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"Papa comes home lately at five o'clock. I guess he will be here very soon now; but mamma won't be home before half-past seven. She has gone with the Voorhees to the matinee. Do you know the Voorhees, sister?" "No, dear." "I guess they came to Edgham after you went away. They bought that big house on the hill near the church. They are very rich. There are Mr. Voorhees and Mrs.
With that scant courtesy Wollaston Lee resumed his race homeward, and Maria went her own way. It was that very night, after Harry Edgham had returned from his call upon Ida Slome, that he told Maria. Maria, as usual, had gone to bed, but she was not asleep. Maria heard his hand on her door-knob, and his voice calling out, softly: "Are you asleep, dear?" "No," responded Maria.
Two treble voices were audible on the other side, but not a word of their conversation. "Maria and she are talking," said Eunice. What Aunt Maria was saying was this, in a tone of sharp wonder: "Where is he?" "Who?" responded Maria. "Why, you know as well as I do George Ramsey." Aunt Maria looked sharply at her niece. "I hope you asked him in, Maria Edgham?" said she. "No, I didn't," said Maria.
Of course it sometimes happens that an ardent lover goes every night; but Harry Edgham, being an older man and a widower, would probably not go to that extent. He soon did, however. Very soon Maria and her aunt went to bed every night before Harry came home, and Miss Ida Slome became more loving towards Maria. Wollaston Lee, boy as he was, child as he was, really suffered.
"You didn't wear that new pink gingham dress that I had to hire made, trimmed with all that lace and ribbon, to meeting to-night?" said Maria's mother. Maria said nothing. It seemed to her that such an obvious fact scarcely needed words of assent. "Damp as it is, too," said her mother. Mrs. Edgham extended a lean, sallow hand and felt of the dainty fabric.
She was all the time wondering if Wollaston would possibly come in, and in lieu of him, she played off her innocent graces with no reserve upon his mother. Wollaston did not come in. He had gone to the city, but when he came home his mother told him of the call. "Those Edgham girls who used to live in Edgham, the one who teaches in your school, and her sister, called this afternoon," said she.
"Well, I'm glad to hear it," said the man, with a curious congratulation which gave the impression of disappointment. Little Maria Edgham and her father went up the village street; Harry Edgham walked quite swiftly. "I guess we had better hurry along," he observed, "your mother is all alone." Maria tagged behind him.
When she reached her aunt's house she saw a light in the sitting-room windows, and immediately she turned into the path the door opened and her aunt stood there. "Maria Edgham, where have you been?" asked Aunt Maria. "I have been to walk," replied Maria. "Been to walk! Do you know what time it is? It is 'most midnight. I've been 'most crazy.
Then all at once, in a perfect flood of rapture, something which she had never before known came into her heart: the consciousness of the love of God for herself, of the need of God for herself, poor little Maria Edgham, whose ways of life had been so untoward and so absurd that she almost seemed to herself something to be laughed at rather than pitied, much less loved.
Harry hastily removed the paper bag from the table, which was covered with a white linen spread trimmed with lace and embroidered. "Don't you feel as if you could eat one to-night? You didn't eat much supper, and I thought maybe " "I don't believe I can to-night, but I shall like them to-morrow," replied Mrs. Edgham, in a voice soft with apology.
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