"Not as far as the man's career is concerned, if he marries your sister, and not so far as your sister is concerned. People are prone to believe the worst, as the sparks fly upward." "Then they will," Maria said, obstinately. "I have made up my mind I dare not undertake the responsibility." "What will you do afterwards, come back to me?" Miss Blair said, wistfully. "You will come back, will you not, dear?" "If you wish," Maria said, with a quick, loving glance at her. "If I wish!" repeated Miss Blair. "Well, go if you must." Maria did not reach Amity until long after dark. Behind her on the train were two women who got on at the station before Amity. She did not know them, and they did not know her, but they presently began talking about her. "I saw Miss Maria Stillman at the Ordination in Westbridge, Wednesday," said one to the other. This woman had a curiously cool, long-reaching breath when she spoke. Maria felt it like a fan on the back of her neck. The other woman, who was fat, responded with a wheezy voice. "It was queer about that niece of hers, who taught school in Westbridge, running away and dying so dreadful sudden, wasn't it?" said she. "Dreadful queer. I guess her aunt and sister felt pretty bad about it, and I s'pose they do now; but it's a year ago, and they've left off their mourning." "Of course," said the other woman. "They would leave it off on account of--" Maria did not hear what followed, for a thundering freight-train passed them and drowned the words. After the train passed, the fat woman was saying, with her wheezy voice, "Mr. Lee's mother's death was dreadful sudden, wasn't it?" "Dreadful." "I wonder if he likes living in Amity as well as Westbridge?" "I shouldn't think he would, it isn't as convenient to the academy." "Well, maybe he will go back to Westbridge after a while," said the other woman, and again her breath fanned Maria's neck. She wondered what it meant. A surmise came to her, then she dismissed it. She was careful to keep her back turned to the women when the train pulled into Amity. She had no baggage except a suit-case. She got off the train, and disappeared in the familiar darkness. All at once it seemed to her as if she had returned from the unreal to the real, from fairy-land to the actual world. The year past seemed like a dream to her. She could not believe it. It was like that fact which is stranger than fiction, and therefore almost impossible even to write, much less to live. Miss Rosa Blair, and her travellings in Europe, and her house in New York, seemed to her like an Arabian Night's creation. She walked along the street towards her aunt's house, and realized her old self and her old perplexities. When she drew near the house she saw a light in the parlor windows and also in Aunt Maria's bedroom. Aunt Maria had evidently gone to her room for the night. Uncle Henry's side of the house was entirely dark.