"Lord a-massy!" observed Mrs. Jonas White, after she had gone.

"I guess Ida Slome will have her hands full with that young one,"
observed Lillian.

"I guess she will, too," assented her mother. "She was real sassy.
Well, her mother had a temper of her own; guess she's got some of it."

Mr. Jonas White and Henry were a great alleviation of Maria's
desolate estate during her father's absence. Somehow, the men seemed
to understand better than the women just how she felt: that she would
rather be let alone, now it was all over, than condoled with and
pitied. Mr. Henry White took one of the market horses, hitched him
into a light buggy, and took Maria out riding two evenings, when the
market was closed. It was a warm November, and the moon was full.
Maria quite enjoyed her drive with Mr. Henry White, and he never said
one word about her father's marriage, and her new mother--her pronoun
of a mother--all the way. Mr. Henry White had too long a neck, and
too large a mouth, which was, moreover, too firmly set, otherwise
Maria felt that, with slight encouragement, she might fall in love
with him, since he showed so much delicacy. She counted up the
probable difference in their ages, and estimated it as no more than
was between her father and Her. However, Mr. Henry White gave her so
little encouragement, and his neck was so much too long above his
collar, that she decided to put it out of her mind.

"Poor little thing," Mr. Henry White said to his father, next day,
"she's about wild, with mother and Lill harping on it all the time."