ed soil and the lapse
towards Southern ease and shiftlessness of New Jersey. But nothing
that she looked upon was as strange as the change in her own heart.
Maria, from being of an emotional nature, had many times considered
herself as being in love, young as she was, but this was different.
When her aunt Eunice spoke of George Ramsey she felt a rigid shiver
from head to foot. It seemed to her that she could not see him nor
speak to him, that she could not return to Amity on the same car. She
made no reply at first to her aunt's remark, but finally she said, in
a faint voice, that she supposed Mr. Ramsey came home after bank
hours at three o'clock.

"He comes home a good deal later than that, as a general thing," said
Eunice. "Oftener than not I see him get off the car at six o'clock. I
guess he stays and works after bank hours. George Ramsey is a worker,
if there ever was one. He's a real likely young man."

Maria felt Eunice's eyes upon her, and realized that she was
thinking, as her aunt Maria had done, that George Ramsey would be a
good match for her. A sort of desperation seized upon her.

"I don't know what you mean by likely," Maria said, impertinently, in
her shame and defiance.

"Don't know what I mean by likely?"

"No, I don't. People in New Jersey don't say likely."

"Why, I mean he is a good young man, and likely to turn out well,"
responded Eunice, rather helplessly. She was a very gentle woman, and
had all her life been more or less intimidated by her husband's and
sister-in-laws' more strenuous natures; and, if the truth were told,
she stood in a little awe of this blooming young niece, with her
self-possession and clothes of the New York fashion.

"I don't see why he is more _likely_, as you call it, than any other
young man," Maria returned, pitilessly. "I should call him a very
ordinary young man."

"He isn't called so generally," Eunice said, feebly.

They were about half an hour reaching Westbridge. Eunice by that time
had plucked up a little spirit. She reflected that Maria knew almost
nothing about the shopping district, and she herself had shopped
there all her life since she had been of shopping age. Eunice had a
great respect for the Westbridge stores, and considered them
distinctly superior to those of Boston. She was horrified when Maria
observed, shortly before they got off the car, that she supposed they
could have done much better in Boston.

"I guess you will find that Adams &