her mind from her book; then she caught Gladys Mann's wondering eyes
upon her, and she studied again.

While Maria could scarcely be said to have an intimate friend at
school, a little girl is a monstrosity who has neither a friend nor a
disciple; she had her disciple, whose name was Gladys Mann. Gladys
was herself a little outside the pale. Most of her father's earnings
went for drink, and Gladys's mother was openly known to take in
washing to make both ends meet, and keep the girl at school at all;
moreover, she herself came of one of the poor white families which
flourish in New Jersey as well as at the South, although in less
numbers. Gladys's mother was rather a marvel, inasmuch as she was
willing to take in washing, and do it well too, but Gladys had no
higher rank for that. She was herself rather a pathetic little soul,
dingily pretty, using the patois of her kind, and always at the fag
end of her classes. Her education, so far, seemed to meet with no
practical results in the child herself. Her brain merely filtered
learning like a sieve; but she thought Maria Edgham was a wonder, and
it was really through her, and her alone, that she obtained any
education.

"What makes you always say 'have went'?" Maria would inquire, with a
half-kindly, half-supercilious glance at her satellite.

"What had I ought to say," Gladys would inquire, meekly--"have came?"

"Have gone," replied Maria, with supreme scorn.

"Then when my mother has came home shall I say she has gone?"
inquired Gladys, with positive abjectness.