she knew, the very moment that Miss Ida Slome greeted her, that Aunt
Maria had been right in her surmise. For the first time since she had
been to school, Miss Slome, who was radiant in a flowered muslin,
came up to her and embraced her. Maria submitted coldly to the
embrace.

"You sweet little thing," said Miss Slome.

There was a man principal of the school, but Miss Slome was first
assistant, and Maria was in most of her classes. She took her place,
with her pretty smile as set as if she had been a picture instead of
a living and breathing woman, on the platform.

"You are awful sweet all of a sudden, ain't you?" said Gladys Mann in
Maria's ear.

Maria nodded, and went to her own seat.

All that day she noted, with her sharp little consciousness, the
change in Miss Slome's manner towards her. It was noticeable even in
class. "It is true," she said to herself. "Father is going to marry
her."

Aunt Maria was a little pacified by Harry's rejoinder the night
before. She begun to wonder if she had been, by any chance, mistaken.

"Maybe I was wrong," she said, privately, to Maria. But Maria shook
her head.

"She called me a sweet little thing, and kissed me," said she.