“I guess maybe father is making more money now,” said she.
“Well, I hope to the land he is,” said Aunt Maria. “I guess if She (Aunt Maria also treated Ida like a pronoun) had just one hundred dollars and no more to get along with, she'd have to do different.”
Maria regained her strength rapidly. When she went home, a few days before her school begun, in September, she was quite rosy and blooming. She had also fallen in love with a boy who lived next to Aunt Maria, and who asked her, over the garden fence, to correspond with him, the week before she left.
It was that very night that Aunt Maria had the telegram. She paid the boy, then she opened it with trembling fingers. Her brother Henry and Maria were with her on the porch. It was a warm night, and Aunt Maria wore an ancient muslin. The south wind fluttered the ruffles on that and the yellow telegram as she read. She was silent a moment, with mouth compressed.
“Well,” said her brother Henry, inquiringly.
Aunt Maria's face flushed and paled. She turned to Maria.
“Well,” she said, “you've got a little sister.”
“Good!” said Uncle Henry. “Ever so much more company for you than a little brother would have been, Maria.”
Maria was silent. She trembled and felt cold, although the night was so warm.
“Weighs seven pounds,” said Aunt Maria, in a hard voice.