her after the return of the wanderers, and was to remain.  She was related to Josephine’s mother.  She knocked timidly at Annie’s door.  She waited, and knocked again.  She was trembling from head to foot in a nervous chill.  She got no response to her knock.  Then she called, “Annie,” very softly.  She waited and called again.  At last, in desperation, she opened the door, which was not locked.  She entered, and the room was empty.  Suddenly she remembered that Annie, kind-hearted as she was, and a good servant, had not a character above suspicion.  She remembered that she had heard Gladys intimate that she had a sweetheart, and was not altogether what she should be.  She gazed around the empty, forlorn little room, with one side sloping with the slope of the roof, and an utter desolation overcame her, along with a horror of Annie.  She felt that if Annie were there she would be no refuge.

Maria turned, and slipped as silently as a shadow down the stairs back to her room.  She looked at her bed, and it seemed to her that she could not lie down again in it.  Then suddenly she thought of something else.  She thought of little Evelyn asleep in the next room.  She opened the connecting door softly and stole across to the baby’s little bed.  It was too small, or she would have crept in beside her.  Maria hesitated a moment, then she slid her arms gently under the little, soft, warm body, and gathered the child up in her arms.  She was quite heavy.  At another time Maria, who had slender arms, could scarcely have carried her.  Now she bore her with entire ease into her own room and laid her in her own bed.  Then she got in beside her and folded her little sister in her arms.  Directly a sense of safety and peace came over her when she felt the little snuggling thing, who had wakened just enough to murmur something unintelligible in her baby tongue, and cling close to her with all her little, rosy limbs, and thrust her head into the hollow of Maria’s shoulder.  Then she gave a deep sigh and was soundly asleep again.  Maria lay awake a little while, enjoying that sense of peace and security which the presence of this little human thing she loved gave her.  Then she fell asleep herself.

She waked early.  The thought of the early train was in her mind, and Maria was always one who could wake at the sub-recollection of a need.  Evelyn was still asleep, curled up like a flower.  Maria raised her and carried her back to her own room and put her in her bed without waking her.  Then she dressed herself in her school costume and went down-stairs.  She had smelled coffee while she was dressing, and knew that Hannah had returned.  Her father was in the dining-room when she entered.  He usually took an earlier train, but this morning he had felt utterly unable to rise.  Maria noticed, with a sudden qualm of fear, how ill and old and worn-out he looked, but Harry himself spoke first with concern for her.

“Papa’s poor little girl!” he said, kissing her.  “She looks tired out.  Did you sleep, darling?”