“I hope you did not take it,” George Ramsey said, quickly.

“No.”

“I am glad of that.  They are a bad lot.  I don’t know about this little girl.  She may be a survival of the fittest, but take them all together they are a bad lot, if they are my relatives.  Good-night, Miss Edgham, and I beg you not to distress yourself about it all.”

“I am very sorry if I was rude,” Maria said, and she spoke like a little girl.

“You were not rude at all,” George responded, quickly.  “You were only all worked up over such suffering, and it did you credit.  You were not rude at all.”  He shook hands again with Maria.  Then he asked if he might call and see her sometime.  Maria said yes, and fled into the house.

She went into her aunt Maria’s side of the house, and ran straight up-stairs to her own room.  Presently she heard doors opening and shutting and knew that her aunt was curiously following her from the other side.  She came to Maria’s door, which was locked.  Aunt Maria was not surprised at that, as Maria always locked her door at night—­she herself did the same.

“Have you gone to bed?” called Aunt Maria.

“Yes,” replied Maria, who had, indeed, hurriedly hustled herself into bed.

“Gone to bed early as this?” said Aunt Maria.

“I am dreadfully tired,” replied Maria.

“Did they give you anything?  Why didn’t you come into the other side and tell us about it?”

“Mr. George Ramsey gave me ten dollars.”

“Gracious!” said Aunt Maria.

Presently she spoke again.  “What did they say?” she asked.

“Not much of anything.”

“Gave you ten dollars?” said Aunt Maria.  “Well, you can get enough to make her real comfortable with that.  Didn’t you get chilled through going over there without anything on?”

“No,” replied Maria, and as she spoke she realized, in the moonlit room, a mass of fur-lined cloak over a chair.  She had forgotten to return it to George Ramsey.  “I had Mrs. Ramsey’s cloak coming home,” she called.

“Well, I’m glad you did.  It’s awful early to go to bed.  Don’t you want something?”

“No, thank you.”

“Don’t you want me to heat a soapstone and fetch it up to you?”

“No, thank you.”

“Well, good-night,” said Aunt Maria, in a puzzled voice.

“Good-night,” said Maria.  Then she heard her aunt go away.

It was a long time before Maria went to sleep.  She awoke about two o’clock in the morning and was conscious of having been awakened by a strange odor, a combined odor of camphor and lavender, which came from Mrs. Ramsey’s cloak.  It disturbed her, although she could not tell why.  Then all at once she saw, as plainly as if he were really in the room, George Ramsey’s face.  At first a shiver of delight came over her; then she shuddered.  A horror, as of one under conviction of sin, came over her.  It was as if she repelled an evil angel from her door, for she remembered all at once what had happened to her, and that it was a sin for her even to dream of George Ramsey; and she had allowed him to come into her waking dreams.  She got out of bed, took up the soft cloak, thrust it into her closet, and shut the door.  Then she climbed shivering back into bed, and lay there in the moonlight, entangled in the mystery of life.