"There's nobody out there but your father," said Mrs.Edgham, harshly, "take your arms out." Maria took her arms out of the fluffy mass and stood revealed in her little, scantily trimmed underwaist, a small, childish figure, with the utmost delicacy of articulation as to shoulder-blades and neck.
Maria was thin to the extreme, but her bones were so small that she was charming even in her thinness.

Her little, beautifully modelled arms were as charming as a fairy's.
"Now slip off your skirt," ordered her mother, and Maria complied and stood in her little white petticoat, with another glance of the exaggerated modesty of little girlhood at the window.
"Now," said her mother, "you go and hang this up in the kitchen where it is warm, on that nail on the outside door, and maybe some of the creases will come out.

I've heard they would.

I hope so, for I've got about all I want to do without ironing this dress all over." Maria gazed at her mother with sudden compunction and anxious love.
After all, she loved her mother down to the depths of her childish heart; it was only that long custom had so inured her to the loving that she did not always realize the warmth of her heart because of it.

"Do you feel sick to-night mother ?" she whispered.
"No sicker than usual," replied her mother.