question but herself asked one.

"Uncle Mathew, do you believe in religion?"

"Religion, my dear?" answered her uncle, greatly startled at so unusual
a question. "What sort of religion?"

"The kind of religion that father preached about every Sunday--the
Christian religion."

"To tell you the truth, my dear," he answered confidentially, "I've
never had much time to think about it. With some men, you see, it's
part of their lives, and with others--well, it isn't. My lines never
ran that way."

"Was father very religious when he was young?"

"No, I can't say that he was. But then we never got on, your father and
I. Our lines didn't run together at all. But I shouldn't have called
him a religious man."

"Then all this time father has been lying?"

Her uncle gazed at her apprehensively. He did not wish to undermine her
faith in her father on the very day after his death, but he was so
ignorant about her, her thoughts and beliefs and desires, that he did
not know what her idea of her father had been. His idea of him had
always been that he was a dirty, miserly scoundrel, but that was not
quite the thing for a daughter to feel, and there was an innocence and
simplicity about Maggie that perplexed him.

"I can't truly say that I ever knew what your father's private feelings
were. He never cared for me enough to tell me. He may have been very
religious in his real thoughts. We never discussed such things."

Maggie turned round upon him.

"I know. You're pretending. You've said to yourself, 'I mustn't tell
her what I think about her father the very day after his death, that
isn't a pleasant thing to do.' We've all got to pretend that he was
splendid. But he wasn't--never. Who can know it better than I? Didn't
he worry mother until she died? Didn't he lead me an awful life always,
and aren't I delighted now that he's dead? It's everything to me. I've
longed for this day for years, and now we've got to pretend that we're
sorry and that it would be a good thing if he were alive. It wouldn't
be a good thing--it would be a bad thing for every one. He was a bad
man and I hated him."

Then, quite suddenly, she cried. Turning away from her uncle she folded
her face in her arms like a small child and sobbed. Standing, looking
at her bent shoulders, her square, ugly figure, her shabby old hat with
its dingy black ribbon, pushed a little to the side of her head, Uncle
Mathew thought that she was a most uncomprehensible girl.