It was Martha Matilda, "Graham's girl," who stood thus, with the wind from the snow-caps blowing down fresh upon her, tossing to and fro the slim feather in her worn hat, and making its way under the lapels of her unbuttoned jacket--Martha Matilda Graham, aged ten, with a wistful face that might have been sweet and dimpled had not care and loneliness robbed it of its rightful possessions. Further back there had been a mother who called the child "Mattie." But now there was only "father," and with him it was straight "Martha Matilda," spoken a little brusquely, but never unkindly. Oh, yes, up in the cottage, certain days, was Jerusha, who did the heavy work and then went home nights; with Jerusha it was plain "Mat." Then there was Miss Mary down at the school which Martha Matilda had attended at the time when loving mother-fingers "fixed her up like other girls," and Miss Mary, when speaking to the child "running wild upon the mountain side," always said "dear." But Martha Matilda had dropped out of the day-school and out of the Sunday-school. Somehow she had grown tired of trying to keep shoe-strings from breaking, and aprons from being torn, and if she was just home with Towser, such things did not matter; as to her going to school, her father did not seem to care. "Guess there's no hurry 'bout filling so small a head," he would sometimes say when Jerusha pleaded for school with Martha's eyes assenting. So now, Martha Matilda stood listening to the chiming of the Easter bells and seemed undecided as to her next move. "I know Miss Mary's lily is there, and it's got five blossoms on this year; she told father so down at the store. And such a lot of evergreen as the girls did take in yesterday!" Her face was still turned in the direction of the church on the outskirts of the scraggly mountain town, and whose spire pricked through the dark green pinons surrounding it. "I ain't fixed--I ain't never fixed now." And she glanced down along her unbuttoned jacket, over the faded delaine dress, to her shoes tied with strings held together by countless knots. "It seems awful lonesome to be home on Easter." She pulled out some brown woolen gloves from the pocket of her jacket, and drew them on slowly. Her fingers crowded out through numerous holes, but she pushed them back, pulling the ends of the gloves further up, and drawing down the sleeves of the jacket in an attempt to leave as small a part of the woolen gloves in sight as possible. "Father wouldn't care--he never cares." She buttoned her jacket hastily, settled her brown hat a little straighter, ran fleetly along the road leading toward the church, and breathlessly climbed the rude steps, together with a half-dozen other girls, just as the bell threw down its last sweet tone.