that Maria was undoubtedly like her aunt, who would die
before she let on that she was hit, and that the girl, under her calm
and smiling face, was stung with envy and slighted affection.

Lily asked Maria to be her maid of honor. She planned to be married
in church, but George Ramsey unexpectedly vetoed the church wedding.
He wished a simple wedding at Lily's house. He even demurred at the
bridal-gown and veil, but Lily had her way about that. Maria
consented with no hesitation to be her maid of honor, although she
refused to allow Mrs. Merrill to purchase her dress. She purchased
some white cloth, and had it cut and fitted, and she herself made it,
embroidering it with white silk, sitting up far into the night after
school. But, after all, she was destined not to wear the dress to
Lily's wedding and not to be her maid of honor.

The wedding was to be the first week of Maria's spring vacation, and
she unexpectedly received word from home that her father was not
well, and that she had better go home as soon as her school was
finished. Her father himself wrote. He wrote guardedly, evidently
without Ida's knowledge. He said that, unless her heart was
particularly set upon attending the wedding, he wished she would come
home; that her vacation was short, at the best, that he had not seen
her for a long time, and that he did not feel quite himself some
days. Maria read between the lines, and so did her aunt Maria, to
whom she read the letter.

"Your father's sicker than he lets on," Aunt Maria said, bluntly.
"You'd better go. You don't care anything particular about going to
that Merrill girl's wedding. She can get Fanny Ellwell for her maid
of honor. That dress Fanny wore at Eva Granger's wedding will do for
her to wear. Your dress will come in handy next summer. You had
better go home."

Maria sat soberly looking at the letter. "I am afraid father is worse
than he says," she said.

"I know he is. Harry Edgham wasn't ever very strong, and I'll warrant
his wife has made him go out when he didn't feel equal to it, and she
has had stacks of company, and he must have had to strain every nerve
to meet expenses, poor man! You'd better go, Maria."

"Of course, I am going," replied Maria.

That evening she went over and told Lily that she could not be her
maid of honor, that her father was sick, and she would be obliged to
go home as soon as school closed. George Ramsey was calling, and
Lily's face had a lovely pink radia