ully hidden away in a drawer of her dresser, under some linen.

Maria felt a gloomy pride when the doctor, who came frequently to see
Ida, was asked to look at her; she felt still more triumphant when he
expressed it as his opinion that she ought to have a change of air
the moment school closed. The doctor said Maria was running down,
which seemed to her a very interesting state of things, and one which
ought to impress people. She told Gladys Mann the next day at school.

"The doctor says I'm running down," said she.

"You do look awful bad," replied Gladys.

After recess Maria saw Gladys with her face down on her desk,
weeping. She knew that she was weeping because she looked so badly
and was running down. She glanced across at Wollaston Lee, and
wondered if he had noticed how badly she looked, and yet how
charming. All at once the boy shot a glance at her in return; then he
blushed and scowled and took up his book. It all comforted Maria in
the midst of her langour and her illness, which was negative and
unattended by any pain. If she felt any appetite she restrained it,
she became so vain of having lost it.

It was decided that Maria should go and visit her aunt Maria, in New
England, and remain there all summer. Her father would pay her board
in order that she should not be any restraint on her aunt, with her
scant income. Just before Maria went, and just before her school
closed, the broad gossip of the school came to her ears. She
ascertained something which filled her at once with awe, and shame,
and jealousy, and indignation. If one of the girls began to speak to
her about it, she turned angrily away. She fairly pushed Gladys Mann
one day. Gladys turned and looked at her with loving reproach, like a
chidden dog. "What did you expect?" said she. Maria ran away, her
face burning.

After she reached her aunt Maria's nothing was said to her about it.
Aunt Maria was too prudish and too indignant. Uncle Henry's wife,
Aunt Eunice, was away all summer, taking care of a sister who was ill
with consumption in New Hampshire; so Aunt Maria kept the whole
house, and she and Maria and Uncle Henry had their meals together.
Maria loved her uncle Henry. He was a patient man, with a patience
which at times turns to fierceness, of a man with a brain above his
sphere, who has had to stand and toil in a shoe-factory for his bread
and butter all his life. He was non-complainant because of a sort of
stern pride, and a sense of