“I wonder why they don’t give her morphine instead of chloroform?” said Mrs. White, while Maria was wiping the dishes.  “It is dreadful dangerous to give that, especially if the heart is weak.  Well, don’t you be scart.  I’ve seen folks enough worse than your mother git well.”

In the last few hours Maria’s face had gotten a hard look.  She no longer seemed like a little girl.  After a while the doctors went away.

“I don’t suppose there is much they can do for a while, perhaps,” remarked Mrs. White; “and Miss Bell, she is as good as any doctor.”

Both physicians returned a little after noon, and previously Mrs. Edgham had made her voice of lamentation heard again.  Then it ceased abruptly, but there was no odor of chloroform.

“They are giving her morphine now, I bet a cooky,” Mrs. White said.  She, with Maria, was clearing away the dinner-table then.  “What time do you think your aunt Maria will get here?” she asked.

“About half-past two, father said,” replied Maria.

“Well, I’m real glad you’ve got some one like her you can call on,” said Mrs. White.  “Somebody that ’ain’t ever had no family, and ’ain’t tied.  Now I’d be willin’ to stay right along myself, but I couldn’t leave Lillian any length of time.  She ’ain’t never had anything hard put on her, and she ’ain’t any too tough.  But your aunt can stay right along till your mother gits well, can’t she?”

“I guess so,” replied Maria.

There was something about Maria’s manner which made Mrs. White uneasy.  She forced conversation in order to make her speak, and do away with that stunned look on her face.  All the time now Maria was saying to herself that her mother was going to die, that God could make her well, but He would not.  She was conscious of blasphemy, and she took a certain pleasure in it.

Her aunt Maria arrived on the train expected, and she entered the house, preceded by the cabman bearing her little trunk, which she had had ever since she was a little girl.  It was the only trunk she had ever owned.  Both physicians and the nurse were with Mrs. Edgham when her sister arrived.  Harry Edgham had been walking restlessly up and down the parlor, which was a long room.  He had not thought of going to the station to meet Aunt Maria, but when the cab stopped before the house he hurried out at once.  Aunt Maria was dressed wholly in black—­a black mohair, a little black silk cape, and a black bonnet, from which nodded a jetted tuft.  “How is she?” Maria heard her say, in a hushed voice, to her father.  Maria stood in the door.  Maria heard her father say something in a hushed tone about an operation.  Aunt Maria came up the steps with her travelling-bag.  Harry forgot to take it.  She greeted Mrs. White, whom she had met on former visits, and kissed Maria.  Maria had been named for her, and been given a silver cup with her name inscribed thereon, which stood on the sideboard, but she had never been conscious of any distinct affection for her.  There was a queer, musty odor, almost a fragrance, about Aunt Maria’s black clothes.