Aunt Maria obeyed.  She returned with the flask and a teaspoon, and Maria’s father made her swallow a few drops, which immediately warmed her and made the strange rigidity disappear.

“I guess she had better stay in here with you the rest of the night,” said Harry to his sister-in-law; but little Maria sat up determinately.

“No, I’m going back to my own room,” she said.

“Hadn’t you better stay with your aunt, darling?”

Harry Edgham looked shamefaced and guilty.  He saw that his sister-in-law and Maria had been weeping, and he knew why, in the depths of his soul.  He saw no good reason why he should feel so shamed and apologetic, but he did.  He fairly cowered before the nervous little girl and her aunt.

“Well, let father carry you in there, then,” he said; and he lifted up the slight little thing, carried her across the hall to her room, and placed her in bed.

It was a very warm night, but Maria was shivering as if with cold.  He placed the coverings over her with clumsy solicitude.  Then he bent down and kissed her.  “Try and keep quiet, and go to sleep, darling,” he said.  Then he went out.

Aunt Maria was waiting for him in the hall.  Her face, from grief and consternation, had changed to sad and dignified resignation.

“Harry,” said she.

Harry Edgham stopped.

“Well, sister,” he said, with pleasant interrogation, although he still looked shamefaced.

Aunt Maria held a lamp, a small one, which she was tipping dangerously.

“Look out for your lamp, Maria,” he said.

She straightened the lamp, and the light shone full upon her swollen face, at once piteous and wrathful.  “I only wanted to know when you wanted me to go?” she said.

“Oh, Lord, Maria, you are going too fast!” replied Harry, and he fairly ran into his own room.

The next morning when Maria, in her little black frock—­it was made of a thin lawn for the hot days, and the pale slenderness of her arms and neck were revealed by the thinness of the fabric—­went to school, she knew, the very moment that Miss Ida Slome greeted her, that Aunt Maria had been right in her surmise.  For the first time since she had been to school, Miss Slome, who was radiant in a flowered muslin, came up to her and embraced her.  Maria submitted coldly to the embrace.

“You sweet little thing,” said Miss Slome.

There was a man principal of the school, but Miss Slome was first assistant, and Maria was in most of her classes.  She took her place, with her pretty smile as set as if she had been a picture instead of a living and breathing woman, on the platform.

“You are awful sweet all of a sudden, ain’t you?” said Gladys Mann in Maria’s ear.

Maria nodded, and went to her own seat.

All that day she noted, with her sharp little consciousness, the change in Miss Slome’s manner towards her.  It was noticeable even in class.  “It is true,” she said to herself.  “Father is going to marry her.”