"Well, I suppose it was a polite thing for you to do," said his mother, mildly, "but I don't quite care for her has I do for some girls. She is so very vehement. I do like a young girl to be gentle."

"Well, I didn't see her, mother, in either a gentle or vehement mood," said George. "As nearly as I can find out, she had a premonition who it was when I rang the door-bell, and said she had a headache, and ran up-stairs to bed."

"Why, how do you know?" asked his mother, staring at him. "Her aunt was at the tea. Who told you?"

"Lily Merrill was there," replied George, and again he was conscious of coloring. "She had come to stay with Maria because her aunt was going out. She answered my ring, and so I made a little call on her until Miss Stillman returned, and was so surprised to see her premises invaded and her niece missing that I think she inferred a conspiracy or a burglar. At all events, Lily and I were summarily dismissed. I have just seen Lily home."

"Lily Merrill is pretty, and I think she is a nice, lady-like girl,"

said Mrs. Ramsey, and she regarded her son more uneasily than before, "but I don't like her mother, George."

"Why, what is the matter with Lily's mother?"

"She isn't genuine. Adeline Merrill was never genuine. She has always had her selfish ends, and she has reached them by crooks and turns."

"I think Lily is genuine enough," said George, carelessly, putting another lump of sugar in his cup of chocolate. "I have seen more brilliant girls, but she is a beauty, and I think she is genuine."

"Well, perhaps she is," Mrs. Ramsey admitted. "I don't know her very well, but I do know her mother. I know something now."

"What?"

"I know you don't like gossip, but if ever a woman was--I know it is a vulgar expression--but if ever a woman was setting her cap for a man, she is setting hers for Dr. Ellridge. She never goes anywhere evenings, in the hope that he may call, and she sends for him when there is nothing whatever the matter with her, if he doesn't. I know, because Dr. Ellridge's wife's sister, Miss Emmons, who has kept house for him since his wife died, told me so. He goes home and tells her, and laughs, but I know she isn't quite sure that the doctor won't marry her."

"Miss Emmons is jealous, perhaps," said George. "Perhaps Mrs. Merrill is really ill."

"No, the doctor says she is not, and Miss Emmons is not jealous. She told me that as far as she was concerned, although she would lose her home, she should be glad to see the doctor married, if he chose a suitable woman; but I don't think she likes Mrs. Merrill. I don't see how anybody can like a woman who so openly proclaims her willingness to marry a man before he has done her the honor to ask her. It seems shameless to me."

"Perhaps she doesn't," George said again. Then he added, "It would be rather hard for Lily if her mother did marry the doctor. He is a good man enough, but with his own three girls, the oldest older than Lily, she would have a hard time."

George looked quite sober, reflecting upon the possible sad lot of poor Lily if her mother married the second time.

"Adeline Merrill wouldn't stop for such a thing as the feelings of her own daughter, if she had her mind set on anything," said his mother, in her soft voice, which seemed to belie the bitterness of her words. She was not in reality bitter at all, not even towards Mrs. Merrill, but she had clearly defined rules of conduct for gentlewomen, and she mentioned it when these rules were transgressed.

"Well, mother dear, I can't see that it is likely to make much difference to either you or me, anyway," said George, and his mother felt consoled. She told herself that it was not possible that George thought seriously of Lily, or he would not speak so.

"Miss Stillman is very eccentric," she remarked, departing from the subject. "I offered to bring her home with me in the carriage. I knew you would not mind the extra money. She has such a cold that I really wondered that she came at all in such a storm; but, no, she seemed fairly indignant at the idea. I never saw any one so proud. I asked Mrs. Henry Stillman, but she did not like to have her sister-in-law to go alone, so she would not accept, either; but Miss Stillman walked herself, and made her sister walk, too, and I am positive it was because she was proud. Do you really mean you think young Maria did not want to see you, George?"

"It looked like it," George replied, laughing.

"Why?" asked his mother.

"How do I know, mother dear? I don't think Miss Edgham altogether approves of me for some reason."

"I should like to know what reason she has for not approving of you,"

cried his mother, jealously. She looked admiringly at her son, who was handsome, with a sort of rugged beauty, and whose face displayed strength, and honesty not to be questioned. "I would like to know who Maria Edgham thinks she is. She is rather pretty, but she cannot compare with Lily Merrill as far as that goes, and she is teaching a little district school, and from what I have seen of her, her manners are subject to criticism. She is not half as lady-like as other girls in Amity. When I think of the way she flew in here and attacked us for not clothing those disreputable people across the river, just because they have the same name, I can't help being indignant. I never heard of a young girl's doing such a thing. And I think that if she ran off when the bell rang, because she thought it was you, it was certainly very rude. I think she virtually ascribed more meaning to your call than there was."

"Lily said she had a headache," said George, but his own face a.s.sumed an annoyed expression. That version of Maria's flight had not occurred to him, and he was a very proud fellow. When he went up-stairs to his own room he continued wondering whether it was possible that Maria, remembering their childish love-affair, could have really dreamed that he had called that evening with serious intentions, and he grew more and more indignant at the idea. Then the memory of that soft, hardly returned kiss which he had given Lily came to him, and now he did not feel vexed with himself because of it. He was quite certain that Lily was too gentle and timid to think for a minute that he meant anything more than their old childish friendship. The memory of the kiss became very pleasant to him, and he seemed to feel Lily's lips upon his own like a living flower which thrilled the heart. The next morning, when he took the trolley-car in front of his house, Maria was just pa.s.sing on her way to school. She was wading rather wearily, yet still st.u.r.dily, through the snow. It had cleared during the night, and there were several inches of drifted snow in places, although some portions of the road were as bare as if swept by a broom of the winds.

Maria, tramping through the snow, which was deep just there, merely glanced at George Ramsey, and said good-morning. She had plenty of time, if she had chosen to do so, to express her regrets at not seeing him the evening before, for the car had not yet reached him.

But she said nothing except good-morning, and George responded rather curtly, raising his hat, and stepping forward towards the car. He felt it to be unmistakable that Maria wished him to understand that she did not care for his particular acquaintance, and the sting which his mother had suggested the evening before, that she must consider that his attentions were significant, or she would not take so much trouble to repulse them, came over him again. He boarded the car, which was late, and moving sluggishly through the snow. It came to a full stop in front of the Merrill house, and George saw Lily's head behind a stand of ferns in one of the front windows. He raised his hat, and she bowed, and he could see her blush even at that distance.

He thought again, comfortably, that Lily, remembering their childish caresses, could attach no importance to what had happened the night before, and yet a thrill of tenderness and pleasure shot through him, and he seemed to feel again the flower-like touch of her lips. It was a solace for any man, after receiving such an unmistakable rebuff as he had just received from Maria Edgham. He had no conception of the girl plodding through the snow to her daily task. He did not dream that she saw, instead of the snowy road before, a long stretch of dreary future, brought about by that very rebuff. But she was quite merciless with herself. She would not yield for a moment to regrets.

She accepted that stretch of dreary future with a defiant acquiescence. She bowed pleasantly to the acquaintances whom she met.

They were not many that morning, for the road was hardly pa.s.sable in places, being overcurved here and there with blue, diamond-crested, snowlike cascades, and now presenting ridges like graves. Half-way to the school-house, Maria saw the village snow-plough, drawn by a struggling horse and guided by a red-faced man. She stood aside to let it pa.s.s. The man did not look at her. He frowned ahead at his task. He was quite an old man, and bent, but with the red of youth brought forth in his cheeks by the frosty air.

"Everybody has to work in some way," Maria thought, "and very few get happiness for their labor."

She reflected how soon that man would be lying stiff and stark under the wintry snows and the summer heats, and how nothing which might trouble him now would matter. She reflected that, although she herself was younger and had presumably longer to live, that the time would inevitably come when even such unhappiness as weighed her down this morning would not matter. She continued in the ineffectual track which the snow-plough had made, with a certain pleasure in the exertion. All Maria's heights of life, her mountain-summits which she would agonize to reach, were spiritual. Labor in itself could never daunt her. Always her spirit, the finer essence of her, would soar b.u.t.terfly-like above her toiling members.

It was a beautiful morning; the trees were heavily bent with snow, which gave out l.u.s.tres like jewels. The air had a very purity of life in it. Maria inhaled the frosty, clear air, and regarded the trees as one might have done who was taking a stimulant. She kept her mind upon them, and would not think of George Ramsey. As she neared the school-house, the first child who ran to meet her, stumbling through the snow, was little Jessy Ramsey. Maria forced herself to meet smilingly the upward, loving look of those blue Ramsey eyes. She bent down and kissed Jessy, and the little thing danced at her side in a rapture.

"They be awful warm, my close, teacher," said she.

"My clothes are very warm, teacher," corrected Maria, gravely.

"My clothes are very warm, teacher," said Jessy, obediently.

Maria caught the child up in her arms (she was a tiny, half-fed little thing), and kissed her again. Somehow she got a measure of comfort from it. After all, love was love, in whatever guise it came, and this was an innocent love which she could admit with no question.

"That's a good little girl, dear," she said, and set Jessy down.

Chapter XXIV

Maria did not go home for the Christmas holidays. She was very anxious to do so, but she received a letter from Ida Edgham which made her resolve to remain where she was.

"We should be so very glad to have you come home for the holidays, dear," wrote Ida, "but of course we know how long the journey is, and how little you are earning, and we are all well. Your father seems quite well, and so we shall send you some little remembrance, and try to console ourselves as best we can for your absence."

Maria read the letter to her aunt Maria.

"You won't go one step?" said Aunt Maria, interrogatively.

"No," said Maria. She was quite white. n.o.body knew how she had longed to see her father and little Evelyn, and she had planned to go, and take Aunt Maria with her, defraying the expenses out of her scanty earnings.

"I wouldn't go if you were to offer me a thousand dollars," said Aunt Maria.

"I would not, either," responded Maria. She opened the stove door and thrust the letter in, and watched it burn.

"How your father ever came to marry that woman--" said Aunt Maria.

"There's no use talking about that now," said Maria, arousing to defence of her father. "She was very pretty!"

"Pretty enough," said Aunt Maria, "and I miss my guess if she didn't do most of the courting. Well, as you say, there is no use talking it over now. What's done is done."

Aunt Maria watched Maria's pitiful young face with covert glances.

Maria was finishing a blouse which she had expected to wear on her journey. She continued her work with resolution, but every line on her face took a downward curve.

"You don't need to hurry so on that waist now," said Aunt Maria.