"I know I did do a dreadful thing," moaned Lily.

Then Maria pressed the clinging arm under her own.

"Well," said she, as she might have spoken to a child, "if I were you I would not think any more about it, Lily, I would put it out of my mind. Only, I would not, if I were you, and really wanted a young man to care for me, let him think I was running after him."

As she said the last, Maria paled. She glanced at Lily's beautiful face under the veil, and realized that it might be very easy for any young man to care for such a girl, who had, in reality, a sweet nature, besides beauty, if she only adopted the proper course to win him, and that it was obviously her (Maria's) duty to teach her to win him.

"I know it. I won't again," Lily said, humbly.

The two girls walked on; they had crossed the bridge. Suddenly Lily plucked up a little spirit.

"Say, Maria," said she.

"What is it, dear?"

"I just happened to think. Mother was asked to tea to Mrs. Ralph Wright's to-night, but she isn't going. Is your aunt going?"

"Yes, I believe she is," said Maria.

"She won't be home before eight o'clock, will she?"

"No, I don't suppose she will. They are to have tea at six, I believe."

"Then I am coming over after mother and I have tea. I have something I want to tell you."

"All right, dear," replied Maria, hesitatingly.

When Maria got home she found her aunt Maria all dressed, except for her collar-fastening. She was waiting for Maria to attend to that.

Her thin gray-blond hair was beautifully crimped, and she wore her best black silk dress. She was standing by the sitting-room window when Maria entered.

"I am glad you have come, Maria," said she. "I have been standing quite awhile. You are late."

"Yes, I am rather late," replied Maria. "But why on earth didn't you sit down?"

"Do you suppose I am going to sit down more than I can help in this dress?" said her aunt. "There is nothing hurts a silk dress more than sitting down in it. Now if you will hook my collar, Maria. I can do it, but I don't like to strain the seams by reaching round, and I didn't want to trail this dress down the cellar stairs to get Eunice to fasten it up." Aunt Maria bewailed the weather in a deprecating fashion while Maria was fastening the collar at the back of her skinny neck. "I never want to find fault with the weather," said she, "because, of course, the weather is regulated by Something higher than we are, and it must be for our best good, but I do hate to wear this dress out in such a storm, and I don't dare wear my cashmere.

Mrs. Ralph Wright is so particular she would be sure to think I didn't pay her proper respect."

"You can wear my water-proof," said Maria. "I didn't wear it to-day, you know. I didn't think the snow would do this dress any harm. The water-proof will cover you all up."

"Well, I suppose I can, and can pin my skirt up," said Aunt Maria, in a resigned tone. "I don't want to find fault with the weather, but I do hate to pin up a black silk skirt."

"You can turn it right up around your waist, and fasten the braid to your belt, and then it won't hurt it," said Maria, consolingly.

"Well, I suppose I can. Your supper is all ready, Maria. There's bread and b.u.t.ter, and chocolate cake, and some oysters. I thought you wouldn't mind making yourself a little stew. I couldn't make it before you came, because it wouldn't be fit to eat. You know how. Be sure the milk is hot before you put the oysters in. There is a good fire."

"Oh yes, I know how. Don't you worry about me," said Maria, turning up her aunt's creaseless black silk skirt gingerly. It was rather incomprehensible to her that anybody should care so much whether a black silk skirt was creased or not, when the terrible undertone of emotions which underline the world, and are its creative motive, were in existence, but Maria was learning gradually to be patient with the small worries of others which seemed large to them, and upon which she herself could not place much stress. She stood at the window, when her aunt at last emerged from the house, and picked her way through the light snow, and her mouth twitched a little at the absurd, shapeless figure. Her Aunt Eunice had joined her, and she was not so shapeless. She held up her dress quite fashionably on one side, with a rather generous display of slender legs. Aunt Maria did not consider that her sister-in-law was quite careful enough of her clothes. "Henry won't always be earning," she often said to Maria.

To-day she had eyed with disapproval Eunice's best black silk trailing from under her cape, when she entered the sitting-room. She had come through the cellar.

"Are you going that way, in such a storm, in your best black silk?"

she inquired.

"I haven't any water-proof," replied Eunice, "and I don't see what else I can do."

"You might wear my old shawl spread out."

"I wouldn't go through the street cutting such a figure," said Eunice, with one of her occasional bursts of spirit. She was delighted to go. n.o.body knew how this meek, elderly woman loved a little excitement. There were red spots on her thin cheeks, and she looked almost as if she had used rouge. Her eyes snapped.

"I should think you would turn your skirt up, anyway," said Aunt Maria. "You've got your black petticoat on, haven't you?"

"Yes," replied Eunice. "But if you think I am going right through the Main Street in my petticoat, you are mistaken. Snow won't hurt the silk any. It's a dry snow, and it will shake right off."

So Eunice, at the side of Aunt Maria, went with her dress kilted high, and looked as preternaturally slim as her sister-in-law looked stout. Maria, watching them, thought how funny they were. She herself was elemental, and they, in their desires and interests, were like motes floating on the face of the waters. Maria, while she had always like pretty clothes, had come to a pa.s.s wherein she relegated them to their proper place. She recognized many things as externals which she had heretofore considered as essentials. She had developed wonderfully in a few months. As she turned away from the window she caught a glimpse of Lily Merrill's lovely face in a window of the opposite house, above a ma.s.s of potted geraniums. Lily nodded, and smiled, and Maria nodded back again. Her heart sank at the idea of Lily's coming that evening, a sickening jealous dread of the confidence which she was to make to her was over her, and yet she said to herself that she had no right to have this dread. She prepared her supper and ate it, and had hardly cleared away the table and washed the dishes before Lily came flying across the yard before the storm-wind. Maria hurried to the door to let her in.

"Your aunt went, didn't she?" said Lily, entering, and shaking the flakes of snow from her skirts.

"Yes."

"I don't see why mother wouldn't go. Mother never goes out anywhere, and she isn't nearly as old as your aunts."

Lily and Maria seated themselves in the sitting-room before the stove. Lily looked at Maria, and a faint red overspread her cheeks.

She began to speak, then she hesitated, and evidently said something which she had not intended.

"How pretty that is!" she said, pointing to a great oleander-tree in flower, which was Aunt Maria's pride.

"Yes, I think it is pretty."

"Lovely. The very prettiest one I ever saw." Lily hesitated again, but at last she began to speak, with the red on her cheeks brighter and her eyes turned away from Maria. "I wanted to tell you something, Maria," said she.

"Well?" said Maria. Her own face was quite pale and motionless. She was doing some fancy-work, embroidering a centre-piece, and she continued to take careful st.i.tches.

"I know you thought I was awful, doing the way I did last night,"

said Lily, in her sweet murmur. She drooped her head, and the flush on her oval cheeks was like the flush on a wild rose. Lily wore a green house-dress, which set her off as the leaves and stem set off a flower. It was of some soft material which clung about her and displayed her tender curves. She wore at her throat an old cameo brooch which had belonged to her grandmother, and which had upon its onyx background an ivory head as graceful as her own. Maria, beside Lily, although she herself was very pretty, looked ordinary in her flannel blouse and black skirt, which was her school costume.

Maria continued taking careful st.i.tches in the petals of a daisy which she was embroidering. "I think we have talked enough about it,"

she said.

"But I want to tell you something."

"Why don't you tell it, then?"

"I know you thought I did something awful, running across the yard and coming here in the night the way I did, and showing you that I--I, well, that I minded George Ramsey's coming home with you; but--look here, Maria, I--had a little reason."

Maria paled perceptibly, but she kept on steadily with her work.

Lily flushed more deeply. "George Ramsey has been home with me from evening meeting quite a number of times," she said.

"Has he?" said Maria.