“This young lady is going home with us, Adelaide,” said Miss Blair.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the maid, without the slightest surprise.

She took Maria’s coat from the hook where it swung, and brushed it also, and assisted her to put it on before the porter entered the car.

Maria felt again in a daze, but a great sense of security was over her.  She had not the slightest doubt of this strange little creature who was befriending her.  She felt like one who finds a ledge of safety on a precipice where he had feared a sheer descent.  She was content to rest awhile on the safe footing, even if it were only transient.

When they alighted from the train at the station a man in livery met them and assisted Miss Blair down the steps with obsequiousness.

“How do you do, James?” said Miss Blair, then went on to ask the man what horses were in the carriage.

“The bays, Miss Blair,” replied the man, respectfully.

“I am glad of that,” said his mistress, as she went along the platform.  “I was afraid Alexander might make a mistake and put in those new grays.  I don’t like to drive with them at night very well.”  Then she said to Maria:  “I am very nervous about horses, Miss Ackley.  You may wonder at it.  You may think I have reached the worst and ought to fear nothing, but there are worsts beyond worsts.”

“Yes,” Maria replied, vaguely.  She kept close to Miss Blair.  She realized what an agony of fear she should have felt in that murky station with the lights burning dimly through the smoke and the strange sights and outcries all around her.

Miss Blair’s carriage was waiting, and Maria saw, half-comprehendingly, that it was very luxurious indeed.  She entered with Miss Blair and her maid, then after a little wait for baggage they drove away.

When the carriage stopped, the footman assisted Maria out after Miss Blair, and she followed her conductress’s tiny figure toiling rather painfully on the arm of her maid up the steps.  She entered the house, and stood for a second fairly bewildered.

Maria had seen many interiors of moderate luxury, but never anything like this.  For a second her attention was distracted from everything except the wonderful bizarre splendor in which she found herself.  It was not Western magnificence, but Oriental; hangings of the richest Eastern stuffs, rugs, and dark gleams of bronzes and dull lights of brass, and the sheen of silken embroideries.

When Maria at last recovered herself and turned to Miss Blair, to her astonishment she no longer seemed as deformed as she had been on the train.  She fitted into this dark, rich, Eastern splendor as a misformed bronze idol might have done.  Miss Blair gave a little, shrewd laugh at Maria’s gaze, then she spoke to another maid who had appeared when the door opened.