Adah Maria Gordon was, as she supposed, her real name, so in her note to Mrs.Ellsworth she signed herself "Maria Gordon," omitting the Adah, which might lead to her being recognized.

From her little girl Mrs.Ellsworth had heard much of the sweet young lady, who was so kind to her on the boat, and was thus already prepossessed in her favor.
Adah did not tell Dr.Richards, and perhaps she did not herself know how surprised and delighted Mrs.Ellsworth was with the fair, girlish creature, announced to her as Miss Gordon, and who won her heart before five minutes were gone, making her think it of no consequence to inquire concerning her at Madam -- --'s school, where she said she had been a pupil.
"My sister must have been there at the same time," Mrs.Ellsworth had said.

"Perhaps you remember her, Augusta Stanley ?" Yes, Miss Gordon remembered her well, but added modestly: "She may have forgotten me, as I was only a day scholar, and--not--not quite her circle.

I was poor." Charmed with her frankness, Mrs.Ellsworth decided in her own mind to take her, but, for form's sake, she would write to her sister Augusta, recently married, and living in Milwaukee.
"Your first name is Maria," she said, taking out her pencil to write it down.
Adah could not tell a lie, and she replied unhesitatingly: "No, ma'am; my name is Adah Maria, but I prefer being called Maria." Mrs.Ellsworth nodded, wrote down "Adah Maria Gordon," but in the letter sent that day to Augusta, merely spoke of her governess in prospect as a Miss Gordon, who had been at the same school with Augusta, asking if she remembered her.
Yes, Augusta remembered Miss Gordon, well, a brown-eyed, sweet-faced, conscientious little creature whom she liked so much, and whose services her sister had better secure.
Mrs.Ellsworth hesitated no longer, and ten days after the receipt of this letter, Adah was duly installed as governess to the delighted little Jennie, who learned to love her gentle teacher with a love almost amounting to idolatry.
"You were in Europe then, and that is the reason why we could not find you," Dr.Richards said, adding, after a moment: "And Irving Stanley went with you--was your companion all the while ?" "Yes, all the while," and Adah's cold fingers worked nervously at the wisp of hay she was twisting in her hand.

"I had seen him before--he was in the cars when Willie and I were on our way to Terrace Hill.