"You don't know?" said Harry, helping Maria to a chop and a roll, while Hannah poured the coffee.

"No," said Hannah again, and this time her face was fairly malicious.

"I don't know how long I can stand such doin's, and that's the truth," she said.

Hannah had come originally from New England, and had principles, in which she took pride, perhaps the more because they had never in one sense been a.s.sailed. Annie was a Hungarian, and considered by Hannah to have no principles. She was also pretty, in a rough, half-finished sort of fashion, and had no cast in her eyes. Hannah privately considered that as against her.

Harry began sipping his coffee, which Hannah had set down with such impetus that she spilled a good deal in the saucer, and he looked uneasily at her.

"What do you mean, Hannah?" he asked.

"I mean that I am not used to being throwed in with girls who stays out all night, and n.o.body knows where they be, and that's the truth,"

said Hannah, with emphasis.

"Do you mean to say that Annie--"

"Yes, I do. She wa'n't in, and they do say she's married, and--"

"Hush, Hannah, we'll talk about this another time," Harry said, with a glance at Maria.

Just then a step was heard in the kitchen.

"There she is now, the trollop," said Hannah, but she whispered the last word under her breath, and she also gave a glance at Maria, as one might at any innocent ignorance which must be shielded even from knowledge itself.

Annie came in directly. Her pretty, light hair was nicely arranged; she was smiling, but she looked doubtful.

Hannah went with a flounce into the kitchen. Annie had removed her hat and coat and tied on a white ap.r.o.n in a second, and she began waiting exactly as if she had come down the back stairs after a night spent in her own room. Indeed, she did not dream that either Harry or Maria knew that she had not, and she felt quite sure of Hannah's ignorance, since Hannah herself had been away all night.

Maria from time to time glanced at Annie, and, although she had always liked her, a feeling of repulsion came over her. She shrank a little when Annie pa.s.sed the m.u.f.fins to her. Harry gave one keen, scrutinizing glance at the girl's face, but he said nothing. After breakfast he went up-stairs to bid Ida, who had a way of rising late, good-bye, and he whispered to her, "Annie was out all last night."

"Oh, well," replied Ida, sleepily, with a little impatience, "it does not happen very often. What are we going to do about it?"

"Hannah is kicking," said Harry, "and--"

"I can't help it if she is," said Ida. "Annie does her work well, and it is so difficult to get a maid nowadays; and I cannot set up as a moral censor, I really cannot, Harry."

"I hate the example, that is all," said Harry. "There Hannah said, right before Maria, that Annie had been out."

"It won't hurt Maria any," Ida replied, with a slight frown. "Maria wouldn't know what she meant. She is not only innocent, but ignorant.

I can't turn off Annie, unless I see another maid as good in prospect. Good-bye, dear."

Harry and Maria walked to the station together. Their trains reached Edgham about the same time, although going in opposite directions. It was a frosty morning. There had been a slight frost the night before.

A light powder of glistening white lay over everything. The roofs were beginning to smoke as it melted. Maria inhaled the clear air, and her courage revived a little--still, not much. n.o.body knew how she dreaded the day, the meeting Wollaston. She could not yet bring herself to call him her husband. It seemed at once horrifying and absurd. The frosty air brought a slight color to the girl's cheeks, but she still looked wretched. Harry, who himself looked more than usually worn and old, kept glancing at her, as they hastened along.

"See here, darling," he said, "hadn't you better not go to school to-day? I will write a note of explanation myself to the princ.i.p.al, at the office, and mail it in New York. Hadn't you better turn around and go home and rest to-day?"

"Oh no," replied Maria. "I would much rather go, papa."

"You look as if you could hardly stand up, much less go to school."

"I am all right," said Maria; but as she spoke she realized that her knees fairly bent under her, and her heart beat loudly in her ears, for they had come in sight of the station.

"You are sure?" Harry said, anxiously.

"Yes, I am all right. I want to go to school."

"Well, look out that you eat a good luncheon," said Harry, as he kissed her good-bye.

Maria had to go to the other side to take her Wardway train. She left her father and went under the bridge and mounted the stairs. When she gained the platform, the first person whom she saw, with a grasp of vision which seemed to reach her very heart, although she apparently did not see him at all, was Wollaston Lee. He also saw her, and his boyish face paled. There were quite a number waiting for the train, which was late. Maud Page was among them. Maria at once went close to her. Maud asked about her little sister. She had heard that she was found, although it was almost inconceivable how the news had spread at such an early hour.

"I am real glad she's found," said Maud. Then she stared curiously at Maria. "Say, was it so?" she asked.

"Was what true?" asked Maria, trembling.

"Was it true that you and Wollaston Lee and Gladys Mann all went to New York looking for your sister, and came out on the last train?"

"Yes, it is true," replied Maria, quite steadily.

"What ever made you?"

"I thought she might have gone to a cousin of Hers who used to live on Forty-ninth Street, but we found the cousin had moved when we got there."

"Gracious!" said Maud. "And you didn't come out till that last train?"

"No."

"I should think you would be tired to death, and you don't look any too chipper." Maud turned and stared at Wollaston, who was standing aloof. "I declare, he looks as if he had been up a week of Sundays, too," said she. Then she called out to him, in her high-pitched treble, which sounded odd coming from her soft circ.u.mference of throat. Maud's voice ought, by good rights, to have been a rich, husky drone, instead of bearing a resemblance to a parrot's. "Say, Wollaston Lee," she called out, and the boy approached perforce, lifting his hat--"say," said Maud, "I hear you and Maria eloped last night." Then she giggled.

The boy cast a glance of mistrust and doubt at Maria. His face turned crimson.

"You are telling awful whoppers, Maud Page," Maria responded, promptly, and his face cleared. "We just went in to find Evelyn."

"Oh!" said Maud, teasingly.

"You are mean to talk so," said Maria.

Maud laughed provokingly.

"What made Wollaston go for, then?" she asked.

"Do you suppose anybody would let a girl go alone to New York on a night train?" said Maria, with desperate spirit. "He went because he was polite, so there."

Wollaston said nothing. He tried to look haughty, but succeeded in looking sheepish.

"Gladys Mann went, too," said Maria.

"I don't see what makes you go with a girl like that anywhere?" said Maud.

"She's as good as anybody," said Maria.