ng is the matter with sister?" Evelyn asked Aunt
Maria after Maria had gone.

"Don't ask me," replied Aunt Maria curtly.

"Aunt Maria!"

"Well?"

"Professor Lane isn't married. You don't suppose sister--"

"What a little goose you are, Evelyn Edgham!" cried Aunt Maria,
almost fiercely turning upon her. "Do you suppose if Maria Edgham had
wanted any man she couldn't have got him?"

"I suppose she could," said Evelyn meekly. "And I know Professor Lane
is so much older, but he always seemed to like sister, and I didn't
know but she felt badly because he was so ill."

"Stuff!" said Aunt Maria. "Come, you had better set the table. I have
got to make some biscuits for supper. They won't be any more than
done by the time Maria gets back."

"Did you think she looked so very pale?" asked Evelyn, following her
aunt out of the room.

"No, I didn't think she looked pale at all when I came to look at
her," said Aunt Maria, sharply. "She looked just as she always does.
It was the light."

Aunt Maria unhesitatingly lied. She knew that her niece had been
pale, and she believed that it was on account of Professor Lane. She
thought to herself what fools girls were. There Maria had thrown away
such a chance as George Ramsey, and was very likely breaking her
heart in secret over this consumptive, old enough to be her father.

Evelyn also believed, in her heart of hearts, that her sister was in
love with Professor Lane, but she took a more sentimental view of the
matter. She was of the firm opinion that love has no age, and then
Professor Lane had never seemed exactly old to her, and he was a very
handsome man. She thought of poor Maria with the tenderest pity and
sympathy. It almost seemed to her that she herself was in love with
Professor Lane, and that his going so far away to recover his health
was a cruel blow to her. She thought of poor Maria walking to the
post-office and brooding over her trouble, and her tender heart ached
so hard that it might have been Maria's own.

But Maria, walking to the post-office, realized not so much an ache
in her heart as utter horror and terror. She asked herself how could
she possibly continue teaching in that school if Wollaston Lee were
principal; how could she endure the daily contact with him which
would be inevitable. She wondered if he could possibly have known
that she was teaching in that school when he accepted the position.
Such a deadly fear was over her that her class-room