till ten o'clock." + +Maria heard her aunt with wonder which savored of horror, but she +heard the door close and saw Lily flit back across the yard with a +feeling of immeasurable relief. Then she heard her aunt's voice at +her door, opened a narrow crack. + +"Are you warm enough in here?" asked Aunt Maria. + +"Yes, plenty warm enough." + +"You'd better not light a lamp," said Aunt Maria, coolly; "I just +told that Merrill girl that you had gone out." + +"But I hadn't," said Maria. + +"I knew it; but there are times when a lie ain't a lie, it's only the +truth upside-down. I knew that you didn't want that doll-faced thing +over here again. She had better stay at home and wait for her new +beau. She was all prinked up fit to kill. I told her you had gone +out, and I meant to, but you'd better not light your lamp for a +little while. It won't matter after a little while. I suppose the +beau will come, and she won't pay any attention to it. But if you +light it right away she'll think you've got back and come tearing +over here again." + +"All right," said Maria. "I'll sit here a little while, and then I'll +light my lamp. I've got some work to do." + +"I'm going into the other side, after I've finished the dishes," said +Aunt Maria. + +"You won't--" + +"No, I won't. Let George Ramsey chew his sour grapes if he wants to. +I sha'n't say anything about it. Anybody with any sense can't help +knowing a man of sense would have rather had you than Lily Merrill. I +ain't afraid of anybody thinking you're slighted." There was +indignant and acrid loyalty in Aunt Maria's tone. She closed the +door, as was her wont, with a little slam and went down-stairs. Aunt +Maria walked very heavily. Her steps jarred the house. + +Maria continued sitting at her window. Presently a new light, a rosy +light of a lamp under a pink shade, flashed in her eyes. The parlor +in the Merrill house was lighted. Maria saw Lily draw down the +curtain, upon which directly appeared the shadows of growing plants +behind it in a delicate grace of tracery. Presently Maria saw a horse +and sleigh drive into the Merrill yard. She saw Mrs. Merrill open the +side-door, and Dr. Ellridge enter. Then she watched longer, and +presently a dark shadow of a man passed down the street, of which she +could see a short stretch from her window, and she saw him go to the +front door of the Merrill house. Maria knew that was George Ramsey. +She laughed a little, hysterical laugh as she sat there in the dark. +It was ridiculous, the two pairs of lovers in the two rooms! The +second-hand, warmed-over, renovated love and the new. After Maria +laughed she sobbed. Then she checked her sobs and sat quite still and +fought, and presently a strange thing happened, which is not possible +to all, but is possible to some. With an effort of the will which +shocked her house of life, and her very soul, and left marks which +she would bear to all eternity, she put this unlawful love for the +lover of another out of her heart. She closed all her doors and +windows of thought and sense upon him, and the love was gone, and in +its place was an awful emptiness which yet filled her with triumph. + +"I do not love him at all now," she said, quite aloud; and it was +true that she did not. She rose, pulled down her curtains, lighted +her lamp, and went to work. + + + +Chapter XXVI + + +Maria, after that, went on her way as before. She saw, without the +slightest qualm, incredible as it may seem, George Ramsey devoted to +Lily. She even entered without any shrinking into Lily's plans for +her trousseau, and repeatedly went shopping with her. She began +embroidering a bureau-scarf and table-cover for Lily's room in the +Ramsey house. It had been settled that the young couple were to have +the large front chamber, and Mrs. Merrill's present to Lily was a set +of furniture for it. Mrs. Ramsey's old-fashioned walnut set was +stowed away. Maria even went with Mrs. Merrill to purchase the +furniture. Mrs. Merrill had an idea, which could not be subdued, that +Maria would have liked George Ramsey for herself, and she took a +covert delight in pressing Maria into this service, and descanting +upon the pleasant life in store for her daughter. Maria understood +with a sort of scorn Mrs. Merrill's thought; but she said to herself +that if it gave her pleasure, let her think so. She had a character +which could leave people to their mean and malicious delights for +very contempt. + +"Well, I guess Lily's envied by a good many girls in Amity," said +Mrs. Merrill, almost undisguisedly, when she and Maria had settled +upon a charming set of furniture. + +"I dare say," replied Maria. "Mr. Ramsey seems a very good young man." + +"He's the salt of the earth," said Mrs. Merrill. She gave a glance of +thwarted malice at Maria's pretty face as they were seated side by +side in the trolley-car on their way home that day. Her farthest +imagination could discern no traces of chagrin, and Maria looked +unusually well that day in a new suit. However, she consoled herself +by thinking that Maria was undoubtedly like her aunt, who would die +before she let on that she was hit, and that the girl, under her calm +and smiling face, was stung with envy and slighted affection. + +Lily asked Maria to be her maid of honor. She planned to be married +in church, but George Ramsey unexpectedly vetoed the church wedding. +He wished a simple wedding at Lily's house. He even demurred at the +bridal-gown and veil, but Lily had her way about that. Maria +consented with no hesitation to be her maid of honor, although she +refused to allow Mrs. Merrill to purchase her dress. She purchased +some white cloth, and had it cut and fitted, and she herself made it, +embroidering it with white silk, sitting up far into the night after +school. But, after all, she was destined not to wear the dress to +Lily's wedding and not to be her maid of honor. + +The wedding was to be the first week of Maria's spring vacation, and +she unexpectedly received word from home that her father was not +well, and that she had better go home as soon as her school was +finished. Her father himself wrote. He wrote guardedly, evidently +without Ida's knowledge. He said that, unless her heart was +particularly set upon attending the wedding, he wished she would come +home; that her vacation was short, at the best, that he had not seen +her for a long time, and that he did not feel quite himself some +days. Maria read between the lines, and so did her aunt Maria, to +whom she read the letter. + +"Your father's sicker than he lets on," Aunt Maria said, bluntly. +"You'd better go. You don't care anything particular about going to +that Merrill girl's wedding. She can get Fanny Ellwell for her maid +of honor. That dress Fanny wore at Eva Granger's wedding will do for +her to wear. Your dress will come in handy next summer. You had +better go home." + +Maria sat soberly looking at the letter. "I am afraid father is worse +than he says," she said. + +"I know he is. Harry Edgham wasn't ever very strong, and I'll warrant +his wife has made him go out when he didn't feel equal to it, and she +has had stacks of company, and he must have had to strain every nerve +to meet expenses, poor man! You'd better go, Maria." + +"Of course, I am going," replied Maria. + +That evening she went over and told Lily that she could not be her +maid of honor, that her father was sick, and she would be obliged to +go home as soon as school closed. George Ramsey was calling, and +Lily's face had a lovely pink radiance. One could almost seem to see +the kisses of love upon it. George acted a little perturbed at sight +of Maria. He remained silent during Lily's torrent of regrets and +remonstrances, but he followed Maria to the door and said to her how +sorry he was that her father was ill. + +"I hope it is nothing serious," he said. + +"Thank you," said Maria. "I hope not, but I don't think my father is +very strong, and I feel that I ought to go." + +"Of course," said George. "We shall be sorry to miss you, but, if +your father is ill, you ought to go." + +"Do you think one day would make any difference?" said Lily, +pleadingly, putting up her lovely face at Maria. + +"It would mean three days, you know, dear," Maria said. + +"Of course it would," said George; "and Miss Edgham is entirely +right, Lily." + +"I don't want Fanny Ellwell one bit for maid of honor," Lily said, +poutingly. + +Maria did not pay any attention. She was thinking anxiously of her +father. She realized that he must be very ill or he would not have +written her as he had done. It was not like Harry Edgham to deprive +any one of any prospective pleasure, and he had no reason to think +that being maid of honor at this wedding was anything but a pleasure +to Maria. She felt that the illness must be something serious. Her +school was to close in three days, and she was almost too impatient +to wait. + +"Ida Edgham ought to be ashamed of herself for not writing and +letting you know that your father was sick before," said Aunt Maria. +"She and Lily Merrill are about of a piece." + +"Maybe father didn't want her to," said Maria. "Father knew my school +didn't close until next Thursday. If I thought he was very ill I +would try to get a substitute and start off before." + +"But I know your father wouldn't have written for you to come unless +he wasn't well and wanted to see you," said Aunt Maria. "I shouldn't +be a mite surprised, too, if he suspected that Ida would write you +not to come, and thought he'd get ahead of her." + +Aunt Maria was right. In the next mail came a letter from Ida, saying +that she supposed Maria would not think she could come home for such +a short vacation, especially a she had to stay a little longer in +Amity for the wedding, and how sorry they all were, and how they +should look forward to the long summer vacation. + +"She doesn't say a word about father's being ill," said Maria. + +"Of course she doesn't! She knew perfectly well that if she did you +would go home whether or no; or maybe she hasn't got eyes for +anything aside from herself to see that he is sick." + +Maria grew so uneasy about her father that she engaged a substitute +and went home two days before her vacation actually commenced. She +sent a telegram, saying that she was coming, and on what train she +should arrive. Evelyn met her at the station in Edgham. She had +grown, and was nearly as tall as Maria, although only a child. She +was fairly dancing with pleasurable expectation on the platform, with +the uncertain grace of a butterfly over a rose, when Maria caught +sight of her. Evelyn was a remarkably beautiful little girl. She had +her mother's color and dimples, with none of her hardness. Her +forehead, for some odd reason, was high and serious, like Maria's +own, and Maria's own mother's. Her dark hair was tied with a crisp +white bow, and she was charmingly dressed in red from head to foot--a +red frock, red coat, and red hat. Ida could at least plead, in +extenuation of her faults of life, that she had done her very best to +clothe those around her with beauty and grace. When Maria got off the +car, Evelyn made one leap towards her, and her slender, red-clad arms +went around her neck. She hugged and kissed her with a passionate +fervor odd to see in a child. Her charming face was all convulsed +with emotion. + +"Oh, sister!" she said. "Oh, sister!" + +Maria kissed her fondly. "Sister's darling," she said. Then she put +her gently away. "Sister has to get out her trunk-check and see to +getting a carriage," she said. + +"Mamma has gone to New York," said Evelyn, "and papa has not got home +yet. He comes on the next train. He told me to come and meet you." + +Maria, after she had seen to her baggage and was seated in the livery +carriage with Evelyn, asked how her father was. "Is father ill, +dear?" she said. + +Evelyn looked at her with surprise. "Why, no, sister, I don't think +so," she replied. "Mamma hasn't said anything about it, and I haven't +heard papa say anything, either." + +"Does he go to New York every day?" + +"Yes, of course," said Evelyn. The little girl had kept looking at +her sister with loving, adoring eyes. Now she suddenly cuddled up +close to her and thrust her arm through Maria's. "Oh, sister!" she +said, half sobbingly again. + +"There, don't cry, sister's own precious," Maria said, kissing the +little, glowing face on her shoulder. She realized all at once how +hard the separation had been from her sister. "Are you glad to have +me home?" she asked. + +For answer Evelyn only clung the closer. There was a strange passion +in the look of her big eyes as she glanced up at her sister. Maria +was too young herself to realize it, but the child had a dangerous +temperament. She had inherited none of her mother's hard +phlegmaticism. She was glowing and tingling with emotion and life and +feeling in every nerve and vein. As she clung to her sister she +trembled all over her lithe little body with the violence of her +affection for her and her delight at meeting her again. Evelyn had +made a sort of heroine of her older sister. Her imagination had +glorified her, and now the sight of her did not disappoint her in the +least. Evelyn thought Maria, in her brown travelling-gown and big, +brown-feathered hat, perfectly beautiful. She was proud of her with a +pride which reached ecstasy; she loved her with a love which reached +ecstasy. + +"So father goes to New York every day?" said Maria again. + +"Yes," said Evelyn. Then she repeated her ecstatic "Oh, sister!" + +To Maria herself the affection of the little girl was inexpressibly +grateful. She said to herself that she had something, after all. She +thought of Lily Merrill, and reflected how much more she loved Evelyn +than she had loved George Ramsey, how much more precious a little, +innocent, beautiful girl was than a man. She felt somewhat reassured +about her father's health. It did not seem to her that he could be +very ill if he went to New York every day. + +"Mamma has gone to the matinee," said Evelyn, nestling luxuriously, +like a kitten, against Maria. "She said she would bring me some +candy. Mamma wore her new blue velvet gown, and she looked lovely, +but"--Evelyn hesitated a second, then she whispered with her lips +close to Maria's ear--"I love you best." + +"Evelyn, darling, you must not say such things," said Maria, +severely. "Of course, you love your own mother best." + +"No, I don't," persisted Evelyn. "Maybe it's wicked, but I don't. I +love papa as well as I do you, but I don't love mamma so well. Mamma +gets me pretty things to wear, and she smiles at me, but I don't love +her so much. I can't help it." + +"That is a naughty little girl," said Maria. + +"I can't help it," said Evelyn. "Mamma can't love anybody as hard as +I can. I can love anybody so hard it makes me shake all over, and I +feel ill, but mamma can't. I love you so, Maria, that I don't feel +well." + +"Nonsense!" said Maria, but she kissed Evelyn again. + +"I don't--honest," said Evelyn. Then she added, after a second's +pause, "If I tell you something, won't you tell mamma--honest?" + +"I can't promise if I don't know what it is," said Maria, with her +school-teacher manner. + +"It isn't any harm, but mamma wouldn't understand. She never felt so, +and she wouldn't understand. You won't tell her, will you, sister?" + +"No, I guess not," said Maria. + +"Promise." + +"Well, I won't tell her." + +Evelyn looked up in her sister's face with her wonderful dark eyes, a +rose flush spread over her face. "Well, I am in love," she whispered. + +Maria laughed, although she tried not to. "Well, with whom, dear?" +she asked. + +"With a boy. Do you think it is wrong, sister?" + +"No, I don't think it is very wrong," replied Maria, trying to +restrain her smile. + +"His first name is pretty, but his last isn't so very," Evelyn said, +regretfully. "His first name is Ernest. Don't you think that is a +pretty name?" + +"Very pretty." + +"But his last name is only Jenks," said Evelyn, with a mortified air. +"That is horrid, isn't it?" + +"Nobody can help his name," said Maria, consolingly. + +"Of course he can't. Poor Ernest isn't to blame because his mother +married a man named Jenks; but I wish she hadn't. If we ever get +married, I don't want to be called Mrs. Jenks. Don't people ever +change their names, sister?" + +"Sometimes, I believe." + +"Well, I shall not marry him unless he changes his name. But he is +such a pretty boy. He looks across the school-room at me, and once, +when I met him in the vestibule, and there was nobody else there, he +asked me to kiss him, and I did." + +"I don't think you ought to kiss boys," said Maria. + +"I would rather kiss him than another girl," said Evelyn, looking up +at her sister with the most limpid passion, that of a child who has +not the faintest conception of what passion means. + +"Well, sister would rather you did not," said Maria. + +"I won't if you don't want me to," said Evelyn, meekly. "That was +quite a long time ago. It is not very likely I shall meet him +anywhere where we could kiss each other, anyway. Of course, I don't +really love him as much as I do you and papa. I would rather he died +than you or papa; but I am in love with him--you know what I mean, +sister?" + +"I wouldn't think any more about it, dear," said Maria. + +"I like to think about him," said Evelyn, simply. "I like to sit +whole hours and think about him, and make sort of stories about us, +you know--how me meet somewhere, and he tells me how much he loves +me, and how we kiss each other again. It makes me happy. I go to +sleep so. Do you think it is wrong, sister?" + +Maria remembered her own childhood. "Perhaps it isn't wrong, exactly, +dear," she said, "but I wouldn't, if I were you. I think it is better +not." + +"Well, I will try not to," said Evelyn, with a sigh. "He told Amy +Jones I was the prettiest girl in school. Of course we couldn't be +married for a long time, and I wouldn't be Mrs. Jenks. But, now +you've come home, maybe I sha'n't want to think so much about him." + +Maria found new maids when she reached home. Ida did not keep her +domestics very long. However, nobody could say that was her fault in +this age when man-servants and maid-servants buzz angrily, like bees, +over household tasks and are constantly hungering for new fields. + +"We have had two cooks and two new second-girls since you went away," +Evelyn said, when they stood waiting for the front door to be opened, +and the man with Maria's trunk stood behind them. "The last +second-girl we had stole"--Evelyn said the last in a horrified +whisper--"and the last cook couldn't cook. The cook we have now is +named Agnes, and the second-girl is Irene. Agnes lets me go out in +the kitchen and make candy, and she always makes a little cake for +me; but I don't like Irene. She says things under her breath when she +thinks nobody will hear, and she makes up my bed so it is all +wrinkly. I shouldn't be surprised if she stole, too." + +Then the door opened and a white-capped maid, with a rather pretty +face, evidently of the same class as Gladys Mann, appeared. + +"This is my sister, Miss Maria, Irene," said Evelyn. + +The maid nodded and said something inarticulate. + +Maria said "How do you do?" to her, and asked her to tell the man +where to carry the trunk. + +When the trunk was in Maria's old room, and Maria had smoothed her +hair and washed her face and hands, she and Evelyn sat down in the +parlor and waited. The parlor looked to Maria, after poor Aunt +Maria's sparse old furnishings, more luxurious than she had +remembered it. In fact, it had been improved. There were some +splendid palms in the bay-window, and some new articles of furniture. +The windows, also, had been enlarged, and were hung with new curtains +of filmy lace, with thin, red silk over them. The whole room seemed +full of rosy light. + +"I wish you would ask Irene to fix the hearth fire," Evelyn had said +to Maria when they entered the room, which did seem somewhat chilly. + +Maria asked the girl to do so, and when she had gone and the fire was +blazing Evelyn said: + +"I didn't like to ask her, sister. She doesn't realize that I am not +a baby, and she does not like it. So I never ask her to do anything +except when mamma is here. Irene is afraid of mamma." + +Maria laughed and looked at the clock. "How long will it be before +father comes, do you think, dear?" she asked. + +"Papa comes home lately at five o'clock. I guess he will be here very +soon now; but mamma won't be home before half-past seven. She has +gone with the Voorhees to the matinee. Do you know the Voorhees, +sister?" + +"No, dear." + +"I guess they came to Edgham after you went away. They bought that +big house on the hill near the church. They are very rich. There are +Mr. Voorhees and Mrs. Voorhees and their little boy. He doesn't wear +long stockings in the coldest weather; his legs are quite bare from a +little above his shoes to his knees. I should think he would be cold, +but mamma says it is very stylish. He is a pretty little boy, but I +don't like him; he looks too much like Mr. Voorhees, and I don't like +him. He always acts as if he were laughing at something inside, and +you don't know what it is. Mrs. Voorhees is very handsome, not quite +so handsome as mamma, but very handsome, and she wears beautiful +clothes and jewels. They often ask mamma to go to the theatre with +them, and they are here quite a good deal. They have dinner-parties +and receptions, and mamma goes. We had a dinner-party here last week." + +"Doesn't father go to the theatre with them?" asked Maria. + +"No, he never goes. I don't know whether they ask him or not. If they +do, he doesn't go. I guess he would rather stay at home. Then I don't +believe papa would want to leave me alone until the late train, for +often the cook and Irene go out in the evening." + +Maria looked anxiously at her little sister, who was sitting as close +to her as she could get in the divan before the fire. "Does papa look +well?" she asked. + +"Why, yes, I guess so. He looks just the way he always has. I haven't +heard him say he wasn't well, nor mamma, and he hasn't had the +doctor, and I haven't seen him take any medicine. I guess he's well." + +Maria looked at the clock, a fine French affair, which had been one +of Ida's wedding gifts, standing swinging its pendulum on the shelf +between a Tiffany vase and a bronze. "Father must be home soon now, +if he comes on that five-clock train," she said. + +"Yes, I guess he will." + +In fact, it was a very few minutes before a carriage stopped in front +of the house and Evelyn called out: "There he is! Papa has come!" + +Maria did not dare look out of the window. She arose with trembling +knees and went out into the hall as the front door opened. She saw at +the first glance that her father had changed--that he did not look +well. And yet it was difficult to say why he did not look well. He +had not lost flesh, at least not perceptibly; he was not very pale, +but on his face was the expression of one who is looking his last at +the things of this world. The expression was at once stern and sad +and patient. When he saw Maria, however, the look disappeared for the +time. His face, which had not yet lost its boyish outlines, fairly +quivered between smiles and tears. He caught Maria in his arms. + +"Father's blessed child!" he whispered in her ear. + +"Oh, father," half sobbed Maria, "why didn't you send for me before? +Why didn't you tell me?" + +"Hush, darling!" Harry said, with a glance at Evelyn, who stood +looking on with a puzzled, troubled expression on her little face. +Harry took off his overcoat, and they all went into the parlor. "That +fire looks good," said Harry, drawing close to it. + +"I got Maria to ask Irene to make it," Evelyn said, in her childish +voice. + +"That was a good little girl," said Harry. He sat down on the divan, +with a daughter on each side of him. Maria nestled close to her +father. With an effort she kept her quivering face straight. She +dared not look in his face again. A knell seemed ringing in her ears +from her own conviction, a voice of her inner consciousness, which +kept reiterating, "Father is going to die, father is going to die." +Maria knew little of illness, but she felt that she could not mistake +that expression. But her father talked quite gayly, asking her about +her school and Aunt Maria and Uncle Henry and his wife. Maria replied +mechanically. Finally she mustered courage to say: + +"How are you feeling, father? Are you well?" + +"I am about the same as when you went away, dear," Harry replied, and +that expression of stern, almost ineffable patience deepened on his +face. He smiled directly, however, and asked Evelyn what train her +mother had taken. + +"She won't be home until the seven-thirty train," said Harry, "and +there is no use in our waiting dinner. You must be hungry, Maria. +Evelyn, darling, speak to Irene. I hear her in the dining-room." + +Evelyn obeyed, and Harry gave his orders that dinner should be served +as soon as possible. The girl smiled at him with a coquettish air. + +"Irene is pleasanter to papa than to anybody else," Evelyn observed, +meditatively, when Irene had gone out. "I guess girls are apt to be +pleasanter to gentlemen than to little girls." + +Harry laughed and kissed the child's high forehead. "Little girls are +just as well off if they don't study out other people's peculiarities +too much," he said. + +"They are very interesting," said Evelyn, with an odd look at him, +yet an entirely innocent look. + +Maria was secretly glad that this first evening She was not there, +that she could dine alone with her father and Evelyn. It was a drop +of comfort, and yet the awful knell never ceased ringing in her +ears--"Father is going to die, father is going to die." Maria made an +effort to eat, because her father watched her anxiously. + +"You are not as stout as you were when you went away, precious," he +said. + +"I am perfectly well," said Maria. + +"Well, I must say you do look well," said Harry, looking admiringly +at her. He admired his little Evelyn, but no other face in the world +upon which he was soon to close his eyes forever was quite so +beautiful to him as Maria's. "You look very much as your own mother +used to do," he said. + +"Was Maria's mamma prettier than my mamma?" asked Evelyn, calmly, +without the least jealousy. She looked scrutinizingly at Maria, then +at her father. "I think Maria is a good deal prettier than mamma, and +I suppose, of course, her mamma must have been better-looking than +mine," said she, answering her own question, to Harry's relief. But +she straightway followed one embarrassing question with another. "Did +you love Maria's mamma better than you do my mamma?" she asked. + +Maria came to her father's relief. "That is not a question for little +girls to ask, dear," said she. + +"I don't see why," said Evelyn. "Little girls ought to know things. I +supposed that was why I was a little girl, in order to learn to know +everything. I should have been born grown up if it hadn't been for +that." + +"But you must not ask such questions, precious," said Maria. "When +you are grown up you will see why." + +Harry insisted upon Evelyn's going to bed directly after dinner, +although she pleaded hard to be allowed to sit up until her mother +returned. Harry wished for at least a few moments alone with Maria. +So Evelyn went off up-stairs, after teary kisses and good-nights, and +Maria was left alone with her father in the parlor. + +"You are not well, father?" Maria said, immediately after Evelyn had +closed the door. + +"No, dear," replied Harry, simply. + +Maria retained her self-composure very much as her mother might have +done. A quick sense of the necessity of aiding her father, of +supporting him spiritually, came over her. + +"What doctor have you seen, father?" she asked. + +"The doctor here and three specialists in New York." + +"And they all agreed?" + +"Yes, dear." + +Maria looked interrogatively at her father. Her face was very white +and shocked, but it did not quiver. Harry answered the look. + +"I may have to give up almost any day now," he said, with an odd +sigh, half of misery, half of relief. + +"Does Ida know?" asked Maria. + +"No, dear, she does not suspect. I thought there was no need of +distressing her. I wanted to tell you while I was able, because--" +Harry hesitated, then he continued: "Father wanted to tell you how +sorry he was not to make any better provision for you," he said, +pitifully. "He didn't want you to think it was because he cared any +the less for you. But--soon after I married Ida--well, I realized how +helpless she would be, especially after Evelyn was born, and I had my +life insured for her benefit. A few years after I tried to get a +second policy for your benefit, but it was too late. Father hasn't +been well for quite a long time." + +"I hope you don't think I care about any money," Maria cried, with +sudden passion. "I can take care of myself. It is _you_ I think of." +Maria began to weep, then restrained herself, but she looked +accusingly and distressedly at her father. + +"I had to settle the house on her, too," said Harry, painfully. "But +I felt sure at the time--she said so--that you would always have your +home here." + +"That is all right, father," said Maria. + +"All father can do for his first little girl, the one he loves best +of all," said Harry, "is to leave her a little sum he has saved and +put in the savings-bank here in her name. It is not much, dear." + +"It is more than I want. I don't want anything. All I want is you!" +cried Maria. She had an impulse to rush to her father, to cling about +his neck and weep her very heart out, but she restrained herself. She +saw how unutterably weary her father looked, and she realized that +any violent emotion, even of love, might be too much for his +strength. She knew, too, that her father understood her, that she +cared none the less because she restrained herself. Maria would never +know, luckily for her, how painfully and secretly poor Harry had +saved the little sum which he had placed in the bank to her credit; +how he had gone without luncheons, without clothes, without medicines +even how he had possibly hastened the end by his anxiety for her +welfare. + +Suddenly carriage-wheels were heard, and Harry straightened himself. +"That is Ida," he said. Then he rose and opened the front door, +letting a gust of frosty outside air enter the house, and presently +Ida came in. She was radiant, the most brilliant color on her hard, +dimpled cheeks. The blank dark light of her eyes, and her set smile, +were just as Maria remembered them. She was magnificent in her blue +velvet, with her sable furs and large, blue velvet hat, with a blue +feather floating over the black waves of her hair. Maria said to +herself that she was certainly a beauty, that she was more beautiful +than ever. She greeted Maria with the most faultless manner; she gave +her her cool red cheek to be kissed, and made the suitable inquiries +as to her journey, her health, and the health of her relatives in +Amity. When Harry said something about dinner, she replied that she +had dined with the Voorhees in the Pennsylvania station, since they +had missed the train and had some time on their hands. She removed +her wraps and seated herself before the fire. + +When at last Maria went to her own room, she was both pleased and +disturbed to find Evelyn in her bed. She had wished to be free to +give way to her terrible grief. Evelyn, however, waked just enough to +explain that she wanted to sleep with her, and threw one slender arm +over her, and then sank again into the sound sleep of childhood. +Maria lay sobbing quietly, and her sister did not awaken at all. It +might have been midnight when the door of the room was softly opened +and light flared across the ceiling. Maria turned, and Ida stood in +the doorway. She had on a red wrapper, and she held a streaming +candle. Her black hair floated around her beautiful face, which had +not lost its color or its smile, although what she said might +reasonably have caused it to do so. + +"Your father does not seem quite well," she said to Maria. "I have +sent Irene and the cook for the doctor. If you don't mind, I wish you +would get up and slip on a wrapper and come into my room." Ida spoke +softly for fear of waking Evelyn, whom she had directly seen in +Maria's bed when she opened the door. + +Maria sprang up, got a wrapper, put it on over her night-gown, thrust +her feet into slippers, and followed Ida across the hall. Harry lay +on the bed, seemingly unconscious. + +"I can't seem to rouse him," said Ida. She spoke quite placidly. + +Maria went close to her father and put her ear to his mouth. "He is +breathing," she whispered, tremulously. + +Ida smiled. "Oh yes," she said. "I don't think it anything serious. +It may be indigestion." + +Then Maria turned on her. "Indigestion!" she whispered. "Indigestion! +He is dying. He has been dying a long time, and you haven't had sense +enough to see it. You haven't loved him enough to see it. What made +you marry my father if you didn't love him?" + +Ida looked at Maria, and her face seemed to freeze into a smiling +mask. + +"He is dying!" Maria repeated, in a frenzy, yet still in a whisper. + +"Dying? What do you know about it?" Ida asked, with icy emphasis. + +"I know. He has seen three specialists besides the doctor here." + +"And he told you instead of me?" + +"He told me because he knew I loved him," said Maria. She was as +white as death herself, and she trembled from head to foot with +strange, stiff tremors. Her blue eyes fairly blazed at her +step-mother. + +Suddenly the sick man began to breathe stertorously. Even Ida started +at that. She glanced nervously towards the bed. Little Evelyn, in her +night-gown, her black fleece of hair fluffing around her face like a +nimbus of shadow, came and stood in the doorway. + +"What is the matter with papa?" she whispered, piteously. + +"He is asleep, that is all, and breathing hard," replied her mother. +"Go back to bed." + +"Go back to bed, darling," said Maria. + +"What is the matter?" asked Evelyn. She burst into a low, frightened +wail. + +"Go back to bed this instant, Evelyn," said her mother, and the child +fled, whimpering. + +Maria stood close to her father. Ida seated herself in a chair beside +the table on which the lamp stood. Neither of them spoke again. The +dying man continued to breathe his deep, rattling breath, the breath +of one who is near the goal of life and pants at the finish of the +race. The cook, a large Irishwoman, put her face inside the door. + +"The doctor is comin' right away," said she. Then in the same breath +she muttered, looking at poor Harry, "Oh, me God!" and fled, +doubtless to pray for the poor man's soul. + +Then the doctor's carriage-wheels were heard, and he came up-stairs, +ushered by Irene, who stood in the doorway, listening and looking +with a sort of alien expression, as if she herself were immortal, and +sneered and wondered at it all. + +Ida greeted the doctor in her usual manner. "Good-evening, doctor," +she said, smiling. "I am sorry to have disturbed you at this hour, +but Mr. Edgham has an acute attack of indigestion and I could not +rouse him, and I thought it hardly wise to wait until morning." + +The doctor, who was an old man, unshaven and grim-faced, nodded and +went up to the bed. He did not open his medicine-case after he had +looked at Harry. + +"I suppose you can give him something, doctor?" Ida said. + +"There is nothing that mortal man can do, madam," said the doctor, +surlily. He disliked Ida Edgham, and yet he felt apologetic towards +her that he could do nothing. He in reality felt testily apologetic +towards all mankind that he could not avert death at last. + +Ida's brilliant color faded then; she ceased to smile. "I think I +should have been told," she said, with a sort of hard indignation. + +The doctor said nothing. He stood holding Harry's hand, his fingers +on the pulse. + +"You surely do not mean me to understand that my husband is dying?" +said Ida. + +"He cannot last more than a few hours, madam," replied the doctor, +with pitilessness, yet still with the humility of one who has failed +in a task. + +"I think we had better have another doctor at once," said Ida. +"Irene, go down street to the telegraph operator and tell him to send +a message for Dr. Lameth." + +"He has been consulted, and also Dr. Green and Dr. Anderson, not four +weeks ago, and we all agree," said the doctor, with a certain +defiance. + +"Go, Irene," said Ida. + +Irene went out of the room, but neither she nor the cook left the +house. + +"The madam said to send a telegram," Irene told the cook, "but the +doctor said it was no use, and I ain't goin' to stir out a step again +to-night. I'm afraid." + +The cook, who was weeping beside the kitchen table, hardly seemed to +hear. She wept profusely and muttered surreptitiously prayers on her +rosary for poor Harry's soul, which passed as day dawned. + + + +Chapter XXVII + + +Maria had always attended church, and would have said, had she been +asked, that she believed in religion, that she believed in God; but +she had from the first, when she had thought of such matters at all, +a curious sort of scorn, which was half shame, at the familiar +phrases used concerning it. When she had heard of such and such a one +that "he was serious," that he had "experienced conviction," she had +been filled with disgust. The spiritual nature of it all was to her +mind treated materially, like an attack of the measles or mumps. She +had seen people unite with the church of which her mother had been a +member, and heard them subscribe to and swear their belief in +articles of faith, which seemed to her monstrous. Religion had never +impressed her with any beauty, or sense of love. Now, for the first +time, after her father had died, she seemed all at once to sense the +nearness of that which is beyond, and a love and longing for it, +which is the most primitive and subtlest instinct of man, filled her +very soul. Her love for her father projected her consciousness of him +beyond this world. In the midst of her grief a strange peace was over +her, and a realization of love which she had never had before. Maria, +at this period, had she been a Catholic, might have become a +religious devotee. She seemed to have visions of the God-man crowned +with thorns, the rays of unutterable and eternal love, and sacred +agony for love's sake. She said to herself that she loved God, that +her father had gone to him. Moreover, she took a certain delight in +thinking that her own mother, with her keen tongue and her heart of +true gold, had him safe with her. She regarded Ida with a sort of +covert triumph during those days after the funeral, when the sweet, +sickly fragrance of the funeral flowers still permeated the house. +Maria did not weep much after the first. She was not one to whom +tears came easily after her childhood. She carried about with her +what seemed like an aching weight and sense of loss, along with that +strange new conviction of love and being born for ultimate happiness +which had come to her at the time of her father's death. + +The spring was very early that year. The apple-trees were in blossom +at an unusual time. There was a tiny orchard back of the Edgham +house. Maria used to steal away down there, sit down on the grass, +speckled with pink-and-white petals, and look up through the rosy +radiance of bloom at the infinite blue light of the sky. It seemed to +her for the first time she laid hold on life in the midst of death. +She wondered if she could always feel as she did then. She had a +premonition that this state, which bordered on ecstasy, would not +endure. + +"Maria does not act natural, poor child," Ida said to Mrs. Voorhees. +"She hardly sheds a tear. Sometimes I fear that her father's marrying +again did wean her a little from him." + +"She may have deep feelings," suggested Mrs. Voorhees. Mrs. Voorhees +was an exuberant blonde, with broad shallows of sentimentality +overflowing her mind. + +"Perhaps she has," Ida assented, with a peculiar smile curling her +lips. Ida looked handsomer than ever in her mourning attire. The +black softened her beauty, instead of bringing it into bolder relief, +as is sometimes the case. Ida mourned Harry in a curious fashion. She +mourned the more pitifully because of the absence of any mourning at +all, in its truest sense. Ida had borne in upon her the propriety of +deep grief, and she, maintaining that attitude, cramped her very soul +because of its unnaturalness. She consoled herself greatly because of +what she esteemed her devotion to the man who was gone. She said to +herself, with a preen of her funereal crest, that she had been such a +wife to poor Harry as few men ever had possessed. + +"Well, I have the consolation of thinking that I have done my duty," +she said to Mrs. Voorhees. + +"Of course you have, dear, and that is worth everything," responded +her friend. + +"I did all I could to make his home attractive," said Ida, "and he +never had to wait for a meal. How pretty he thought those new +hangings in the parlor were! Poor Harry had an aesthetic sense, and I +did my best to gratify it. It is a consolation." + +"Of course," said Mrs. Voorhees. + +If Ida had known how Maria regarded those very red silk parlor +hangings she would have been incredulous. Maria thought to herself +how hard her poor father had worked, and how the other hangings, +which had been new at the time of Ida's marriage, could not have been +worn out. She wanted to tear down the filmy red things and stuff them +into the kitchen stove. When she found out that her father had saved +up nearly a thousand dollars for her, which was deposited to her +credit in the Edgham savings-bank, her heart nearly broke because of +that. She imagined her father going without things to save that +little pittance for her, and she hated the money. She said to herself +that she would never touch it. And yet she loved her father for +saving it for her with a very anguish of love. + +Ida was manifestly surprised when Henry's will was read and she +learned of Maria's poor little legacy, but she touched her cool red +lips to Maria's cheek and told her how glad she was. "It will be a +little nest-egg for you," she said, "and it will buy your trousseau. +And, of course, you will always feel at perfect liberty to come here +whenever you wish to do so. Your room will be kept just as it is." + +Maria thanked her, but she detected an odd ring of insincerity in +Ida's voice. After she went to bed that night she speculated as to +what it meant. Evelyn was not with her. Ida had insisted that she +should occupy her own room. + +"You will keep each other awake," she said. + +Evelyn had grown noticeably thin and pale in a few days. The child +had adored her father. Often, at the table, she would look at his +vacant place, and push away her plate, and sob. Ida had become mildly +severe with her on account of it. + +"My dear child," she said, "of course we all feel just as you do, but +we control ourselves. It is the duty of those who live to control +themselves." + +"I want my papa!" sobbed Evelyn convulsively. + +"You had better go away from the table, dear," said Ida calmly. "I +will have a plate of dinner kept warm for you, and by-and-by when you +feel like it, you can go down to the kitchen and Agnes will give it +to you." + +In fact, poor little Evelyn, who was only a child and needed her +food, did steal down to the kitchen about nine o'clock and got her +plate of dinner. But she was more satisfied by Agnes bursting into +tears and talking about her "blissed father that was gone, and how +there was niver a man like him," and actually holding her in her +great lap while she ate. It was a meal seasoned with tears, but also +sweetened with honest sympathy. Evelyn, when she slipped up the back +stairs to her own room after her supper, longed to go into her +sister's room and sleep with her, but she did not dare. Her little +bed was close to the wall, against which, on the other side, Maria's +bed stood, and once Evelyn distinctly heard a sob. She sobbed too, +but softly, lest her mother hear. Evelyn felt that she and Maria and +Agnes were the only ones who really mourned for her father, although +she viewed her mother in her mourning robes with a sort of awe, and a +feeling that she must believe in a grief on her part far beyond hers +and Maria's. Ida had obtained a very handsome mourning wardrobe for +both herself and Evelyn, and had superintended Maria's. Maria paid +for her clothes out of her small earnings, however. Ida had her +dress-maker's bill made out separately, and gave it to her. Maria +calculated that she would have just about enough to pay her fare back +to Amity without touching that sacred blood-money in the +savings-bank. It had been on that occasion that Ida had made the +remark to her about her always considering that house as her home, +and had done so with that odd expression which caused Maria to +speculate. Maria decided that night, as she lay awake in bed, that +Ida had something on her mind which she was keeping a secret for the +present. The surmise was quite justified, but Maria had not the least +suspicion of what it was until three days before her vacation was to +end, when Ida received a letter with the Amity post-mark, directed in +Aunt Maria's precise, cramped handwriting. She spoke about it to +Maria, who had brought it herself from the office that evening after +Evelyn had gone to bed. + +"I had a letter from your aunt Maria this morning," she said, with an +assumed indifference. + +"Yes; I noticed the Amity post-mark and Aunt Maria's writing," said +Maria. + +Ida looked at her step-daughter, and for the first time in her life +she hesitated. "I have something to say to you, Maria," she said, +finally, in a nervous voice, so different from her usual one that +Maria looked at her in surprise. She waited for her to speak further. + +"The Voorhees are going abroad," she said, abruptly. + +"Are they?" + +"Yes, they sail in three weeks--three weeks from next Saturday." + +Maria still waited, and still her step-mother hesitated. At last, +however, she spoke out boldly and defiantly. + +"Mrs. Voorhees's sister, Miss Angelica Wyatt, is going with them," +said she. "Mrs. Voorhees is not going to take Paul; she will leave +him with her mother. She says travelling is altogether too hard on +children." + +"Does she?" + +"Yes; and so there are three in the party. Miss Wyatt has her +state-room to herself, and--they have asked me to go. The passage +will not cost me anything. All the expense I shall have will be my +board, and travelling fares abroad." + +Maria looked at her step-mother, who visibly shrank before her, then +looked at her with defiant eyes. + +"Then you are going?" she said. + +"Yes. I have made up my mind that it is a chance which Providence has +put in my way, and I should be foolish, even wicked, to throw it +away, especially now. I am not well. Your dear father's death has +shattered my nerves." + +Maria looked, with a sarcasm which she could not repress, at her +step-mother's blooming face, and her rounded form. + +"I have consulted Mrs. Voorhees's physician, in New York," said Ida +quickly, for she understood the look. "I consulted him when I went to +the city with Mrs. Voorhees last Monday, and he says I am a nervous +wreck, and he will not answer for the consequences unless I have a +complete change of scene." + +"What about Evelyn?" asked Maria, in a dry voice. + +"I wrote to your aunt Maria about her. The letter I got this morning +was in reply to mine. She writes very brusquely--she is even +ill-mannered--but she says she is perfectly willing for Evelyn to go +there and board. I will pay four dollars a week--that is a large +price for a child--and I knew you would love to have her." + +"Yes, I should; I don't turn my back upon my own flesh and blood," +Maria said, abruptly. "I guess I shall be glad to have her, poor +little thing! with her father dead and her mother forsaking her." + +"I think you must be very much like your aunt Maria," said Ida, in a +cool, disagreeable voice. "I would fight against it, if I were you, +Maria. It is not interesting, such a way as hers. It is especially +not interesting to gentlemen. Gentlemen never like girls who speak so +quickly and emphatically. They like girls to be gentle." + +"I don't care what gentlemen think," said Maria, "but I do care for +my poor, forsaken little sister." Maria's voice broke with rage and +distress. + +"You are exceedingly disagreeable, Maria," said Ida, with the radiant +air of one who realizes her own perfect agreeableness. + +Maria's lip curled. She said nothing. + +"Evelyn's wardrobe is in perfect order for the summer," said Ida. "Of +course she can wear her white frocks in warm weather, and she has her +black silk frocks and coat. I have plenty of black sash ribbons for +her to wear with her white frocks. You will see to it that she always +wears a black sash with a white frock, I hope, Maria. I should not +like people in Amity to think I was lacking in respect to your +father's memory." + +"Yes, I will be sure that Evelyn wears a black sash with a white +frock," replied Maria, in a bitter voice. + +She rose abruptly and left the room. Up in her own chamber she threw +herself face downward upon her bed, and wept the tears of one who is +oppressed and helpless at the sight of wrong and disloyalty to one +beloved. Maria hardly thought of Evelyn in her own personality at +all. She thought of her as her dead father's child, whose mother was +going away and leaving her within less than three weeks after her +father's death. She lost sight of her own happiness in having the +child with her, in the bitter reflection over the disloyalty to her +father. + +"She never cared at all for father," she muttered to herself--"never +at all; and now she does not really care because he is gone. She is +perfectly delighted to be free, and have money enough to go to +Europe, although she tries to hide it." + +Maria felt as if she had caught sight of a stone of shame in the +place where a wife's and mother's heart should have been. She felt +sick with disgust, as if she had seen some monster. It never occurred +to her that she was possibly unjust to Ida, who was, after all, as +she was made, a being on a very simple and primitive plan, with an +acute perception of her own welfare and the means whereby to achieve +it. Ida was in reality as innocently self-seeking as a butterfly or a +honey-bee. She had never really seen anybody in the world except +herself. She had been born humanity blind, and it was possibly no +more her fault than if she had been born with a hump. + +The next day Ida went to New York with Mrs. Voorhees to complete some +preparations for her journey, and to meet Mrs. Voorhees's sister, who +was expected to arrive from the South, where she had been spending +the winter. That evening the Voorheeses came over and discussed their +purchases, and Miss Wyatt, the sister, came with them. She was +typically like Mrs. Voorhees, only younger, and with her figure in +better restraint. She had so far successfully fought down an +hereditary tendency to avoirdupois. She had brilliant yellow hair and +a brilliant complexion, like her sister, and she was as well, even +better, dressed. Ida had purchased that day a steamer-rug, a close +little hat, and a long coat for the voyage, and the women talked over +the purchases and their plans for travel with undisguised glee. Once, +when Ida met Maria's sarcastic eyes, she colored a little and +complained of a headache, which she had been suffering with all day. + +"Yes, there is no doubt that you are simply a nervous wreck, and you +would break down entirely without the sea-voyage and the change of +scene," said Mrs. Voorhees, in her smooth, emotionless voice and with +a covert glance at Maria. Ida had confided to her the attitude which +she knew Maria took with reference to her going away. + +"All I regret--all that mars my perfect delight in the prospect of +the trip--is parting with my darling little Paul," Mrs. Voorhees +said, with a sigh. + +"That is the way I feel with regard to Evelyn," said Ida. + +Maria, who was sewing, took another stitch. She did not seem to hear. + +The next day but one Maria and Evelyn started for Amity. Ida did not +go to the station with them. She was not up when they started. The +curtains in her room were down, and she lay in bed, drawing down the +corners of her mouth with resolution when Maria and Evelyn entered to +bid her good-bye. Maria said good-bye first, and bent her cheek to +Ida's lips; then it was Evelyn's turn. The little girl looked at her +mother with fixed, solemn eyes, but there were no tears in them. + +"Mamma is so sorry she cannot even go to the station with her darling +little girl," said Ida, "but she is completely exhausted, and has not +slept all night." + +Evelyn continued to look at her, and there came into her face an +innocent, uncomplaining accusation. + +"Mamma cannot tell you how much she feels leaving her precious little +daughter," whispered Ida, drawing the little figure, which resisted +rigidly, towards her. "She would not do it if she were not afraid of +losing her health completely." Evelyn remained in her attitude of +constrained affection, bending over her mother. "Mamma will write you +very often," continued Ida. "Think how nice it will be for you to get +letters! And she will bring you some beautiful things when she comes +back." Then Ida's voice broke, and she found her handkerchief under +her pillow and put it to her eyes. + +Evelyn, released from her mother's arm, regarded her with that +curiosity and unconscious accusation which was more pitiful than +grief. The child was getting her first sense, not of loss, for one +cannot lose that which one has never had, but of non-possession of +something which was her birthright. + +When at last they were on the train, Evelyn surprised her sister by +weeping violently. Maria tried to hush her, but she could not. Evelyn +wept convulsively at intervals all the way to New York. When they +were in the cab, crossing the city, Maria put her arm around her +sister and tried to comfort her. + +"What is it, precious?" she whispered. "Do you feel so badly about +leaving your mother?" + +"No," sobbed the little girl. "I feel so badly because I don't feel +badly." + +Maria understood. She began talking to her of her future home in +Amity, and the people whom she would see. All at once Maria reflected +how Lily would be married to George Ramsey when she returned, that +she should see George's wife going in and out the door that might +have been the door of her own home, and she also had a keen pang of +regret for the lack of regret. She no longer loved George Ramsey. It +was nothing to her that he was married to Lily; but, nevertheless, +her emotional nature, the best part of her, had undergone a +mutilation. Love can be eradicated, but there remains a void and a +scar, and sometimes through their whole lives such scars of some +people burn. + + + +Chapter XXVIII + + +Evelyn was happier in Amity, with Maria and her aunt, than she had +ever been. It took a little while for her to grow accustomed to the +lack of luxury with which she had always been surrounded; then she +did not mind it in the least. Everybody petted her, and she acquired +a sense of importance which was not offensive, because she had also a +sense of the importance of everybody else. She loved everybody. Love +seemed the key-note of her whole nature. It was babyish love as yet, +but there were dangerous possibilities which nobody foresaw, except +Henry Stillman. + +"I don't know what will become of that child when she grows up if she +can't have the man she falls in love with," he told Eunice one night, +after Maria and Evelyn, who had been in for a few moments, had gone +home. + +Eunice, who was not subtle, looked at him wonderingly, and her +husband replied to her unspoken question. + +"That child's going to take everything hard," he said. + +"I don't see what makes you think so." + +"She is like a harp that's overstrung," said Henry. + +"How queer you talk!" + +"Well, she is; and if she is now, what is she going to be when she's +older? Well, I hope the Lord will deal gently with her. He's given +her too many feelings, and I hope He will see to it that they ain't +tried too hard." Henry said this last with the half-bitter melancholy +which was growing upon him. + +"I guess she will get along all right," said Eunice, comfortably. +"She's a pretty little girl, and her mother has looked out for her +clothes, if she did scoot off and leave her. I wonder how long she's +going to stay in foreign parts?" + +Henry shook his head. "Do you want to know how long?" he said. + +"Yes. What do you mean, Henry?" + +"She's going to stay just as long as she has a good time there. If +she has a good time there she'll stay if it's years." + +"You don't mean you think she would go off and leave that darling +little girl a whole year?" + +"I said years," replied Henry. + +"Land! I don't believe it. You're dreadful hard on women, Henry." + +"Wait and see," said Henry. + +Time proved that Henry, with his bitter knowledge of the weakness of +human nature, was right. Ida remained abroad. After a year's stay she +wrote Maria, from London, that an eminent physician there said that +he would not answer for her life if she returned to the scene wherein +she had suffered so much. She expressed a great deal of misery at +leaving her precious Evelyn so long, but she did not feel that it was +right for her to throw her life away. In a postscript to this letter +she informed Maria, as if it were an afterthought, that she had let +the house in Edgham furnished. She said it injured a house to remain +unoccupied so long, and she felt that she ought to keep the place up +for her poor father's sake, he had thought so much of it. She added +that the people who rented it had no children except a grown-up +daughter, so that everything would be well cared for. When Maria read +the letter to her aunt the elder woman sniffed. + +"H'm," said she. "I ain't surprised, not a mite." + +"It keeps us here quartered on you," said Maria. + +"So far as that goes, I am tickled to death she has rented the +house," replied Aunt Maria. "I had made up my mind that you would +feel as if you would want to go to Edgham for your summer vacation, +anyway, and I thought I would go with you and keep house, though I +can't say that I hankered after it. The older I grow the more I feel +as if I was best off in my own home, but I would have gone. So far as +I am concerned I am glad she has let the house, but I must say I +ain't surprised. You mark my words, Maria Edgham, and you see if what +I say won't come true." + +"What is it?" + +"Ida Slome will stay over there, if she has a good time. She's got +money enough with poor Harry's life insurance, and now she will have +her house rent. It don't cost her much to keep Evelyn here, and she's +got enough. I don't mean she's got enough to traipse round with +duchesses and earls and that sort, but she's got enough. Those folks +she went with have settled down there, haven't they?" + +"Yes, I believe so," said Maria. "Mr. Voorhees was an Englishman, and +I believe he is in some business in London." + +"Well, Ida Slome is going to stay there. I shouldn't be surprised if +Evelyn was grown up before she saw her mother again." + +"I can't quite believe that," Maria said. + +"When you get to be as old as I am you will believe more," said her +aunt Maria. "You will see that folks' selfishness hides the whole +world besides. Ida Slome is that kind." + +"I think she is selfish myself," said Maria, "but I don't believe she +can leave Evelyn as long as that." + +"Wait and see," said Aunt Maria, in much the same tone that her +brother had used towards his wife. + +Maria Stillman was right. Evelyn remained in Amity. She outgrew +Maria's school, and attended the Normal School in Westbridge. Maria +herself outgrew her little Amity school, and obtained a position as +teacher in one of the departments of the Normal School, and still Ida +had not returned. She wrote often, and in nearly every letter spoke +of the probability of her speedy return, and in the same breath of +her precarious health. She could not, however, avoid telling of her +social triumphs in London. Ida was evidently having an aftermath of +youth in her splendid maturity. She was evidently flattered and +petted, and was thoroughly enjoying herself. Aunt Maria said she +guessed she would marry again. + +"She's too old," said Maria. + +"Wait till you're old yourself and you won't be so ready to judge," +said her aunt. "I ain't so sure she won't." + +Evelyn was a young lady, and was to graduate the next year, and still +her mother had not returned. She was the sweetest young creature in +the world at that time. She was such a beauty that people used to +turn and stare after her. Evelyn never seemed to notice it, but she +was quite conscious, in a happy, childlike fashion, of her beauty. +She resembled her mother to a certain extent, but she had nothing of +Ida's hardness. Where her mother froze, she flamed. Two-thirds of the +boys in the Normal School were madly in love with her, but Evelyn, in +spite of her temperament, was slow in development as to her emotions. +She was very childish, although she was full of enthusiasms and +nervous energy. Maria had long learned that when Evelyn told her she +was in love, as she frequently did, it did not in the least mean that +she was, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Evelyn was very +imaginative. She loved her dreams, and she often raised, as it were, +a radiance of rainbows about some boy of her acquaintance, but the +brightness vanished the instant the boy made advances. She had an +almost fierce virginity of spirit in spite of her loving heart. She +did not wish to touch her butterflies of life. She used to walk +between her aunt and Maria when they were coming out of church, so +that no boy would ask leave to go home with her. She clung to the +girls in her class for protection when she went to any entertainment. +Consequently her beautiful face, about which clustered her dark, fine +hair like mist, aroused no envy. The other girls said that Evelyn +Edgham was such a beauty and she did not know it. But Evelyn did know +it perfectly, only at that time it filled her with a sort of timidity +and shame. It was as if she held some splendid, heavy sword of +victory which she had not the courage to wield. She loved her sister +better than anybody else. She had no very intimate friend of her own +sex with whom she fell in love, after the fashion of most young +girls. That might have happened had it not been for her sister, whom +Evelyn thought of always as excelling everybody else in beauty and +goodness and general brilliancy. Maria, when nearing thirty, was, in +fact, as handsome as she had ever been. Her self-control had kept +lines from her face. She was naturally healthy, and she, as well as +Evelyn, had by nature a disposition to make the most of herself and a +liking for adornment. Aunt Maria often told Eunice that Maria was +full as good-looking as Evelyn, if she was older, but that was not +quite true. Maria had never had Evelyn's actual beauty, her +perfection as of a perfect flower; still she was charming, and she +had admirers, whom she always checked, although her aunt became more +and more distressed that she did so. Always at the bottom of Maria's +heart lay her secret. It was not a guilty secret. It was savored more +of the absurd of tragedy than anything else. Sometimes Maria herself +fairly laughed at the idea that she was married. All this time she +wondered about Wollaston Lee. She thought, with a sick terror, of the +possibility of his falling in love, and wishing to marry, and trying +to secure a divorce, and the horrible publicity, and what people +would say and do. She knew that a divorce would be necessary, +although the marriage was not in reality a marriage at all. She had +made herself sufficiently acquainted with the law to be sure that a +divorce would be absolutely necessary in order for either herself or +Wollaston Lee to marry again. For herself, she did not wish to marry, +but she did wonder uneasily with regard to him. She was not in the +least jealous; all her old, childish fancy for him had been killed by +that strenuous marriage ceremony, but she dreaded the newspapers and +the notoriety which would inevitably follow any attempt on either +side to obtain a divorce. She dreamed about it often, and woke in +terror, having still before her eyes the great, black letters on the +first pages of city papers. She had never seen Wollaston Lee since +she had lived in Amity. She had never even heard anything about him +except once, when somebody had mentioned his name and spoken of +seeing him at a reception, and that he was a professor in one of the +minor colleges. She did not wish ever to repeat that experience. Her +heart had seemed to stand still, and she had grown so white that a +lady beside her asked her hurriedly if she were faint. Maria had +thrown off the faintness by a sheer effort of will, and the color had +returned to her face, and she had laughingly replied with a denial. +Sometimes she thought uneasily of Gladys Mann. The clergyman who, in +his excess of youthful zeal, had performed the ceremony was dead. She +had seen his obituary notice in a New York paper with a horrible +relief. He had died quite suddenly in one of the pneumonia winters. +But Gladys Mann and her possession of the secret troubled her. Gladys +Mann, as she remembered her, had been such a slight, almost abortive +character. She asked herself if she could keep such a secret, if she +would have sense enough to do so. Gladys had married, too, a man of +her own sort, who worked fitfully, and spent most of his money in +carousing with John Dorsey and her father. Gladys had had a baby a +few months after her marriage, and she had had two more since. The +last time Maria had been in Amity was soon after Gladys's first baby +was born. Maria had met her one day carrying the little thing swathed +in an old shawl, with a pitiful attempt of finery in a white lace +bonnet cocked sidewise on its little head, which waggled over +Gladys's thin shoulder. Gladys, when she saw Maria, had colored and +nodded, and almost run past her without a word. + +It was just before the beginning of Evelyn's last year at school when +Maria received a letter from Gladys's mother. It was a curious +composition. Mrs. Mann had never possessed any receptivity for +education. The very chirography gave evidence of a rude, almost +uncivilized mind. Maria got it one night during the last of August. +She had gone to the post-office for the last mail, and all the time +there had been over her a premonition of something unwonted of much +import to her. The very dusty flowers and weeds by the way-side +seemed to cry out to her as she passed them. They seemed no longer +mere flowers and weeds, but hieroglyphics concerning her future, +which she could almost interpret. + +"I wonder what is going to happen?" she thought. "Something is going +to happen." She was glad that Evelyn was not with her, as usual, but +had gone for a drive with a young friend who had a pony-carriage. She +felt that she could not have borne her sister's curious glances at +the letter which she was sure would be in the post-office box. It was +there when she entered the dirty little place. She saw one letter +slanted across the dusty glass of the box. It was not a lock box, and +she had to ask the postmaster for the letter. + +"Number twenty-four, please," she said. + +The postmaster was both bungling and curious. He was a long time +finding the box, then in giving her the letter. Maria felt dizzy. +When at last he handed it to her with an inquisitive glance, she +almost ran out of the office. When she was out-doors she glanced at +the post-mark and saw it was Edgham. When she came to a lonely place +in the road, when she was walking between stone-walls overgrown with +poison-ivy, and meadowsweet, and hardhack, and golden-rod, she opened +the letter. Just as she opened it she heard the sweet call of a robin +in the field on her left, and the low of a cow looking anxiously over +her bars. + +The letter was written on soiled paper smelling strongly of tobacco, +and it enclosed another smaller, sealed envelop. Maria read: + + "Deer Miss,--I now tak my pen in hand to let you no that Gladys she +is ded. She had a little boy bon, and he and she both died. Gladys +she had been coffin for some time befoar, and jest befor she was took +sick, she give me this letter, and sed for me to send it to you if +ennything happened to her. + + "Excuse hast and a bad pen. Mrs. Mann." + +Maria trembled so that she could hardly stand. She looked hastily +around; there was no one in sight. She sank down on a large stone +which had fallen from the stone wall on the left. Then she opened the +little, sealed letter. It was very short. It contained only one word, +one word of the vulgar slang to which poor Gladys had become +habituated through her miserable life, and yet this one word of slang +had a meaning of faithfulness and honor which dignified it. Maria +read, "Nit." and she knew that Gladys had died and had not told. + + + +Chapter XXIX + + +It is frequently a chain of sequences whose beginnings are lost in +obscurity which lead to events. The principal of the Normal School in +Westbridge, which Evelyn attended and in which Maria taught, had been +a certain Professor Lane. If he had not gone to Boston one morning +when the weather was unusually sultry for the season, and if an east +wind had not come up, causing him, being thinly clad, to take cold, +which cold meant the beginning of a rapid consumption which hurried +him off to Colorado, and a year later to death; if these east winds +had not made it impossible for Wollaston Lee's mother, now widowed, +to live with him in the college town where he had been stationed, a +great deal which happened might not have come to pass at all. It was +"the wind which bloweth where it listeth, and no man knoweth whence +it cometh and whither it goeth," which precipitated the small tragedy +of a human life. + +The Saturday before the fall term commenced, Evelyn came home from +Westbridge, where she had been for some shopping, and she had a piece +of news. She did not wait to remove her hat, but stood before Maria +and her aunt, who were sewing in the sitting-room, with the roses +nestling against the soft flying tendrils of her black hair. It was +still so warm that she wore her summer hat. + +"What do you think!" said she. "I have such a piece of news!" + +"What is it, dear?" asked Maria. Aunt Maria looked up curiously. + +"Why, Professor Lane has had to give up. He starts for Colorado +Monday. He kept hoping he could stay here, but he went to a +specialist, who told him he could not live six months in this +climate, so he is starting right off. And we are to have a new +principal." + +"Who is he?" asked Maria. She felt herself trembling, for no reason +that she could define. + +"Addie Hemingway says he is a handsome young man. He has been a +professor in some college, but his mother lives with him, and the +climate didn't agree with her, and so he had resigned and was out of +a position, and they have sent right away for him, and he is coming. +In fact, Addie says she thinks he has come, and that he and his +mother are at Mrs. Land's boarding-house; but they are going to keep +house. Addie says she has heard he is a young man and very handsome." + +"What is his name?" asked Maria, faintly. + +Evelyn looked at her and laughed. "The funniest thing about it all +is," said she, "that he comes originally from Edgham, and you must +have known him, Maria. I don't remember him at all, but I guess you +must. His name is Lee, and his first name--I can't remember his first +name. Did you know a young man about your age in Edgham named Lee?" + +"Wollaston?" asked Maria. She hardly knew her own voice. + +"Yes; that is it--Wollaston. It is an odd name. How queer it will +seem to have a handsome young man for principal instead of poor old +Professor Lane. I am sorry, for my part; I liked Professor Lane. I +went to the book-store in Westbridge and bought a book for him to +read on the journey, and left it at the door. I sent in my +remembrances, and told the girl how sorry I was that Professor Lane +was not well." + +"That was a good girl," said Maria. "I am glad you did." She was as +white as death, but she continued sewing steadily. + +Evelyn went to the looking-glass and removed her hat, and readjusted +her flying hair around her glowing face. She did not notice her +sister's pallor and expression of shock, almost of horror, but Aunt +Maria did. Finally she spoke. + +"What on earth ails you, Maria Edgham?" she said, harshly. When Aunt +Maria was anxious, she was always harsh, and seemed to regard the +object of her solicitude as a culprit. + +Evelyn turned abruptly and saw her sister's face, then she ran to her +and threw her arms around her neck and pulled her head against her +shoulder. "What is it? What is it?" she cried, in her sobbing, +emotional voice, which any stress aroused. + +Maria raised her head and pushed Evelyn gently away. "Nothing +whatever is the matter, dear," she said, firmly, and took up her work +again. + +"Folks don't turn as white as sheets if nothing is the matter," said +Aunt Maria, still in her harsh, accusing voice. "I want to know what +is the matter. Did your dinner hurt you? You ate that lemon-pie." + +"I feel perfectly well, Aunt Maria," replied Maria, making one of her +tremendous efforts of will, which actually sent the color back to her +face. She smiled as she spoke. + +"You do look better," said Aunt Maria doubtfully. + +"Yes, you do," said Evelyn. + +"Maybe it was the light," said Aunt Maria in a reassured tone. + +"There isn't much light to see to sew by, I know that," Maria said in +an off-hand tone. "I believe I will take a little run down to the +post-office for the night mail. Evelyn, you can help Aunt Maria get +supper, can't you, dear?" + +"Of course I can," said Evelyn. "But are you sure you are well enough +to go alone?" + +"Nonsense!" said Maria, rising and folding her work. + +"Do you think anything is the matter with sister?" Evelyn asked Aunt +Maria after Maria had gone. + +"Don't ask me," replied Aunt Maria curtly. + +"Aunt Maria!" + +"Well?" + +"Professor Lane isn't married. You don't suppose sister--" + +"What a little goose you are, Evelyn Edgham!" cried Aunt Maria, +almost fiercely turning upon her. "Do you suppose if Maria Edgham had +wanted any man she couldn't have got him?" + +"I suppose she could," said Evelyn meekly. "And I know Professor Lane +is so much older, but he always seemed to like sister, and I didn't +know but she felt badly because he was so ill." + +"Stuff!" said Aunt Maria. "Come, you had better set the table. I have +got to make some biscuits for supper. They won't be any more than +done by the time Maria gets back." + +"Did you think she looked so very pale?" asked Evelyn, following her +aunt out of the room. + +"No, I didn't think she looked pale at all when I came to look at +her," said Aunt Maria, sharply. "She looked just as she always does. +It was the light." + +Aunt Maria unhesitatingly lied. She knew that her niece had been +pale, and she believed that it was on account of Professor Lane. She +thought to herself what fools girls were. There Maria had thrown away +such a chance as George Ramsey, and was very likely breaking her +heart in secret over this consumptive, old enough to be her father. + +Evelyn also believed, in her heart of hearts, that her sister was in +love with Professor Lane, but she took a more sentimental view of the +matter. She was of the firm opinion that love has no age, and then +Professor Lane had never seemed exactly old to her, and he was a very +handsome man. She thought of poor Maria with the tenderest pity and +sympathy. It almost seemed to her that she herself was in love with +Professor Lane, and that his going so far away to recover his health +was a cruel blow to her. She thought of poor Maria walking to the +post-office and brooding over her trouble, and her tender heart ached +so hard that it might have been Maria's own. + +But Maria, walking to the post-office, realized not so much an ache +in her heart as utter horror and terror. She asked herself how could +she possibly continue teaching in that school if Wollaston Lee were +principal; how could she endure the daily contact with him which +would be inevitable. She wondered if he could possibly have known +that she was teaching in that school when he accepted the position. +Such a deadly fear was over her that her class-room and the great +pile of school buildings seemed to her fancy as horrible as a cage of +wild beasts. She felt such a loathing of the man who was legally, +although not really, her husband, that the loathing itself filled her +with shame and disgust at herself. She told herself that it was +horrible, horrible, that she could not endure it, that it was +impossible. She was in a fairly desperate mood. She had a sudden +impulse to run away and leave everybody and everything, even Evelyn +and her aunt, whom she loved so well. She felt pitiless towards +everybody except herself. She took out her pocket-book and counted +the money which it contained. There were fifteen dollars and some +loose change. The railroad station was on a road parallel to the one +on which she was walking. An express train flashed by as she stood +there. Suddenly Maria became possessed of one of those impulses which +come to everybody, but to which comparatively few yield in lifetimes. +The girl gathered up her skirts and broke into a run for the railroad +station. She knew that there was an accommodation train due soon +after the express. She reached the dusty platform, in fact, just as +the train came in. There were no other passengers from Amity except a +woman whom she did not know, dragging a stout child by the arm. The +child was enveloped in clothing to such an extent that it could +scarcely walk. It stumbled over its voluminous white coat. Nobody +could have told its sex. It cast a look of stupid discomfort at +Maria, then its rasped little face opened for a wail. "Shet up!" said +the mother, and she dragged more forcibly at the podgy little arm, +and the child broke into a lop-sided run towards the cars. + +Maria had no time to get a ticket. She only had time for that one +glance at the helpless, miserable child, before she climbed up the +steep car-steps. She found an empty seat, and shrugged close to the +window. She did not think very much of what she was doing. She +thought more of the absurdly uncomfortable child, over-swathed in +clothing, and over-disciplined with mother-love, she could not have +told why. She wondered what it would be like to have an ugly, +uninteresting, viciously expostulating little one dragging at her +hand. The mother, although stout and mature-looking, was not much +older than she. It seemed to her that the being fond of such a child, +and being happy under such circumstances, would involve as much of a +vital change in herself as death itself. And yet she wondered if such +a change were possible with all women, herself included. She gazed +absently at the pale landscape past which the train was flying. The +conductor had to touch her arm before he could arouse her attention, +when he asked for her ticket. Then she looked at him vacantly, and he +had to repeat his "Ticket, please." + +Maria opened her pocket-book and said, mechanically, the name of the +first station which came into her head, "Ridgewood." Ridgewood was a +small city about fifteen miles distant. She had sometimes been there +shopping. She gave the conductor a five-dollar bill, and he went +away, murmuring something about the change. When he returned with the +rebate-slip and the change, he had to touch her shoulder again to +arrest her attention. + +"Change, miss," said the conductor, and "you can get ten cents back +on this at the station." + +Maria took the change and the slip and put them in her pocket-book, +and the conductor passed on with a quick, almost imperceptible +backward glance at her. Maria sat very still. The child who had got +on at Amity began to wail again, and its outcries filled the whole +car. To Maria it seemed like the natural outburst of an atmosphere +overcharged with woe, and the impotent rage and regret of the whole +race, as a cloud is charged with electricity. She felt that she +herself would like to burst into a wild wail, and struggle and +wrestle against fate with futile members, as the child fought against +its mother with its fat legs in shoes too large, and its bemittened +hands. However, she began to get a certain comfort from the rapid +motion. She continued to stare out of the window at the landscape, +which fast disappeared under the gathering shadows. The car lamps +were lit. Maria still looked, however, out of the window; the lights +in the house windows, and red and green signal-lights, gave her a +childish interest. She forgot entirely about herself. She turned her +back upon herself and her complex situation of life with infinite +relief. She did not wonder what she would do when she reached +Ridgewood. She did not think any more of herself. It was as if she +had come into a room of life without any looking-glasses, and she was +no longer visible to her own consciousness. She did not look at the +other passengers. All that was evident to her of the existence of any +in the car besides herself was the unceasing wail of the child, and +its mother's half-soothing, half-scolding voice. She did not see the +passengers who boarded the train at the next station beyond Amity, +and that Wollaston Lee was one of them. Indeed, she might not at +once have recognized him, although the man retained in a marked +degree the features of the boy. Wollaston had grown both tall and +broad-shouldered, and had a mustache. He was a handsome fellow, well +dressed, and with an easy carriage, and he had an expression of +intelligent good-humor which made more than one woman in the car look +at him. Although Maria did not see him, he saw her at once, and +recognized her, and his handsome face paled. The ridiculous +complexity of his position towards her had not tended to make him +very happy. He had kept the secret as well as Maria; for him, as for +her, a secret was a heavy burden, almost amounting to guilt. He +continued to glance furtively at her from time to time. He thought +that she was very pretty, and also that there was something amiss +with her. He, as well as the girl, had entirely gotten over his +boyish romance, but the impulse to honorable dealing and duty towards +her had not in the least weakened. + +When the train stopped at Ridgewood he rose. Maria did not stir. +Wollaston stopped, and saw the conductor touch Maria, and heard him +say, "This is your station, lady." + +Maria rose mechanically and followed the conductor through the car. +When she had descended the steps Wollaston, who had gotten off just +in advance, stood aside and waited. He felt uneasy without just +knowing why. It seemed to him that there was something strange about +the girl's bearing. He thought so the more when she stood motionless +on the platform and remained there a moment or more after the train +had moved out; then she went towards a bench outside the station and +sat down. Wollaston made up his mind that there was something +strange, and that he must speak to her. + +He approached her, and he could hear his heart beat. He stood in +front of her, and raised his hat. Maria did not look up. Her eyes +seemed fixed on a fringe of wood across the track in which some +katydids were calling, late as it was. That wood, with its persistent +voices of unseen things, served to turn her thought from herself, +just as the cry of the child had done. + +"Miss Edgham," said Wollaston, in a strained voice. It suddenly +occurred to him that that was not the girl's name at all, that she +was in reality Mrs. Lee, not Miss Edgham. + +Maria did not seem to see him until he had repeated her name again. +Then she gave a sudden start and looked up. An electric light on the +platform made his face quite plain. She knew him at once. She did not +make a sound, but rose with a sudden stealthy motion like that of a +wild, hunted thing who leaves its covert for farther flight. But +Wollaston laid his hand on her shoulder and forced her gently back to +her seat. There was no one besides themselves on the platform. They +were quite alone. + +"Don't be afraid," he said. But Maria, looking up at him, fairly +chattered with terror. Her lips were open, she made inarticulate +noises like a frightened little monkey. Her eyes dilated. This seemed +to her incredibly monstrous, that in fleeing she should have come to +that from which she fled. All at once the species of mental coma in +which she had been cleared away, and she saw herself and the horrible +situation in which her flight had placed her. The man looked down at +her with the utmost kindness, concern, and pity. + +"Don't be afraid," he said again; but Maria continued to look at him +with that cowering, hunted look. + +"Where are you going?" asked Wollaston, and suddenly his voice became +masterful. He realized that there was something strange, undoubtedly, +about all this. + +"I don't know," Maria said, dully. + +"You don't know?" + +"No, I don't." + +Maria raised her head and looked down the track. "I am going on the +train," said she, with another wild impulse. + +"What train?" + +"The next train." + +"The next train to where?" + +"The next train to Springfield," said Maria, mentioning the first +city which came into her mind. + +"What are you going to Springfield for so late? Have you friends +there?" + +"No," said Maria, in a hopeless voice. + +Wollaston sat down beside her. He took one of her little, cold hands, +and held it in spite of a feeble struggle on her part to draw it +away. "Now, see here, Maria," he said, "I know there is something +wrong. What is it?" + +His tone was compelling. Maria looked straight ahead at the gloomy +fringe of woods, and answered, in a lifeless voice, "I heard you were +coming." + +"And that is the reason you were going away?" + +"Yes." + +"See here, Maria," said Wollaston, eagerly, "upon my honor I did not +know myself until this very afternoon that you were one of the +teachers in the Westbridge Academy. If I had known I would have +refused the position, although my mother was very anxious for me to +accept it. I would refuse it now if it were not too late, but I +promise you to resign very soon if you wish it." + +"I don't care," said Maria, still in the same lifeless tone. "I am +going away." + +"Going where?" + +"To Springfield. I don't know. Anywhere." + +Wollaston leaned over her and spoke in a whisper. "Maria, do you want +me to take steps to have it annulled?" he asked. "It could be very +easily done. There was, after all, no marriage. It is simply a +question of legality. No moral question is involved." + +A burning blush spread over Maria's face. She snatched her hand away +from his. "Do you think I could bear it?" she whispered back, +fiercely. + +"Bear what?" asked the young man, in a puzzled tone. + +"The publicity, the--newspapers. Nobody has known, not one of my +relatives. Do you think I could bear it?" + +"I will keep the secret as long as you desire," said Wollaston. "I +only wish to act honorably and for your happiness." + +"There is only one reason which could induce me to give my consent to +the terrible publicity," said Maria. + +"What is that?" + +"If--you wished to marry anybody else." + +"I do not," said Wollaston, with a half-bitter laugh. "You can have +your mind easy on that score. I have not thought of such a thing as +possible for me." + +Maria cast a look of quick interest at him. Suddenly she saw his +possible view of the matter, that it might be hard for him to forego +the happiness which other young men had. + +"I would not shrink at all," she said, gently, "if at any time you +saw anybody whom you wished to marry. You need not hesitate. I am not +so selfish as that. I do not wish your life spoiled." + +Wollaston laughed pleasantly. "My life is not to be spoiled because +of any such reason as that," he said, "and I have not seen anybody +whom I wished to marry. You know I have mother to look out for, and +she makes a pleasant home for me. You need not worry about me, but +sometimes I have worried a little about you, poor child." + +"You need not, so far as that is concerned," cried Maria, almost +angrily. A sense of shame and humiliation was over her. She did not +love Wollaston Lee. She felt the same old terror and disgust at him, +but it mortified her to have him think that she might wish to marry +anybody else. + +"Well, I am glad of that," said Wollaston. "I suppose you like your +work." + +"Yes." + +"After all, work is the main thing," said Wollaston. + +"Yes," assented Maria, eagerly. + +Wollaston returned suddenly to the original topic. "Were you actually +running away because you heard I was coming?" he said. + +"Yes, I suppose I was," Maria replied, in a hopeless, defiant sort of +fashion. + +"Do you actually know anybody in Springfield?" + +"No." + +"Have you much money with you?" + +"I had fifteen dollars and a few cents before I paid my fare here." + +"Good God!" cried Wollaston. Then he added, after a pause of dismay, +almost of terror, during which he looked at the pale little figure +beside him, "Do you realize what might have happened to you?" + +"I don't think I realized much of anything except to get away," +replied Maria. + +Wollaston took her hand again and held it firmly. "Now listen to me, +Maria," he said. "On Monday I shall have to begin teaching in the +Westbridge Academy. I don't see how I can do anything else. But now +listen. I give you my word of honor, I will not show by word or deed +that you are anything to me except a young lady who used to live in +the same village with me. I shall have to admit that." + +"I am not anything else to you," Maria flashed out. + +"Of course not," Wollaston responded, quietly. "But I give you my +word of honor that I will make no claim upon you, that I will resign +my position when you say the word, that I will keep the wretched, +absurd secret until you yourself tell me that you wish for--an +annulment of the fictitious tie between us." + +Maria sat still. + +"You will not think of running away now, will you?" Wollaston said, +and there was a caressing tone in his voice, as if he were addressing +a child. + +Maria did not reply at once. + +"Tell me, Maria," said Wollaston. "You will not think of doing such a +desperate thing, which might ruin your whole life, when I have +promised you that there is no reason?" + +"No, I will not," Maria said. + +Wollaston rose and went nearer the electric light and looked at his +watch. Then he came back. "Now, Maria, listen to me again," he said. +"I have some business in Ridgewood. I would not attend to it to-night +but I have made an appointment with a man and I don't see my way out +of breaking it. It is about a house which I want to rent. Mother +doesn't like the boarding-house at Westbridge, and in fact our +furniture is on the road and I have no place to store it, and I am +afraid there are other parties who want to rent this house, that I +shall lose it if I do not keep the appointment. But I have only a +little way to go, and it will not keep me long. I can be back easily +inside of half an hour. The next train to Amity stops here in about +thirty-seven minutes. Now I want you to go into the waiting-room, and +sit there until I come back. Can I trust you?" + +"Yes," said Maria, with a curious docility. She rose. + +"You had better buy your ticket back to Amity, and when I come into +the station, I think it is better that I should only bow to you, +especially if others should happen to be there. Can I trust you to +stay there and not get on board any train but the one which goes to +Amity?" + +"Yes, you can," said Maria, with the same docility which was born of +utter weariness and the subjection to a stronger will. + +She went into the waiting-room and bought her ticket, then sat down +on a settee in the dusty, desolate place and waited. There were two +women there besides herself, and they conversed very audibly about +their family affairs. Maria listened absently to astonishing +disclosures. The man in the ticket-office was busy at the telegraph, +whose important tick made an accompaniment to the chatter of the +women, both middle-aged, and both stout, and both with grievances +which they aired with a certain delight. One had bought a damaged +dress-pattern in Ridgewood, and had gone that afternoon to obtain +satisfaction. "I set there in Yates & Upham's four mortal hours," +said she, in a triumphant tone, "and they kep' comin' and askin' me +things, and sayin' would I do this and that, but I jest stuck to what +I said I would do in the first place, and finally they give in." + +"What did you want?" asked the other woman. + +"Well, I wanted my money back that I had paid for the dress, and I +wanted the dressmaker paid for cuttin' it--it was all cut an' +fitted--and I wanted my fares back and forth paid, too." + +"You don't mean to say they did all that?" said the other woman, in a +tone of admiration. + +"Yes, sir, they did. Finally Mr. Upham himself came and talked with +me, and he said he would allow me what I asked. I tell you I marched +out of that store, when I'd got my money back, feelin' pretty well +set up." + +"I should think you would have," said the other woman, in an admiring +tone. "You do beat the Dutch!" + +Then the women fell to talking about the niece of one of them who had +been jilted by her lover. "He treated her as mean as pusley," one +woman said. "There he'd been keepin' company with poor Aggie three +mortal years, comin' regular every Wednesday and Sunday night, and +settin' up with her, and keepin' off other fellers." + +"I think he treated her awful mean," assented the other woman. "I +don't know what I would have said if it had been my Mamie." + +Maria detected a covert tone of delight in this woman's voice. She +realized instinctively that the woman had been jealous that her +companion's niece had been preferred to her daughter, and was +secretly glad that she was jilted. "How does she take it?" she asked. + +"She just cries her eyes out, poor child," her friend answered. "She +sets and cries all day, and I guess she don't sleep much. Her mother +is thinkin' of sendin' her to visit her married sister Lizzie down in +Hartford, and see if that won't divert her mind a little." + +"I should think that would be a very good idea," said the other +woman. Maria, listening listlessly, whirled about herself in the +current of her own affairs, thought what a cat that woman was, and +how she did not in the least care if she was a cat. + +Wollaston Lee was not gone very long. He bowed and said good-evening +to Maria, then seated himself at a little distance. The two women +looked at him with sharp curiosity. "It would be the best thing for +poor Aggie if she could get her mind set on another young man," said +the woman whose niece had been jilted. + +"That is so," assented the other woman. + +"There's as good fish in the sea as has ever been caught, as I told +her," said the first woman, with speculative eyes upon Wollaston Lee. + +It was not long before the train for Amity arrived. Wollaston, with +an almost imperceptible gesture, looked at Maria, who immediately +arose. Wollaston sat behind her on the train. Just before they +reached Amity he came forward and spoke to her in a low voice. "I +have to go on to Westbridge," he said. "Will there be a carriage at +the station?" + +"There always is," Maria replied. + +"Don't think of walking up at this hour. It is too late. What--" +Wollaston hesitated a second, then he continued, in a whisper, "What +are you going to tell your aunt?" he said. + +"Nothing," replied Maria. + +"Can you?" + +"I must. I don't see any other way, unless I tell lies." + +Wollaston lifted his hat, with an audible remark about the beauty of +the evening, and passed through into the next car, which was a +smoker. The two women of the station were seated a little in the rear +across the aisle from Maria. She heard one of them say to the other, +"I wonder who that girl was he spoke to?" and the other's muttered +answer that she didn't know. + +Contrary to her expectations, Maria did not find a carriage at the +Amity station, and she walked home. It was late, and the village +houses were dark. The electric lights still burned at wide intervals, +lighting up golden boughs of maples until they looked like veritable +branches of precious metal. Maria hurried along. She had a half-mile +to walk. She did not feel afraid; a sense of confusion and relief was +over her, with another dawning sense which she did not acknowledge to +herself. An enormous load had been lifted from her mind; there was no +doubt about that. A feeling of gratitude and confidence in the young +man who had just left her warmed her through and through. When she +reached her aunt's house she saw a light in the sitting-room windows, +and immediately she turned into the path the door opened and her aunt +stood there. + +"Maria Edgham, where have you been?" asked Aunt Maria. + +"I have been to walk," replied Maria. + +"Been to walk! Do you know what time it is? It is 'most midnight. +I've been 'most crazy. I was just goin' in to get Henry up and have +him hunt for you." + +"I am glad you didn't," said Maria, entering and removing her hat. +She smiled at her aunt, who continued to gaze at her with the +sharpest curiosity. + +"Where have you been to walk this time of night?" she demanded. + +Maria looked at her aunt, and said, quite gravely, "Aunt Maria, you +trust me, don't you?" + +"Of course I do; but I want to know. I have a right to know." + +"Yes, you have," said Maria, "but I shall never tell you as long as I +live where I have been to-night." + +"What?" + +"I shall never tell you were I have been, only you can rest assured +that there is no harm--that there has been no harm." + +"You don't mean to ever tell?" + +"No." Maria took a lamp from the sitting-room table, lighted it, and +went up-stairs. + +"You are just like your mother--just as set," Aunt Maria called after +her, in subdued tones. "Here I've been watchin' till I was 'most +crazy." + +"I am real sorry," Maria called back. "Good-night, Aunt Maria. Such a +thing will never happen again." + +Directly Maria was in her own room she pulled down her window-shades. +She did not see a man, who had followed at a long distance all the +way from the station, moving rapidly up the street. It was Wollaston +Lee. He had seen, from the window of the smoker, that there was no +carriage waiting, had jumped off the train, entered the station, then +stolen out and followed Maria until he saw her safely in her home. +Then the last trolley had gone, and he walked the rest of the way to +Westbridge. + + + +Chapter XXX + + +The next morning, which was Sunday, Maria could not go to church. An +utter weariness and lassitude, to which she was a stranger, was over +her. Evelyn remained at home with her. Evelyn still had the idea +firmly fixed in her mind that Maria was grieving over Professor Lane. +It was also firmly fixed in Aunt Maria's mind. Aunt Maria, who had +both suspicion and imagination, had conceived a reason for Maria's +mysterious absence the night before. She knew that Professor Lane was +to take a night train from Westbridge. She jumped at the conclusion +that Maria had gone to Westbridge to see him off, and had missed the +trolley connection. There were two trolley-lines between Amity and +Westbridge, and that accounted for her walking to the house. Aunt +Maria was mortified and angry. She would have been mortified to have +her niece so disturbed over any man who had not proposed marriage to +her, but when she reflected upon Professor Lane, his sunken chest, +his skinny throat, and his sparse gray hair, although he was yet a +handsome man for his years, she experienced a positive nausea. She +was glad when Evelyn came down in the morning and said that Maria had +called to her, and said she did not want any breakfast and did not +feel able to go to church. + +"Do you think sister is going to be sick, Aunt Maria?" Evelyn said, +anxiously. Then her sweet eyes met her aunt's, and both the young and +the old maid blushed at the thought which they simultaneously had. + +"Sick? No," replied Aunt Maria, crossly. + +"I guess I will stay home with her, anyway," Evelyn said, timidly. + +"Well, you can do jest as you are a mind to," said Aunt Maria. "I'm +goin' to meetin'. If folks want to act like fools, I ain't goin' to +stay at home and coddle them." + +"Oh, Aunt Maria, I don't think sister acts like a fool," Evelyn said, +in her sweet, distressed voice. "She looks real pale and acts all +tired out." + +"I guess she'll survive it," said Aunt Maria, pouring the coffee. + +"Don't you think I had better make some toast and a cup of tea for +her, if she does say she doesn't want any breakfast?" + +"Maria Edgham is old enough to know her own mind, and if she says she +don't want any breakfast I'd let her go without till she was hungry," +said Aunt Maria. She adored Maria above any living thing, and just in +proportion to the adoration she felt angry with her. It was a great +relief to her not to see her. + +"Aren't you going up-stairs and see if you think sister is sick?" +Evelyn asked, as Aunt Maria was tying her bonnet-strings. + +"No, I ain't," replied Aunt Maria. "It's all I can do to walk to +church. I ain't goin' to climb the stairs for nothin'. I ain't +worried a mite about her." + +After Aunt Maria was gone Evelyn made a slice of toast, placed it on +a pretty plate, and made also some tea, which she poured into a very +dainty cup. Then she carried the toast and tea on a little tray up to +Maria's room. + +"Please sit up and drink this tea and eat this toast, sister," she +said, pleadingly. + +"Thank you, dear," said Maria, "but I don't feel as if I could eat +anything." + +"It's real nice," said Evelyn, looking with a childish wistfulness +from her sister to the toast. Maria could not withstand the look. She +raised herself in bed and let Evelyn place the tray on her knees. +Then she forced herself to drink the tea and eat the toast. Evelyn +all the time watched her with that sweet wistfulness of expression +which was one of her chief charms. Evelyn, when she looked that way, +was irresistible. There was so much anxious love in her tender face +that it made it fairly angelic. Evelyn's dark hair was tumbling about +her face like a child's, in a way which she often wore it when at +home when there was no company. It was tied with a white ribbon bow. +She wore a black skirt and a little red breakfast-jacket faced with +white. As her sister gradually despatched the tea and toast, the look +of wistfulness on her face changed to one of radiant delight. She +clapped her hands. + +"There," she said, "I knew you would eat your breakfast if I brought +it to you. Wasn't that toast nice?" + +"Delicious." + +"I made it my own self. Aunt Maria was cross. Don't you think it is +odd that any one who loves anybody should ever be cross?" + +"It often happens," said Maria, laying back on her pillows. + +"Of course, Aunt Maria loves us both, but she loves you especially; +but she is often cross with you. I don't understand it." + +"She doesn't love me any better than she does you, dear," said Maria. + +"Oh yes, she does; but I am not jealous. I am very glad I am not, for +I could be terribly jealous." + +"Nonsense, precious!" + +"Yes, I could. Sometimes I imagine how jealous I could be, and it +frightens me." + +"You must not imagine such things, dear." + +"I have always imagined things," said Evelyn. Her face took on a very +serious, almost weird and tragic expression. Maria had as she had +often had before, a glimpse of dangerous depths of emotion in her +sister's character. + +"That is no reason why you should always imagine," she said, with a +little, weary sigh. + +Directly the look of loving solicitude appeared on Evelyn's face. She +went close to her sister, and laid her soft, glowing cheek against +hers. + +"I am so sorry, dearest," she said. "Sorry for whatever troubles you." + +"What makes you think anything troubles me?" + +"You seem to me as if something troubled you." + +"Nothing does," said Maria. She pushed Evelyn gently away and sat up. +"I was only tired out," she said, firmly. "The breakfast has made me +feel better. I will get up now and write some letters." + +"Wouldn't you rather lie still and let me read to you?" + +"No, dear, thank you. I will get up now." + +Evelyn remained in the room while her sister brushed her hair and +dressed. "I wonder what kind of a man the new principal will be?" she +said, looking dreamily out of the window. She had, in fact, already +had her dreams about him. As yet she had admitted men to her dreams +only, but she had her dreams. She did not notice her sister's change +of color. She continued to gaze absently out of the window at the +autumn landscape. A golden maple branch swung past the window in a +crisp breeze, now and then a leaf flew away like a yellow bird and +became a part of the golden carpet on the ground. "Addie Hemingway +says he is very handsome," she said, meditatively. "Do you remember +him, sister--that is, do you remember how he looked when he was a +boy?" + +"As I remember him he was a very good-looking boy," Maria said. + +"I wonder if he is engaged?" Evelyn said. + +Suddenly her soft cheeks flamed. + +"I don't see what that matters to you," Maria retorted, in a tone +which she almost never used towards Evelyn--"to you or any of the +other girls. Mr. Lee is coming to teach you, not to become engaged to +his pupils." + +"Of course I know he is," Evelyn said, humbly. "I didn't mean to be +silly, sister. I was only wondering." + +"The less a young girl wonders about a man the better," Maria said. + +"Well, I won't wonder, only it does seem rather natural to wonder. +Didn't you use to wonder when you were a young girl, sister?" + +"It does not make it right if I did." + +"I don't think you could do anything wrong, sister," Evelyn returned, +with one of her glances of love and admiration. Suddenly Maria +wondered herself what a man would do if he were to receive one of +those glances. + +Evelyn continued her little chatter. "Of course none of us girls ever +wondered about Professor Lane, because he was so old," she said. Then +she caught herself with an anxious glance at her sister. "But he was +very handsome, too," she added, "and I don't know why we shouldn't +have thought about him, and he wasn't so very old. I think Colorado +will cure him." + +"I hope so," Maria said, absently. She had no more conception of what +was in Evelyn's mind with regard to herself and Professor Lane than +she had of the thought of an inhabitant of Mars. Ineffable distances +of surmise and imagination separated the two in the same room. + +Evelyn continued: "Mr. Lee isn't married, anyway," she said. "Addie +said so. His mother keeps house for him. Wasn't that a dreadful thing +in the paper last night, sister?" + +"What?" asked Maria. + +"About that girl's getting another woman's husband to fall in love +with her, and get a divorce, and then marrying him. I don't see how +she could. I would rather die than marry a man who had been divorced. +I would think of the other wife all the time. Don't you think it was +dreadful, sister?" + +"Why do you read such things?" asked Maria, and there was a hard ring +in her voice. It seemed to her that she was stretched on a very rack +of innocence and ignorance. + +"It was all there was in the paper to read," replied Evelyn, "except +advertisements. There were pictures of the girl, and the wife, and +the man, and the two little children. Of course it was worse because +there were children, but it was dreadful anyway. I would never speak +to that girl again, not if she had been my dearest friend." + +"You had better read a library book, if there is nothing better than +that to read in a paper," said Maria. + +"There wasn't, except a prize-fight, and I don't care anything about +prize-fights, and I believe there were races, too, but I don't know +anything about races." + +"I don't see that you know very much about marriage and divorce," +Maria said, adjusting her collar. + +"Are you angry with me, sister? Don't you want me to fasten your +collar?" + +"No, I can fasten it myself, thank you, dear. No, I am not angry with +you, only I do wish you wouldn't read such stuff. Put the paper away, +and get a book instead." + +"I will if you want me to, sister," replied Evelyn. + + + +Chapter XXXI + + +The Monday when the fall term of the academy at Westbridge opened was +a very beautiful day. The air was as soft as summer, but with a +strange, pungent quality which the summer had lacked. There was a +slightly smoky scent which exhilarated. It was a scent of death +coming from bonfires of dead leaves and drying vegetation, and yet it +seemed to presage life. When Maria and Evelyn went out to take the +trolley for Westbridge, Maria wore a cluster of white chrysanthemums +pinned to her blouse. The blouse itself was a very pretty one, worn +with a black plaited skirt. It was a soft silk of an old-rose shade, +and it was trimmed with creamy lace. Maria had left off her mourning. +Evelyn looked with a little surprise at Maria's blouse. + +"Why, you've got on your pink blouse, sister," she said. + +Maria colored softly, for no ostensible reason. "Yes," she said. + +"You don't generally wear it to school." + +"I thought as long as it was the first day," Maria said, in a +slightly faltering tone. She bent her head until her rose-wreathed +hat almost concealed her face. The sisters stood in front of the +house waiting for their car. Evelyn made a sudden little run back +into the yard. + +"You hold the car!" she cried. + +"I don't know that they will wait; you must not stop," Maria called +out. But the car had just stopped when Evelyn returned, and she had a +little cluster of snowberries pinned in the front of her red gown. +She looked bewitchingly over them at Maria when they were seated side +by side in the car. + +"I guess I was going to wear flowers as well as some other folks," +she whispered with a soft, dark glance at her sister from under her +long lashes. Maria smiled. + +"You don't need to wear flowers," she said. + +"Why not as well as you?" + +"Oh, you are a flower yourself," Maria said, looking fondly at her. + +Indeed, the young girl looked like nothing so much as a rose, with +her tenderly curved pink cheeks, the sweet arch of her lips, and her +glowing radiance of smiles. Maria looked at her critically, then bade +her turn that she might fasten a hook on her collar which had become +unfastened. + +"Now you are all right," she said. + +Evelyn smiled. "Don't you think these snowberries are pretty with +this red dress?" she asked. + +"Lovely." + +"I wonder what the new principal will be like," Evelyn said, +musingly, after riding awhile in silence. + +"I presume he will be very much like other young men. The main thing +to consider is, if he is a good teacher," Maria said. + +"What makes you cross, sister?" Evelyn whispered plaintively. + +"I am not cross, only I don't want you to be silly." + +"I am not silly. All the girls are wondering, too. I am only like +other girls. You can't expect me to be just like you, Maria. Of +course you are older, and you don't wonder, and then, too, you knew +him when he was a boy. Is he light or dark?" + +"Light," Maria replied, looking out of the window. + +"Sometimes light children grow dark as they grow older," said Evelyn. +"I hope he hasn't. I like light men better than dark, don't you, +Maria?" + +"I don't like one more than another," said Maria shortly. + +"Of course I know you don't in one way. Don't be so cross," Evelyn +said in a hurt way. "But almost everybody has an opinion about light +and dark men." + +Maria looked out of the window, and Evelyn said no more, but she felt +a sorrowful surprise at her sister. Evelyn was so used to being +petted and admired that the slightest rebuff, especially a rebuff +from Maria, made her incredulous. It really seemed to her that Maria +must be ill to speak so shortly to her. Then she remembered poor +Professor Lane, and how in all probability Maria was thinking about +him this morning, and that made her irritable, and how she, Evelyn, +ought to be very patient. Evelyn was in reality very patient and very +slow to take offence. So she snuggled gently up to her sister, until +her slender, red-clad shoulder touched Maria's, and looked pleasantly +around through the car, and again wondered privately about the new +principal. + +They had a short walk after leaving the car to the academy. As they +turned into the academy grounds, which were quite beautiful with +trees and shrubs, a young man was mounting the broad flight of +granite steps which led to the main entrance. Evelyn touched Maria +agitatedly on the arm. "Oh, Maria," said she. + +"What?" + +"Is that--he?" + +"I think so. I saw only his back, but I should think so. I don't see +what other young man could be going into the building. It was +certainly not the janitor, nor Mr. Hughes" (Mr. Hughes was the +music-teacher) replied Maria calmly, although she was pale. + +"Oh, if that was he, I think he is splendid," whispered Evelyn. + +Maria said nothing as the two proceeded along the fine gravel walk +between hydrangeas, and inverted beech-trees, and symmetrically +trimmed firs. + +"He is light," Evelyn said, meditatively. "I am glad of that." As she +spoke she put her hand to her head and adjusted her hair, then her +hat. She threw back her shoulders. She preened herself, innocently +and unconsciously, like a little bird. Maria did not notice it. She +had her own thoughts, and she was using all her power of self-control +to conceal her agitation. It seemed to her as she entered the +building as if her secret was written upon her face, as if everybody +must read as they ran. But she removed her coat and hat, and took her +place with the other assistants upon the platform in the chapel of +the academy where the morning exercises were held. She spoke to the +other teachers, and took her usual seat. Wollaston was not yet there. +The pupils were flocking into the room, which was picturesque with a +dome-shaped ceiling, and really fine frescoed panels on the walls. +Directly opposite the platform was a large oriel-window of stained +glass, the gift of the founder. Rays of gold and green and blue and +crimson light filtered through, over the assembling school. Maria saw +Evelyn with her face turned towards the platform eagerly watching. +She was not looking at Maria, but was evidently expecting the advent +of the new principal. It did not at that time occur to Maria to +attribute any serious meaning to the girl's attitude. She merely felt +a sort of impatience with her, concerning her attitude, when she +herself knew what she knew. + +Suddenly a sort of suppressed stir was evident among those of the +pupils who were seated. Maria felt a breeze from an open door, and +knew that Wollaston had entered. He spoke first to her, calling her +by name, and bidding her good-morning, then to the other teachers. +The others were either residents of Westbridge, or boarded there, and +he had evidently been introduced to them before. Then he took his +seat, and waited quietly for the pupils to become seated. It lacked +only a few minutes of the time for opening the school. It was not +long before the seats were filled, and Maria heard Wollaston's voice +reading a selection from the Bible. Then she bent her head, and heard +him offering prayer. She felt a sort of incredulity now. It seemed +to her inconceivable that the boy whom she had known could be +actually conducting the opening exercises of a school with such +imperturbability and self-possession. All at once a great pride of +possession seized her. She glanced covertly at him between her +fingers. The secret which had been her shame suddenly filled her with +the possibility of pride. Wollaston Lee, standing there, seemed to +her the very grandest man whom she had ever seen. He was undoubtedly +handsome, and he had, moreover, power. When he had finished his +prayer, and had begun his short address to the scholars, she glanced +at him again, and saw what splendid shoulders he had, how proudly he +held his head, and yet what a boyish ingenuousness went with it all. +Maria did not look at Evelyn at all. Had she done so, she would have +been startled. Evelyn was gazing at the new principal with the utmost +unreserve, the unreserve of awakened passion which does not know +itself because of innocence and ignorance. Evelyn, gazing at the +young man, had never been so unconscious of herself, and at the same +time she had never been so conscious. She felt a life to which she +had been hitherto a stranger tingling through every vein and nerve of +her young body, through every emotion of her young soul. She gazed +with wide-open eyes like a child, the rose flush deepened on her +cheeks, her parted lips became moist and deep crimson, pulses +throbbed in her throat. She smiled involuntarily, a smile of purest +delight and admiration. Love twofold had awakened within her +emotional nature. Love of herself, as she might be seen in another's +eyes, and love of another. And yet she did not know it was love, and +she felt no shame, and no fright, nothing but rapture. She was in the +broad light of the present, under the direct rays of a firmament of +life and love. Another girl, Addie Hemingway, who was no older than +Evelyn, but shrewd beyond her years, with a taint of coarseness, +noticed her, and nudged the girl at her right. "Just look at Evelyn +Edgham," she whispered. + +The other girl looked. + +"I suppose she thinks she'll catch him, she's so awful pretty," +whispered Addie maliciously. + +"I don't think she is so very pretty," whispered back the other girl, +who was pretty herself and disposed to assert her own claims to +attention. + +"She thinks she is," whispered back Addie. "Just see how bold she +looks at him. I should think she would be ashamed of herself." + +"So should I," nodded the other girl. + +But Evelyn had no more conception of the propriety of shame than +nature itself. She was pure nature. Presently Wollaston himself, who +had been making his address to his pupils with a vague sense of an +upturned expanse of fresh young faces of boys and girls, without any +especial face arresting his attention, saw Evelyn with a start which +nobody, man or woman, could have helped. She was so beautiful that +she could no more be passed unnoticed than a star. Wollaston made an +almost imperceptible pause in his discourse, then he continued, +fixing his eyes upon the oriel-window opposite. He realized himself +as surprised and stirred, but he was not a young man whom a girl's +beauty can rouse at once to love. He had, moreover, a strong sense of +honor and duty. He realized Maria was his legal wife. He was, +although he had gotten over his boyish romance, which had been +shocked out of him at the time of his absurd marriage, in an attitude +of soul which was ready for love, and love for his wife. He had often +said to himself that no other honorable course was possible for +either Maria or himself: that it was decidedly best that they should +fall in love with each other and make their marriage a reality. At +the same time, something more than delicacy and shyness restrained +him from making advances. He was convinced that Maria not only +disliked but feared him. A great pity for her was in his heart, and +also pride, which shrank from exposing itself to rebuffs. Yet he did +not underestimate himself. He considered that he had as good a chance +as any man of winning her affection and overcoming her present +attitude towards him. He saw no reason why he should not. While he +was not conceited, he knew perfectly well his advantages as to +personal appearance. He also was conscious of the integrity of his +purpose as far as she was concerned. He knew that, whenever she +should be willing to accept him, he should make her a good husband, +and he recognized his readiness and ability to love her should she +seem ready to welcome his love. He, however, was very proud even +while conscious of his advantages, and consequently easily wounded. +He could not forget Maria's look of horror when she had recognized +him the Saturday before. A certain resentment towards her because of +it was over him in spite of himself. He said to himself that he had +not deserved that look, that he had done all that mortal man could do +to shield her from a childish tragedy, for which he had not been to +blame in any greater degree than she. He said to himself that she +might at least have had confidence in his honor and his generosity. +However, pity for her and that readiness to do his duty--to love +her--were uppermost. The quick glance which he had given Maria that +morning had filled him with pleasure. Maria, in her dull-rose blouse, +with her cluster of chrysanthemums, with her fair, emotional face +held by sheer force of will in a mould of serenity, with her soft +yellow coils of hair and her still childish figure, was charming. +After that one glance at Evelyn, with her astonishing beauty, he +thought no more about her. When his address was finished the usual +routine of the school began. + +He did not see Maria again all day. She had her own class-room, and +at noon she and Evelyn ate their luncheon together there. Evelyn did +not say a word about the new principal. She was very quiet. She did +not eat as usual. + +"Don't you feel well, dear?" asked Maria. + +"Yes, sister," replied Evelyn. Then suddenly her lips quivered and a +tear rolled down the lovely curve of her cheek. + +"Why, Evelyn, precious, what is the matter?" asked Maria. + +"Nothing," muttered Evelyn. Then suddenly, to her sister's utter +astonishment, the young girl sprang up and ran out of the room. + +Maria was sure that she heard a muffled sob. She thought for a second +of following her, then she had some work to do before the afternoon +session, and she also had a respect for others' desires for secrecy, +possibly because of her long carrying about of her own secret. She +sat at her table with her forehead frowning uneasily, and wrote, and +did not move to follow Evelyn. + +Evelyn, when she rushed out of the class-room, took instinctively her +way towards a little but dense grove in the rear of the academy. It +was a charming little grove of firs and maples, and there were a +number of benches under the trees for the convenience of the pupils. +It was rather singular that there was nobody there. Usually during +the noon-hour many ate their luncheons under the shadow of the trees. +However, the wind had changed, and it was cool. Then, too, the +reunions among the old pupils were probably going on to better +advantage in the academy, and many had their luncheons at a near-by +restaurant. However it happened, Evelyn, running with the tears in +her eyes, her heart torn with strange, new emotion which as yet she +could not determine the nature of, whether it was pain or joy, found +the grove quite deserted. The cold sunlight came through the golden +maple boughs and lay in patches on the undergrowth of drying +golden-rod and asters. Under the firs and pines it was gloomy, and a +premonition of winter was in the air. Evelyn sat down on a bench +under a pine-tree, and began to weep quite unrestrainedly. She did +not know why. She heard the song of the pine over her head, and it +seemed to increase her apparently inconsequent grief. In reality she +wept the tears of the world, the same which a new-born child sheds. +Her sorrow was the mysterious sorrow of existence itself. She wept +because of the world, and her life in it, and her going out of it, +because of its sorrow, which is sweetened with joy, and its joy +embittered with sorrow. But she did not know why she wept. Evelyn was +cast on very primitive moulds, and she had been very unrestrained, +first by the indifference of her mother, then by the love of her +father and sister and aunt. It was enough for Evelyn that she wished +to weep that she wept. No other reason seemed in the least necessary +to her. In front of where she sat was a large patch of sunlight +overspreading a low growth of fuzzy weeds, which shone like silver, +and a bent thicket of dry asters which were still blue although +withered. + +All at once Evelyn became aware that this patch of sunlight was +darkened, and she looked up in a sweet confusion. Her big, dark eyes +were not in the least reddened by her tears; they only glittered with +them. Her lips, slightly swollen, only made her lovelier. + +Directly before her stood the new principal, and he was gazing down +at her with a sort of consternation, pity, and embarrassment. +Wollaston was in reality wishing himself anywhere else. A woman's +tears aroused in him pity and irritation. He wished to pass on, but +it seemed too impossible to do so and leave this lovely young +creature in such distress without a word of inquiry. He therefore +paused, and his slightly cold, blue eyes met Evelyn's brilliant, +tearful ones with interrogation. + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked. "Shall I call any +one? Are you ill?" + +Evelyn felt hurt and disturbed by his look and tone. New tears welled +up in her eyes. She shook her head with a slight pout. Wollaston +passed on. Evelyn raised her head and gazed after him with an +indescribable motion, the motion of a timid, wild thing of the woods, +which pursues, but whose true instinct is to be pursued. Suddenly she +rose, and ran after him, and was by his side. + +"I am ashamed you should have seen--" she said, brokenly. "I was +crying for nothing." + +Wollaston looked down at her and smiled. She also was smiling through +her tears. "Young ladies should not cry for nothing," he said, with a +whimsical, school-master manner. + +"It seems to me that nothing is the most terrible thing in the whole +world to cry for," replied Evelyn, with unconscious wisdom, but she +still smiled. Again her eyes met the young man's, and her innocently +admiring gaze was full upon his, and that happened which was +inevitable, one of the chain of sequences of life itself. His own +eyes responded ardently, and the girl's eyes fell before the man's. +At the same time there was no ulterior significance in the man's +look, which was merely in evidence of a passing emotion to which he +was involuntarily subject. He had not the slightest thought of any +love, which his look seemed to express for this little beauty of a +girl, whose name he did not even know. But he slackened his pace, and +Evelyn walked timidly beside him over the golden net-work of sunlight +in the path. Evelyn spoke first. + +"You came from Edgham, Mr. Lee," she said. + +Wollaston looked at her. "Yes. Do you know anybody there?" + +Evelyn laughed. "I came from there myself," she said, "and so did my +sister, Maria. Maria is one of the teachers, you know." + +Evelyn wondered why Mr. Lee's face changed, not so much color but +expression. + +"Oh, you are Miss Edgham's sister?" he exclaimed. + +"Yes. I am her sister--her half-sister." + +"Let me see; you are in the senior class." + +"Yes," replied Evelyn. Then she added, "Did you remember my sister?" + +"Oh yes," replied Wollaston. "We used to go to school together." + +"She cannot have altered," said Evelyn. "She always looks just the +same to me, anyway." + +"She does to me," said Lee, and there was in inflection in his voice +which caused Evelyn to give a startled glance at him. But he +continued, quite naturally, "Your sister looks just as I remember +her, only, of course, a little taller and more dignified." + +"Maria is dignified," said Evelyn, "but of course she has taught +school a long time, and a school-teacher has to be dignified." + +"Are you intending to teach school?" asked Lee, and even as he asked +the question he felt amused. The idea of this flower-like thing +teaching school, or teaching anything, was absurd. She was one of the +pupils of life, not one of the expounders. + +"No, I think not," said Evelyn. Then she said, "I have never thought +about it." Then an incomprehensible little blush flamed upon her +cheeks. Evelyn was thinking that she should be married instead of +doing anything else, but that the man did not consider. He was +singularly unversed in feminine nature. + +A bell rang from the academy, and Evelyn turned about with +reluctance. "There is the bell," said she. She was secretly proud +although somewhat abashed at being seen walking back to the academy +with the new principal. Addie Hemingway was looking out of a window, +and she said to the other girl, the same whom she had addressed in +the chapel: + +"See, Evelyn Edgham has got him in tow already." + +That night, when Maria and Evelyn arrived home, Aunt Maria asked +Evelyn how she liked the new principal. "Oh, he's perfectly +splendid," replied Evelyn. Then she blushed vividly. Aunt Maria +noticed it and gave a swift glance at Maria, but Maria did not notice +it at all. She was so wrapped in her own dreams that she was +abstracted. After she went to bed that night she lay awake a long +time dreaming, just as she had done when she had been a little girl. +Her youth seemed to rush back upon her like a back-flood. She caught +herself dreaming of love-scenes in that same little wood where +Wollaston and Evelyn had walked that day. She never thought of Evelyn +and the possibility of her thinking of Wollaston. But Evelyn, in her +little, white, maiden bed, was awake and dreaming too. Outside the +wind was blowing and the leaves dropping and the eternal stars +shining overhead. It seemed as if so much maiden-dreaming in the +house should make it sound with song, but it was silent and dark to +the night. Only the reflection of the street-lamp made it evident at +all to occasional passers. It is well that the consciousness of human +beings is deaf to such emotions, or all individual dreams would cease +because of the multiple din. + + + +Chapter XXXII + + +Evelyn, as the weeks went on, did not talk as much as she had been +accustomed to do. She did not pour her confidences into her sister's +ears. She never spoke of the new principal. She studied assiduously, +and stood exceedingly well in all her classes. She had never taken so +much pains with her pretty costumes. When her mother sent her a +Christmas present of a Paris gown, she danced with delight. There was +to be a Christmas-tree in the academy chapel, and she planned to wear +it. Although it was a Paris gown it was simple enough, a pretty, +girlish frock of soft white cloth, with touches of red. "I can wear +holly in my hair, and it will be perfectly lovely," Evelyn said. But +she came down with such a severe cold and sore throat at the very +beginning of the holidays that going to Westbridge was out of the +question. Evelyn lamented over the necessity of her staying at home +like a child. She even cried. + +"I wouldn't be such a baby," said Aunt Maria. At times Aunt Maria +could not quite forgive Evelyn for being Ida Slome's child, +especially when she showed any weakness. She looked severely now at +poor Evelyn, in her red house-wrapper, weeping in her damp little +handkerchief. "I should think you were about ten," she said. + +Evelyn wiped her eyes and sniffed. Her throat was very sore, and her +cold was also in her head. Her pretty lips were disfigured with +fever-sores. Her eyes were inflamed. + +"You wouldn't want to go looking the way you do, anyhow," said Aunt +Maria, pitilessly. + +After Aunt Maria went out of the room, Maria, who was putting some +finishing-touches to the gown which she herself was to wear to the +Christmas-tree, went over to her sister and knelt down beside her. +"Poor darling," she said. "Don't you want me to stay at home with +you?" + +Evelyn pushed her away gently, with a fresh outburst of tears. "No," +she said. "Don't come so close, Maria, or you will catch it. +Everybody says it is contagious. No, I wouldn't have you stay at home +for anything. I am not a pig, if I am disappointed. But Aunt Maria +need not be so cross." + +"Aunt Maria does not mean to be cross, sweetheart," said Maria, +stroking her sister's fluffy, dark head. "Are you sure that you do +not want me to stay home with you, dear?" + +"Perfectly sure," replied Evelyn. "I want you to go so you can tell +me about it." + +Evelyn had not the slightest idea of jealousy of Maria. While she +admired her, it really never occurred to her, so naive she was in her +admiration of herself, that anybody could think her more attractive +than she was and fall in love with her, to her neglect. She had not +the least conception of what this Christmas-tree meant to her older +sister: the opportunity of seeing Wollaston Lee, of talking with him, +of perhaps some attention on his part. Maria was to return to Amity +on the last trolley from Westbridge. It was quite a walk from the +academy. She dreamed of Wollaston's escorting her to the +trolley-line. She dressed herself with unusual care when the day +came. She had a long, trailing gown of a pale-blue cloth and a blue +knot for her yellow hair. She also had quite a pretentious blue +evening cloak. Christmas afternoon a long box full of pale-yellow +roses arrived. There was a card enclosed which Maria caught up +quickly and concealed without any one seeing her. Wollaston had sent +her the roses. Her heart beat so hard and fast that it seemed the +others must hear it. She bent over the roses. "How perfectly lovely!" +she said. + +Aunt Maria took up the box and lifted the flowers out carefully. +"There isn't any card," she said. "I wonder who sent them?" All at +once a surmise seized her that Professor Lane, who was said to be +regaining his health in Colorado, had sent an order to the Westbridge +florist for these flowers. Simultaneously the thought came to Evelyn, +but Eunice, who was in the room, looked bewildered. When Maria +carried the roses out to put them in water, she turned to her +sister-in-law. "Who on earth do you suppose sent them?" she whispered. + +Aunt Maria looked at her, and formed Professor Lane's name +noiselessly with her lips, giving her at the same time a knowing nod. +Eunice looked at Evelyn, who also nodded, although with a somewhat +disturbed expression. She still did not feel quite reconciled to the +idea of her sister's loving Professor Lane. + +"I didn't know," said Eunice. + +"Nobody knows; but we sort of surmise," said Aunt Maria. + +"Why, he's old enough to be her father," Eunice said. + +"What of that, if he only gets cured of his consumption?" said Aunt +Maria. She herself felt disgusted, but she had a pleasure in +concealing her disgust from her sister-in-law. "Lots of girls would +jump at him," said she. + +"I wouldn't have when I was a girl," Eunice remarked, in a mildly +reminiscent manner. + +"You don't know what you would have done if you hadn't got my +brother," said Aunt Maria. + +"I would never have married anybody," Eunice replied, with a fervent, +faithful look. As she spoke, she seemed to see Henry Stillman as he +had been, when a young man and courting her, and she felt as if a +king had passed her field of memory to the exclusion of all others. + +"Maybe you wouldn't have," said her sister-in-law, "but nowadays +girls have to take what they can get. Men ain't so anxious to marry. +When a man had to have all his shirts and dickeys made he was +helpless, to say nothing of his pants, but nowadays he can get +everything ready-made, and it doesn't make so much difference to him +whether he gets married or not. He can have a good deal more for +himself, if he's an old bachelor." + +"Maybe you are right," said Eunice, "but I know when I was a girl +Maria's age I wouldn't have let an old man like Professor Lane, with +the consumption, too, tie my shoes. Do you suppose he really sent her +the roses?" + +"Who else could have sent them?" + +"They must have cost an awful sight of money," said Eunice, in an +awed tone. Then she stopped, for Maria re-entered the room with the +roses in a tall vase. She wore some of them pinned to the shoulder of +her blue gown that evening. She knew who had sent them, and it seemed +to her that she did not overestimate the significance of the sending. +When she started for Westbridge that evening she was radiant. She had +the roses carefully pinned in tissue-paper to protect them from the +cold; her long, blue cloak swept about her in graceful folds, she +wore a blue hat with a long, blue feather. + +"Why didn't you wear a head tie?" asked Aunt Maria. "Ain't you afraid +you will spoil that hat if you take it off? The feather will get all +mussy." + +"I shall put it in a safe place," replied Maria, smiling. She blushed +as she spoke. She knew perfectly well herself why she wore that hat, +because she thought Wollaston might escort her to the trolley, and +she wished to appear at her best in his eyes. Maria no longer +disguised from herself the fact that she loved this man who was her +husband and not her husband. She knew that she was entirely ready to +respond to his advances, should he make any, that she would be +happier than she had ever been in her whole life if the secret which +had been the horror of her life should be revealed. She wondered if +it would not be better to have another wedding. That night she had +not much doubt of Wollaston's love for her. When she entered the car, +and saw besides herself several young girls prinked in their best, +who were also going to the Christmas-tree, she felt a sort of amused +pride, that all their prinking and preening was in vain. She assumed +that all of them had dressed to attract Wollaston. She could not +think of any other man whom any girl could wish to attract. She sat +radiant with her long, blue feather sweeping the soft, yellow puff of +her hair. She gave an affect of smiling at everybody, at all +creation. She really felt for the first time that she could remember +a sense of perfect acquiescence with the universal scheme of things, +therefore she felt perfect content and happiness. She thought how +wonderful it was that poor Gladys Mann, lying in her unmarked grave +this Christmas-time, should have been the means, all unwittingly, of +bringing such bliss to herself. She thought how wonderful that +Evelyn's loss should have been the first link in such a sequence. She +thought of Evelyn with a sort of gratitude, as if she had done +something incalculable for her. She also thought of her as always +with the utmost love and pride and tenderness. She reflected with +pleasure on the gift which she herself had hung on the tree for +Evelyn, and how pleased the child would be. It was a tiny gold brooch +with a pearl in the centre. Evelyn was very fond of ornaments. Maria +did not once imagine of the possibility that Evelyn could have any +dreams herself with regard to Wollaston. She did not in reality think +of Evelyn as old enough to have any dreams at all which need be +considered seriously, and least of all about Wollaston Lee. She +nodded to a young man, younger than herself, who was in Evelyn's +class at the academy, who sat across the aisle, and he returned the +nod eagerly. He was well grown, and handsome, and looked as old as +Maria herself. Presently as the car began to fill up, he crossed the +aisle, and asked if he might sit beside her. Maria made room at once. +She smiled at the young fellow with her smile which belonged in +reality to another man, and he took it for himself. Perhaps nothing +on earth is so misappropriated as smiles and tears. The seat was +quite narrow. It was necessary to sit rather close, in any event, but +presently Maria felt the boy's broad shoulder press unmistakably +against hers. She shrank away with an imperceptible motion. She did +not feel so much angry as amused at the thought that this great boy +should be making love to her, when all her heart was with some one +else, when she could not even give him a pleasant look which belonged +wholly to him. Maria leaned against the window, and gazed out at the +flying shadows. "I am glad it is so pleasant," she said in a +perfectly unconcerned voice. + +"Yes, so am I," the boy replied, but his voice shook with emotion. +Maria thought again how ridiculous it was. Then suddenly she +reflected that this might not be on her account but Evelyn's. She +thought that the boy might be trying to ingratiate himself with her +on her sister's account. She felt at once indignation and a sense of +pity. She was sure that Evelyn had never thought of him. She glanced +at the boy's handsome, manly face, which, although manly, wore still +an expression of ingenuousness like a child's. She reflected that if +Evelyn were to marry when she were older, that perhaps this was a +good husband for her. The boy came of one of the best families in +Amity. She turned towards him smiling. + +"Evelyn was very much disappointed that she could not come to-night," +she said. + +The boy brightened visibly at her tone. + +"She has a very severe cold," Maria added. + +"I am sorry," said the boy. Then he said in a low tone whose boldness +and ardor were unmistakable, that it did not make any difference to +him who was there as long as she was. Maria could scarcely believe +her ears. She gave the boy a keen, incredulous glance, but he was not +daunted. "I mean it," he said. + +"Nonsense," said Maria. She looked out of the window again. She told +herself that it was annoying but too idiotic to concern herself with. +She made up her mind that when they changed trolleys she would try to +find a seat with some one else. But when they changed she found the +boy again beside her. She was quite angry then, and made no effort to +disguise it. She sat quite still, gazing out of the window, shrugged +against it as closely as she was able to sit, and said nothing. +However, her face resumed its happy smile when she thought again of +Wollaston, and the boy thought the smile meant for him. He leaned +over her tenderly. + +"I wish I could have a picture of you as you look to-night," he said. + +"Well, I am afraid that you will have to do without it," Maria said +shortly. Still the boy remained insensible to rebuff. + +"What are you carrying, Miss Edgham?" he asked, looking at her roses +enveloped in tissue paper. + +"Some roses which a friend sent me," Maria replied. + +Then the boy colored and paled a little. He jumped at once to the +conclusion that the friend was a man. "I suppose you are going to +wear them," he said pitifully. + +"Yes, I am," replied Maria. + +The boy in his turn sat as far away as possible in his corner of the +seat, and gazed ahead with a gloomy air. + +When they reached the academy grounds he quite deserted Maria, who +walked to the chapel with one of the other teachers, who entered at +the same time. She was a young lady who lived in Westbridge. Maria +caught the pale glimmer of an evening gown under her long, red cloak +trimmed with white fur, and reflected that possibly she also had +adorned herself especially for Wollaston's benefit, and again she +felt that unworthy sense of pride and amusement. The girl herself +echoed her thoughts, for she said soon after Maria had greeted her: + +"I saw Mr. Lee and his mother starting." + +"Did you?" returned Maria. + +"Don't you think he is very handsome?" asked the girl in a +sentimental tone which irritated. + +"No," said Maria sharply, although she lied. "I don't think he is +handsome at all. He looks intelligent and sensible, but as for +handsome--" + +"Oh, don't you think so?" cried the other. Then she caught herself +short, for Wollaston Lee, with his mother on his arm, came up. They +said good-evening, and all four passed in. + +The platform of the chapel was occupied by a great Christmas-tree. +The chapel itself was trimmed with evergreens and holly. The moment +Maria entered, after she had removed her hat in a room which was +utilized as a dressing-room, and pinned her roses on her shoulder, +she became sensible of a peculiar intoxication as of some new +happiness and festivity, of a cup of joy which she had hitherto not +tasted. The spicy odor of the evergreens, even the odor of +oyster-stew from a room beyond where supper was to be served, that, +and cake, and the sweetness of her own roses, raised her to a sense +of elation which she had never before had. She sat with the other +teachers well towards the front. Wollaston was with his mother on the +right. Maria saw with a feeling of relief the people with whom the +Lees had formerly boarded presently enter and sit with them. She +thought that Wollaston would be free to walk to the trolley with her +if he so wished. She felt surer and surer that he did so wish. Once +she caught him looking at her, and when she answered his smile she +felt her own lips stiff, and realized how her heart pounded against +her side. She experienced something like a great pain which was still +a great joy. Suddenly everything seemed unreal to her. When the +presents were distributed, it was still so unreal that she did not +feel as pleased as she would have done with the number for poor +little Evelyn at home. She hardly knew what she received herself. +They were the usual useless and undesirable tokens from her class, +and others more desirable from the other lady teachers. Wollaston +Lee's name was often called. Again Maria experienced that unworthy +sensation of malicious glee that all this was lavished upon him when +he was in reality hers and beyond the reach of any of these smiling +girls with eyes of covert wistfulness upon the handsome young +principal. + +After the festivities were over, Maria adjusted her hat in the +dressing-room and fastened her long, blue cloak. She wrapped her +roses again in the tissue-paper. They were very precious to her. The +teacher whom she had met on entering the academy was fastening her +cloak, and she gazed at Maria with a sort of envious admiration. + +"You look like a princess, all in blue, Miss Edgham," said she. Her +words were sweet, but her voice rang false. + +"Thank you," said Maria, and went out swiftly. She feared lest the +other teacher attach herself to her, and the other teacher lived on +the road towards the trolley. When Maria went out of the academy, +that which she had almost feared to hope for happened. Wollaston +stepped beside her, and she heard him ask if he might walk with her +to the trolley. + +Maria took his arm. + +"Mother is with the Gleasons," said Wollaston. His voice trembled. + +Just then the boy who had sat with Maria on the car coming over +walked with a defiant stride to her other side. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Lee," he said, lifting his hat. "Good-evening, +Miss Edgham," as if that was the first time that evening he had seen +her. Then he walked on with her and Wollaston, and nothing was to be +done but accept the situation. The young fellow was fairly +belligerent with jealous rage. He had lost his young head over his +teacher, and was doing something for which he would scorn himself +later on. + +Wollaston pressed Maria's hand closely under his arm, and she felt +her very soul thrill, but they all talked of the tree and the +festivities of the evening, with an apparent disregard of the +terrible undercurrent of human emotions which had them all in its +grasp. Wollaston carried Maria's presents and Evelyn's. When they +reached the trolley-line, and he gave them to her, she managed to +whisper a thank you for his beautiful roses, and he pressed her hand +and said good-night. The boy asked with a mixture of humility and +defiance if he could not carry her parcels (he himself had nothing +but three neckties and a great silk muffler, which he did not value +highly, as he was well stocked already, and he had thrust them into +his pockets). "No, thank you," said Maria, "I prefer to carry them +myself." She was curt, but she was so lit up with rapture that she +could not help smiling at him as she spoke, and he again sat in the +same car-seat. She hardly spoke a word all the way to Amity, but he +walked to her door with her, alighting from the car at the same time +she did, although he lived half a mile farther on. + +"You will have to walk a half mile," Maria observed, when he handed +her off and let the car go on. + +"I like to walk," the boy said, fervently. + +Maria had her latch-key. She opened the door hurriedly and ran in. +She was half afraid that this irrepressible young man might offer to +kiss her. "Good-night," she said, and almost slammed the door in his +face. + +Aunt Maria had left a light burning low on the hall table. Maria took +it and went up-stairs. She gathered up the skirt of her gown into a +bag to hold the presents, hers and Evelyn's. + +When she entered her own room and set the lamp on the dresser, she +was aware of a little, nestling movement in the bed, and Evelyn's +dark head and lovely face raised itself from the pillow. + +"I came in here," said Evelyn, "because I wanted to see you after you +came home. Do you mind?" + +"No, darling, of course I don't mind," replied Maria. + +She displayed Evelyn's presents, and the girl examined them eagerly. +Maria thought she seemed disappointed even with her own gift of the +brooch which she had expected would so delight her. + +"Is that all?" Evelyn said. + +"All?" laughed Maria. "Why, you little, greedy thing, what do you +expect?" + +To her astonishment Evelyn began suddenly to cry. She sobbed as if +her heart would break, and would not tell her sister why she was so +grieved. Finally, Maria having undressed and got into bed, her sister +clung closely to her, still sobbing. + +"Evelyn, darling, what is it?" whispered Maria. + +"You'll laugh at me." + +"No, I won't, honest, precious." + +"Honest?" + +"Yes, honest, dear." + +"Were those all the presents I had?" + +"Yes, of course, I brought you all you had, dear." + +Evelyn murmured something inarticulate against Maria's breast. + +"What is it, dear, sister didn't hear?" + +"I hung a book on the tree for him," choked Evelyn, "and I thought +maybe--I thought--" + +"Thought what?" + +"I thought maybe he would--" + +"Who would?" + +"I thought maybe Mr. Lee would give me something," sobbed Evelyn. + +Maria lay still. + +Evelyn nestled closer. "Oh," she whispered, "I love him so! I can't +help it. I can't. I love him so, sister!" + + + +Chapter XXXIII + + +There was a second's hush after Evelyn had said that. It seemed to +Maria that her heart stood still. A sort of incredulity, as of the +monstrous and the super-human seized her. She felt as one who had +survived a railroad accident might feel looking down upon his own +dismembered body in which life still quivered. She could not seem to +actually sense what Evelyn had said, although the words still rang in +her ears. Presently, Evelyn spoke again in her smothered, weeping +voice. "Do you think I am so very dreadful, so--immodest, to care so +much about a man who has never said he cared about me?" + +"He has never said anything?" asked Maria, and her voice sounded +strange in her own ears. + +"No, never one word that I could make anything of, but he has looked +at me, he has, honest, sister." Evelyn burst into fresh sobs. + +Then Maria roused herself. She patted the little, soft, dark head. + +"Why, Evelyn, precious," she said, "you are imagining all this. You +can't care so much about a man whom you have seen so little. You have +let your mind dwell on it, and you imagine it. You don't care. You +can't, really. You wait, and by-and-by you will find out that you +care a good deal more for somebody else." + +But then Evelyn raised herself and looked down at her sister in the +dark, and there was a ring in her voice which Maria had never before +heard. "Not care," she said--"not care! I will stand everything but +that. Maria, don't you dare tell me I don't care!" + +"But you don't know him at all, dear." + +"I know him better than anybody else in the whole world," said +Evelyn, still in the same strained voice. "The very minute I saw him +I loved him, and then it seemed as if a great bright light made him +plain to me. I do love him, Maria. Don't you ever dare say I don't. +That is the only thing that makes me feel that I am not ashamed to +live, the knowing that I do love him. I should be dreadful if I +didn't love him--really love him, I mean, with the love that lasts. +Do you suppose that if I only felt about him as some of the other +girls do, that I would have told you? I _do_ love him!" + +"What makes you so sure?" + +"What makes me so sure? Why, everything. I know there is not another +man in the whole world for me that can possibly equal him, and +then--I feel as if my whole life were full of him. I can't seem to +remember much before he came. When I look back, it is like looking +into the dark, and I can't imagine the world being at all without +him." + +"Would you be willing to be very poor, to go without pretty things if +you--married him, to live in a house like the Ramsey's on the other +side of the river, not to have enough to eat and drink and wear?" + +"I would have enough to eat and drink and wear. I would have as much +as a queen if I had him," cried Evelyn. "What do you think I care +about pretty things, or even food and life itself, when it comes to +anything like this? Live in a house like the Ramsey's! I would live +in a cave. I would live on the street, and I should never know it was +not a palace. Maria, you do know that I love him, don't you?" + +"Yes, I know that you think you do." + +"No, say I do." + +"Yes, I know you do," Maria said. + +Then Evelyn lay down again, and wept quietly. + +"Yes, I love him," she moaned, "but he does not love me. You don't +think he does, do you? I know you don't." + +Maria said nothing. She was sure that he did not. + +"No, he does not. I see you know it," Evelyn sobbed, "and all I cared +about going to the Christmas-tree and wearing my new gown was on +account of him, and I sent a beautiful book. I thought I could do +that. All the girls in the senior class gave him something, and I +have been saving up every cent, and he never gave me anything, not +even a box of candy or flowers. Do you think he gave any of the other +girls anything, Maria?" + +"I don't think so." + +"I can't help hoping he did not. And I don't believe it is so very +wicked, because I know that none of the other girls can possibly love +him as much as I do. But, Maria--" + +"Well?" + +"I do love him enough not to complain if he really loved some other +girl, and she was good, and would make him happy. I would go down on +my knees to her to love him. I would, Maria, honest." Evelyn was +almost hysterical. Maria soothed her, and evaded as well as she was +able her repeated little, piteous questions as to whether she thought +Mr. Lee could ever care for her. "I know I am pretty," Evelyn said +naively. "I really think I must be prettier than any other girl in +school. I have heard so, and I really think so myself, but being +pretty means so little when it comes to anything like this with a man +like him. He might love Addie Hemingway instead of me, so far as +looks were concerned, but I don't think Addie would make him very +happy--do you, Maria?" + +"No, dear. I am quite sure he will never think of her. Now try and be +quiet and go to sleep." + +"I cannot go to sleep," moaned Evelyn, but it was not very long +before she was drawing long, even breaths. Her youth had asserted +itself. Then, too, she had got certain comfort from this baring of +her soul before the soothing love of her sister. + +As soon as Maria became sure that Evelyn was soundly asleep she +gently unwound the slender, clinging arms and got out of bed, and +stole noiselessly into Evelyn's own room, which adjoined hers. She +did not get into bed, but took a silk comfortable off, and wrapped it +around her, then sat down in a low chair beside the window. It seemed +to her that if she could not have a little while to think by herself +that she should go mad. The utterly inconceivable to her had +happened, and the utterly inconceivable fairly dazzles the brain when +it comes to pass. Maria felt as if she were outside all hitherto +known tracks of life, almost as if she were in the fourth dimension. +The possibility that her own sister might fall in love with the man +whom she had married had never entered her mind before. She had +checked Evelyn's wonder concerning him, but she had thought no more +of it than of the usual foolish exuberance of a young girl. Now she +believed that her sister really loved Wollaston. She recalled the +fears which she had had with regard to her strenuous nature. She did +not believe it to be a passing fancy of an ordinary young girl. She +recalled word for word what Evelyn had said, and she believed. Maria +sat awhile gazing out of the window at the starlit sky in a sort of +blank of realization, of adjustment. She could not at first formulate +any plan of action. She could only, as it were, state the problem. +She gazed up at the northern constellations, at the mysterious polar +star, and it seemed to steady her mind and give it power to deal with +her petty problem of life by its far-away and everlasting guiding +light. The window was partly open, and the same pungent odor of death +and life in one which had endured all day came in her nostrils. She +seemed to sense heaven and earth and herself as an atom, but an atom +racked with infinite pain between the two. + +"There is the great polar star," she said to herself, "there are all +the suns and stars, here is the earth, and here am I, Maria Edgham, +who am on the earth, but must some day give up my mortal life and +become a part of it, and part of the material universe and perhaps +also of the spiritual. I am as nothing, and yet this pain in my +heart, this love in my heart, makes me shine with my own fire as much +as the star. I could not be unless the earth existed, but it is of +such as myself that the earth is made up, and without such as myself +it could not shine in its place in the heavens." + +Maria began to attach a certain importance to her individual +existence even while she realized the pettiness of it, comparatively +speaking. She was an infinitesimal part, but the whole could not be +without that part. Suddenly the religious instruction which she had +drank in with her mother's milk took possession of her, but she had a +breadth of outlook which would have terrified her mother. Maria said +to herself that she believed in God, but that His need of her was as +much as her need of Him. She said to herself that without her tiny +faith in Him, her tiny speck of love for Him, He would lack something +of Himself. Then all at once, in a perfect flood of rapture, +something which she had never before known came into her heart: the +consciousness of the love of God for herself, of the need of God for +herself, poor little Maria Edgham, whose ways of life had been so +untoward and so absurd that she almost seemed to herself something to +be laughed at rather than pitied, much less loved. But all at once +the knowledge of the love of God was over her. She gazed up again at +the great polar star overlooking with its eternal light the mysteries +of the north, and for the first time in her whole life the primitive +instinct of worship asserted itself within her. Maria rose, and fell +on her knees, and continued to gaze up at the star which seemed to +her like an eye of God Himself, and love seemed to pervade her whole +being. She thought now almost lightly of Wollaston Lee. What was any +earthly love to love like this, which took hold of the beginning and +end of things, of the eternal? A resolution which this sense of love +seemed to inspire came over her. It was a resolution almost +grotesque, but it was sacred because her heart of hearts was in it, +and she made it because of this love of God for her and her new sense +of worship for something beyond the earth and all earthly affections +which had taken possession of her. She rose, undressed herself, and +went to bed. She did not say any prayer as usual. She seemed an +incarnate prayer which made formulas unnecessary. Why was it +essential to say anything when she was? At last she fell asleep, and +did not wake until the dawn light was in the room. She did not wake +as usual to a reunion with herself, but to a reunion with another +self. She did not feel altogether happy. The resolution of the night +before remained, but the ecstasy had vanished. She was not yet an +angel, only a poor, human girl with the longings of her kind, which +would not be entirely stifled as long as her human heart beat. But +she did what she had planned. Maria had an unusually high forehead. +It might have given evidence of intellect, of goodness, but it was +not beautiful. She had always fluffed her blond hair over it, +concealing it with pretty waves. This morning she brushed all her +hair as tightly back as possible, and made a hard twist at an ugly +angle at the back of her head. By doing this she did not actually +destroy her beauty, for her regular features and delicate tints +remained, but nobody looking at her would have called her even +pretty. Her delicate features became pronounced and hardened, her +nose seemed sharpened and elongated, her lips thinner. This display +of her forehead hardened and made bold all her face and made her look +years older than she was. Maria looked at herself in the glass with a +sort of horror. She had always been fond of herself in the glass. She +had loved that double of herself which had come and gone at her +bidding, but now it was different. She was actually afraid of the +stern, thin visage which confronted her, which was herself, yet not +herself. When she was fully dressed it was worse still. She put on a +gray gown which had never been becoming. It was not properly fitted. +It was short-waisted, and gave her figure a short, chunky appearance. +This chunky aspect, with her sharp face and strained back hair, made +her seem fairly hideous to herself. But she remained firm. Her +firmness, in reality, was one cause of the tightening and thinning of +her lips. She hesitated when about to go down-stairs. She had not +heard Evelyn go down. She wondered whether she had better wait until +she went, or go into her room. She finally decided upon the latter +course. Evelyn was standing in front of her dresser brushing her +hair. When Maria entered she threw with a quick motion the whole +curly, fluffy mass over her face, which glowed through it with an +intensity of shame. Evelyn, when she awoke that morning, felt as if +she had revealed some nakedness of her very soul. The girl was fairly +ill. She could not believe that she had said what she remembered +herself to have said. + +"Good-morning, dear," said Maria. + +Evelyn did not notice her changed appearance at all. She continued to +brush away at the mist of hair over her face. "Oh, sister!" she +murmured. + +"Never mind, precious, we won't say anything more about it," said +Maria, and her voice had maternal inflections. + +"I ought not," stammered Evelyn, but Maria interrupted her. + +"I have forgotten all about it, dear," she said. "Now you had better +hurry or you will be late." + +"When I woke up this morning and remembered, I felt as if I should +die," Evelyn said, in a choked voice. + +"Nonsense," said Maria. "You won't die, and it will all come out +right. Don't worry anything about it or think anything more about it. +Why don't you wear your red dress to school to-day? It is pleasant." + +"Well, perhaps I had better," Evelyn said. She threw back her hair +then, but still she did not look at Maria. + +She arranged her hair and removed her little dressing-sack before she +looked at Maria, who had seated herself in a rocking-chair beside the +window. Aunt Maria always insisted upon getting breakfast without any +assistance. The odor of coffee and baking muffins stole into the +room. Evelyn got her red dress from the closet and put it on, still +avoiding Maria's eyes. But at last she turned towards her. + +"I am all ready to go down," she said, in a weak little voice; then +she gave a great start, and stared at Maria. + +Maria bore the stare calmly, and rose. + +"All right, dear," she replied. + +But Evelyn continued standing before her, staring incredulously. It +was almost as if she doubted Maria's identity. + +"Why, Maria Edgham!" she said, finally. "What is the matter?" + +"What do you mean, dear?" + +"What have you done to yourself to make you look so queer? Oh, I see +what it is! It's your hair. Maria, dear, what have you strained it +off your forehead in that way for? It makes you look--why--" + +Then Maria lied. "My hair has been growing farther and farther off my +forehead lately," said she, "and I thought possibly the reason was +because I covered it. I thought if I brushed my hair back it would be +better for it. Then, too, my head has ached some, and it seemed to me +the pain in my forehead would be better if I kept it cooler." + +"But, Maria," said Evelyn, "you don't look so pretty. You don't, +dear, honest. I hate to say so, but you don't." + +"Well I am afraid the pretty part of it will have to go," said Maria, +going towards the door. + +"Oh, Maria, please pull your hair over your forehead just a little." + +"No, dear, I have it all fixed for the day, and it must stay as it +is." + +Evelyn followed Maria down-stairs. She had a puzzled expression. +Maria's hair was diverting her from her own troubles. She could not +understand why any girl should deliberately make herself homely. She +felt worried. It even occurred to wonder if anything could be the +matter with Maria's mind. + +When the two girls went into the little dining-room, where breakfast +was ready for them, Aunt Maria began to say something about the +weather, then she cut herself short when she saw Maria. + +"Maria Edgham," said she, "what on earth--" + +Maria took her place at the table. "Those gems look delicious," she +observed. But Aunt Maria was not to be diverted. + +"I don't want to hear anything about gems," said she. "They are good +enough, I guess. I always could make gems, but what I want to know is +if you have gone clean daft." + +"I don't think so," replied Maria, laughing. + +But Aunt Maria continued to stare at her with an expression of almost +horror. + +"What under the sun have you got your hair done up that way for?" +said she. + +Maria repeated what she had told Evelyn. + +"Stuff!" said Aunt Maria. "It will make the hair grow farther back +straining it off your forehead that way, I can tell you that. You +don't use common-sense, and as for your headache, I guess the hair +didn't make it ache. It's the first I've heard of it. You look like a +fright, I can tell you that." + +"Well, I can't help it," said Maria. "I shall have to behave well to +make up." + +"Maria Edgham, you don't mean to say you are going to school looking +as you do now!" + +Maria laughed, and buttered a gem. + +"You look old enough to be your own grandmother. You have spoiled +your looks." + +"Looks don't amount to much," said Maria. + +"Maria Edgham, are you crazy?" + +"I hope not." + +"I told sister she didn't look so pretty," said Evelyn. + +"Look so pretty? She looks like a homely old maid. Your nose looks a +yard long and your chin looks peaked and your mouth looks as if you +were as ugly as sin. Your forehead is too high; it always was, and +you ought to thank the Lord that he gave you pretty hair, and enough +of it to cover up your forehead, and now you've gone and strained it +back just as tight as you can and made a knot like a tough doughnut +at the back of your head. You look like a crazy thing, I can tell you +that." + +Maria said nothing. She ate her breakfast, while Aunt Maria and +Evelyn could not eat much and were all the time furtively watching +her. + +Aunt Maria took Evelyn aside before the sisters left for school, and +asked her in a whisper if she thought anything was wrong with Maria, +if she had noticed anything, but Evelyn said she had not. But she and +Aunt Maria looked at each other with eyes of frightened surmise. + +When Maria had her hat on she looked, if anything, worse. + +"Good land!" said Aunt Maria, when she saw her. "Well, if you are set +on making a spectacle of yourself, I suppose you are." + +After the girls had gone she went into the other side of the house +and told Eunice. "There she has gone and made herself look like a +perfect scarecrow," she said. "I wonder if there is any insanity in +her father's family?" + +"Did she look so bad?" asked Eunice, with a stare of terror at her +sister-in-law. + +"Look so bad! She looked as old and homely as you and I every bit." + +Maria made as much of a sensation on the trolley as she had done at +home. The boy who had persecuted her the night before with his +attentions bowed to Evelyn, and glanced at her evidently with no +recognition. After a while he came to Evelyn and asked where her +sister was that morning. Maria laughed, and he looked at her, then he +fairly turned pale, and lifted his hat. He mumbled something and +returned to his seat. Maria was conscious of his astonished and +puzzled gaze at her all the way. When she reached the academy the +other teachers--that is, the women--assailed her openly. One even +attempted to loosen by force Maria's tightly strained locks. + +"Why, Miss Edgham, you fairly frighten me," she said, when Maria +resisted. + +Maria realized the amazement of the pupils when they entered her +class-room, the amazement of incredulity and almost disgust. +Everybody seemed amazed and almost disgusted except Wollaston Lee. He +did, indeed, give one slightly surprised glance at her, then he +seemed to notice nothing different in her appearance. The man's sense +of duty and honor was so strong that in reality his sense of +externals was blunted. He had a sort of sublime short-sightedness to +everything that was not of the spirit. He had been convinced the +night previous that Maria was beginning to regard him with favor, and +being convinced of that made him insensible to any mere outward +change in her. She looked to him, on the whole, prettier than usual +because he seemed to see in her love for himself. + +When the noon intermission came he walked into her class-room, and +invited Maria and Evelyn to go with him to a near-by restaurant and +lunch. + +"I would ask you to go home with me," he said, apologetically, to +Maria, "but mother has a cold." + +Maria turned pale. She wondered if he had possibly told his mother. +Then she remembered how he had promised her not to tell without her +permission, and was reassured. Evelyn blushed and smiled and dimpled, +and cast one of her sweet, dark glances at him, which he did not +notice at all. His attention was fixed upon Maria, who hesitated, +regarding him with her pale, pinched face. Evelyn took it for granted +that Mr. Lee's invitation was only on her account, and that Maria was +asked simply as a chaperon, and because, indeed, he could not very +well avoid it. She jumped up and got her hat. + +"It will be perfectly lovely," she said, and faced them both, her +charming face one glow of delight. + +But Maria did not rise. She looked at the basket of luncheon which +she had begun to unpack, and replied, coldly, "Thank you, Mr. Lee, +but we have our luncheon with us." + +Wollaston looked at her in a puzzled way. + +"But you could have something hot at the restaurant," he said. The +words were not much, but in reality he meant, and Maria so understood +him, "Why, what do you mean, after last night? You know how I feel +about you. Why do you refuse?" + +Maria took another sandwich from her basket. "Thank you for asking +us, Mr. Lee," she said, "but we have our luncheon." + +Her tone was fairly hostile. The hostility was not directed towards +him, but towards the weakness in herself. But that he could not +understand. + +"Very well," he said, in a hurt manner. "Of course I will not urge +you, Miss Edgham." Then he walked out of the room, hollowing his back +and holding his head very straight in a way he had had from a boy +when he was offended. + +Evelyn pulled off her hat with a jerk. She looked at Maria with her +eyes brilliant with tears. "I think you were mean, sister," she +whispered, "awful mean; so there!" + +"I thought it was better not to go," Maria replied. Her tone was at +once stern and pitiful. Evelyn noticed only her sternness. She began +to weep softly. + +"There, he wanted me, too," she said, "and of course he had to ask +you, and you knew--I think you might have, sister." + +"I thought it was better not," repeated Maria. "Now, dear, you had +better eat your luncheon." + +"I don't want any luncheon." + +Maria began to eat a sandwich herself. There was an odd meekness and +dejectedness in her manner. Presently she laid the half-eaten +sandwich on the table and took out her handkerchief, and shook all +over with helpless and silent sobs. + +Then Evelyn looked at her, her pouting expression relaxed gradually. +She looked bewildered. + +"Why, what are you crying for?" she asked, in a low voice. + +Maria did not answer. + +Presently Evelyn rose and went over to her sister, and laid her cheek +alongside hers and kissed her. + +"Don't, sister," she whispered. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to be +cross. I suppose you were right not to go, only I did want to." +Evelyn snivelled a little. "I know he was hurt, too," she said. + +Maria raised her head and wiped her eyes. "I did not think it was +best," she said yet again. Then she looked at Evelyn and tried to +smile. "Don't worry, precious," she said. "Everything will come out +all right." + +Evelyn gazed wonderingly at her sister's tear-stained face. "I don't +see what you cried for, and I don't see why you wouldn't go," she +said. "The scholars will see you have been crying, and he will see, +too. I don't see why you feel badly. I should think I was the one to +feel badly." + +"Everything will come out all right," repeated Maria. "Don't worry, +sister's own darling." + +"Everybody will see that you have been crying," said Evelyn, who was +in the greatest bewilderment. "What did make you cry, Maria?" + +"Nothing, dear. Don't think any more about it," said Maria rising. +She took a tumbler from the lunch-basket. "Go and fill this with +water for me, that is a dear," she said. "Then I will bathe my eyes. +Nobody would know that you have been crying." + +"That is because I am not so fair-skinned," said Evelyn; "but I don't +see." + +She went out with the tumbler, shaking her head in a puzzled way. +When she returned, Maria had the luncheon all spread out on the +table, and looked quite cheerful in spite of her swollen eyes. The +sisters ate together, and Evelyn was very sweet in spite of her +disappointment. She was in reality very sweet and docile before all +her negatives of life, and always would be. Her heart was always in +leading-strings of love. She looked affectionately at Maria as they +ate the luncheon. + +"I am so sorry I was cross," she said. "I suppose you thought that it +would look particular if we went out to lunch with Mr. Lee." + +"Yes, I think it might have," replied Maria. + +"Well, I suppose it would," said Evelyn with a sigh, "and I know all +the other girls are simply dying for him, but he asked us, after +all." Evelyn said the last with an indescribable air of sweet +triumph. It was quite evident that she regarded the invitation as +meant for herself alone, and that she took ineffable delight in it in +spite of the fact that it had been refused. She kept glancing out of +the window as she ate. Presently she looked at her sister and +laughed. "There he is coming now," she said, "and he is all alone. He +didn't take anybody else to luncheon." + + + +Chapter XXXIV + + +Wollaston Lee, approaching the academy on his return from his +solitary lunch, was quite conscious of being commanded by the windows +of Maria's class-room. He was so conscious that his stately walk +became almost a strut. He felt resentment at Maria. He could not help +it. He had not been, in fact, so much in love with her, as in that +attitude of receptivity which invites love. He felt that she ought to +be in love, and he wooed not only the girl but love itself. Therefore +resentment came more readily than if he had actually loved. He had +been saying to himself, while he was eating his luncheon which +mortified pride had rendered tasteless, that if it had not been for +the fact of his absurd alliance with Maria she was the last girl in +the world to whom he would have voluntarily turned, now that he was +fully grown, and capable of estimating his own character and hers. He +said to himself that she was pretty, attractive, and of undeniable +strength of character, and yet that very strength of character would +have repelled him. He was not a man who needed a wife of great +strength of character, of consistent will. He himself had sufficient. +His chances of happiness would have been greater with a wife in whom +the affections and emotions were predominant; there would have been +less danger of friction. Then, too, his wife would necessarily have +to live with his mother, and his mother was very like himself. He +said to himself that there would certainly be friction, and yet he +also said that he could not abandon his attitude of readiness to +reciprocate should Maria wish for his allegiance. + +Now, for the first time, Wollaston had Evelyn in his mind. Of course +he had noticed her beauty, and admired her. The contrary would not +have been possible, but now he was conscious of a distinct sensation +of soothed pride, when he remembered how she had smiled and dimpled +at his invitation, and jumped up to get her hat. + +"That pretty little thing wanted to come, anyhow. It is a shame," he +thought. Then insensibly he fell to wondering how he should feel if +it were Evelyn to whom he were bound instead of her sister. It did +not seem possible to him that the younger sister, with her ready +gratitude and her evident ardor of temperament, could smile upon him +at night and frown the next morning as Maria had done. He considered, +also, how Evelyn would get on better with his mother. Then he +resolutely put the thought out of his mind. + +"It is not Evelyn, but Maria," he said to himself, and shut his mouth +hard. He resumed his attitude of obedience to duty, but one who is +driven by duty alone almost involuntarily balks in spirit. + +Wollaston was conscious of balking, although he would not retreat. +When he saw Maria again after the exercises of the day were closed, +and he encountered her as she was leaving the academy, she looked +distinctly homely to him, and yet such was the honor of the man that +he did not in the least realize that the homeliness was an exterior +thing. It seemed to him that he saw her encompassed with the +stiffness of her New England antecedents, as with an armor, and that +he got a new and unlovely view of her character. On the contrary, +Evelyn's charming, half-smiling, half-piteous face turned towards him +seemed to afford glimpses of sweetest affections and womanly +gentleness and devotion. Evelyn wished to say that she was sorry that +they were obliged to refuse his invitation, but she did not dare. +Instead, she gave him that little, half-smiling, half-piteous glance, +to which he responded with a lighting up of his whole face and lift +of his hat. Then Evelyn smiled entirely, and her backward glance at +him was wonderfully alluring, yet maidenly, almost childish. +Wollaston, on his way home, thought again how different it would be +if Evelyn, instead of Maria, were his wife. Then he put it out of his +head resolutely. + +The next morning Maria arranged her hair as usual. She had +comprehended that something more than mere externals were needful to +change the mind of a man like Wollaston, and she gave up the attempt, +it must be acknowledged, with a little pleasure. Feminine vanity was +inherent in Maria. Nobody knew what the making herself hideous the +day before had cost her. + +"Oh, I am so glad you have done up your hair the old way," Evelyn +cried, when she saw her, and Aunt Maria remarked that she was glad to +see that she had not quite lost her common-sense. + +Maria began herself to think that she had not evinced much sense in +her procedure of the day before. She had underestimated the character +of the man whom she had married, and had made herself ridiculous for +nothing. The boy who was infatuated with her, when he saw her on the +trolley that morning, made a movement to go forward and speak to her, +then he sat still with frequent puzzled glances at her. He was +repelled if Wollaston was not. This changing of the face of a woman +in a day's time filled him with suspicion. He looked hard at Maria's +soft puff of hair, and reflected that it might be a wig; that anyway +he was not so much in love as he had thought, with a girl who could +look as Maria had done the day before. + +When Maria reached the academy, the teachers greeted her with +enthusiasm. One who was given to exuberance fairly embraced her. + +"Now you are my own beautiful Miss Edgham again," said she. + +Wollaston, during the opening exercises, only glanced once at her, +then he saw no difference. But he did look at Evelyn, and when she +turned her lovely face away before his gaze and a soft blush rose +over her round cheeks he felt his pulses quicken. But he did not +speak a word to Maria or Evelyn all day. + +When Evelyn went home that night she was very sober. She would not +eat her supper, and Maria was sure that she heard her sobbing in the +night. The next morning the child looked pale and wan, and Aunt Maria +asked harshly if she were sick. Evelyn replied no quickly. When she +and Maria were outside waiting for the trolley, Evelyn said, half +catching her breath with a sob even then: + +"Mr. Lee didn't speak a word to me all day yesterday. I know he did +not like it because we didn't go to lunch with him." + +"Nonsense, dear," said Maria. Then she added, with an odd, secretive +meaning in her voice: "Don't worry, precious." + +"I can't help it," said Evelyn. + +When the term was about half finished it became evident to Maria that +she and Evelyn must call upon Mrs. Lee, Wollaston's mother. She had +put it off as long as she could, although all the other teachers had +called, and Aunt Maria had kept urging her to do so. + +"She is going to think it is awful funny if you don't call," she +said, "when you used to live in the same place, too." + +In reality, Aunt Maria, now that George Ramsey had married, was +thinking that Wollaston might be a good match for Maria, and she +wished to prevent her marriage with Professor Lane should he return +from Colorado cured. + +At last Maria felt that she was fairly obliged to go, and one +Saturday afternoon she and Evelyn went to Westbridge for the purpose. +Wollaston and his mother lived in an exceedingly pretty house. Mrs. +Lee had artistic taste, and the rooms were unusual though simple. +Maria looking about, felt a sort of homesick longing. She realized +how perfectly a home like this would have suited her. As for Evelyn, +she looked about with quick, bright glances, and she treated Mrs. Lee +as if she were in love with her. She was all the time wondering if +Wollaston would possibly come in, and in lieu of him, she played off +her innocent graces with no reserve upon his mother. Wollaston did +not come in. He had gone to the city, but when he came home his +mother told him of the call. + +"Those Edgham girls who used to live in Edgham, the one who teaches +in your school, and her sister, called this afternoon," said she. + +"Did they?" responded Wollaston. He turned a page of the evening +paper. It was after dinner, and the mother and son were sitting in a +tiny room off the parlor, from which it was separated by some eastern +portieres. There was a fire on the hearth. The two windows, which +were close together, were filled up with red and white geraniums. +There was a red rug, and the walls were lined with books. Outside it +had begun to snow, and the flakes drifted past the windows filled +with red and white blossoms like a silvery veil of the storm. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Lee. Then she added, with a keen although covert +glance at her son: "I like the younger sister." + +"She is considered quite a beauty, I believe," said Wollaston. + +"Quite a beauty; she is a perfect beauty," said his mother with +emphasis. "It seemed to me I never had seen such a perfectly +beautiful, sweet girl. I declare, I actually wanted to take her in my +arms. Anybody could live with that girl. As for her sister, I don't +like her at all." + +Mrs. Lee was very like her son. She had the same square jaw and +handsome face, which had little of the truly feminine in it. Her +clear blue eyes surveyed every new person with whom she came in +contact in her new dwelling place, with impartial and pitiless +scrutiny. When she liked people she said so. When she did not she +also said so, and, as far as she could, let them alone. When she +spoke now, she looked as if Maria's face was actually before her. She +did not frown, but her expression was one of complete hostility and +unsparing judgment. + +"Why don't you like her?" asked her son, with his eyes upon his paper. + +"Why don't I like her? She is New England to the backbone, and one +who is New England to the backbone is insufferable. She is stiff and +set in her ways. She would go to the stake for a fad, or send her +nearest and dearest there." + +"She is a very good teacher, and the pupils like her," said +Wollaston. He kept his voice quite steady. + +"She may be a very good teacher," said his mother. "I dare say she +is. I can't imagine anybody not learning a task which she set them, +but I don't like her." + +"She is pretty--at least, she is called so," said Wollaston. Then he +added, with an impulse of loyalty: "I think myself that she is very +pretty." + +"I don't call her at all pretty," said his mother. "She has a nose +which looks as if it could pierce fate, and she sets her mouth as +though she was deciding the laws of the universe. It is all very well +in a man, that kind of a face, but I can't call it pretty in a woman." + +Wollaston glanced at his mother, and an expression of covert +amusement was on his face as he reflected that his mother herself +answered her own description of poor Maria, and did not dream of it. +In fact, the two, although one was partly of New England heritage, +and the other of a wholly different, more southern State, they were +typically alike. They could meet only to love or quarrel; there could +never be neutrality between them. Wollaston said no more, but +continued reading his paper. He did not in reality sense one word +which he read. He acknowledged to himself that he was very unhappy. +He was caught in a labyrinth from which he saw no way of escape into +the open. He realized that love for Maria had become almost +impossible--that is, spontaneous love--even if she should change her +attitude towards him. He realized a lurking sense of guilt as to his +sentiments towards Evelyn, and he realized also that his mother and +Maria could never live together in peace. Once Mrs. Lee took a +dislike, her very soul fastened upon it as with a grip of iron jaws. +Doubtless if she knew that her son was in honor bound to Maria she +would try to make the best of it, but the best of it would be bad +enough. He wondered while he sat with the paper before his face what +Maria's real attitude towards him was. He could not understand such +apparent inconsistencies in a woman of his mother's type, and he had +been almost sure that one night that Maria loved him. + + + +Chapter XXXV + + +Maria, after that call, faced her future course more fully than ever. +She had disliked Mrs. Lee as much as Mrs. Lee had disliked her. Only +the fact that she was Wollaston's mother made her endurable to her. + +"Isn't Mrs. Lee perfectly lovely?" said Evelyn, when she and Maria +were on their way home. + +"Yes," Maria answered, but she did not think so. Mrs. Lee shone for +her only with reflected glory. + +"I wonder where Mr. Lee was?" Evelyn murmured, timidly. + +"I don't know," Maria said with an absent air. "We did not go to call +on him." + +"Of course we didn't," said Evelyn. "Don't be cross, sister." + +"I am not in the least cross," Maria answered with perfect truth. + +"I didn't know but you were, you spoke so," said Evelyn. She leaned +wearily against her sister, and looked ahead with a hollow, wistful +expression. + +Evelyn had grown thin and lost much of her color. Aunt Maria and +Eunice talked about it when they were alone. + +"I wonder if there is any consumption in her mother's family?" Aunt +Maria said. + +"I wonder," said Eunice. "I don't like the way she looks." + +"Well, don't say anything about it to Maria, for she will worry +herself sick," said Aunt Maria. "She sets her eyes by Evelyn." + +"Don't you think she notices?" + +"No, she hasn't said a word about it." + +But Aunt Maria was wrong. Maria had noticed. That afternoon, +returning from Westbridge, she looked anxiously down at her sister. + +"Don't you feel well, dear?" she asked. + +"Perfectly well," Evelyn replied languidly, "only I am a little +tired." + +"Perhaps it is the spring weather," said Maria. + +Evelyn nodded. It was the beginning of the spring term, and spring +came like a flood that year. The trees fairly seemed to burst forth +in green-and-rosy flames, and the shrubs in the door-yards bloomed so +boldly that they shocked rather than pleased. + +"I like the spring to come slowly, so one does not feel choked with +it," Evelyn said after a little, as she gazed out of the window. +"There are actually daisies in that field. They have come too soon." +Evelyn spoke with an absurd petulance which was unusual with her. + +Maria laughed. "Well, dear, we can't help it," she said. + +"If this world is for people, and not the people for this world, it +seems to me we ought to be able to help a little," said Evelyn with +perfectly unconscious heresy. "There it rained too much last week, +and this week it is too hot, and the apple blossoms have come too +soon after the cherry blossoms. It is like eating all your candy in +one big pill." + +Maria laughed again, but Evelyn sighed wearily. The car was very hot +and close. + +"I shall be thankful when we get home," Evelyn said. + +"Yes, you will feel better when you get home and have some supper," +said Maria. + +"I don't want any supper," said Evelyn. + +"If you don't eat any supper you cannot study this evening." + +"I must study," said Evelyn with a feverish light in her eyes. + +"You can't unless you eat." + +"Well, I will drink some milk," said Evelyn. She was studying very +hard. She was very ambitious, both naturally and because of her +feeling for Wollaston Lee. It seemed to her that she should die if +she did not stand well in her class. Evelyn had received so little +notice from Wollaston that she had made up her mind that he did not +care for her, and the conviction was breaking her heart, but she said +to herself that she would graduate with honors that she might have +that much, that she must. + +The graduating with honors would have been easy to the girl, for she +had naturally a quick grasp of knowledge, but her failing health and +her almost unconquerable languor made it hard for her to work as +usual. However, she persisted. It became evident that she would stand +first among the girls of her class, and only second to one boy, who +had a large brain and little emotion, and was so rendered almost +impregnable. Ida sent Evelyn a graduating costume from Paris, and the +girl brightened a little after she had tried it on. She could not +quite give up all hope of being loved when she saw herself in that +fluffy white robe, and looked over her slender shoulder at her +graceful train, and reflected how she would not only look pretty but +acquit herself with credit. She said to herself that if she were a +man she should love herself. There was about Evelyn an almost comical +naivete and truthfulness. + +Ida also sent Maria a gown for the graduating exercises. Hers was a +pale blue, very pretty, but not as pretty as Evelyn's. The night +after the gowns came Maria was startled by a sudden rush into her +room when she was almost asleep, and Evelyn nestling into her arms +and sobbing out that she was sorry, she was sorry, but she could not +help it. + +"Can't help what, darling?" said Maria. + +"Can't help being glad that my dress is so much prettier than yours," +wept Evelyn. "I am sorry, sister, but I can't help it, and I am so +ashamed I had to come in and tell you." + +Maria laughed and kissed her. "Sister is very glad yours is the +prettiest," she said. + +"Oh, I am so sorry I am so selfish," sobbed Evelyn. Then she added, +in a tiny whisper, "I know now he won't ever think of me, but I can't +help being glad I shall look nice for him to see, anyway." + +Evelyn was asleep long before her sister. Maria lay awake, with the +little, frail body in her arms, realizing with horror how very frail +and thin it was. Evelyn was of the sort whom emotion can kill. She +was being consumed like a lamp which needed oil. Love was for the +girl not only a need but a condition of life. Maria was realizing it. +At the same time she said to herself that possibly after school was +over and Evelyn could rest she might regain her strength. There +seemed to be no organic trouble. The local physician had been +consulted, and said that nothing whatever was the matter, yet had +gone away with a grave face after prescribing a simple tonic. The +fact was that life was flickering low, as it sometimes does, with no +ostensible reason which science could grasp. Evelyn was beyond +science. She was assailed in that citadel of spirit which overlooks +science from the heights of eternity. No physician but fate itself +could help her. + +All this time, while Maria was suffering as keenly as her sister, her +suffering left no evidence. She had inherited from her mother a +tremendous strength of will, which sustained her. She said to herself +that she had her work to do, that her health must not fail. She said +that probably Wollaston did not care for her, although she could not +help thinking that she had the power to make him care, and that she +would be lacking in all that meant her true and best self should she +give way to her unhappiness and let it master her. She therefore +mastered it. In those days to Maria, who had a ready imagination, her +unhappiness seemed sometimes to assume a material shape like the +fabulous dragon. She seemed to be fighting something with tooth and +claw, a monstrous verity; but she fought, and she kept the upper +hand. Maria did not lose flesh. She ate as usual, she retained her +interest in her work, and all the time whenever a moment of solitude +came she renewed the conflict. She thought as little as possible of +Wollaston; she avoided even looking at him. He thought that he really +was an object of aversion to her. He began to question the +advisability of his retaining his position another year. He told +himself that it was hardly fair to Maria to subject her to such +annoyance, that it was much easier for him to obtain another position +than it was for her. He wanted to ask her with regard to it, but in +the days before commencement she so manifestly shrank from even +looking at him that he hardly liked to approach her even with a +question which concerned her own happiness. + +Wollaston in those days used sometimes to glance at Evelyn, and +notice how very thin and delicate she looked, and an anxiety which +was almost paternal was over him. He used almost to wish that she was +not so proficient in her studies. One day, meeting her in the +vestibule when no one was in sight, he could not resist the impulse +which led him to pat her little, dark, curly head and say, in a voice +broken with tenderness: + +"Don't study too hard, little one." + +Evelyn gave an upward glance at him and ran away. Wollaston stood +still a moment, dazed. He was not naturally a conceited man. Then, +too, he had always regarded himself as so outside the pale that he +doubted the evidence of his own senses. If he had not been tied to +Evelyn's sister he would have said to himself, in a rapture, that +that look of the young girl's meant, could mean, only one thing: that +all her innocent heart was centred upon himself. It would have +savored no more of conceit that the seeing his face in a mirror. He +would simply have thought it the truth. But now, since he was always +forgetting that other women did not know the one woman's secret, and +looked upon him as an unmarried man, and therefore a fit target for +their innocent wiles, the preening of their dainty dove plumage, he +said to himself that he must have been mistaken. That Evelyn had +looked at him as she had done only because she was nervous and +overwrought, and the least thing was sufficient to disturb her +equilibrium. + +However, he was very careful not to address Evelyn particularly +again, but that one little episode had been sufficient for the girl +to build another air castle upon. That night when she went home she +was radiant with happiness. Her color had returned, smiles lit her +whole face. Ineffable depths of delight sparkled in her eyes. It +seemed almost a sacrilege to look at the young girl, whose heart was +so plainly evident in her face. Maria looked at her, and felt a chill +in her own heart. + +"Something must have happened," she said to herself. She thought that +Evelyn would tell her, but she did not; she ate her supper with more +appetite than she had shown for many a week. Her gayety in the +evening, when some neighbors came in, was so unrestrained and +childlike that it was fairly infectious. They sat out on the front +door-step. It had been a warm day, and the evening cool was welcome +and laughter floated out into the street. It was laughter over +nothing, but irresistible, induced because of the girl's exuberant +mood. She felt that night as if there was no meaning in the world +except happiness and fun. George Ramsey, going home about nine +o'clock, heard the laughter, and shrugged his shoulders rather +bitterly. Lily had made him such a good wife, according to the tenets +of wifehood, that he had apparently no reason to complain. She was +always perfectly amiable and affectionate, not violently +affectionate, but with the sort of affection which does not ruffle +laces nor disarrange hair, and that he had always considered the most +desirable sort of affection in the long-run. She and his mother got +on very well also--that is, apparently. Lily, it was true, always had +her way, but she had it so gently and unobtrusively that one really +doubted if she were not herself the conceder. She always looked the +same, she dressed daintily, and arranged her fair hair beautifully. +George did not own to himself that sameness irritated him when it was +such charming sameness. However, he did sometimes realize, and +sternly put it away from him, a little sting when he happened to meet +Maria. He had a feeling as if he had gone from a waxwork show and met +a real woman. + +To-night when he heard the peals of laughter from the front door of +the Stillman house he felt the sting again, and an unwarrantable +childish indignation as if he had been left out of something and +slighted. He was conscious of wishing when he reached home that his +wife would greet him with a frown and reproaches; in fact, with +something new, instead of her sweet, gentle smile of admiration, +looking up from her everlasting embroidering, from where she sat +beside the sitting-room lamp. George felt furious with her for +admiring him. He sat down moodily and took up the evening paper. His +mother was not there. She had gone to her room early with a headache. + +Finally, Lily remarked that it was a beautiful night, and it was as +exactly what might have been expected from her flower-like lips as +the squeaking call for mamma of a talking doll. George almost grunted +a response, and rattled his paper loudly. Lily looked at him with a +little surprise, but with unfailing love and admiration. George had +sometimes a feeling that if he were to beat her she would continue to +admire him and think it lovely of him. Lily had, in fact, the soul of +an Oriental woman in the midst of New England. She would have figured +admirably in a harem. George, being Occidental to his heart's core, +felt an exasperation the worse because it was needfully dumb, on +account of this adoration. He thought less of himself because his +wife thought he could do no wrong. The power of doing wrong is, after +all, a power, and George had a feeling of having lost that power and +of being in a negative way wronged. Finally he spoke crossly to Lily +over his newspaper. + +"Why do you stick so to that everlasting fancy-work?" said he. "Why +on earth don't you sometimes run out of an evening? You never go into +the next house nowadays." + +Lily arose directly. + +"We will go over there now if you wish," said she. She laid down her +work and smoothed her hair with her doll-like gesture, which never +varied. + +George looked at her surlily and irresolutely. + +"No, I guess we had better not to-night," he said. + +"I had just as lief, dear." + +George rose, letting his paper slide to the floor. + +"Well," he said, "they are all out on the front door-step, and I +think some of the neighbors are there, too. We might run over a +moment. It is too hot to stay in the house, anyway." + +But when George and Lily came alongside the Stillman house the +laughter was hushed, and there was a light in Aunt Maria's bedroom, +and lights also in the chambers behind the drawn curtains. + +"We are too late," said George. "They have gone to bed." + +"I think they have," replied Lily, looking up at the lighted bedroom +windows. Then she added, "I will go over there any evening you wish, +dear," and looked at him with that unfailing devotion which +unreasonably angered him. + +He answered her quite roughly, and was ashamed of himself afterwards. + +"It is a frightfully monotonous life we lead anyhow," said he, as if +she, Lily, were responsible for it. + +"Suppose we go away a week somewhere next month," said Lily. + +"Well, I'll think of it," said he, striding along by her side. Even +that suggestion, which was entirely reasonable, angered him, and he +felt furious and ashamed of himself for being so angered. + +Lily was constantly making him ashamed of himself for not being a god +and for feeling unreasonable anger when she did nothing to provoke +it. Once in a while a man likes to have a reasonable cause for +resentment in order to prove himself in the right. + +"Well, I am ready to go whenever you wish to do so, dear," said Lily. +"My wardrobe is in order." + +"Well, we'll see," George grunted again, as he and Lily retraced +their steps. + +They sat down again in the sitting-room, and Lily took up her +embroidery, and he read a murder case in his paper. + +Meanwhile, Maria, after putting out her lamp, was lying awake in bed +thinking that Evelyn would come in and make some confidence to her, +but she did not come. Maria felt horribly uneasy. She could not +understand her sister's sudden change of mood, and yet she did not +for a moment doubt Wollaston. She said to herself that as far as she +was concerned she would brave the publicity if Wollaston loved +Evelyn, but she recalled as exactly as if she had committed them to +heart what Evelyn had said with regard to divorce and the horror +which she had expressed of a divorced man or woman remarrying. Then +she further considered how much worse it would be if the divorced man +married her own sister. That course seemed to her impossible. She +imagined the horrible details, the surmises, the newspaper articles, +and she said to herself that even if she herself were willing to face +the ordeal it would be still more of an ordeal for Wollaston and +Evelyn. She said to herself that it was impossible; then she also +said to herself, with no bitterness, but with an acquiescence in the +logic of it, that it would be much better for them all if she, Maria, +should die. + + + +Chapter XXXVI + + +Evelyn's return of appetite and spirits endured only a few days. Then +she seemed worse than she had been before. In fact, Wollaston, +thinking that he had done wrong in yielding for only a second to his +impulse of tender protection and admiration for the young girl, went +too far in the opposite direction. In order to make amends to Maria, +himself, and Evelyn, he was actually rude, almost brutal. He scarcely +spoke to Evelyn. On one occasion he even reprimanded her severely in +a class for a slight mistake. Evelyn turned pale, and gave him a +glance like that of some pretty, little, harmless animal which has +nothing except love and devotion in its heart, and whose very +mistakes are those of love and over-anxiety to please. Wollaston was +struck to the heart by the look, but he did not relax one muscle of +his stern face. + +"I think Mr. Lee treated you mean, so there," Addie Hemingway said to +Evelyn when they had left the room. + +Evelyn said nothing. Her face continued pale and shocked. It was +inconceivable to her that anybody, least of all Mr. Lee, could have +spoken so to her. + +"He's treating you like a child," Addie Hemingway continued. "Mr. Lee +has no right to speak so to seniors." Addie's words were in +themselves sympathetic, but there was an undertone of delight at the +other girl's discomfiture in her voice which she could not eliminate. +In reality she was saying to herself that Evelyn Edgham, in spite of +her being so pretty, had had to meet a rebuff, and she exulted in it. + +Evelyn still said nothing. She left Addie abruptly and joined Maria +in her class-room. It was the noon-hour. Maria glanced anxiously at +her sister as she entered. + +"Why, darling, what is the matter?" she cried. + +"Nothing," replied Evelyn. An impulse of loyalty seized her. She +would not repeat, not even to Maria, the unkind words which Mr. Lee +had used towards her. + +"But you look so pale, dear," said Maria. + +"It was warm in there," said Evelyn, with a quiet, dejected air +unusual to her. + +Maria could not get any admission that anything was wrong from her. +Evelyn tried to eat her luncheon, making more of an effort than +usual, but she could not. At last she laid her head down on her +sister's table and wept with the utter abandon of a child, but she +still would not tell what caused her tears. + +After that Evelyn lost flesh so rapidly that it became alarming. +Maria and her aunt wondered if they ought to allow her to go through +the strain of the graduation exercises, but neither dared say +anything about it to her. Evelyn's whole mind seemed fastened upon +her graduation and the acquitting of herself with credit. She studied +assiduously. She often used to go into the spare chamber and gaze at +her graduating dress, which was spread out on the bed there covered +with a sheet. + +"She's so set on that graduation and wearing that dress," Aunt Maria +said to Eunice Stillman, her sister-in-law, one day when she was +alone with her in her parlor and heard Evelyn's light step overhead. +"She goes in there almost every day and looks at it." + +Eunice sighed. "Well, I wish she looked better," said she. + +"So do I. It seems to me that she loses every day." + +"Did you ever think--" began Eunice. Then she stopped and hesitated. + +"Think what?" + +"If--anything happened to her, that that dress--" + +"Oh, for the land sake, stop, Eunice!" cried Aunt Maria, impatiently. +"Ain't I had it on my mind the whole time. And that dress looks just +as if it was laid out there." + +"Do you think Maria notices?" + +"Yes, she's just as worried as I am. But what can we do? Maybe if +Evelyn gets through the graduation she will be better. I shall be +thankful when it's over, for my part." + +"How that child's mother could have gone off and left her all this +time I don't see," Eunice said. "If I were in her place and anything +happened to her, I should never forgive myself." + +"Trust Ida Slome to forgive herself for most anything," Aunt Maria +returned, bitterly. "But as far as that goes, I guess the child has +had full as good care here as she would have had with her ma." + +"I guess so, too," said Eunice; "better--only I should never forgive +myself." + +That was only a week before the graduation day, which was on a +Wednesday. It was a clear June day, with a sky of blue, veiled here +and there with wing-shaped clouds. It was quite warm. Evelyn dressed +herself very early. She was ready long before it was time to take the +car. Evelyn, in her white graduating dress, was fairly angelic. +Although she had lost so much flesh, it had not affected her beauty, +only made it more touching. Her articulations and bones were so +fairy-like and delicate that even with her transparent sleeved and +necked dress there were no unseemly protuberances. Her slenderness, +moreover, was not so apparent in her fluffy gown. Above her necklace +of pink corals her lovely face showed. It was full of a gentle and +uncomplaining melancholy, yet that day there was a tinge of hope in +it. The faintest and most appealing smile curved her lips. She looked +at everybody with a sort of wistful challenge. It was as if she said: +"After all, am I not pretty, and worthy of being loved? Am I not +worthy of being loved, even if I am not, and I have all my books in +my head, too?" + +Maria had given her a bouquet of red roses. When Evelyn in her turn +came forward to read her essay, holding her red roses, with red roses +of excitement burning on her delicate cheeks, there was a low murmur +of admiration. Then it was that Maria, in her blue gown, seated among +the other teachers, caught the look on Wollaston Lee's face. It was +unmistakable. It was a look of the utmost love and longing and +admiration, the soul of the man, for the minute, was plainly to be +read. In a second, the look was gone, but Maria had seen. "He is in +love with her," she told herself, "only he is so honorable that he +chokes the love back." Maria turned very pale, but she listened with +smiling lips to Evelyn's essay. It was very good, but not much beyond +the usual rate of such productions. Evelyn had nothing creative about +her, although she was even a brilliant scholar. But the charm of that +little flutelike voice, coming from that slight, white-clad beauty, +made even platitudes seem like something higher than wisdom. + +When Evelyn had finished there was a great round of applause and a +shower of flowers. She returned again and again, and bowed, smiling +delightedly. She was flushed with her triumph. She thought that even +Mr. Lee must be pleased with her, if he did not love her, and be +proud to have such a pupil. + +That evening there was to be a reception for the teachers, and the +graduating-class, at Mr. Lee's house. Evelyn and Maria had planned to +go to one of the other teacher's, who lived in Westbridge, have +supper, and go from there to the reception. But when the exercises +were over, and they had reached the teacher's home, Evelyn's strength +gave way. She had a slight fainting fit. The teacher, an elderly +woman who lived alone, gave her home-made wine and made her take off +her dress, put on one of her own wrappers, and lie down and rest +until the last minute, in the hope that she would be able to go to +the reception. But it became evident that the girl was too exhausted. +When Maria and the teacher were fastening her dress again, she +fainted the second time. The teacher, who was a decisive woman, spoke. + +"There is no sense whatever in this child's leaving this house +to-night," said she. "Maria, you go to the reception, and I will stay +and take care of her." + +"No," said Maria. "If Evelyn is not able to go, I think we had better +take the trolley at once for home." Maria was as decided as the other +teacher. When the white-clad graduates and the teachers were +gathering at Wollaston Lee's, she and Evelyn boarded the trolley for +Amity. Evelyn still held fast to her bouquet of red roses, and Maria +was laden with baskets and bouquets which had been strewn at her +shrine. Evelyn leaned back in her seat, with her head resting against +the window, and did not speak. All her animation of the morning had +vanished. She looked ghastly. Maria kept glancing furtively at her. +She herself looked nearly as pale as Evelyn. She realized that she +was face to face with a great wall of problem. She was as unhappy as +Evelyn, but she was stronger to bear unhappiness. She had philosophy, +and logic, and her young sister was a creature of pure emotion, and +at the same time she was so innocent and ignorant that she was +completely helpless before it. Evelyn closed her eyes as she leaned +against the window-frame, and a chill crept over her sister as she +thought that she could not look much different if she were dead. Then +came to Maria the conviction that this sister's life meant more than +anything else in the world to her. That she could bear the loss of +everything rather than that, and when she too would not be able to +avoid the sense of responsibility for it. If she had not been so +headlong and absurdly impetuous years ago, Evelyn might easily have +been happy and lived. + +When they reached home, Aunt Maria, who had come on an earlier car, +was already in her bedroom and the front-door was fastened and the +sitting-room windows were dark. Maria knocked on the door, and +presently she heard footsteps, then Aunt Maria's voice, asking, with +an assumption of masculine harshness, who were there. + +"It is only I and Evelyn," replied Maria. + +Then the door was opened, and Aunt Maria, in her ruffled night-gown +and cap, holding a streaming lamp, stood back hastily lest somebody +see her. "Come in and shut the door quick, for goodness sake!" said +she. "I am all undressed." + +Maria and Evelyn went in, and Maria closed and locked the door. + +"What have you come home for?" asked Aunt Maria. "Why didn't you go +to the reception, and stay at Miss Thomas's, the way you said you +were going to, I'd like to know?" + +"Evelyn didn't feel very well, and I thought we'd better come home," +replied Maria, with a little note of evasion in her voice. + +Aunt Maria turned and looked sharply at Evelyn, who was leaning +against the wall. She was faint again, and she looked, in her white +dress with her slender curves, like a bas-relief. "What on earth is +the matter with her?" asked Aunt Maria in her angry voice, which was +still full of the most loving concern. She caught hold of Evelyn's +slight arm. "You are all tired out, just as I expected," she said. "I +call the whole thing pure tomfoolery. If girls want to get educated, +let them, but when it comes to making such a parade when they are all +worn out with education there is no sense in it. Maria, you get her +up-stairs to bed." + +Evelyn was too exhausted to make any resistance. She allowed Maria to +assist her up-stairs and undress her. When her sister bent over her +to kiss her good-night, she said, soothingly, "There now, darling; go +to sleep. You will feel better now school is done and you will have a +chance to rest." + +But Evelyn responded with the weakest and most hopeless little sob. + +"Don't cry, precious," said Maria. + +"Won't you tell if I tell you something?" said Evelyn, raising +herself on one slender arm. + +"No, dear." + +"Well--he does--care a good deal about me. I know now. I--I met him +out in the grove after the exercises were over, and--there was nobody +there, and he--he caught hold of my arms, and, Maria, he looked at +me, but--" Evelyn burst into a weak little wail. + +"What is it, dear?" + +"Oh, I don't know what it is, but for some reason he thinks he can't +tell me. He did not say so, but he made me know, and--and oh, Maria, +he is going away! He is not coming back to Westbridge at all. He is +going to get another place!" + +"Nonsense!" + +"Yes, it is so. He said so. Oh, Maria! you will think I am dreadful, +and I do love you and Aunt Maria and Uncle Henry and Aunt Eunice, but +I can't help minding his going away where I can never see him, more +than anything else in the world. I can't help loving him most. I do +feel so very badly, sister, that I think I shall die." + +"Nonsense, darling." + +"Yes, I shall. And I am not ashamed now. I was ashamed because I +thought so much about a man who did not care anything about me, but +now I am not ashamed. I am just killed. A person is not to blame for +being killed. I am not ashamed. I am killed. He is going away, and I +shall never see him again. The sight of him was something; I shall +not even have that. You don't know, sister. I don't love him for my +own self, but for himself. Just the knowing he is near is something, +and I shall not even have that." Evelyn was too weak to cry +tumultuously, but she made little, futile moans, and clung to Maria's +hand. Maria tried to soothe her, and finally the child, worn out, +seemed to be either asleep or in the coma of exhaustion. + +Then Maria went into her own room. She undressed, and sat down beside +the window with a wrapper over her night-gown. Now she had to solve +her problem. She began as she might have done with a problem in +higher algebra, this problem of the human heart and its emotions. She +said to herself that there were three people. Evelyn, Wollaston and +herself, three known quantities, and an unknown quantity of +happiness, and perhaps life itself, which must be evolved from them. +She eliminated herself and her own happiness not with any particular +realization of self-sacrifice. She came of a race of women to whom +self-sacrifice was more natural than self-gratification. She was +unhappy, but there was no struggle for happiness to render the +unhappiness keener. She thought first of Evelyn. She loved Wollaston. +Maria reasoned, of course, that she was very young. This first love +might not be her only one, but the girl's health might break under +the strain, and she took into consideration, as she had often done, +the fairly abnormal strength of Evelyn's emotional nature in a slight +and frail young body. Evelyn was easily one who might die because of +a thwarted love. Then Maria thought of Wollaston, and, loving him as +she did, she acknowledged to herself coolly that he was the first to +be considered, his happiness and well being. Even if Evelyn did break +her heart, the man must have the first consideration. She tried to +judge fairly as to whether she or Evelyn would on the whole be the +best for him. She estimated herself, and she estimated Evelyn, and +she estimated the man. Wollaston Lee was a man of a strong nature, +she told herself. He was capable of self-restraint, of holding his +head up from his own weaknesses forever. Maria reasoned that if he +had been a weaker man she would have loved him just the same, and in +that case Evelyn would have been the one to be sacrificed. She +thought that a girl like Evelyn would not have been such a good wife +for a weak man as she herself, who was stronger. But Wollaston did +not need any extraneous strength. On the contrary, some one who was +weaker than he might easily strengthen his strength. It seemed to her +that Evelyn was distinctly better for the man than she. Then she +remembered the look which she had seen on his face when Evelyn began +her essay that day. + +"If he does not love her now it is because he is bound to me," she +thought. "He would most certainly love her if it were not for me." + +Again it seemed to Maria distinctly better that she should die, +better--that is, for Evelyn and the man. But she had the thought, +with no morbid desire for suicide or any bitterness. It simply seemed +to her as if her elimination would produce that desirable unknown +quantity of happiness. + +Elimination and not suicide seemed to her the only course for her to +pursue. She sat far into the night thinking it over. She had great +imagination and great daring. Things were possible to her which would +not have been possible to many--that is, she considered things as +possibilities which would have seemed to many simply vagaries. She +thought of them seriously, with a belief in their fulfilment. It was +almost morning, the birds had just begun to sing in scattering +flute-like notes, when she crept into bed. + +She hardly slept at all. She heard the gathering chorus of the birds, +in a half doze, until seven o'clock. Then she got up and dressed +herself. She peeped cautiously into Evelyn's room. The girl was +sleeping, her long, dark lashes curled upon her wan cheeks. She +looked ghastly, yet still lovely. Maria looked at her, and her mouth +compressed. Then she turned away. She crept noiselessly down the +stairs and into the kitchen where Aunt Maria was preparing breakfast. +The stove smoked a little and the air was blue. + +"How is she?" asked Aunt Maria, in a hushed voice. + +"She is fast asleep." + +"Better let her sleep just as long as she will," said Aunt Maria. +"These exhibitions are pure tomfoolery. She is just tuckered out." + +"Yes, I think she is," said Maria. + +Aunt Maria looked keenly at her, and her face paled and lengthened. + +"Maria Edgham, what on earth is the matter with _you?_" she said. +"You look as bad as she does. Between both of you I am at my wit's +end." + +"Nothing ails me," said Maria. + +"Nothing ails you? Look at yourself in the glass there." + +Maria stole a look at herself in a glass which hung over the +kitchen-table, and she hardly knew her own face, it had gathered such +a strange fixedness of secret purpose. That had altered it more than +her pallor. Maria tried to smile and say again that nothing ailed +her, but she could not. Suddenly a tremendous pity for her aunt came +over her. She had not thought so much about that. But now she looked +at things from her aunt's point of view, and she saw the pain to +which the poor old woman must be put. She saw no way of avoiding the +giving her the pain, but she suffered it herself. She went up to Aunt +Maria and kissed her. + +Aunt Maria started back, and rubbed her face violently. "What did you +do that for?" said she, in a frightened voice. Then she noticed +Maria's dress, which was one which she seldom wore unless she was +going out. "What have you got on your brown suit for this morning?" +said she. + +"I thought I would go down to the store after breakfast and get some +embroidery silk for that centre-piece," replied Maria. + +As she spoke she seemed to realize what a little thing a lie was, and +how odd it was that she should realize it, who had been brought up to +speak the truth. + +"Your gingham would have been enough sight better to have worn this +hot morning," said Aunt Maria, still with that air of terror and +suspicion. + +"Oh, this dress is light," replied Maria, going out. + +"Where are you going now?" + +"Into the parlor." + +Aunt Maria stood still, listening, until she heard the parlor door +open. She was still filled with vague suspicion. She did not hear +quite as acutely as formerly, and Maria had no difficulty about +leaving the parlor unheard the second after she entered it, and +getting her hat and coat and a small satchel which she had brought +down-stairs with her from the hat-tree in the entry. Then she opened +the front door noiselessly and stole out. She went rapidly down the +street in the direction of the bridge, which she had been accustomed +to cross when she taught school in Amity. She met Jessy Ramsey, now +grown to be as tall as herself, and pretty with a half-starved, +pathetic prettiness. Jessy was on her way to work. She went out by +the day, doing washings. She stopped when she met Maria, and gave a +little, shy look--her old little-girl look--at her. Maria also +stopped. "Good-morning, Jessy," said she. Then she asked how she was, +if her cough was better, and where she was going to work. Then, +suddenly, to Jessy's utter amazement and rapture, she kissed her. "I +never forget what a good little girl you were," said she, and was +gone. Jessy stood for a moment staring after her. Then she wiped her +eyes and proceed to her scene of labor. + +Maria went to the railroad station. She was just in time for a train. +She got on the rear car and sat in the last seat. She looked about +and did not see anybody whom she knew. She recalled how she had run +away before, and how Wollaston had brought her back. She knew that it +would not happen so again. She was on a through train which did not +stop at the station where he had found her. When the train slowed up +a little in passing that station, she saw the bench on the platform +where she had sat, and a curious sensation came over her. She was +like one who has made the leap and realizes that there is nothing +more to dread, and who gets even a certain abnormal pleasure from the +sensation. When the conductor came through the car she purchased her +ticket for New York, and asked when the train was due in the city. +When she learned that it was due at an hour so late that it would be +impossible for her to go, as she had planned, to Edgham that night, +she did not, even then, for the time being, feel in the least +dismayed. She had plenty of money. Her last quarter's salary was in +her little satchel. The train was made up of Pullmans only, and it +was by a good chance that she had secured a seat. She gazed out of +the large window at the flying landscape, and again that sense of +pleasure in the midst of pain was over her. The motion itself was +exhilarating. She seemed to be speeding past herself and her own +anxieties, which suddenly appeared as petty and evanescent as the +flying telegraph-poles along the track. "It has to be over some +time," she reflected. "Nothing matters." She felt comforted by a +realization of immensity and the continuance of motion. She +comprehended her own atomic nature in the great scheme of things. She +had never done so before. Her own interests had always loomed up +before her like a beam in the eye of God. Now she saw that they were +infinitesimal, and the knowledge soothed her. She leaned her head +back and dozed a little. She was awakened by the porter thrusting a +menu into her hands. She ordered something. It was not served +promptly, and she had no appetite. There was some tea which tasted of +soap. + + + +Chapter XXXVII + + +There were very few people in this car, for the reason that there had +recently been a terrible rear-end collision on the road, and people +had flocked into the forward cars. There were three young girls who +filled the car with chatter, and irritated Maria unreasonably. They +were very pretty and well dressed, and with no reserve. They were as +inconsequently confidential about their own affairs as so many +sparrows, but more intelligible. One by one the men left and went +into the smoker, before this onslaught of harsh trebles shrieking +above the roar of the train, obtruding their little, bird-like +affairs, their miniature hoppings upon the stage of life, upon all in +the car. + +Finally, there were none left in the car except Maria, these young +girls, an old lady, who accosted the conductors whenever they entered +and asked when the train was due in New York (a tremulous, vibratory +old lady in antiquated frills and an agitatedly sidewise bonnet, and +loose black silk gloves), and across the aisle a tiny, deformed +woman, a dwarf, in fact, with her maid. This little woman was richly +dressed, and she had a fine face. She was old enough to be Maria's +mother. Her eyes were dark and keen, her forehead domelike, and her +square, resigned chin was sunken in the laces at her throat. Her maid +was older than she, and waited upon her with a faithful solicitude. +The little woman had some tea, which the maid produced from a small +silver caddy in a travelling-bag, and the porter, with an obsequious +air, brought boiling water in two squat, plated tea-pots. It was the +tea which served to introduce Maria. She had just pushed aside, with +an air half of indifference, half of disgust, her own luke-warm +concoction flavored with soap, when the maid, at her mistress's +order, touched the bell. When the porter appeared, Maria heard the +dwarf ask for another pot of boiling water, and presently the maid +stood beside her with a cup of fragrant tea. + +"Miss Blair wishes me to ask if you will not drink this instead of +the other, which she fears is not quite satisfactory," the maid said, +in an odd, acquired tone and manner of ladyism, as if she were +repeating a lesson, yet there seemed nothing artificial about it. She +regarded Maria with a respectful air. Maria looked across at the +dwarf woman, who was looking at her with kindly eyes which yet seemed +aloof, and a half-sardonic, half-pleasant smile. + +Maria thanked her and took the tea, which was excellent, and +refreshed her. The maid returned to her seat, facing her mistress. +They had finished their luncheon. She leaned back in her chair with a +blank expression of face. The dwarf looked out of the window, and +that same half-pleasant, half-sardonic smile remained upon her face. +It was as if she regarded all nature with amused acquiescence and +sarcasm, at its inability to harm her, although it had made the +endeavor. + +Maria glanced at her very rich black attire, and a great pearl cross +which gleamed at her throat, and she wondered a little about her. +Then she turned again to the flying landscape, and again that sense +of unnatural peace came over her. She did not think of Evelyn and +Wollaston, or her aunts and uncle, whom she was leaving, except with +the merest glance of thought. It was as if she were already in +another world. + +The train sped on, and the girls continued their chatter, and their +high-shrieking trebles arose triumphant above all the clatter. It was +American girlhood rampant on the shield of their native land. Still +there was something about the foolish young faces and the inane +chatter and laughter which was sweet and even appealing. They became +attractive from their audaciousness and their ignorance that they +were troublesome. Their confidence in the admiration of all who saw +and heard almost compelled it. Their postures, their crossing their +feet with lavish displays of lingerie and dainty feet and hose, was +possibly the very boldness of innocence, although Maria now and then +glanced at them and thought of Evelyn, and was thankful that she was +not like them. + +The little dwarf also glanced now and then at them with her pleasant +and sardonic smile and with an unruffled patience. She seemed either +to look up from the depths of, or down from the heights of, her +deformity upon them, and to hardly sense them at all. None of the men +returned until a large city was reached, where some of them were to +get off. Then they lounged into the car, were brushed, took their +satchels, and when the train reached the station swung out, with the +unfailing trebles still in their ears. + +Before the train reached New York, all the many appurtenances had +vanished from the car. The chattering girls also had alighted at a +station, with a renewed din like a flock of birds, and there were +then left in the rear car only Maria, the dwarf woman, and her maid. + +It was not until the train was lighted, and she could no longer see +anything from the window except signal-lights and lighted windows of +towns through which they whirled, that Maria's unnatural mood +disappeared. Suddenly she glanced around the lighted car, and terror +seized her. She was no longer a very young girl; she had much +strength of character, but she was unused to the world. For the first +time she seemed to feel the cold waters of it touch her very heart. +She thought of the great and terrible city into which she was to +launch herself late at night. She considered that she knew absolutely +nothing about the hotels. She even remembered, vaguely, having heard +that no unattended woman was admitted to one, and then she had no +baggage except her little satchel. She glanced at herself in the +little glass beside her seat, and her pretty face all at once +occurred to her as being a great danger rather than an advantage. Now +she wished for her aunt Maria's face instead of her own. She imagined +that Aunt Maria might have no difficulty even under the same adverse +circumstances. She looked years younger than she was. She thought for +a moment of going into the lavatory and rearranging her hair, with a +view to making herself look plain and old, as she had done before, +but she recalled the enormous change it had made in her appearance, +and she was afraid to do that lest it should seem a suspicious +circumstance to the conductors and her fellow-passengers. She glanced +across the aisle at the dwarf woman, and their eyes met, and suddenly +a curious sort of feeling of kinship came over the girl. Here was +another woman outside the pale of ordinary life by physical +conditions, as she herself was by spiritual ones. The dwarf's eyes +looked fairly angelic and heavenly to her. She saw her speak in a +whisper to her maid, and the woman immediately arose and came to her. + +"Miss Blair wishes me to ask if you will be so kind as to go and +speak to her; she has something which she wishes to say to you," she +said, in the same parrot-like fashion. + +Maria arose at once, and crossed the aisle and seated herself in the +chair which the maid vacated. The maid took Maria's at a nod from her +mistress. + +The little woman looked at Maria for a moment with her keen, kind +eyes and her peculiar smile deepened. Then she spoke. "What is the +matter?" she asked. + +Maria hesitated. + +The dwarf looked across at her maid. "She will not understand +anything you say," she remarked. "She is well trained. She can hear +without hearing--that is her great accomplishment." + +Still Maria said nothing. + +"You got on at Amity," said the dwarf. "Is that where you live?" + +"Yes." + +"What is your name?" + +Maria closed her mouth firmly. + +The dwarf laughed. "Oh, very well," said she. "If you do not choose +to tell it, I can. Your name is Ackley--Elizabeth Ackley. I am glad +to meet you, Miss Ackley." + +Maria paled a little, but she said nothing to disapprove this +extraordinary statement. + +"My name is Blair--Miss Rosa Blair," said the dwarf. "I am a rose, +but I happened to bloom outside the pale." She laughed gayly, but +Maria's eyes upon her were pitiful. "You are also outside the pale in +some way," said Miss Blair. "I always know such people when I meet +them. There is an affinity between them and myself. The moment I saw +you I said to myself: she also is outside the pale, she also has +escaped from the garden of life. Well, never mind, child; it is not +so very bad outside when one becomes accustomed to it. I am. Perhaps +you have not had time; but you will have. What is the matter?" + +"I am running away," replied Maria then. + +"Running away! From what?" + +"It is better for me to be away," said Maria, evading the question. +"It would be better if I were dead." + +"But you are not," said the dwarf, with a quick movement almost of +alarm. + +"No," said Maria; "and I see no reason why I shall not live to be an +old woman." + +"I don't either," said Miss Blair. "You look healthy. You say, better +if you were dead--better for whom, yourself or others?" + +"Others." + +"Oh!" said Miss Blair. She remained quietly regardful of Maria for a +little while, then she spoke again. "Where are you going when you +reach New York?" she asked. + +"I was going out to Edgham, but I shall miss the last train, and I +shall have to go to a hotel," replied Maria, and she looked at the +dwarf with an expression of almost childish terror. + +"Don't you know that it may be difficult for a young girl alone? Have +you any baggage?" + +Maria looked at her little satchel, which she had left beside her +former chair. + +"Is that all?" asked Miss Blair. + +"Yes." + +"You must certainly not think of trying to go to a hotel at this time +of night," said the dwarf. "You must go home with me. I am entirely +safe. Even your mother would trust you with me, if you have one." + +"I have not, nor father, either," replied Maria. "But I am not afraid +to trust you for myself." + +A pleased expression transfigured Miss Blair's face. "You do not +distrust me and you do not shrink from me?" she said. + +"No," replied Maria, looking at her with indescribable gratitude. + +"Then it is settled," said the dwarf. "You will come home with me. I +expect my carriage when we arrive at the station. You will be +entirely safe. You need not look as frightened as you did a few +moments ago again. Come home with me to-night; then we will see what +can be done." + +Miss Blair turned her face towards the window. Her big chair almost +swallowed her tiny figure, the sardonic expression had entirely left +her face, which appeared at once noble and loving. Maria gazed at her +as she sat so, with an odd, inverted admiration. It seemed +extraordinary to her she should actually admire any one like this +deformed little creature, but admire her she did. It was as if she +suddenly had become possessed of a sixth sense for an enormity of +beauty beyond the usual standards. + +Miss Blair glanced at her and saw the look in her eyes, and a look of +triumph came into her own. She bent forward towards Maria. + +"You are sheltering me as well as I am sheltering you," she said, in +a low voice. + +Maria did not know what to say. Miss Blair leaned back again and +closed her eyes, and a look of perfect peace and content was on her +face. + +It was not long before the train rolled into the New York tunnel. +Miss Blair's maid rose and took down her mistress's travelling cloak +of black silk, which she brushed with a little, ivory brush taken +from her travelling-bag. + +"This young lady is going home with us, Adelaide," said Miss Blair. + +"Yes, ma'am," replied the maid, without the slightest surprise. + +She took Maria's coat from the hook where it swung, and brushed it +also, and assisted her to put it on before the porter entered the car. + +Maria felt again in a daze, but a great sense of security was over +her. She had not the slightest doubt of this strange little creature +who was befriending her. She felt like one who finds a ledge of +safety on a precipice where he had feared a sheer descent. She was +content to rest awhile on the safe footing, even if it were only +transient. + +When they alighted from the train at the station a man in livery met +them and assisted Miss Blair down the steps with obsequiousness. + +"How do you do, James?" said Miss Blair, then went on to ask the man +what horses were in the carriage. + +"The bays, Miss Blair," replied the man, respectfully. + +"I am glad of that," said his mistress, as she went along the +platform. "I was afraid Alexander might make a mistake and put in +those new grays. I don't like to drive with them at night very well." +Then she said to Maria: "I am very nervous about horses, Miss Ackley. +You may wonder at it. You may think I have reached the worst and +ought to fear nothing, but there are worsts beyond worsts." + +"Yes," Maria replied, vaguely. She kept close to Miss Blair. She +realized what an agony of fear she should have felt in that murky +station with the lights burning dimly through the smoke and the +strange sights and outcries all around her. + +Miss Blair's carriage was waiting, and Maria saw, +half-comprehendingly, that it was very luxurious indeed. She entered +with Miss Blair and her maid, then after a little wait for baggage +they drove away. + +When the carriage stopped, the footman assisted Maria out after Miss +Blair, and she followed her conductress's tiny figure toiling rather +painfully on the arm of her maid up the steps. She entered the house, +and stood for a second fairly bewildered. + +Maria had seen many interiors of moderate luxury, but never anything +like this. For a second her attention was distracted from everything +except the wonderful bizarre splendor in which she found herself. It +was not Western magnificence, but Oriental; hangings of the richest +Eastern stuffs, rugs, and dark gleams of bronzes and dull lights of +brass, and the sheen of silken embroideries. + +When Maria at last recovered herself and turned to Miss Blair, to her +astonishment she no longer seemed as deformed as she had been on the +train. She fitted into this dark, rich, Eastern splendor as a +misformed bronze idol might have done. Miss Blair gave a little, +shrewd laugh at Maria's gaze, then she spoke to another maid who had +appeared when the door opened. + +"This is my friend Miss Ackley, Louise," she said. "Take her to the +west room, and call down and have a supper tray sent to her." Then +she said to Maria that she must be tired, and would prefer going at +once to her room. "I am tired myself," said Miss Blair. "Such persons +as I do not move about the face of the earth with impunity. There is +a wear and tear of the soul and the body when the body is so small +that it scarcely holds the soul. You will have your supper sent up, +and your breakfast in the morning. At ten o'clock I will send +Adelaide to bring you to my room." She bade Maria good-night, and the +girl followed the maid, stepping into an elevator on one side of the +vestibule. She had a vision of Miss Blair's tiny figure with Adelaide +moving slowly upward on the other side. + +Maria reflected that she was glad that she had her toilet articles +and her night-dress at least in her satchel. She felt the maid +looking at her, although her manner was very much like Adelaide's. +She wondered what she would have thought if she had not at least had +her simple necessaries for the night when she followed her into a +room which seemed to her fairly wonderful. It was a white room. The +walls were hung with paper covered with sheafs of white lilies; white +fur rugs--wolf-skins and skins of polar bears--were strewn over the +polished white floor. All the toilet articles were ivory and the +furniture white, with decorations of white lilies and silver. In one +corner stood a bed of silver with white draperies. Beyond, Maria had +a glimpse of a bath in white and silver, and a tiny dressing-room +which looked like frost-work. When the maid left her for a moment +Maria stood and gazed breathless. She realized a sort of delight in +externals which she had never had before. The externals seemed to be +farther-reaching. There was something about this white, virgin room +which made it seem to her after her terror on the train like heaven. +A sense of absolute safety possessed her. It was something to have +that, although she was doing something so tremendous to her +self-consciousness that she felt like a criminal, and the ache in her +heart for those whom she had left never ceased. The maid brought in a +tray covered with dainty dishes of white and silver and a little +flask of white wine. Then, after Maria had refused further +assistance, she left her. Maria ate her supper. She was in reality +half famished. Then she went to bed. Nestling in her white bed, +looking out of a lace-curtained window opposite through which came +the glimpse of a long line of city lights, Maria felt more than ever +as if she were in another world. She felt as if she were gazing at +her past, at even her loves of life, through the wrong end of a +telescope. + +The night was very warm but the room was deliciously cool. A breath +of sweet coolness came from one of the walls. Maria, contrary to her +wont, fell asleep almost immediately. She was exhausted, and an +unusual peace seemed to soothe her very soul. She felt as if she had +really died and gotten safe to Heaven. She said her prayers, then she +was asleep. She awoke rather late the next morning, and took her +bath, and then her breakfast was brought. When that was finished and +she was dressed, it was ten o'clock, and the maid Adelaide came to +take her to her hostess. Maria went down one elevator and up another, +the one in which she had seen Miss Blair ascend the night before. +Then she entered a strange room, in the midst of which sat Miss +Blair. To Maria's utter amazement, she no longer seemed in the least +deformed, she no longer seemed a dwarf. She was in perfect harmony +with the room, which was low-ceiled, full of strange curves and low +furniture with curved backs. It was all Eastern, as was the first +floor of the house. Maria understood with a sort of intuition that +this was necessary. The walls were covered with Eastern hangings, +tables of lacquer stood about filled with squat bronzes and gemlike +ivory carvings. The hangings were all embroidered in short curve +effects. Maria realized that her hostess, in this room, made more of +a harmony than she herself. She felt herself large, coarse, and +common where she should have been tiny, bizarre, and, according to +the usual standard, misformed. Miss Blair had planned for herself a +room wherein everything was misformed, and in which she herself was +in keeping. It had been partly the case on the first floor of the +house. Here it was wholly. Maria sat down in one of the squat, +curved-back chairs, and Miss Blair, who was opposite, looked at her, +then laughed with the open delight of a child. + +"What a pity I cannot make the whole earth over to suit me," she +said, "instead of only this one room! Now I look entirely perfect to +you, do I not?" + +"Yes," Maria replied, looking at her with wonder. + +"It is my vanity room," said Miss Blair, and she laughed as if she +were laughing at herself. Then she added, with a little pathos, "You +yourself, if you had been in my place, would have wanted one little +corner in which you could be perfect." + +"Yes, I should," said Maria. As she spoke she settled herself down +lower in her chair. + +"Yes, you do look entirely too tall and straight in here," said Miss +Blair, and laughed again, with genuine glee. "Beauty is only a matter +of comparison, you know," said she. "If one is ugly and misshapen, +all she has to do is to surround herself with things ugly and +misshapen, and she gets the effect of perfect harmony, which is the +highest beauty in the world. Here I am in harmony after I have been +out of tune. It is a comfort. But, after all, being out of tune is +not the worst thing in the world. It might be worse. I would not make +the world over to suit me, but myself to suit the world, if I could. +After all, the world is right and I am wrong, but in here I seem to +be right. Now, child, tell me about yourself." + +Maria told her. She left nothing untold. She told her about her +father and mother, her step-mother, and Evelyn, and her marriage, and +how she had planned to go to Edgham, get the little sum which her +father had deposited in the savings-bank for her, and then vanish. + +"How?" asked Miss Blair. + +Maria confessed that she did not know. + +"Of course your mere disappearance is not going to right things, you +know," said Miss Blair. "That matrimonial tangle can only be +straightened by your death, or the appearance of it. I do not suppose +you meditate the stereotyped hat on the bank, and that sort of thing." + +"I don't know exactly what to do," said Maria. + +"You are quite right in avoiding a divorce," said Miss Blair, +"especially when your own sister is concerned. People would never +believe the whole truth, but only part of it. The young man would be +ruined, too. The only way is to have your death-notice appear in the +paper." + +"How?" + +"Everything is easy, if one has money," said Miss Blair, "and I have +really a good deal." She looked thoughtfully at Maria. "Did you +really care for that young man?" she asked. + +Maria paled. "I thought so," she said. + +"Then you did." + +"It does not make any difference if I did," said Maria, with a little +indignation. She felt as if she were being probed to her +heart-strings. + +"No, of course it does not," Miss Blair agreed directly. "If he and +your sister have fallen in love, as you say, you have done obviously +the only thing to do. We will have the notice in the papers. I don't +know quite how I shall arrange it; but I have a fertile brain." + +Maria looked hesitatingly at her. "But it will not be telling the +truth," she said. + +"But what did you plan to do, if you told the truth when you came +away?" asked Miss Blair with a little impatience. + +"I did not really plan anything," replied Maria helplessly. "I only +thought I would go." + +"You are inconsequential," said Miss Blair. "You cannot start upon a +train of sequences in this world unless you go on to the bitter end. +Besides, after all, why do you object to lying? I suppose you were +brought up to tell the truth, and so was I, and I really think I +venerate the truth more than anything else, but sometimes a lie is +the highest truth. See here. You are willing to bear all the +punishment, even fire and brimstone, and so on, if your sister and +this man whom you love, are happy, aren't you?" + +"Of course," replied Maria. + +"Well, if you tell a lie which can hurt only yourself, and bless +others, and are willing to bear the punishment for it, you are +telling the truth like the angels. Don't you worry, my dear. But you +must not go to Edgham for that money. I have enough for us both." + +"I have nearly all my last term's salary, except the sum I paid for +my fare here," Maria said, proudly. + +"Well, dear, you shall spend it, and then you shall have some of +mine." + +"I don't want any money, except what I earn," Maria said. + +"You may read to me, and earn it," Miss Blair said easily. "Don't +fret about such a petty thing. Now, will you please touch that bell, +dear. I must go and arrange about our passage." + +"Our passage?" repeated Maria dully. + +"Yes; to-day is Thursday. We can catch a Saturday steamer. We can buy +anything which you need ready-made in the way of wearing-apparel, and +get the rest on the other side." + +Maria gasped. She was very white, and her eyes were dilated. She +stared at Miss Rosa Blair, who returned her stare with curious +fixedness. Maria seemed to see depths within depths of meaning in her +great dark eyes. A dimness swept over her own vision. + +"Touch the bell, please, dear," said Miss Blair. + +Maria obeyed. She touched the bell. She was swept off her feet. She +had encountered a will stronger than any which she had ever known, a +will which might have been strengthened by the tininess of the body +in which its wings were bent, but always beating for flight. And she +had encountered this will at a moment when her own was weakened and +her mind dazed by the unprecedented circumstances in which she was +placed. + + + +Chapter XXXVIII + + +Three days later, when they were on the outward-bound steamer, Miss +Rosa Blair crossed the corridor between her state-room, which she +occupied with her maid, to Maria's, and stood a moment looking down +at the girl lying in her berth. Maria was in that state of liability +to illness which keeps one in a berth, although she was not actually +sea-sick. + +"My dear," said Miss Blair. "I think I may as well tell you now. In +the night's paper before we left, I saw the death-notice of a certain +Maria Edgham, of Edgham, New Jersey. There were some particulars +which served to establish the fact of the death. You will not be +interested in the particulars?" + +Maria turned her pale face towards the port-hole, against which +dashed a green wave topped with foam. "No," said she. + +"I thought you would not," said Miss Blair. "Then there is something +else." + +Maria waited quiescent. + +"Your name is on the ship's list of passengers as Miss Elizabeth +Blair. You are my adopted daughter." + +Maria started. + +"Adelaide does not remember that you were called Miss Ackley," said +Miss Blair. "She will never remember that you were anything except my +adopted daughter. She is a model maid. As for the others, Louise is a +model, too, and so is the coachman. The footman is discharged. When +we return, nobody in my house will have ever known you except as +Elizabeth Blair." Miss Blair went out of the state-room walking +easily with the motion of the ship. She was a good sailor. + +The next afternoon Maria was able to sit out on deck. She leaned back +in her steamer-chair, and wept silently. Miss Blair stood at a little +distance near the rail, talking to an elderly gentleman whom she had +met years ago. "She is my adopted daughter Elizabeth," said Miss +Blair. "She has been a little ill, but she is much better. She is +feeling sad over the death of a friend, poor child." + +It was a year before Maria and Miss Blair returned to the United +States. Maria looked older, although she was fully as handsome as she +had ever been. Her features had simply acquired an expression of +decision and of finish, which they had not before had. She also +looked more sophisticated. It had been on her mind that she might +possibly meet her step-mother abroad, but she had not done so; and +one day Miss Blair had shown her a London newspaper in which was the +notice of Ida's marriage to a Scotchman. "We need not go to +Scotland," said Miss Blair. + +The day after they landed was very warm. They had gone straight to +Miss Blair's New York house; later they were to go to the sea-shore. +The next morning Maria went into Miss Blair's vanity room, as she +called it, and a strange look was on her face. "I have made up my +mind," said she. + +"Well?" Miss Blair said, interrogatively. + +"I cannot let him commit bigamy. I cannot let my sister marry--my +husband. I cannot break the laws in such a fashion, nor allow them to +do so." + +"You break no moral law." + +"I am not so sure. I don't know where the dividing-line between the +moral and the legal comes." + +"Then--?" + +"I am going to take the train to Amity this noon." + +Miss Blair turned slightly pale, but she regarded Maria +unflinchingly. "Very well," said she. "I have always told you that I +would not oppose you in any resolution which you might make in the +matter." + +"It is not because I love him," said Maria. "I do love him; I think I +always shall. But it is not because of that." + +"I know that. What do you propose doing after you have disclosed +yourself?" + +"Tell the truth." + +"And then what?" + +"I shall talk the matter over with Wollaston and Evelyn, and I think +they can be made to see that a quiet divorce will straighten it all +out." + +"Not as far as the man's career is concerned, if he marries your +sister, and not so far as your sister is concerned. People are prone +to believe the worst, as the sparks fly upward." + +"Then they will," Maria said, obstinately. "I have made up my mind I +dare not undertake the responsibility." + +"What will you do afterwards, come back to me?" Miss Blair said, +wistfully. "You will come back, will you not, dear?" + +"If you wish," Maria said, with a quick, loving glance at her. + +"If I wish!" repeated Miss Blair. "Well, go if you must." + +Maria did not reach Amity until long after dark. Behind her on the +train were two women who got on at the station before Amity. She did +not know them, and they did not know her, but they presently began +talking about her. "I saw Miss Maria Stillman at the Ordination in +Westbridge, Wednesday," said one to the other. This woman had a +curiously cool, long-reaching breath when she spoke. Maria felt it +like a fan on the back of her neck. + +The other woman, who was fat, responded with a wheezy voice. "It was +queer about that niece of hers, who taught school in Westbridge, +running away and dying so dreadful sudden, wasn't it?" said she. + +"Dreadful queer. I guess her aunt and sister felt pretty bad about +it, and I s'pose they do now; but it's a year ago, and they've left +off their mourning." + +"Of course," said the other woman. "They would leave it off on +account of--" + +Maria did not hear what followed, for a thundering freight-train +passed them and drowned the words. After the train passed, the fat +woman was saying, with her wheezy voice, "Mr. Lee's mother's death +was dreadful sudden, wasn't it?" + +"Dreadful." + +"I wonder if he likes living in Amity as well as Westbridge?" + +"I shouldn't think he would, it isn't as convenient to the academy." + +"Well, maybe he will go back to Westbridge after a while," said the +other woman, and again her breath fanned Maria's neck. + +She wondered what it meant. A surmise came to her, then she dismissed +it. She was careful to keep her back turned to the women when the +train pulled into Amity. She had no baggage except a suit-case. She +got off the train, and disappeared in the familiar darkness. All at +once it seemed to her as if she had returned from the unreal to the +real, from fairy-land to the actual world. The year past seemed like +a dream to her. She could not believe it. It was like that fact which +is stranger than fiction, and therefore almost impossible even to +write, much less to live. Miss Rosa Blair, and her travellings in +Europe, and her house in New York, seemed to her like an Arabian +Night's creation. She walked along the street towards her aunt's +house, and realized her old self and her old perplexities. When she +drew near the house she saw a light in the parlor windows and also in +Aunt Maria's bedroom. Aunt Maria had evidently gone to her room for +the night. Uncle Henry's side of the house was entirely dark. + +Maria stole softly into the yard, and paused in front of the parlor +windows. The shades were not drawn. There sat Evelyn at work on some +embroidery, while opposite to her sat Wollaston Lee, reading aloud. +In Evelyn's lap, evidently hampering her with her work, was a +beautiful yellow cat, which she paused now and then to stroke. Maria +felt her heart almost stand still. There was something about it which +renewed her vague surmise on the train. It was only a very few +minutes before Wollaston laid down the paper which he had been +reading, and said something to Evelyn, who began to fold her work +with the sweet docility which Maria remembered. Wollaston rose and +went over to Evelyn and kissed her as she stood up and let the yellow +cat leap to the floor. Evelyn looked to Maria more beautiful than she +had ever seen her. Maria stood farther back in the shadow. Then she +heard the front door opened, and the cat was gently put out. Then she +heard the key turn in the lock, and a bolt slide. Maria stood +perfectly still. A light from a lamp which was being carried by some +one, flitted like a will-o'-the-wisp over the yard, and the parlor +windows became dark. Then a broad light shone out from the front +chamber windows through the drawn white shade, and lay in a square on +the grass of the yard. The cat which had been put out rubbed against +Maria's feet. She caught up the little animal and kissed it. Then she +put it down gently, and hurried back to the station. She thought of +Rosa Blair, and an intense longing came over her. She seemed to +suddenly sense the highest quality of love: that which realizes the +need of another, rather than one's own. The poor little dwarf seemed +the very child of her heart. She looked up at the stars shining +through the plumy foliage of the trees, and thought how many of them +might owe their glory to the radiance of unknown suns, and it seemed +to her that her own soul lighted her path by its reflection of the +love of God. She thought that it might be so with all souls which +were faced towards God, and that which is above and beyond, and it +was worth more than anything else in the whole world. + +She questioned no longer the right or wrong of what she had done, as +she hurried on and reached the little Amity station in time for the +last train. + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of By the Light of the Soul, by +Mary E. 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