Most of her father's earnings went for drink, and Gladys's mother was openly known to take in washing to make both ends meet, and keep the girl at school at all; moreover, she herself came of one of the poor white families which flourish in New Jersey as well as at the South, although in less numbers.

Gladys's mother was rather a marvel, inasmuch as she was willing to take in washing, and do it well too, but Gladys had no higher rank for that.

She was herself rather a pathetic little soul, dingily pretty, using the patois of her kind, and always at the fag end of her classes.

Her education, so far, seemed to meet with no practical results in the child herself.

Her brain merely filtered learning like a sieve; but she thought Maria Edgham was a wonder, and it was really through her, and her alone, that she obtained any education.
"What makes you always say 'have went' ?" Maria would inquire, with a half-kindly, half-supercilious glance at her satellite.
"What had I ought to say," Gladys would inquire, meekly--"have came ?" "Have gone," replied Maria, with supreme scorn.
"Then when my mother has came home shall I say she has gone ?" inquired Gladys, with positive abjectness.
"Gladys, you are such a ninny," said Maria.