“I heard every word,” returned Maria, with dignity, “and it was a very edifying meeting.  It would have done some other folks good if they had gone, and as for Maria, she can’t teach school all her days, and here is her father with a second wife.”

“Well, you women do beat the Dutch,” said her brother, with a tenderly indulgent air, as if he were addressing children.

Aunt Maria lingered in her brother’s side of the house, talking about various topics.  She hesitated even about her stealthy going through the cellar, lest she should disturb Maria and her possible lover.  Now and then she listened.  She stood close to the wall.  Finally she said, with a puzzled look to Eunice, who was smoothing out her bonnet-strings, “It’s queer, but I can’t hear them talking.”

“Maybe he didn’t come in,” said Eunice.

“If they are in the parlor, you couldn’t hear them,” said Henry, still with his half-quizzical, half-pitying air.

“She would have taken him in the parlor—­I should think she would have known enough to,” said Eunice; “and you can’t always hear talking in the parlor in this room.”

Maria made a move towards her brother’s parlor, on the other side of the tiny hall.

“I guess you are right,” said she, “and I know she would have taken him in there.  I started a fire in there on purpose before I went to meeting.  It was borne in upon me that somebody might come home with her.”

Maria tiptoed into the parlor, with Eunice, still smoothing her bonnet-strings, at her heels.  Both women stood close to the wall, papered with white-and-gold paper, and listened.

“I can’t hear a single thing,” said Maria.

“I can’t either,” said Eunice.  “I don’t believe he did come in.”

“It’s dreadful queer, if he didn’t,” said Maria, “after the way he eyed her in meeting.”

“Suppose you go home through the cellar, and see,” said Eunice.

“I guess I will,” said Maria.  “I’ll knock low on the wall when I get home, if he isn’t there.”

The cellar stairs connected with the kitchen on either side of the Stillman house.  Both women flew out into the kitchen, and Maria disappeared down the cellar stairs, with a little lamp which Eunice lit for her.  Then Eunice waited.  Presently there came a muffled knock on the wall.

“No, he didn’t come in,” Eunice said to her husband, as she re-entered the sitting-room.

Suddenly Eunice pressed her ear close to the sitting-room wall.  Two treble voices were audible on the other side, but not a word of their conversation.  “Maria and she are talking,” said Eunice.

What Aunt Maria was saying was this, in a tone of sharp wonder: 

“Where is he?”

“Who?” responded Maria.

“Why, you know as well as I do—­George Ramsey.”  Aunt Maria looked sharply at her niece.  “I hope you asked him in, Maria Edgham?” said she.

“No, I didn’t,” said Maria.