The thought flashed across her mind, what is she should marry Wollaston at the same time her father married Miss Slome?
That would be a happy and romantic solution of the affair.

She colored sweetly, and smiled, but the boy scowled at her.
"Say ?" he said.
Maria trembled a little.

She was surprised.
"What ?" she asked.
"Your father is the meanest man in this town, he is the meanest in New Jersey, he is the meanest man in the whole United States, he is the meanest man in the whole world." Again the boy scowled at Maria, who did not understand; but she would not have her father reviled.
"He isn't, so there!" she said.
"He's going to marry teacher." "I don't see as he is mean if he is," said Maria, forced into justice by injustice.
"I was going to marry her myself, if she'd only waited, and he hadn't butted in," said Wollaston.
The boy gave one last scowl at the little girl, and it was as if he scowled at all womanhood in her.

Then he gave a fling away, and ran like a wild thing across the field of golden-rod and queen's-lace.
Maria, watching, saw him throw himself down prone in the midst of the wild-flowers, and she understood that he was crying because the teacher was going to marry her father.

She went on, walking like a little old woman, and she had a feeling as if she had found a road in the world that led outside all love..