“Take care of the stairs, and do not fall,” Harry said.

He himself held the light for her, until she was safely down, and the outer door had closed after her.

“The fresh air will wake her up,” he said, laughing.  “Not very lively company, is she, dear?”

“No, sir,” replied Maria, simply.

Harry looked lovingly at her, then his eyes fell on the door of the room which had been papered that day.  It occurred to him to go in and see how the new paper looked.

“Come in with father, and let’s see the improvements,” he said, in a gay voice, to Maria.

Maria followed him into the room.  It would have been difficult to say whether triumphant malice and daring, or fear, prevailed in her heart.

Harry, carrying the lamp, entered the room, with Maria slinking at his heels.  The first thing he saw was the torn paper.

“Hullo!” said he.  He approached the bay-window with his lamp.  “Confound those paperers!” he said.

For a minute Maria did not say a word.  She was not exactly struggling with temptation; she had inherited too much from her mother’s Puritan ancestry to make the question of a struggle possible when the duty of truth stared her, as now, in the face.  She simply did not speak at once because the thing appeared to her stupendous, and nobody, least of all a child, but has a threshold of preparation before stupendous things.

“They haven’t half put the paper on,” said her father.  “Didn’t half paste it, I suppose.  You can’t trust anybody unless you are right at their heels.  Confound ’em!  There, I’ve got to go round and blow ’em up to-morrow, before I go to the city.”

Then Maria spoke.  “I tore that paper off, father,” said she.

Harry turned and stared at her.  His face went white.  For a second he thought the child was out of her senses.

“What?” he said.

“I tore that paper off,” repeated Maria.

“You?  Why?”

The double question seemed to hit the child like a pistol-shot, but she did not flinch.

“Mother never had paper as pretty as this,” she said, “nor new furniture.”  Her eyes met her father’s with indescribable reproach.

Harry looked at her with almost horror.  For the moment the child’s eyes looked like her dead mother’s, her voice sounded like her’s.  He continued gazing at her.

“I couldn’t bear it,” said Maria.  “She” [she meant Mrs. Addix] “was asleep.  I was all alone.  I got to thinking.  I came in here and tore it off.”

Harry heaved a deep sigh.  He did not look nor was he in the least angry.

“I know your poor mother didn’t have much,” said he.  He sighed again.  Then he put his arm around Maria and kissed her.  “You can have your room newly papered now, if you want it,” said he, in a choking voice.  “Father will send you over to Ellisville to-morrow with Mrs. White, and you can pick out some paper your own self, and father will have it put right on.”