“That is terrible, such a day as this,” said George Ramsey.

“Yes; I had no idea they were quite so badly off,” murmured his mother.

“You ought to have had some idea,” flashed out Maria.

“We had not, Miss Edgham,” said George, gently.  “You must remember how very distant the relationship is.  I believe it begins with the fourth generation from myself.  And there are other reasons—­”

“There ought not to be other reasons,” Maria said.

Mrs. Ramsey looked with wonder and something like terror and aversion at this pretty, violent girl, who was espousing so vehemently, not to say rudely, the cause of the distant relatives of her husband’s family.  The son, however, continued to smile amusedly at Maria.

“Won’t you sit down, Miss Edgham?” he said.

“Yes, won’t you sit down?” his mother repeated, feebly.

“No, thank you,” said Maria.  “I only came about this.  I—­I would do something for the poor little thing myself, but I haven’t any money now, and Aunt Maria would, and Uncle Henry, and Aunt Eunice, but they—­”

All at once Maria, who was hardly more than a child herself, and who had been in reality frightfully wrought up over the piteous plight of the other child, lost control of herself.  She began to cry.  She put her handkerchief to her face and sobbed helplessly.

“The poor little thing! oh, the poor little thing!” she panted, “with nobody in the world to do anything for her, and her own people so terribly wicked.  I—­can’t bear it!”

The first thing she knew, Maria was having a large, soft cloak folded around her, and somebody was leading her gently to the door.  She heard a murmured good-night, to which she did not respond except by a sob, and was led, with her arm rather closely held, along the sidewalk to her own door.  At the door George Ramsey took her hand, and she felt something pressed softly into it.

“If you will please buy what the poor little thing needs to make her comfortable,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” Maria replied, faintly.  She began to be ashamed of her emotion.

“You must not think that my mother and I were knowing to this,” George Ramsey said.  “We are really such very distant relations that the name alone is the only bond between us; still, on general principles, if the name had been different, I would do what I could.  Such suffering is terrible.  You must not think us hard-hearted, Miss Edgham.”

Maria looked up at the young fellow’s face, upon which an electric light shone fully, and it was a good face to see.  She could not at all reconcile it with her memory of the rather silly little boy with the patched trousers, with whom she had discoursed over the garden fence.  This face was entirely masterly, dark and clean-cut, with fine eyes, and a distinctly sweet expression about the mouth which he had inherited from his mother.

“I suppose I was very foolish,” Maria said, in a low voice.  “I am afraid I was rude to your mother.  I did not mean to be, but the poor little thing, and this bitter day, and I went home with her, and there was a dreadful man there who offered me money to buy things for her—­”