n.

"There she is now, the trollop," said Hannah, but she whispered the
last word under her breath, and she also gave a glance at Maria, as
one might at any innocent ignorance which must be shielded even from
knowledge itself.

Annie came in directly. Her pretty, light hair was nicely arranged;
she was smiling, but she looked doubtful.

Hannah went with a flounce into the kitchen. Annie had removed her
hat and coat and tied on a white apron in a second, and she began
waiting exactly as if she had come down the back stairs after a night
spent in her own room. Indeed, she did not dream that either Harry or
Maria knew that she had not, and she felt quite sure of Hannah's
ignorance, since Hannah herself had been away all night.

Maria from time to time glanced at Annie, and, although she had
always liked her, a feeling of repulsion came over her. She shrank a
little when Annie passed the muffins to her. Harry gave one keen,
scrutinizing glance at the girl's face, but he said nothing. After
breakfast he went up-stairs to bid Ida, who had a way of rising late,
good-bye, and he whispered to her, "Annie was out all last night."

"Oh, well," replied Ida, sleepily, with a little impatience, "it does
not happen very often. What are we going to do about it?"

"Hannah is kicking," said Harry, "and--"

"I can't help it if she is," said Ida. "Annie does her work well, and
it is so difficult to get a maid nowadays; and I cannot set up as a
moral censor, I really cannot, Harry."

"I hate the example, that is all," said Harry. "There Hannah said,
right before Maria, that Annie had been out."

"It won't hurt Maria any," Ida replied, with a slight frown. "Maria
wouldn't know what she meant. She is not only innocent, but ignorant.
I can't turn off Annie, unless I see another maid as good in
prospect. Good-bye, dear."

Harry and Maria walked to the station together. Their trains reached
Edgham about the same time, although going in opposite directions. It
was a frosty morning. There had been a slight frost the night before.
A light powder of glistening white lay over everything. The roofs
were beginning to smoke as it melted. Maria inhaled the clear air,
and her courage revived a little--still, not much. Nobody knew how
she dreaded the day, the meeting Wollaston. She could not yet bring
herself to call him her husband. It seemed at once horrifying and
absurd. The frosty air brought a slight color to the girl's cheeks,
but she st