Chapter 15

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_ 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." _

Read next: Chapter 16

Read previous: Chapter 14

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