t?" said Maria's mother.

Maria said nothing. It seemed to her that such an obvious fact
scarcely needed words of assent.

"Damp as it is, too," said her mother.

Mrs. Edgham extended a lean, sallow hand and felt of the dainty
fabric. "It is just as limp as a rag," said she, "about spoiled."

"I held it up," said Maria then, with feeble extenuation.

"Held it up!" repeated her mother, with scorn.

"I thought maybe you wouldn't care."

"Wouldn't care! That was the reason why you went out the other door
then. I wondered why you did. Putting on that new pink gingham dress
that I had to hire made, trimmed with all that lace and ribbon, and
wearing it out in the evening, damp as it is to-night! I don't see
what you were thinking of, Maria Edgham."

Maria looked down disconsolately at the lace-trimmed ruffles on her
skirt, but even then she thought how pretty it was, and how pretty
she must look herself standing so forlornly before her mother. She
wondered how her mother could scold her when she was her own
daughter, and looked so sweet. She still felt the damp coolness of
the night on her cheeks, and realized a bloom on them like that of a
wild rose.

But Mrs. Edgham continued. She had the high temper of the women of
her race who had brought up great families to toil and fight for the
Commonwealth, and she now brought it to bear upon petty things in
lieu of great ones. Besides, her illness made her irritable. She
found a certain relief from her constant pain in scolding this child
of her heart, whom secretly she admired as she admired no other
living thing. Even as she scolded, she regarded her in the pink dress
with triumph. "I should think you would be ashamed of yourself, Maria
Edgham," said she, in a high voice.

Harry Edgham, who had deposited the peaches in the ice-box, and had
been about to enter the room, retreated. He went out the other door
himself, and round upon the piazza, when presently the smoke of his
cigar stole into the room. Then Mrs. Edgham included him in her wrath.

"You and your father are just alike," said she, bitterly. "You both
of you will do just what you want to, whether or no. He will smoke,
though he knows it makes me worse, besides costing more than he can
afford, and you will put on your best dress, without asking leave,
and wear it out in a damp night, and spoil it."

Maria continued to stand still, and her mother to regard her with
that odd mixture of worshipful love and chid