The day when Evelyn was put into short frocks, Maria glanced across the school-room at Wollaston Lee, and her innocent passion, half romance, half imagination, which had been for a time in abeyance, again thrilled her.  All her pulses throbbed.  She tried to work out a simple problem in her algebra, but mightier unknown quantities were working towards solution in every beat of her heart.  Wollaston shot a sidelong glance at her, and she felt it, although she did not see it.  Gladys Mann leaned over her shoulder.

“Say,” she whispered, “Wollaston Lee is jest starin’ at you!”

Maria gave a little, impatient shrug of her shoulders, although a blush shot over her whole face, and Gladys saw distinctly the back of her neck turn a roseate color.

“He’s awful stuck on you, I guess,” Gladys said.

Maria shrugged her shoulders again, but she thought of Wollaston and then of the baby in her short frock and she felt that her heart was bursting with joy, as a bud with blossom.

Ida, meantime, was curiously impassive towards her child’s attainments.  There was something pathetic about this impassiveness.  Ida was missing a great deal, and more because she did not even know what she missed.  However, she began to be conscious of a settled aversion towards Maria.  Her manner towards her was unchanged, but she became distinctly irritated at seeing her about.  When anything annoyed Ida, she immediately entertained no doubt whatever that it was not in accordance with the designs of an overruling Providence.  It seemed manifest to her that if anything annoyed her, it should be removed.  However, in this case, the way of removal did not seem clear for a long time.  Harry was undoubtedly fond of Maria.  That did not trouble Ida in the least, although she recognized the fact.  She was not a woman who was capable of jealousy, because her own love and admiration for herself made her impregnable.  She loved herself so much more than Harry could possibly love her that his feeling for Maria did not ruffle her in the least.  It was due to no jealousy that she wished Maria removed, at least for a part of the time.  It was only that she was always conscious of a dissent, silent and helpless, still persistent, towards her attitude as regarded herself.  She knew that Maria did not think her as beautiful and perfect as she thought herself, and the constant presence of this small element of negation irritated her.  Then, too, while she was not in the least jealous of her child, she had a curious conviction that Maria cared more for her than she herself cared, and that in itself was a covert reproach.  When little Evelyn ran to meet her sister when she returned from school, Ida felt distinctly disturbed.  She had no doubt of her ultimate success in her purpose of ridding herself of at least the constant presence of Maria, and in the mean time she continued to perform her duty by the girl, to that outward extent that everybody in Edgham pronounced her a model step-mother.  “Maria Edgham never looked half so well in her own mother’s time,” they said.