The next day her week of vacation began.  She packed the gifts which she had bought for her father and Evelyn and Ida, and took them to the express office.  The day after that she received the remembrances of which Ida spoke.  They were very pretty.  Aunt Maria thought them extravagant.  Ida had sent her a tiny chatelaine watch, and her father a ring set with a little diamond.  Maria knew perfectly well how her father’s heart ached when he sent the ring.  She never for one moment doubted him.  She wrote him a most loving letter, and even a deceptive letter, because of her affection.  She repeated what Ida had written, that it was a long journey, and expensive, and she did not think it best for her to go home, although she had longed to do so.

Ida sent Aunt Maria a set of Shakespeare.  When it was unpacked, Aunt Maria looked shrewdly at her niece.

“How many sets of Shakespeare has she got?” she inquired.  “Do you know, Maria?”

Maria admitted that she thought she had two.

“I miss my guess but she has another exactly just like this,” said Aunt Maria.  “Well, I don’t mean to be ungrateful, and I know Shakespeare is called a great writer, and they who like him can read him.  I would no more sit down and read all those books through, myself, than I would read Webster’s Dictionary.”

Maria laughed.

“You can take this set of books up in your room, if you want them,” said Aunt Maria.  “For my part I consider it an insult for her to send Shakespeare to me.  She must have known I had never had anything to do with Shakespeare.  She might just as well have sent me a crown.  Now, your father he has more sense.  He sent me this five-dollar gold-piece so I could buy what I wanted with it.  He knew that he didn’t know what I wanted.  Your father’s a good man, Maria, but he was weak when he married her; I’ve got to say it.”

“I don’t think father was weak at all!” Maria retorted, with spirit.

“Of course, I expect you to stand up for your father, that is right.  I wouldn’t have you do anything else,” Aunt Maria said approvingly.  “But he was weak.”

“She could have married almost anybody,” said Maria, gathering up the despised set of books.  She was very glad of them to fill up the small bamboo bookcase in her own room, and, beside, she did not share her aunt’s animosity to Shakespeare.  She purchased some handkerchiefs for her aunt, with the covert view of recompensing her for the loss of Ida’s present, and Aunt Maria was delighted with them.

“If she had had the sense to send me half a dozen handkerchiefs like these,” said she, “I should have thanked her.  Anybody in their senses would rather have half a dozen nice handkerchiefs than a set of Shakespeare.  That is, if they said just what they meant.  I know some folks would be ashamed of not thinking much of Shakespeare.  As for me, I say what I mean.”  Aunt Maria tossed her head as she spoke.