“I don’t wish to,” replied Maria, trying to pass, but Gladys stood in her way.

“But say, M’ria, you be in an awful box,” said she.  “You can’t never marry nobody else without you get locked up, you know.”

“I don’t want to,” Maria said, shortly.

“Mebbe you will.”

“I never shall.”

“Well, if you do, you had better write to this paper, then you can find out just what to do.  It won’t tell you to do nothin’ wrong, and it’s awful sensible.  Say, M’ria.”

“Well, what?”

“I ’ain’t never told a living soul, and I never shall, but I don’t see what you are goin’ to do if either you or him wants to git married to anybody else.”

“I am not worrying about getting married,” said Maria.  This time she pushed past Gladys.  Her knees fairly knocked together.

Gladys looked at her with sympathy and the old little-girl love and adoration.  “Well, don’t you worry about me tellin’,” said she.

Chapter XVIII

Maria began her teaching on a September day.  It was raining hard, but there was all about an odd, fictitious golden light from the spray of maple-leaves which overhung the village.  Amity was a typical little New England village—­that is, it had departed but little from its original type, although there was now a large plant of paper-mills, which had called in outsiders.  The outsiders were established by themselves on a sort of Tom Tidler’s ground called “Across the River.”  The river was little more than a brook, except in spring, when, after heavy snows, it sometimes verified its name of the Ramsey River.  Ramsey was an old family name in Amity, as Edgham was in Edgham.  Once, indeed, the little village had been called Ramsey Four Corners.  Then the old Ramsey family waned and grew less in popular esteem, and one day the question of the appropriateness of naming the village after them came up.  There was another old family, by the name of Saunders, between whom and the Ramseys had always been a dignified New England feud.  The Saunders had held their own much better than the Ramseys.  There was one branch especially, to which Judge Josiah Saunders belonged, which was still notable.  Judge Josiah had served in the State legislature, he was a judge of the superior court, and he occupied the best house in Amity, a fine specimen of the old colonial mansion house, which had been in the Saunders family for generations.  Judge Saunders had made additions to this old mansion, conservative, modern colonial additions, and it was really a noble building.  It was shortly after he had made the additions to his house, and had served his first term as judge of the superior court, that the question of changing the name of the village from Ramsey Four Corners to Saunders had been broached.  Meetings had been held, in which the name of our celebrated townsman, the Honorable Josiah Saunders, had been on every tongue.  The Ramsey family obtained scant