her shoulder, a pretty
little tea-table loaded with Dresden china.

"All right," replied Harry, with a baffled tone. He felt baffled
without knowing exactly why.

Ida took up another sheet of the Herald, a fashion page was
uppermost. She read something and smiled. "It says that gowns made
like Maria's new one are the most fetching ones of the season," she
said. "I am so glad I have the skirt plaited."

Harry made a gesture of assent. He felt, without in the least knowing
why, like a man who had been completely worsted in a hand-to-hand
combat. He felt humiliated and unhappy. His first wife, even with her
high temper and her ready tongue, had never caused him such a sense
of abjectness. He had often felt angry with her, but never with
himself. She had never really attacked his self-respect as this woman
did. He did not dare look up from his newspaper for a while, for he
realized that he should experience agony at seeing the beautiful,
radiant face of his second wife opposite him instead of the worn,
stern, but altogether loving and single-hearted face of his first. He
was glad when Maria came down-stairs, and looked up and greeted her
with a smile of reassuring confidence. Maria's pretty little face was
still tear-stained, although she had bathed it with cold water. She
also took up a sheet of the Sunday paper.

"Did you see Alice Lundy's new hat in church to-day, dear?" Ida
presently asked her, and her manner was exactly as if nothing had
occurred to disturb anybody.

Maria looked at her with a sort of wonder, which made her honest face
almost idiotic.

"No, ma'am," said she.

Maria had been taught to say "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am" by her own
mother, whose ideas of etiquette were old-fashioned, and dated from
the precepts of her own childhood.

"It is a little better not to say ma'am," said Ida, sweetly. "I think
that expression is not used so much as formerly."

Maria looked at her with a quick defiance, which gave her an almost
startling resemblance to her own mother.

"Yes, ma'am," said she.

Harry's mouth twitched behind his paper. Ida said no more. She
continued to smile, but she was not reading the paper which she held.
She was making new plans to gain her own ends. She was seeking new
doors of liberty for her own ways, in lieu of those which she saw
were closed to her, and by the time dinner was served she was quite
sure that she had succeeded.

The next autumn, Maria began attending the Elliot