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