Chapter 12

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_ 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." _

Read next: Chapter 13

Read previous: Chapter 11

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