“I don’t,” said Maria, helplessly.  She reflected how she had disposed already of her small stipend, and would not have any more for some time, and how her own clothing no more than sufficed for her.

“I can’t give her a thing,” said Aunt Maria.  “I’m wearin’ flannels myself that are so patched there isn’t much left of the first of ’em, and it’s just so with the rest of my clothes.  I’m wearin’ a petticoat made out of a comfortable my mother made before Henry was married.  It was quilted fine, and had a small pattern, if it is copperplate, but I don’t darse hold my dress up only just so.  I wouldn’t have anybody know it for the world.  And I know Eunice ain’t much better off.  They had that big doctor’s bill, and I know she’s patched and darned so she’d be ashamed of her life if she fell down on the ice and broke a bone.  I tell you what it is, those other Ramseys ought to do something.  I don’t care if they are such distant relations, they ought to do something.”

After supper Maria and her aunt went into the other side of the house, and Aunt Maria, who had been waxing fairly explosive, told the tale of poor little Jessy Ramsey going to school with no undergarments.

“It’s a shame!” said Eunice, who was herself nervous and easily aroused to indignation.  She sat up straight and the hollows on her thin cheeks blazed, and her thin New England mouth tightened.

“George Ramsey ought to do something if he is earning as much as they say he is,” said Aunt Maria.

“That is so,” said Eunice.  “It doesn’t make any difference if they are so distantly related.  It is the same name and the same blood.”

Henry Stillman laughed his sardonic laugh.  “You can’t expect the flowers to look out for the weeds,” he said.  “George Ramsey and his mother are in full blossom; they have fixed up their house and are holding up their heads.  You can’t expect them to look out for poor relations who have gone to the bad, and done worse—­got too poor to buy clothes enough to keep warm.”

Maria suddenly sprang to her feet.  “I know what I am going to do,” she announced, with decision, and made for the door.

“What on earth are you going to do?” asked her aunt Maria.

“I am going straight in there, and I am going to tell them how that poor little thing came to school to-day, and tell them they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”

Before the others fairly realized what she was doing, Maria was out of the house, running across the little stretch which intervened.  Her aunt Maria called after her, but she paid no attention.  She was at that moment ringing the Ramsey bell, with her pretty, uncovered hair tossing in the December wind.

“She will catch her own death of cold,” said Aunt Maria, “running out without anything on her head.”

“She will just get patronized for her pains,” said Eunice, who had a secret grudge against the Ramseys for their prosperity and their renovated house, a grudge which she had not ever owned to her inmost self, but which nevertheless existed.