By the Light of the Soul | Page 6

You must have been a sight for the folks who sat behind you. Well, it serves you right. Stand round here."
"I am sorry," said Maria then. She wondered whether the wrong fastening had showed much through the slats of the settee.
Her mother unfastened, with fingers that were at once gentle and nervous, the pearl buttons on the back of the dress. "Take your arms out," said she to Maria. Maria cast a glance at the window. "There's nobody out there but your father," said Mrs. Edgham, harshly, "take your arms out."
Maria took her arms out of the fluffy mass and stood revealed in her little, scantily trimmed underwaist, a small, childish figure, with the utmost delicacy of articulation as to shoulder-blades and neck. Maria was thin to the extreme, but her bones were so small that she was charming even in her thinness. Her little, beautifully modelled arms were as charming as a fairy's.
"Now slip off your skirt," ordered her mother, and Maria complied and stood in her little white petticoat, with another glance of the exaggerated modesty of little girlhood at the window.
"Now," said her mother, "you go and hang this up in the kitchen where it is warm, on that nail on the outside door, and maybe some of the creases will come out. I've heard they would. I hope so, for I've got about all I want to do without ironing this dress all over."
Maria gazed at her mother with sudden compunction and anxious love. After all, she loved her mother down to the depths of her childish heart; it was only that long custom had so inured her to the loving that she did not always realize the warmth of her heart because of it. "Do you feel sick to-night mother?" she whispered.
"No sicker than usual," replied her mother. Then she drew the delicate little figure close to her, and kissed her with a sort of passion. "May the Lord look out for you," she said, "if you should happen to outlive me! I don't know what would become of you, Maria, you are so heedless, wearing your best things every day, and everything."
Maria's face paled. "Mother, you aren't any worse?" said she, in a terrified whisper.
"No, I am not a mite worse. Run along, child, and hang up your dress, then go to bed; it's after nine o'clock."
It did not take much at that time to reassure Maria. She had inherited something of the optimism of her father. She carried her pink dress into the kitchen, with wary eyes upon the windows, and hung it up as her mother had directed. On her return she paused a moment at the foot of the stairs in the hall, between the dining-room and sitting-room. Then, obeying an impulse, she ran into the sitting-room and threw her soft little arms around her mother's neck. "I'm real sorry I wore that dress without asking you, mother," she said. "I won't again, honest."
"Well, I hope you will remember," replied her mother. "If you wear the best you have common you will never have anything." Her tone was chiding, but the look on her face was infinitely caressing. She thought privately that never was such a darling as Maria. She looked at the softly flushed little face, with its topknot of gold, the delicate fairness of the neck, and slender arms, and she had a rapture of something more than possession. The beauty of the child irradiated her very soul, the beauty and the goodness, for Maria never disobeyed but she was sorry afterwards, and somehow glorified faults seem lovelier than cold virtues. "Well, run up-stairs to bed," said she. "Be careful of your lamp."
When Maria was in her own room she set the lamp on the dresser and gazed upon her face reflected in the mirror. That was her nightly custom, and might have been regarded as a sort of fetich worship of self. Nothing, in fact, could have been lovelier than that face of childish innocence and beauty, with the soft rays of the lamp illuminating it. Her blue eyes seemed to fairly give forth light, the soft pink on her cheeks deepened until it was like the heart of a rose. She opened her exquisitely curved lips, and smiled at herself in a sort of ecstasy. She turned her head this way and that in order to get different effects. She pulled the little golden fleece of hair farther over her forehead. She pushed it back, revealing the bold yet delicate outlines of her temples. She thought how glad she should be when her hair was grown. She had had an illness two years before, and her mother had judged it best to have her hair cut short. It was now just long enough to hang over her