“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.