they were to have; Miss Slome would never
dream of doing her own work, as her predecessor had done. All these
things the child dwelt upon in a morbid, aged fashion, and,
consequently, while her evenings with Mrs. Addix were not enjoyable,
they were not exactly dull. Nearly every room in the house was being
newly papered and painted. Maria and Mrs. Addix sat first in one
room, then in another, as one after another was torn up in the
process of improvement. Generally the room which they occupied was
chaotic with extra furniture, and had a distracted appearance which
grated terribly upon the child's nerves. Only her own room was not
touched. "You shall have your room all fixed up next year," her
father told her. "I would have it done now, but father is going to
considerable expense as it is." Maria assured him, with a sort of
wild eagerness, that she did not want her room touched. It seemed to
her that if the familiar paper which her mother had selected were
changed for something else, and the room altered, that the last
vestige of home would disappear, that she could not bear it.

"Well," said Harry, easily, "your paper will do very well, I guess,
for a while longer; but father will have your room fixed up another
year. You needn't think you are going to be slighted."

That night, Maria and Mrs. Addix sat in Maria's room. The parlor was
in confusion, and so was the dining-room and the guest-chamber;
indeed, the house was at that time in the height of its repairs. That
very day Maria's mother's room had been papered with a beautiful
paper with a sheenlike satin, over which were strewn garlands of pink
roses. Pink was Miss Slome's favorite color. They had a new hard-wood
floor laid in that room, and there was to be a pink rug, and white
furniture painted with pink roses; Maria knew that her father and
Miss Slome had picked it out. That evening, after her father had
gone, and she sat there with the sleeping Mrs. Addix, a sort of
frenzy seized her, or, rather, she worked herself up to it. She
thought of what her mother would have said to that beautiful new
paper, and furniture, and bay-window. Her mother also had liked pink.
She thought of how much her mother would have liked it, and how she
had gone without, and not made any complaint about her shabby old
furnishings, which had that very day been sold to Mrs. Addix for an
offset to her wages, and which Maria had seen carried away. She
thought about it all, and a red flush