overhear--"...one chance in ten, a fighting chance," and "Keep it
from Maria, her mother had said so." Maria knew perfectly well that
that horrible and mysterious thing, an operation, which means a duel
with death himself, was even at that moment going on in her mother's
room. She slipped away, and went up-stairs to her own chamber, and
softly closed the door. Then she forgot her lack of faith and her
rebellion, and she realized that her only hope of life was from that
which is outside life. She knelt down beside her bed, and began to
pray over and over, "O God, don't let my mother die, and I will
always be a good girl! O God, don't let my mother die, and I will
always be a good girl!"

Then, without any warning, the door opened and her father stood
there, and behind him was her aunt Maria, weeping bitterly, and Mrs.
White, also weeping.

"Maria," gasped out Harry Edgham. Then, as Maria rose and went to
him, he seized upon her as if she were his one straw of salvation,
and began to sob himself, and Maria knew that her mother had died.



Chapter IV


Without any doubt, Maria's self-consciousness, which was at its
height at this time, helped her to endure the loss of her mother, and
all the sad appurtenances of mourning. She had a covert pleasure at
the sight of her fair little face, in her black hat, above her black
frock. She realized a certain importance because of her grief.