“Well, dear, you shall spend it, and then you shall have some of mine.”

“I don’t want any money, except what I earn,” Maria said.

“You may read to me, and earn it,” Miss Blair said easily.  “Don’t fret about such a petty thing.  Now, will you please touch that bell, dear.  I must go and arrange about our passage.”

“Our passage?” repeated Maria dully.

“Yes; to-day is Thursday.  We can catch a Saturday steamer.  We can buy anything which you need ready-made in the way of wearing-apparel, and get the rest on the other side.”

Maria gasped.  She was very white, and her eyes were dilated.  She stared at Miss Rosa Blair, who returned her stare with curious fixedness.  Maria seemed to see depths within depths of meaning in her great dark eyes.  A dimness swept over her own vision.

“Touch the bell, please, dear,” said Miss Blair.

Maria obeyed.  She touched the bell.  She was swept off her feet.  She had encountered a will stronger than any which she had ever known, a will which might have been strengthened by the tininess of the body in which its wings were bent, but always beating for flight.  And she had encountered this will at a moment when her own was weakened and her mind dazed by the unprecedented circumstances in which she was placed.

Chapter XXXVIII

Three days later, when they were on the outward-bound steamer, Miss Rosa Blair crossed the corridor between her state-room, which she occupied with her maid, to Maria’s, and stood a moment looking down at the girl lying in her berth.  Maria was in that state of liability to illness which keeps one in a berth, although she was not actually sea-sick.

“My dear,” said Miss Blair.  “I think I may as well tell you now.  In the night’s paper before we left, I saw the death-notice of a certain Maria Edgham, of Edgham, New Jersey.  There were some particulars which served to establish the fact of the death.  You will not be interested in the particulars?”

Maria turned her pale face towards the port-hole, against which dashed a green wave topped with foam.  “No,” said she.

“I thought you would not,” said Miss Blair.  “Then there is something else.”

Maria waited quiescent.

“Your name is on the ship’s list of passengers as Miss Elizabeth Blair.  You are my adopted daughter.”

Maria started.

“Adelaide does not remember that you were called Miss Ackley,” said Miss Blair.  “She will never remember that you were anything except my adopted daughter.  She is a model maid.  As for the others, Louise is a model, too, and so is the coachman.  The footman is discharged.  When we return, nobody in my house will have ever known you except as Elizabeth Blair.”  Miss Blair went out of the state-room walking easily with the motion of the ship.  She was a good sailor.

The next afternoon Maria was able to sit out on deck.  She leaned back in her steamer-chair, and wept silently.  Miss Blair stood at a little distance near the rail, talking to an elderly gentleman whom she had met years ago.  “She is my adopted daughter Elizabeth,” said Miss Blair.  “She has been a little ill, but she is much better.  She is feeling sad over the death of a friend, poor child.”