n it.

Her aunt Maria arrived on the train expected, and she entered the
house, preceded by the cabman bearing her little trunk, which she had
had ever since she was a little girl. It was the only trunk she had
ever owned. Both physicians and the nurse were with Mrs. Edgham when
her sister arrived. Harry Edgham had been walking restlessly up and
down the parlor, which was a long room. He had not thought of going
to the station to meet Aunt Maria, but when the cab stopped before
the house he hurried out at once. Aunt Maria was dressed wholly in
black--a black mohair, a little black silk cape, and a black bonnet,
from which nodded a jetted tuft. "How is she?" Maria heard her say,
in a hushed voice, to her father. Maria stood in the door. Maria
heard her father say something in a hushed tone about an operation.
Aunt Maria came up the steps with her travelling-bag. Harry forgot to
take it. She greeted Mrs. White, whom she had met on former visits,
and kissed Maria. Maria had been named for her, and been given a
silver cup with her name inscribed thereon, which stood on the
sideboard, but she had never been conscious of any distinct affection
for her. There was a queer, musty odor, almost a fragrance, about
Aunt Maria's black clothes.

"Take the trunk up the stairs, to the room at the left," said Harry
Edgham, "and go as still as you can." The man obeyed, shouldering the
little trunk with an awed look.

Aunt Maria drew Mrs. White and Maria's father aside, and Maria was
conscious that they did not want her to hear; but she did
overhear--"...one chance in ten, a fighting chance," and "Keep it
from Maria, her mother had said so." Maria knew perfectly well that
that horrible and mysterious thing, an operation, which means a duel
with death himself, was even at that moment going on in her mother's
room. She slipped away, and went up-stairs to her own chamber, and
softly closed the door. Then she forgot her lack of faith and her
rebellion, and she realized that her only hope of life was from that
which is outside life. She knelt down beside her bed, and began to
pray over and over, "O God, don't let my mother die, and I will
always be a good girl! O God, don't let my mother die, and I will
always be a good girl!"

Then, without any warning, the door opened and her father stood
there, and behind him was her aunt Maria, weeping bitterly, and Mrs.
White, also weeping.

"Maria," gasped out Harry Edgham. Then, as Maria rose and