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Updated: September 23, 2025
The next morning when Maria, in her little black frock it was made of a thin lawn for the hot days, and the pale slenderness of her arms and neck were revealed by the thinness of the fabric went to school, she knew, the very moment that Miss Ida Slome greeted her, that Aunt Maria had been right in her surmise.
You can thank your stars he didn't pitch on a school-girl, instead of the teacher." Maria lay stretched out stiff and motionless. She was trying to bring her mind to bear upon the situation. She was trying to imagine Miss Ida Slome, with her pink cheeks and her gay attire, in the house instead of her mother. Her head began to reel. She no longer wept.
All unconsciously she glanced sideways over the fall of lace-trimmed pink ruffles at her slender shoulders at Wollaston Lee. He was gazing straight at Miss Slome, Miss Ida Slome, who was the school-teacher, and his young face wore an expression of devotion. Maria's eyes followed his; she did not dream of being jealous; Miss Slome seemed too incalculably old to her for that.
She replied with the utmost self-poise to the congratulations which she received after the ceremony. There was an informal reception in the church vestry. Cake and ice-cream and coffee were served, and Ida and Harry and Maria stood together. Ida had her arm around Maria most of the time, but Maria felt as if it were an arm of wood which encircled her. She heard Ida Slome addressed as Mrs.
Harry put his arm around his little daughter, but not as if he realized it, and she peeked around and saw how closely he was embracing Miss Slome, whose cheeks were a beautiful color, but whose set smile never relaxed. It seemed to Maria that Miss Slome smiled exactly like a doll, as if the smile were made on her face by something outside, not by anything within.
"Have you made up your mind what to call her?" she asked. "Mummer, or mother?" "I shall call her whatever I please," replied Maria; "it is nobody's business." Then she arose and went out of the room, with an absurd little strut. "Lord a-massy!" observed Mrs. Jonas White, after she had gone. "I guess Ida Slome will have her hands full with that young one," observed Lillian.
"Where is Maria?" Still, Maria did not stir. Then her father came hurrying into the room, and behind him she who had been Ida Slome, radiant and triumphant, in her plum-colored array, with the same smile with which she had departed on her beautiful face. Harry caught Maria in his arms, rubbed his cold face against her soft little one, and kissed her.
Aunt Maria's hearing was slightly defective, especially when she was nervously overwrought. "Yes. Aunt Maria, who is it?" "Hush, I don't know. He hasn't paid any open court to anybody, that I know of, but I've seen him lookin'." "At whom?" "At Ida Slome." "But she is younger than my mother was." "What difference do you s'pose that makes to a man. He'll like her all the better for that.
Miss Ida Slome looked at him in amazement; she was utterly dazed. "Have you?" she repeated. "I think I do not quite understand you. What do you mean by 'have you, Wollaston?" "Marry me," burst forth the boy. There was a silence.
Maria had viewed herself in the new long mirror in her mother's room, which was now resplendent with its new furnishings, and she admitted to herself that she was lovelier than she had ever been, and that she had Miss Ida Slome to thank for it. "I will say one thing," said Mrs. White, "she has looked out for you about your dress, and she has shown real good taste, too."
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