hose train
was due then. She was a Hungarian girl, with a saturnine, almost
savage visage. Maria felt an awe of her, both because she was to be
their maid, and they had never kept one, and because of her
personality.

When they reached home, Miss Zella Holmes, who was very lively and
quick in her ways, though not at all pretty, gave orders to the maid
in a way which astonished Maria. She was conscious of an astonishment
at everything, which had not before possessed her. She looked at the
kitchen, the dining-room, the sitting-room, the parlor, all the old
apartments, and it was exactly as if she saw old friends with new
heads. The sideboard in the dining-room glittered with the wedding
silver and cut-glass. New pictures hung on the sitting-room and
parlor walls, beside the new paper. Wedding gifts lay on the tables.
There had been many wedding gifts. Miss Zella Holmes flew about the
house, with the saturnine Hungarian in attendance. Maria, at Miss
Holmes's bidding, began to lay the table. She got out some new
table-linen, napkins, and table-cloth, which had been a wedding
present. She set the table with some new china. She looked, with a
numb feeling, at her mother's poor old blue-and-white dishes, which
were put away on the top shelves.

"I think it would be a very good idea to pack away those dishes
altogether, and put them in a box up in the garret," said Miss
Holmes. Then she noticed Maria's face. "They will come in handy for
your wedding outfit, little girl," she added, kindly and jocosely,
but Maria did not laugh.

Every now and then Maria looked at the clock on the parlor shelf,
that was also new. The old sitting-room clock had disappeared; Maria
did not know where, but she missed the face of it as if it had been
the face of a friend. Miss Holmes also glanced frequently at the new
clock. There arose a fragrant odor of warming potatoes and gravy from
the kitchen.

"It is almost time for them," said Miss Holmes.

She was very much dressed-up, Maria thought. She wore a red silk gown
with a good many frills about the shoulders. She was very slight, and
affected frills to conceal it. Out of this mass of red frills arose
her little, alert head and face, homely, but full of vivacity. Maria
thought her very nice. She would have liked her better for a mother
than Ida. When Miss Zella Holmes smiled it seemed to come from within.

At last a carriage came rapidly up to their door, and Miss Holmes
sprang to open it. M