s 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, enj

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 goi

e you a real good mother-in-law," she said to Maria. Maria knew that Lil

lance at her daughter. She had thought of the possi

s of meat, spoke then. He did not, as a rule, say much at table, especially when Maria

ry a good-looking woman, and one that's capable of supportin' herself

e. Both nodded reassuringly at Mar

she'd saved something

driving in the white-covered wagon with "J. White & Son"

all right," said Jonas White, "but they were

e had a pleasant prospect before her or the reverse, but they

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

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

the street. He was as light-hearted

, as they passed under the maples, which were turning, and whose fo

ch is made always, which is at once trite and

to realize the pain of the child, although he loved her. "

call her, father?" a

hing. Cal

r me to call her t

ear, Ida is

r thirty," said Maria.

plied Harry, with another laugh. "Well, dear

"her." The woman, in fact, became a pronoun for the child, who in her honesty and loyalty c

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 seem

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

ncée. 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, H

an stay over until you come home. She won't be afraid to go home alone aft

to even giving a thought to household details, that he had a vague sense of self-pity because he was now obliged to d

as 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,

ather 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

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. Mari

ess, for a while longer; but father will have your room fixed u

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 i

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

breath; it was like the beating of a drum to peace and rest, after a day of weary and unskilled labor unpr