one a widow, one a spinster. She shuddered at the
idea of either. She felt that she would much rather have had her
father marry Aunt Maria than either of those women. She did not
altogether love Aunt Maria, but at least she was used to her.
Suddenly it occurred to her that Aunt Maria was disappointed, that
she felt badly. The absurdity of it struck her strongly, but she felt
a pity for her; she felt a common cause with her. After her father
had gone into his room, and the house had long been silent, she got
up quietly, opened her door softly, and crept across the hall to the
spare room, which Aunt Maria had occupied ever since she had been
there. She listened, and heard a soft sob. Then she turned the knob
of the door softly.

"Who is it?" Aunt Maria called out, sharply.

Maria was afraid that her father would hear.

"It's only me, Aunt Maria," she replied. Then she also gave a little
sob.

"What's the matter?"

Maria groped her way across the room to her aunt's bed. "Oh, Aunt
Maria, who is it?" she sobbed, softly.

Aunt Maria did what she had never done before: she reached out her
arms and gathered the bewildered little girl close, in an embrace of
genuine affection and pity. She, too, felt that here was a common
cause, and not only that, but she pitied the child with unselfish
pity. "You poor child, you are as cold as ice. Come in here with me,"
she whispered.

Maria crept into bed beside her aunt, but she would rather have
remained where she was. She was a child of spiritual rather than
physical affinities, and the contact of Aunt Maria's thin body, even
though it thrilled with almost maternal affection for her, repelled
her.

Aunt Maria began to weep unrestrainedly, with a curious passion and
abandonment for a woman of her years.

"Has he come home?" she whispered. Aunt Maria's hearing was slightly
defective, especially when she was nervously overwrought.

"Yes. Aunt Maria, who is it?"

"Hush, I don't know. He hasn't paid any open court to anybody, that I
know of, but--I've seen him lookin'."

"At whom?"

"At Ida Slome."

"But she is younger than my mother was."

"What difference do you s'pose that makes to a man. He'll like her
all the better for that. You can thank your stars he didn't pitch on
a school-girl, instead of the teacher."

Maria lay stretched out stiff and motionless. She was trying to bring
her mind to bear upon the situation. She was trying to imagine Miss
Ida Slome, with her