"Ain't it your father that's going to marry her?" inquired Wollaston,
fiercely.

"I don't want him to marry her any more than you do," said Maria. "I
don't want her for a mother."

"I told you how it would come out, if I asked her," cried the boy,
still heaping the blame upon the girl.

"I would enough sight rather marry you than my father, if I were the
teacher," said Maria, and her blue eyes looked into Wollaston's with
the boldness of absolute guilelessness.

"Hush!" responded Wollaston, with a gesture of disdain. "Who'd want
you? You're nothing but a girl, anyway."

With that scant courtesy Wollaston Lee resumed his race homeward, and
Maria went her own way.

It was that very night, after Harry Edgham had returned from his call
upon Ida Slome, that he told Maria. Maria, as usual, had gone to bed,
but she was not asleep. Maria heard his hand on her door-knob, and
his voice calling out, softly: "Are you asleep, dear?"

"No," responded Maria.

Then her father entered and approached the child staring at him from
her white nest. The room was full of moonlight, and Maria's face
looked like a nucleus of innocence upon which it centred. Harry