than she had done, even with her scanty frizzes. She regarded other
women, not older than herself, with pompadours, and aspiration seized
her.

One day she went to New York shopping. She secretly regarded that as
an expedition. She was terrified at the crossings. Stout, elderly
woman as she was, when she found herself in the whirl of the great
city, she became as a small, scared kitten. She gathered up her
skirts, and fled incontinently across the streets, with policemen
looking after her with haughty disapprobation. But when she was told
to step lively on the trolley-cars, her true self asserted its
endurance. "I am not going to step in front of a team for you or any
other person," she told one conductor, and she spoke with such
emphasis that even he was intimidated, and held the car meekly until
the team had passed. When Aunt Maria came home from New York that
particular afternoon, she had an expression at once of defiance and
embarrassment, which both Maria and her father noticed.

"Well, what did you see in New York, Maria?" asked Harry, pleasantly.

"I saw the greatest lot of folks without manners, that I ever saw in
my whole life," replied Aunt Maria, sharply.

Harry Edgham laughed. "You'll get used to it," he said, easily.
"Everybody who comes from New England has to take time to like New
York. It is an acquired taste."

"When I do acquire it, I'll be equal to any of them," replied Aunt
Maria. "When I lose my temper, they had better look out."