"Gladys, you are such a ninny," said Maria. "Why don't you remember what you learn at school, instead of what you hear at home?" "I guess I hear more at home than I learn at school," Gladys replied, with an adoring glance at Maria. Maria half despised Gladys, and yet she had a sort of protective affection for her, as one might have for a little clinging animal, and she confided more in her than in any one else, sure, at least, of an outburst of sympathy. Maria had never forgotten how Gladys had cried the first morning she went to school after her mother died. Every time Gladys glanced at poor little Maria, in her black dress, her head went down on a ring of her little, soiled, cotton-clad arms on her desk, and Maria knew that she was sorrier for her than any other girl in school. Gladys had a sort of innocent and ignorant impertinence; she asked anything which occurred to her, with no reflection as to its effect upon the other party. "Say, is it true?" she asked that very morning at recess. "Is what true?" "Is your father goin' to marry her?" "Marry who?" Maria turned quite pale, and forgot her own grammar. "Why, your aunt Maria." "My aunt Maria? I guess he isn't!" Maria left Gladys with an offended strut. However, she reflected on Aunt Maria's pompadour. A great indignation seized her. After this she treated Aunt Maria stiffly, and she watched both her and her father. There was surely nothing in Harry Edgham's behaviour to warrant a belief that he contemplated marrying his deceased wife's sister. Sometimes he even, although in a kindly fashion, poked fun at her, in Maria's presence. But Aunt Maria never knew it; she was, in fact, impervious to that sort of thing. But Maria came to be quite sure that Aunt Maria had designs on her father. She observed that she dressed much better than she had ever done; she observed the fairly ostentatious attention which she bestowed upon her brother-in-law, and also upon herself, when he was present. She even used to caress Maria, in her wooden sort of way, when Harry was by to see. Once Maria repulsed her roughly. "I don't like to be kissed and fussed over," said she. "You mustn't speak so to your aunt," said Harry, when Aunt Maria had gone out of the room. "I don't know what we should have done without her." "You pay her, don't you, father?" asked Maria. "Yes, I pay her," said Harry, "but that does not alter the fact that she has done a great deal which money could not buy." Maria gazed at her father with suspicion, which he did not recognize.