ilted words, although Harry had sent a check to cover the expenses
of her trip, which was returned in her letter.

"The fact is, I don't know what to do with Maria," Harry said to Ida
Slome, a week before the wedding. "Maria won't come, and neither will
her brother's wife, and she can't be left alone, even with the new
maid. We don't know the girl very well, and it won't do."

Ida Slome solved the problem with her usual precision and promptness.

"Then," said she, "she will have to board at Mrs. White's until we
return. There is nothing else to do."

It was therefore decided that Maria was to board at Mrs. White's,
although it involved some things which were not altogether
satisfactory to Ida. Maria could not sit all alone in a pew, and
watch her father being married to his second wife, that was obvious;
and, since Mrs. Jonas White was going to take charge of her, there
was nothing else to do but to place herself and daughter in a
position of honored intimacy. Mrs. Jonas White said quite openly that
she was not in any need of taking boarders, that she had only taken
Mr. Edgham and Maria to oblige, and that she now was to take poor
little Maria out of pity. She, in reality, did pity Maria, for a good
many reasons. She was a shrewd woman, and she gauged Miss Ida Slome
pitilessly. However, she had to admit that she had shown some
consideration in one respect. In the midst of her teaching, and
preparations for her wedding, she had planned a lovely dress for
Maria. It was unquestionable but the realization of her own
loveliness, and her new attire had an alleviating influence upon
Maria. There was a faint buzz of admiration for her when she entered
the church. She looked as if enveloped in a soft gray cloud. Ida had
planned a dress of some gray stuff, and a soft gray hat, tied under
her chin with wide ribbons, and a long gray plume floating over her
golden-fleece of hair. Maria had never owned such a gown, and, in
addition, she had her first pair of kid-gloves of gray, to match the
dress, and long, gray coat, trimmed with angora fur. She was charming
in it, and, moreover, the gray, as her step-mother's purple,
suggested delicately, if one so chose to understand a dim yet
pleasing melancholy, a shade, as it were, of remembrance.

Maria had been dressed at home, under Mrs. White's supervision. Maria
had viewed herself in the new long mirror in her mother's room, which
was now resplendent with its new furnishings, and she