d her in meeting."

"Suppose you go home through the cellar, and see," said Eunice.

"I guess I will," said Maria. "I'll knock low on the wall when I get
home, if he isn't there."

The cellar stairs connected with the kitchen on either side of the
Stillman house. Both women flew out into the kitchen, and Maria
disappeared down the cellar stairs, with a little lamp which Eunice
lit for her. Then Eunice waited. Presently there came a muffled knock
on the wall.

"No, he didn't come in," Eunice said to her husband, as she
re-entered the sitting-room.

Suddenly Eunice pressed her ear close to the sitting-room wall. Two
treble voices were audible on the other side, but not a word of their
conversation. "Maria and she are talking," said Eunice.

What Aunt Maria was saying was this, in a tone of sharp wonder:

"Where is he?"

"Who?" responded Maria.

"Why, you know as well as I do--George Ramsey." Aunt Maria looked
sharply at her niece. "I hope you asked him in, Maria Edgham?" said
she.

"No, I didn't," said Maria.

"Why didn't you?"

"I was tired, and I wanted to go to bed."

"Wanted to go to bed? Why, it's only a little after nine o'clock!"

"Well, I can't help it, I'm tired." Maria spoke with a weariness
which was unmistakable. She looked away from her aunt with a sort of
blank despair.

Aunt Maria continued to regard her. "You do act the queerest of any
girl I ever saw," said she. "There was a nice fire in the parlor, and
I thought you could offer him some refreshments. There is some of
that nice cake, and some oranges, and I would have made some cocoa."

"I didn't feel as if I could sit up," Maria said again, in her weary,
hopeless voice. She went out into the kitchen, got a little lamp, and
returned. "Good-night," she said to her aunt.

"Good-night," replied Aunt Maria. "You are a queer girl. I don't see
what you think."

Maria went up-stairs, undressed, and went to bed. After she was in
bed she could see the reflection of her aunt's sitting-room lamp on
the ground outside, in a slanting shaft of light. Then it went out,
and Maria knew that her aunt was also in bed in her little room out
of the sitting-room. Maria could not go to sleep. She heard the clock
strike ten, then eleven. Shortly after eleven she heard a queer
sound, as of small stones or gravel thrown on her window. Maria was a
brave girl. Her first sensation was one of anger.

"What is any one doing such a thing as that for?" she asked