had a beauty of color; now that had passed, and she was sallow, and
she disdained to try to make the most of herself, to soften her stern
face by a judicious arrangement of her still plentiful hair. She
strained it back from her hollow temples, and fastened it securely on
the top of her head. She had a scorn of fashions in hair or dress
except for Maria. "Maria is young," she said, with an ineffable
expression of love and pride, and a tincture of defiance, as if she
were defying her own age, in the ownership of the youth of her child.
She was like a rose-bush which possessed a perfect bud of beauty, and
her own long dwelling upon the earth could on account of that be
ignored. But Maria's father was different. He was quite openly a vain
man. He was handsome, and he held fast to his youth, and would not
let it pass by. His hair, curling slightly over temples boyish in
outlines, although marked, was not in the least gray. His mustache
was carefully trimmed. After he had seated himself unobtrusively in a
rear seat, he looked around for his daughter, who saw him with
dismay. "Now," she thought, her chances of Wollaston Lee walking home
with her were lost. Father would go home with her. Her mother had
often admonished Harry Edgham that when Maria went to meeting alone,
he ought to be in waiting to go home with her, and he obeyed his
wife, generally speaking, unless her wishes conflicted too
strenuously with his own. He did not in the least object to-night,
for instance, to dropping late into the prayer-meeting. There were
not many people there, and all the windows were open, and there was
something poetical and sweet about the atmosphere. Besides, the
singing was unusually good for such a place. Above all the other
voices arose Ida Slome's sweet soprano. She sang like a bird; her
voice, although not powerful, was thrillingly sweet. Harry looked at
her as she sang, and thought how pretty she was, but there was no
disloyalty to his wife in the look. He was, in fact, not that sort of