Her father set the coffee-pot on the stove, where it immediately
began to boil. Then he carried back the canister into the pantry, and
returned with a panful of eggs. "You can set the table, I suppose,
anyhow?" said he. "You know enough to do as much as that?"

"Yes, I can do that," replied Maria, with alacrity, and indeed she
could. Her mother had exacted some small household tasks from her,
and setting the table was one of them. She hurried into the
dining-room and began setting the table with the pretty blue-flowered
ware that her mother had been so proud of. She seemed to feel tears
in her heart when she laid the plates, but none sprang to her eyes.
Somehow, handling these familiar inanimate things was the acutest
torture. Presently she smelled eggs burning. She realized that her
father was burning up the eggs, in his utter ignorance of cookery.
She thought privately that she didn't believe but she could cook the
eggs, but she dared not go out in the kitchen. Her father, in his
anxiety, had actually reached ferocity. He had always petted her, in
his easy-going fashion, now he terrified her. She dared not go out
there.

All at once, as she was getting the clean napkins from the sideboard,
she heard the front door open, and one of the neighbors, Mrs. Jonas
White, entered without knocking. She was a large woman and carelessly
dressed, but her great face was beaming with kindness and pity.

"I just heard how bad your ma was," she said, in a loud whisper, "an'
I run right over. I thought mebbe--How is she?"

"She is very sick," replied Maria. She felt at first an impulse to