“They be awful warm, my close, teacher,” said she.

“My clothes are very warm, teacher,” corrected Maria, gravely.

“My clothes are very warm, teacher,” said Jessy, obediently.

Maria caught the child up in her arms (she was a tiny, half-fed little thing), and kissed her again.  Somehow she got a measure of comfort from it.  After all, love was love, in whatever guise it came, and this was an innocent love which she could admit with no question.

“That’s a good little girl, dear,” she said, and set Jessy down.

Chapter XXIV

Maria did not go home for the Christmas holidays.  She was very anxious to do so, but she received a letter from Ida Edgham which made her resolve to remain where she was.

“We should be so very glad to have you come home for the holidays, dear,” wrote Ida, “but of course we know how long the journey is, and how little you are earning, and we are all well.  Your father seems quite well, and so we shall send you some little remembrance, and try to console ourselves as best we can for your absence.”

Maria read the letter to her aunt Maria.

“You won’t go one step?” said Aunt Maria, interrogatively.

“No,” said Maria.  She was quite white.  Nobody knew how she had longed to see her father and little Evelyn, and she had planned to go, and take Aunt Maria with her, defraying the expenses out of her scanty earnings.

“I wouldn’t go if you were to offer me a thousand dollars,” said Aunt Maria.

“I would not, either,” responded Maria.  She opened the stove door and thrust the letter in, and watched it burn.

“How your father ever came to marry that woman—­” said Aunt Maria.

“There’s no use talking about that now,” said Maria, arousing to defence of her father.  “She was very pretty!”

“Pretty enough,” said Aunt Maria, “and I miss my guess if she didn’t do most of the courting.  Well, as you say, there is no use talking it over now.  What’s done is done.”

Aunt Maria watched Maria’s pitiful young face with covert glances.  Maria was finishing a blouse which she had expected to wear on her journey.  She continued her work with resolution, but every line on her face took a downward curve.

“You don’t need to hurry so on that waist now,” said Aunt Maria.

“I want the waist, anyway,” replied her niece.  “I may as well get it done.”

“You will have to send the Christmas presents,” said Aunt Maria.  “I don’t very well see how you can pack some of them.”

“I guess I can manage,” said Maria.