“That is so,” said Eunice. “It doesn't make any difference if they are so distantly related. It is the same name and the same blood.”
Henry Stillman laughed his sardonic laugh. “You can't expect the flowers to look out for the weeds,” he said. “George Ramsey and his mother are in full blossom; they have fixed up their house and are holding up their heads. You can't expect them to look out for poor relations who have gone to the bad, and done worse—got too poor to buy clothes enough to keep warm.”
Maria suddenly sprang to her feet. “I know what I am going to do,” she announced, with decision, and made for the door.
“What on earth are you going to do?” asked her aunt Maria.
“I am going straight in there, and I am going to tell them how that poor little thing came to school to-day, and tell them they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
Before the others fairly realized what she was doing, Maria was out of the house, running across the little stretch which intervened. Her aunt Maria called after her, but she paid no attention. She was at that moment ringing the Ramsey bell, with her pretty, uncovered hair tossing in the December wind.
“She will catch her own death of cold,” said Aunt Maria, “running out without anything on her head.”
“She will just get patronized for her pains,” said Eunice, who had a secret grudge against the Ramseys for their prosperity and their renovated house, a grudge which she had not ever owned to her inmost self, but which nevertheless existed.
“She doesn't stop to think one minute; she's just like her father about that,” said Aunt Maria.
Henry Stillman said nothing. He took up his paper, which he had been reading when Maria and his sister entered.