It was then that Wollaston got in his remark about poor Maria, who
had herself noticed with wonder that her aunt had bought a new hat
that spring instead of a bonnet.

"Why, Aunt Maria, I thought you always wore a bonnet!" said she,
innocently, when the hat came home from the milliner's.

"Nobody except old women are wearing bonnets now," replied her aunt,
shortly. "I saw Mrs. Rufus Jones, who is a good deal older than I, at
church Sunday with a hat trimmed with roses. The milliner told me
nobody of my age wore a bonnet."

"Did she know how old you really are, Aunt Maria?" inquired Maria
with the utmost innocence.

Harry Edgham gave a little chuckle, then came to his sister-in-law's
rescue. He had a thankful heart for even small benefits, and Aunt
Maria had done a good deal for him and his, and it had never occurred
to him that the doing might not be entirely disinterested. Besides,
Aunt Maria had always seemed to him, as well as to his daughter, very
old indeed. It might have been that the bonnets had had something to
do with it. Aunt Maria had never affected fashions beyond a certain
epoch, partly from economy, partly from a certain sense of injury.
She had said to herself that she was old, she had been passed by; she
would dress as one who had. Now her sentiments underwent a curious
change. The possibility occurred to her that Harry might ask her to
take her departed sister's place. She was older than that sister,
much older than he, but she looked in her glass and suddenly her
passed youth seemed to look forth upon her. The revival of hopes
sometimes serves as a tonic. Aunt Maria actually did look younger