Maria heard him going down-stairs, and presently she heard a rattle in the kitchen, a part of which was under her room.  She went out herself and stole softly down the stairs.  Her father, with an air of angry helplessness, was emptying the coffee-pot into her mother’s nice sink.  Maria stood trembling at his elbow.  “I don’t believe that’s where mother empties it,” she ventured.

“It has got to be emptied somewhere,” said her father, and his tone sounded as if he swore.  Maria shrank back.  “They’ve got to have some coffee, anyhow.”

Maria’s father carried the coffee-pot over to the stove, in which a freshly kindled fire was burning, and set it on it, in the hottest place.  Maria stealthily moved it back while he was searching for the coffee in the pantry.  She did not know much, but she did know that an empty coffee-pot on such a hot place would come to ruin.

Her father emerged from the pantry with a tin-canister in his hand.  “I’ve sent a telegram to our aunt Maria for her to come right on,” said he, “but she can’t get here before afternoon.  I don’t suppose you know how much coffee your mother puts in.  I don’t suppose you know about anything.”

Maria realized dimly that she was a scape-goat, but there was such terrible suffering in her father’s face that she had no impulse to rebel.  She smelled of the canister which her father held out towards her with a nervously trembling hand.  “Why, father, this is tea; it isn’t coffee,” said she.

“Well, if you don’t know anything that a big girl like you ought to know, I should think you might know enough not to try to make coffee with tea,” said her father.

Maria looked at her father in a bewildered sort of way.  “I guess the coffee is in the other canister,” said she, meekly.

“Why didn’t you say so then?” demanded her father.

Maria was silent.  It seemed to her that her father had gone mad.  Harry Edgham made a ferocious stride across the kitchen to the pantry.  Maria followed him.  “I guess that is the coffee canister,” said she, pointing.

“Why didn’t you say so, then?” asked her father, viciously, and again Maria made no reply.  Her father seized the coffee canister and approached the stove.  “I don’t suppose you know how much she puts in.  I don’t suppose you know anything,” said he.

“I guess she puts in about a cupful,” said Maria, trembling.

“A cupful! with coffee at the price it is now?  I guess she doesn’t,” said her father.  He poured the coffee-pot full of boiling water from the tea-kettle, then he tipped the coffee canister into his hand, and put one small pinch into the pot.

“Oh, father,” ventured Maria.  “I don’t believe—­”

“You don’t believe what?”

“I don’t believe that is enough.”

“Of course it’s enough.  Don’t you suppose your father knows how to make coffee?”

Her father set the coffee-pot on the stove, where it immediately began to boil.  Then he carried back the canister into the pantry, and returned with a panful of eggs.  “You can set the table, I suppose, anyhow?” said he.  “You know enough to do as much as that?”