“Maria,” said Harry, bluntly, “your mother and I have been talking about your going away to school.”

Maria turned slightly pale and continued to stare at him, but she said nothing.

“She thinks, and I don’t know but she is right,” said Harry, with painful loyalty, “that your associates here are not just the proper ones for you, and that it would be much better for you to go to boarding-school.”

“How much would it cost?” asked Maria, in a dazed voice.  The question sounded like her own mother.

“Father can manage that; you need not trouble yourself about that,” replied Harry, hurriedly.

“Where?” said Maria, then.

“To a nice school where your mother was educated.”

“My mother?”

“Ida—­to Wellbridge Hall.”

“How often should I come home and see you and Evelyn?  Every week?”

“I am afraid not, dear,” said Harry, uneasily.

“How long are the terms?” asked Maria.

“Only about twelve weeks,” said Ida.

Maria stood staring from one to the other.  Her face had turned deadly pale, and had, moreover, taken on an expression of despair and isolation.  Somehow, although the little girl was only a few feet from the others, she had a look as if she were leagues off, as if she were outside something vital, which removed her, in fact, to immeasurable distances.  And, in fact, Maria had a feeling which never afterwards wholly left her, of being outside the love of life in which she had hitherto dwelt with confidence.

“Maybe you would like it, dear,” Harry said, feebly.

“I will go,” Maria said, in a choking voice.  Then she turned without another word and went out of the room, up-stairs to her own little chamber.  When there she sat down beside the window.  She did not think.  She did not seem to feel her hands and feet.  It was as if she had fallen from a height.  The realization that her father and his new wife wanted to send her away, that she was not wanted in her home, stunned her.

But in a moment the door was flung open and her father entered.  He knelt down beside Maria and pulled her head to his shoulder and kissed her, and she felt with a sort of dull wonder his face damp against her own.

“Father’s little girl!” said Harry.  “Father’s own little girl!  Father’s blessing!  Did she think he wanted to send her away?  I rather guess he didn’t.  How would father get along without his own precious baby, when he came home at night.  She shan’t go one step.  She needn’t fret a bit about it.”

Maria turned and regarded him with a frozen look still on her face.  “It was She that wanted me to go?” she said, interrogatively.

“She thought maybe it would be best for you, darling,” said Harry.  “She means to do right by you, Maria; you must try to think so.”

Maria said nothing.

“But father isn’t going to let you go,” said Harry.  “He can’t do without his little girl.”