aunt, being sure of a violent sympathizer.

"Well, I'll say one thing, she has fixed your clothes nice," said
Aunt Maria.

"She didn't do it, it was Miss Barnes," replied Maria. She could not
help saying that much. She did not want Aunt Maria to think her
step-mother took better care of her wardrobe than her own mother had
done.

"Good land! She didn't hire all these things made?" said Aunt Maria.

"Yes'm."

"Good land! I don't see how your father is going to stand it. I'd
like to know what your poor mother would have said?" said Aunt Maria.

Then Maria's loyalty came to the front. After all, she was her
father's wife, and to be defended.

"I guess maybe father is making more money now," said she.

"Well, I hope to the land he is," said Aunt Maria. "I guess if She
(Aunt Maria also treated Ida like a pronoun) had just one hundred
dollars and no more to get along with, she'd have to do different."

Maria regained her strength rapidly. When she went home, a few days
before her school begun, in September, she was quite rosy and
blooming. She had also fallen in love with a boy who lived next to
Aunt Maria, and who asked her, over the garden fence, to correspond