. Maria watched them,
and hated them because they could eat while her mother was so ill.
Miss Bell also ate heartily, and she felt that she hated her. She was
glad that her father refused anything except a cup of coffee. As for
herself, Mrs. White made her drink an egg beaten up with milk. "If
you won't eat your breakfast, you've got to take this," said she.

Mrs. White took her own breakfast in stray bites, while she was
clearing away the table. She stayed, and put the house in order,
until Maria's aunt Maria arrived. One of the physicians went away.
For a short time Maria's mother's groans and wailings recommenced,
then the smell of chloroform was strong throughout the house.

"I wonder why they don't give her morphine instead of chloroform?"
said Mrs. White, while Maria was wiping the dishes. "It is dreadful
dangerous to give that, especially if the heart is weak. Well, don't
you be scart. I've seen folks enough worse than your mother git well."

In the last few hours Maria's face had gotten a hard look. She no
longer seemed like a little girl. After a while the doctors went away.

"I don't suppose there is much they can do for a while, perhaps,"
remarked Mrs. White; "and Miss Bell, she is as good as any doctor."

Both physicians returned a little after noon, and previously Mrs.
Edgham had made her voice of lamentation heard again. Then it ceased
abruptly, but there was no odor of chloroform.

"They are giving her morphine now, I bet a cooky," Mrs. White said.
She, with Maria, was clearing away the dinner-table then. "What time
do you think your aunt Maria will get here?" she asked.

"About half-past two, father said," replied Maria.

"Well, I'm real glad you've got some one like her you can call on,"
said Mrs. White. "Somebody that 'ain't ever had no family, and 'ain't
tied. Now I'd be willin' to stay right along myself, but I couldn't
leave Lillian any length of time. She 'ain't never had anything hard
put on her, and she 'ain't any too tough. But your aunt can stay
right along till your mother gits well, can't she?"

"I guess so," replied Maria.

There was something about Maria's manner which made Mrs. White
uneasy. She forced conversation in order to make her speak, and do
away with that stunned look on her face. All the time now Maria was
saying to herself that her mother was going to die, that God could
make her well, but He would not. She was conscious of blasphemy, and
she took a certain pleasure i