That very night, when Maria and her father reached home after a riotous day in the city, there was a letter in the post-office from Aunt Maria, to the effect that there was no doubt that Maria could have the school in Amity in the fall.  The teacher who had held the position was to be married in a few weeks.  The salary was not much—­Amity was a poor little country village—­but Maria felt as if she had expectations of untold wealth.  She was sorry at the prospect of leaving her father and Evelyn, but the idea of self-support and independence, and taking a little of the burden from her father, intoxicated her.  Maria had the true spirit of the women of her race.  She liked the feel of her own muscles and nerves of individuality and self-reliance.  She felt a head taller after she had read her aunt’s letter.

“She says she will board me for four dollars a week,” she said.  “I shall have quite a lot of money clear.”

“Well, four dollars a week will recompense her, and help her, too,” said Harry, a little gloomily.  To tell the truth, he did not in the least like the idea of Maria’s going to Amity to teach.  Nothing except the inner knowledge of his own failing health could have led him to consent to it.  Ida was delighted at the news, but she concealed her delight as well as her annoyance under her smiling mask, and immediately began to make plans for Maria’s wardrobe.

“Whatever I have new I am going to pay you back, father, now I am going to earn money,” Maria said, proudly.

After she went up-stairs to bed that night, Evelyn, who was now a slim, beautiful little girl, rather tall for her age, and going to a private school in the village, came into her room, and Maria told Evelyn how much she was going to do with the money which she was to earn.  Maria, at this time, was wholly mercenary.  She had not the least ambition to benefit the young.  She was, in fact, young herself, but her head was fairly turned with the most selfish of considerations.  It was true that she planned to spend the money which she would earn largely upon others, but that was, in itself, a subtle, more rarefied form of selfishness.

“I remember Aunt Maria’s parlor carpet was worn almost threadbare, and I mean to buy her a new one with the very first money I earn,” Maria said to little Evelyn; and she thought, as she met Evelyn’s beautiful, admiring eyes, how very kind and thoughtful she, Maria, would be with her wealth.

“I suppose Aunt Maria is very poor,” Evelyn remarked, in her charming little voice.

“Oh, very.  She lives on a hundred dollars a year.”

“Will you get enough to eat?” asked Evelyn, anxiously.

“Oh yes.  I shall pay her four dollars a week, and if she got along with only a hundred a year, only think what she can do with that.  I know Aunt Eunice, Uncle Henry’s wife, hasn’t a good dress, either.  I think I shall buy a brown satin for her.”