Maria groped her way across the room to her aunt's bed. "Oh, Aunt
Maria, who is it?" she sobbed, softly.

Aunt Maria did what she had never done before: she reached out her
arms and gathered the bewildered little girl close, in an embrace of
genuine affection and pity. She, too, felt that here was a common
cause, and not only that, but she pitied the child with unselfish
pity. "You poor child, you are as cold as ice. Come in here with me,"
she whispered.

Maria crept into bed beside her aunt, but she would rather have
remained where she was. She was a child of spiritual rather than
physical affinities, and the contact of Aunt Maria's thin body, even
though it thrilled with almost maternal affection for her, repelled
her.

Aunt Maria began to weep unrestrainedly, with a curious passion and
abandonment for a woman of her years.

"Has he come home?" she whispered. Aunt Maria's hearing was slightly
defective, especially when she was nervously overwrought.

"Yes. Aunt Maria, who is it?"

"Hush, I don't know. He hasn't paid any open court to anybody, that I
know of, but--I've seen him lookin'."

"At whom?"

"At Ida Slome."