Maria felt cold.

“I don’t believe it,” she said again.  “Teacher is all alone in the school-house, correcting exercises.  Why don’t you get right up, and go back and ask her?  I’ll go with you, if you want me to.”

Wollaston raised himself indeterminately upon one elbow.

“Come along,” urged Maria.

Wollaston got up slowly.  His face was a burning red.

“You are a good deal younger and better looking than father,” urged Maria, traitorously.

The boy was only a year older than Maria.  He was much larger and taller, but although she looked a child, at that moment he looked younger.  Both of his brown hands hung at his sides, clinched like a baby’s.  He had a sulky expression.

“Come along,” urged the girl.

He stood kicking the ground hesitatingly for a moment, then he followed the girl across the field.  They went down the road until they came to the school-house.  Miss Slome was still there; her graceful profile could be seen at a window.

Both children marched in upon Miss Slome, who was in a recitation-room, bending over a desk.  She looked up, and her face lightened at sight of Maria.

“Oh, it’s you, dear?” said she.

Maria then saw, for the first time, the white sparkle of a diamond on the third finger of her left hand.  She felt that she hated her.

“He wants to speak to you,” she said, indicating Wollaston with a turn of her hand.

Miss Slome looked inquiringly at Wollaston, who stood before her like a culprit, blushing and shuffling, and yet with a sort of doggedness.

“Well, what is it, Wollaston?” she asked, patronizingly.

“I came back to ask you if—­you would have me?” said Wollaston, and his voice was hardly audible.

Miss Ida Slome looked at him in amazement; she was utterly dazed.

“Have you?” she repeated.  “I think I do not quite understand you.  What do you mean by ‘have you,’ Wollaston?”

“Marry me,” burst forth the boy.

There was a silence.  Maria looked at Miss Slome, and, to her utter indignation, the teacher’s lips were twitching, and it took a good deal to make Miss Slome laugh, too; she had not much sense of humor.

In a second Wollaston stole a furtive glance at Miss Slome, which was an absurd parody on a glance of a man under similar circumstances, and Miss Slome, who had had experience in such matters, laughed outright.

The boy turned white.  The woman did not realize it, but it was really a cruel thing which she was doing.  She laughed heartily.

“Why, my dear boy,” she said.  “You are too young and I am too old.  You had better wait and marry Maria, when you are both grown up.”

Wollaston turned his back upon her, and marched out of the room.  Maria lingered, in the vain hope that she might bring the teacher to a reconsideration of the matter.

“He’s a good deal younger than father, and he’s better looking,” said she.