not know much, but she did know that an
empty coffee-pot on such a hot place would come to ruin.

Her father emerged from the pantry with a tin-canister in his hand.
"I've sent a telegram to our aunt Maria for her to come right on,"
said he, "but she can't get here before afternoon. I don't suppose
you know how much coffee your mother puts in. I don't suppose you
know about anything."

Maria realized dimly that she was a scape-goat, but there was such
terrible suffering in her father's face that she had no impulse to
rebel. She smelled of the canister which her father held out towards
her with a nervously trembling hand. "Why, father, this is tea; it
isn't coffee," said she.

"Well, if you don't know anything that a big girl like you ought to
know, I should think you might know enough not to try to make coffee
with tea," said her father.

Maria looked at her father in a bewildered sort of way. "I guess the
coffee is in the other canister," said she, meekly.

"Why didn't you say so then?" demanded her father.

Maria was silent. It seemed to her that her father had gone mad.
Harry Edgham made a ferocious stride across the kitchen to the
pantry. Maria followed him. "I guess that is the coffee canister,"
said she, pointing.

"Why didn't you say so, then?" asked her father, viciously, and again
Maria made no reply. Her father seized the coffee canister and
approached the stove. "I don't suppose you know how much she puts in.
I don't suppose you know anything," said he.

"I guess she puts in about a cupful," said Maria, trembling.

"A cupful! with coffee at the price it is now? I guess she doesn't,"
said her father. He poured the coffee-pot full of boiling water from
the tea-kettle, then he tipped the coffee canister into his hand, and
put one small pinch into the pot.

"Oh, father," ventured Maria. "I don't believe--"

"You don't believe what?"

"I don't believe that is enough."

"Of course it's enough. Don't you suppose your father knows how to
make coffee?"

Her father set the coffee-pot on the stove, where it immediately
began to boil. Then he carried back the canister into the pantry, and
returned with a panful of eggs. "You can set the table, I suppose,
anyhow?" said he. "You know enough to do as much as that?"

"Yes, I can do that," replied Maria, with alacrity, and indeed she
could. Her mother had exacted some small household tasks from her,
and setting the table was one of them. She hurried into t