By the Light of the Soul Part 50

"I want the waist, anyway," replied her niece. "I may as well get it done."

"You will have to send the Christmas presents," said Aunt Maria. "I don't very well see how you can pack some of them."

"I guess I can manage," said Maria.

The next day her week of vacation began. She packed the gifts which she had bought for her father and Evelyn and Ida, and took them to the express office. The day after that she received the remembrances of which Ida spoke. They were very pretty. Aunt Maria thought them extravagant. Ida had sent her a tiny chatelaine watch, and her father a ring set with a little diamond. Maria knew perfectly well how her father's heart ached when he sent the ring. She never for one moment doubted him. She wrote him a most loving letter, and even a deceptive letter, because of her affection. She repeated what Ida had written, that it was a long journey, and expensive, and she did not think it best for her to go home, although she had longed to do so.

Ida sent Aunt Maria a set of Shakespeare. When it was unpacked, Aunt Maria looked shrewdly at her niece.

"How many sets of Shakespeare has she got?" she inquired. "Do you know, Maria?"

Maria admitted that she thought she had two.

"I miss my guess but she has another exactly just like this," said Aunt Maria. "Well, I don't mean to be ungrateful, and I know Shakespeare is called a great writer, and they who like him can read him. I would no more sit down and read all those books through, myself, than I would read Webster's Dictionary."

Maria laughed.

"You can take this set of books up in your room, if you want them,"

said Aunt Maria. "For my part I consider it an insult for her to send Shakespeare to me. She must have known I had never had anything to do with Shakespeare. She might just as well have sent me a crown. Now, your father he has more sense. He sent me this five-dollar gold-piece so I could buy what I wanted with it. He knew that he didn't know what I wanted. Your father's a good man, Maria, but he was weak when he married her; I've got to say it."

"I don't think father was weak at all!" Maria retorted, with spirit.

"Of course, I expect you to stand up for your father, that is right.

I wouldn't have you do anything else," Aunt Maria said approvingly.

"But he was weak."

"She could have married almost anybody," said Maria, gathering up the despised set of books. She was very glad of them to fill up the small bamboo bookcase in her own room, and, beside, she did not share her aunt's animosity to Shakespeare. She purchased some handkerchiefs for her aunt, with the covert view of recompensing her for the loss of Ida's present, and Aunt Maria was delighted with them.

"If she had had the sense to send me half a dozen handkerchiefs like these," said she, "I should have thanked her. Anybody in their senses would rather have half a dozen nice handkerchiefs than a set of Shakespeare. That is, if they said just what they meant. I know some folks would be ashamed of not thinking much of Shakespeare. As for me, I say what I mean." Aunt Maria tossed her head as she spoke.

She grew daily more like her brother Henry. The family traits in each became more accentuated. Each posed paradoxically as not being a poser. Aunt Maria spoke her mind so freely and arrogantly that she was not much of a favorite in Amity, although she commanded a certain measure of respect from her strenuous exertions at her own trumpet, which more than half-convinced people of the accuracy of her own opinion of herself. Sometimes Maria herself was irritated by her aunt, but she loved her dearly. She was always aware, too, of Aunt Maria's unspoken, but perfect approbation and admiration for herself, Maria, and of a certain sympathy for her, which the elder woman had the delicacy never to speak of. She had become aware that Maria, while she repulsed George Ramsey, was doing so for reasons which she could not divine, and that she suffered because of it.

One afternoon, not long after Christmas, when Maria returned from school, almost the first words which her aunt said to her were, "I do hate to see a young man made a fool of."

Maria turned pale, and looked at her aunt.

"George Ramsey went past here sleigh-riding with Lily Merrill a little while ago," said Aunt Maria. "That girl's making a fool of him!"

"Lily is a nice girl, Aunt Maria," Maria said, faintly.

"Nice enough, but she can't come up to him. She never can. And when one can't come up, the other has to go down. I've seen it too many times not to know. There's sleigh-bells now. I guess it's them coming back. Yes, it is."

Maria did not glance out of the window, and the sleigh, with its singing bells, flew past. She went wearily up to her own room, and removed her wraps before supper. Maria had a tiny coal-stove in her room now, and that was a great comfort to her. She could get away by herself, when she chose, and sometimes the necessity for so doing was strong upon her. She wished to think, without Aunt Maria's sharp eyes upon her, searching her thoughts. Emotion in Maria was reaching its high-water mark; the need for concealing, lest it be profaned by other eyes, was over her. Maria felt, although she was conscious of her aunt's covert sympathy for something that troubled her which she did not know about, and grateful for it, that she should die of shame if Aunt Maria did know. After supper that night she returned to her own room. She said she had some essays to correct.

"Well, I guess I'll step into the other side a minute," said Aunt Maria. "Eunice went to the sewing-meeting this afternoon, and I want to know what they put in that barrel for that minister out West. I don't believe they had enough to half fill it. Of all the things they sent the last time, there wasn't anything fit to be seen."

Maria seated herself in her own room, beside her tiny stove. She had a pink shade on her lamp, which stood on her little centre-table. The exercises were on the table, but she had not touched them when she heard doors opening and shutting below, then a step on the stairs.

She knew at once it was Lily. Her room door opened, after a soft knock, and Lily glided gracefully in.

"I knew you were up here, dear," she said. "I saw your light, and I saw your aunt's sitting-room lamp go out."

"Aunt Maria has only gone in Uncle Henry's side. Sit down, Lily,"

said Maria, rising and returning Lily's kiss, and placing a chair for her.

"Does she always put her lamp out when she goes in there?" asked Lily with innocent wonder.

"Yes," replied Maria, rather curtly. That was one of poor Aunt Maria's petty economies, and she was sensitive with regard to it. A certain starvation of character, which had resulted from the lack of material wealth, was evident in Aunt Maria, and her niece recognized the fact with exceeding pity, and a sense of wrong at the hands of Providence.

"How very funny," said Lily.

Maria said nothing. Lily had seated herself in the chair placed for her, and as usual had at once relapsed into a pose which would have done credit to an artist's model, a pose of which she was innocently conscious. She cast approving glances at the graceful folds of crimson cashmere which swept over her knees; she extended one little foot in its pointed shoe; she raised her arms with a gesture peculiar to her and placed them behind her head in such a fashion that she seemed to embrace herself. Lily in crimson cashmere, which lent its warm glow to her tender cheeks, and even seemed to impart a rosy reflection to the gloss of her hair, was ravishing. To-night, too, her face wore a new expression, one of triumphant tenderness, which caused her to look fairly luminous.

"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" she said.

"Very pleasant," said Maria.

"Did you know I went sleigh-riding this afternoon?"

"Did you?"

"Yes; George took me out."

"That was nice," said Maria.

"We went to Wayland. The sleighing is lovely."

"I thought it looked so," said Maria.

"It is. Say, Maria!"

"Well?"

"He said things to me this afternoon that sounded as if he did mean them. He did, really."

"Did he?"

"Do you want me to tell you?" asked Lily, eying Maria happily and yet a little timidly.

Maria straightened herself. "If you want to know what I really think, Lily," she said, "I think no girl should repeat anything a man says to her, if she does think he really means it. I think it is between the two. I think it should be held sacred. I think the girl cheapens it by repeating it, and I don't think it is fair to the man. I don't care to hear what Mr. Ramsey said, if you want the truth, Lily."

Lily looked abashed. "I dare say you are right, Maria," she said, meekly. "I won't repeat anything he said if you don't think I ought, and don't want to hear it."

"Is your new dress done?" asked Maria, abruptly.

"It is going to be finished this week," said Lily. "Do you think I am horrid, proposing to tell you what he said, Maria?"

"No, only I don't care to hear any more about it."