Miss Slome blushed then.

“Oh, you sweet little thing, then you know—­” she began.

Maria interrupted her.  She became still more traitorous to her father.

“Father has a real bad temper, when things go wrong,” said she.  “Mother always said so.”

Miss Slome only laughed harder.

“You funny little darling,” she said.

“And Wollaston has a real good disposition, his mother told my aunt Maria so,” she persisted.

The room fairly rang with Miss Slome’s laughter, although she tried to subdue it.  Maria persisted.

“And father isn’t a mite handy about the house,” said she.  “And Mrs. Lee told Aunt Maria that Wollaston could wipe dishes and sweep as well as a girl.”

Miss Slome laughed.

“And I’ve got a bad temper, too, when I’m crossed; mother always said so,” said Maria.  Her lip quivered.

Miss Slome left her desk, came over to Maria, and, in spite of her shrinking away, caught her in her arms.

“You are a little darling,” said she, “and I am not a bit afraid of your temper.”  She hesitated a moment, looking at the child’s averted face, and coloring.  “My dear, has your father told you?” she whispered; then, “I didn’t know he had.”

“No, ma’am, he hasn’t,” said Maria.  She fairly pulled herself loose from Miss Slome and ran out of the room.  Her eyes were almost blinded with tears; she could scarcely see Wollaston Lee on the road, ahead of her, also running.  He seemed to waver as he ran.  Maria called out faintly.  He evidently heard, for he slackened his pace a little; then he ran faster than ever.  Maria called again.  This time the boy stopped until the girl came up.  He picked a piece of grass, as he waited, and began chewing it.

“How do you know that isn’t poison?” said Maria, breathlessly.

“Don’t care if it is; hope it is,” said the boy.

“It’s wicked to talk so.”

“Let it be wicked then.”

“I don’t see how I am to blame for any of it,” Maria said, in a bewildered sort of way.  It was the cry of the woman, the primitive cry of the primitive scape-goat of Creation.  Already Maria began to feel the necessity of fitting her little shoulders to the blame of life, which she had inherited from her Mother Eve, but she was as yet bewildered by the necessity.

“Ain’t it your father that’s going to marry her?” inquired Wollaston, fiercely.

“I don’t want him to marry her any more than you do,” said Maria.  “I don’t want her for a mother.”

“I told you how it would come out, if I asked her,” cried the boy, still heaping the blame upon the girl.

“I would enough sight rather marry you than my father, if I were the teacher,” said Maria, and her blue eyes looked into Wollaston’s with the boldness of absolute guilelessness.

“Hush!” responded Wollaston, with a gesture of disdain.  “Who’d want you?  You’re nothing but a girl, anyway.”