It was decided that Maria should go and visit her aunt Maria, in New
England, and remain there all summer. Her father would pay her board
in order that she should not be any restraint on her aunt, with her
scant income. Just before Maria went, and just before her school
closed, the broad gossip of the school came to her ears. She
ascertained something which filled her at once with awe, and shame,
and jealousy, and indignation. If one of the girls began to speak to
her about it, she turned angrily away. She fairly pushed Gladys Mann
one day. Gladys turned and looked at her with loving reproach, like a
chidden dog. "What did you expect?" said she. Maria ran away, her
face burning.

After she reached her aunt Maria's nothing was said to her about it.
Aunt Maria was too prudish and too indignant. Uncle Henry's wife,
Aunt Eunice, was away all summer, taking care of a sister who was ill
with consumption in New Hampshire; so Aunt Maria kept the whole
house, and she and Maria and Uncle Henry had their meals together.
Maria loved her uncle Henry. He was a patient man, with a patience
which at times turns to fierceness, of a man with a brain above his
sphere, who has had to stand and toil in a shoe-factory for his bread
and butter all his life. He was non-complainant because of a sort of
stern pride, and a sense of a just cause against Providence, but he
was very kind to Maria; he petted her as if she had been his own
child. Every pleasant night Uncle Henry took Maria for a
trolley-ride, or a walk, and he treated her to ice-cream soda and
candy. Aunt Maria also took good care of the child. She showed a sort
of vicious curiosity with regard to Maria's step-mother and all the
new household arrangements, which Maria did not gratify. She had too
much loyalty, although she longed to say all that she thought to her