But by the next morning, the shine was a little off. When Aunt Maria came to wake her at half past six, _half past six_ ... why, no one at Grandfather Manley’s thought of stirring till eight! And she was expected to wash and dress ... not a button unbuttoned or a hair out of place under penalty of a long lecture on neatness ... and “do” her room, even to wiping off the woodwork; and make her bed. Heavens! How fussy they were about those old corners! All this before she had a bit of breakfast. Then, breakfast with everybody’s whole soul fixed on the work to be done, and nobody so much as dimly aware that it was a glorious, sunny, windy, summer day outside. Maria’s heart sank, sank, sank, as she drank her perfectly made chocolate, and ate her golden-brown toast, till it struck the dismal level where it usually lived during the Purdon half-year. “Come, Maria, don’t loiter over your food. The only way to get the work done is to go right at it!” “Oh, Maria, do you call that folding your napkin? I call it crumpling it into a ball.” “You forgot to put your chair back against the wall, Maria. If we each do faithfully our share of what is to be done, it will be easier for us all.” “No, the _spoons_ go there ... mercy, no! not the forks!” “Don’t twitch the curtain so as you go by. It takes all the fresh out of it. I only ironed them yesterday.” “Why, Maria, whistling! Like a little street boy!” The July sun might shine and the wind blow outside, inside the house it was always gray, windless November weather. She felt herself curl up like a little autumn leaf, and, with a dry rattle, blow about the rooms before the chill admonitory breath of Grandmother Purdon and Aunt Maria. Yes, the family elders were right in pitying her, as a child brought up just as badly as it was possible to be; and nobody was surprised or blamed her a bit, when she got out of both families as rapidly and as unceremoniously as she could, by making a very early marriage with an anonymous young man, somebody she had met at a high-school dance. He seemed just like any young man, from the glimpse of him, which was all the family had, before their marriage; but nobody knew a thing about his character or whether he would make a good husband. And, indeed, there was a big doubt in the family mind as to whether Maria Pearl would be any sort of wife or home-maker. How could she have learned anything about rational living, the poor little tyke, hustled from one bad example to another through all the impressionable years of her life? Suppose she kept house like the Manleys! Horrors! Or suppose she took after the Purdons! Her poor husband! * * * * * * *