"Good-morning, Miss Stillman," said Lily, sweetly, as she followed Maria.

Aunt Maria said nothing at all; she gave Lily a grim nod, while her lips were tightly compressed. She turned the key in the door with an audible snap.

"Well, good-bye, dear," said Lily to Maria. "I hope you will be as happy as I am some day, and I know you will."

Lily's face was entirely sweet and womanly as she turned it towards Maria for a kiss, which Maria gave her.

"Good-bye, dear," she said, gently, and was off.

n.o.body knew how glad she was to be off. She had a stunned, shocked feeling; she realized that her knees trembled, but she held up her head straight and went on. She realized that worse than anything else would be the suspicion on the part of any one that Lily's engagement to George Ramsey troubled her. All the time, as she hurried along the familiar road, she realized that strange, shocked feeling, as of some tremendous detonation of spirit. She bowed mechanically to people whom she met. She did not fairly know who they were. She kept on her way only through inertia. She felt that if she stopped to think, she would scarcely know the road to the school-house. She wondered when she met a girl somewhat older than herself, just as she reached the bridge, if that girl, who was plain and poorly dressed, one of those who seem to make no aspirations to the sweets of life, if she had ever felt as she herself did. Such a curiosity possessed her concerning it that she wished she could ask the girl, although she did not know her. She dreaded lest Jessy Ramsey should run to meet her, and her dread was realized. However, Maria was not as distressed by it as she thought. She stooped and kissed Jessy quite easily.

"Good-morning, dear," she said.

A shock of any kind has the quality of mercy in that it benumbs as to pain. Maria's only realization was that something monstrous had happened, something like mutilation, but there was no sting of agony.

She entered the school-house and went about her duties as usual. The children realized no difference in her, but all the time she realized the difference in herself. Something had gone from her, some essential part which she could never recover, not in itself, no matter what her future life might be. She was shorn of her first love, and that which has been never can be again.

When Maria reached the bridge on her way home, there was Lily waiting for her, as she had half expected she would be.

"Maria, dear," said Lily, with a pretty gesture of pleading, "I had to come and meet you, because I am so happy, and n.o.body else knows, except mother, and, somehow, her being pleased doesn't please me. I suppose I am wicked, but it makes me angry. I know it is awful to say such a thing of my own mother, but I can't help feeling that she thinks now she can have my room for Mabel Ellridge, and won't have to give up the spare chamber. I have n.o.body to talk to but you, Maria.

George won't come over before evening, and I am scared to go in and see his mother. I am so afraid she won't like me. Do you think she will like me, Maria dear?"

"I don't see why she should not," replied Maria. Lily had hold of her arm and was nestling close to her.

"Don't you, honest?"

"No, dear. I said so."

"You don't mind my coming to meet you and talk it over, do you, Maria?"

"Of course I don't! Why should I?" asked Maria, almost angrily.

"I thought you wouldn't. Maria, do you think a blue tea-gown or a pink one would be prettier?"

"I think pink is your color," said Maria.

"Well, I rather like the idea of pink myself. Mother says I shall have enough money to get some nice things. I suppose it is very silly, but I always thought that one of the pleasantest things about getting married, must be having some pretty, new clothes. Do you think I am very silly, Maria?"

"I dare say most girls feel so," said Maria, patiently.

As she spoke she looked away from the other girl at the wintry landscape. There was to the eastward of Amity a low range of hills, hardly mountains. These were snow-covered, and beneath the light of the setting sun gave out wonderful hues and lights of rose and blue and pearl. It was to Maria as if she herself, being immeasurably taller than Lily and the other girls whom she typified, could see farther and higher, even to her own agony of mind. It is a great deal for a small nature to be pleased with the small things of life. A large nature may miss a good deal in not being pleased with them.

Maria realized that she herself, in Lily's place, could have no grasp of mind petty enough for pink and blue tea-gowns, that she had outgrown that stage of her existence. She still liked pretty things, but they had now become dwarfed by her emotions, whereas, in the case of the other girl, the danger was that the emotions themselves should become dwarfed. Lily was typical, and there is after all a certain security as to peace and comfort in being one of a kind, and not isolated.

Lily talked about her bridal wardrobe all the way until they reached the Ramsey house; then she glanced up at the windows and bowed, dimpling and blushing. "That's his mother," she said to Maria. "I wonder if George has told her."

"I should think he must have," said Maria.

"I am so glad you think she will like me. I wonder what room we shall have, and whether there will be new furniture. I don't know how the up-stairs rooms are furnished, do you?"

"No, how should I? I was never up-stairs in the house in my life,"

said Maria. Again she gazed away from Lily at the snow-covered hills.

Her face wore an expression of forced patience. It really seemed to her as if she were stung by a swarm of plat.i.tudes like bees.

Lily kissed her at her door. "I should ask if I couldn't come over this evening, and sit up in your room and talk it over," said she, "but I suppose he will be likely to come. He didn't say so, but I suppose he will."

"I should judge so," said Maria.

When she entered the sitting-room, her aunt, who was knitting with a sort of fierce energy, looked up. "Oh, it's you!" said she. Her face had an expression of hostility and tenderness at once.

"Yes, Aunt Maria."

Aunt Maria surveyed her scrutinizingly. "You don't mean to say you didn't wear your knit jacket under your coat, such a bitter day as this?" said she.

"I have been warm enough."

Aunt Maria sniffed. "I wonder when you will ever be old enough to take care of yourself?" said she. "You need to be watched every minute like a baby."

"I was warm enough, Aunt Maria," Maria repeated, patiently.

"Well, sit down here by the stove and get heated through while I see to supper," said Aunt Maria, crossly. "I've got a hot beef-stew with dumplings for supper, and I guess I'll make some chocolate instead of tea. That always seems to me to warm up anybody better."

"Don't you want me to help?" said Maria.

"No; everything is all done except to make the chocolate. I've had the stew on hours. A stew isn't good for a thing unless you have it on long enough to get the goodness out of the bone."

Aunt Maria opened the door leading to the dining-room. In winter it served the two as both kitchen and dining-room, having a compromising sort of stove on which one could cook, and which still did not look entirely plebeian and fitted only for the kitchen. Maria saw through the open door the neatly laid table, with its red cloth and Aunt Maria's thin silver spoons and china. Aunt Maria had a weakness in one respect. She liked to use china, and did not keep that which had descended to her from her mother stored away, to be taken out only for company, as her sister-in-law thought she properly should do. The china was a fine Lowestoft pattern, and it was Aunt Maria's pride that not a piece was missing.

"As long as I take care of my china myself, and am not dependent on some great, clumsy girl, I guess I can afford to use it," she said.

As Maria eyed the delicate little cups a savory odor of stew floated through the room. She realized that she was not hungry, that the odor of food nauseated her with a sort of physical sympathy with the nausea of her soul, with life itself. Then she straightened herself, and shut her mouth hard. The look of her New England ancestresses who had borne life and death without flinching was on her face.

"I will be hungry," Maria said to herself. "Why should I lose my appet.i.te because a man who does not care for me is going to marry another girl, and when I am married, too, and have no right even to think of him for one minute even if he had been in earnest, if he had thought of me? Why should I lose my appet.i.te? Why should I go without my supper? I will eat. More than that, I will enjoy eating, and neither George Ramsey nor Lily Merrill shall prevent it, neither they nor my own self."

Maria sniffed the stew, and she compelled herself, by sheer force of will, to find the combined odor of boiling meat and vegetables inviting. She became hungry.

"That stew smells so good," she called out to her aunt, and her voice rang with triumph.

"I guess it _is_ a good stew," her aunt called back in reply. "I've had it on four hours, and I've made dumplings."

"Lovely!" cried Maria. She said to herself defiantly and proudly, that there were little zests of life which she might have if she could not have the greatest joys, and those little zests she would not be cheated out of by any adverse fate. She said practically to herself, that if she could not have love she could have a stew, and it might be worse. She smiled to herself over her whimsical conceit, and her face lost its bitter, strained look which it had worn all day. She reflected that even if she could not marry George Ramsey, and had turned the cold shoulder to him, he had been undeniably fickle; that his fancy had been lightly turned aside by a pretty face which was not accompanied by great mental power. She had felt a contempt for George, and scorn for Lily, but now her face cleared, and her att.i.tude of mind. She had gained a petty triumph over herself, and along with that came a clearer view of the situation.

When Aunt Maria called her to supper, she jumped up, and ran into the dining-room, and seated herself at the table.

"I am as hungry as a bear," said she.

Aunt Maria behind her delicate china teacups gave a sniff of satisfaction, and her set face softened. "Well, I'm glad you are,"

said she. "I guess the stew is good."

"Of course it is," said Maria. She lifted the cover of the dish and began ladling out the stew with a small, thin, silver ladle which had come to Aunt Maria along with the china from her mother. She pa.s.sed a plate over to her aunt, and filled her own, and began eating. "It is delicious," said she. The stew really pleased her palate, and she had the feeling of a conqueror who has gained one of the outposts in a battle. Aunt Maria pa.s.sed her a thin china cup filled with frothing chocolate, and Maria praise that too. "Your chocolate is so much nicer than our cook used to make," said she, and Aunt Maria beamed.