"Yes. Of course we were walking the same way. He may not really have meant to see me home." There was a sort of innate honesty in Lily which always led her to retrieve the lapses from the strict truth when in her favor. "Maybe he didn't really mean to see me home, and sometimes he didn't offer me his arm," she added, with a childlike wistfulness, as if she desired Maria to rea.s.sure her.

"I dare say he meant to see you home," said Maria, rather shortly.

"I am not quite sure," said Lily. "But he did walk home with me quite a number of times, first and last, and you know we used to go to the same school, and a number of times then, when we were a good deal younger, he really did see me home, and--he kissed me good-night then. Of course he hasn't done that lately, because we were older."

"I should think not, unless you were engaged," said Maria.

"Of course not, but he has said several things to me. Maybe he didn't mean anything, but they sounded--I thought I would like to tell you, Maria. I have never told anybody, not even mother. Once he said my name just suited me, and once he asked me if I thought married people were happier, and once he said he thought it was a doubtful experiment for a man to marry and try to live either with his wife's mother or his own. You know, if he married me, it would have to be one way or the other. Do you think he meant anything, Maria?"

"I don't know," said Maria. "I didn't hear him."

"Well, I thought he spoke as if he meant it, but, of course, a girl can never be sure. I suppose men do say so many things they don't mean. Don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose they do."

"Do you think he did, Maria?" asked Lily, piteously.

"My dear child, I told you I didn't hear him, and I don't see how I can tell," repeated Maria, with a little impatience. It did seem hard to her that she should be so forced into a confidence of this kind, but an odd feeling of protective tenderness for Lily was stealing over her. She reached a certain height of n.o.bility which she had never reached before, through this feeling.

"I know men so often say things when they mean nothing at all," Lily said again. "Perhaps he didn't mean anything. I know he has gone home with Agnes Sears several times, and he has talked to her a good deal when we have been at parties. Do you think she is pretty, Maria?"

"Yes, I think she is quite pretty," replied Maria.

"Do you think--she is better-looking than--I am?" asked Lily, feebly.

"No, of course I don't," said Maria. "You are a perfect beauty."

"Oh, Maria, do you think so?"

"Of course I do! You know it yourself as well as I do."

"No, honest, I am never quite sure, Maria. Sometimes it does seem to me when I am dressed up that I am really better-looking than some girls, but I am never quite sure that it isn't because it is I who am looking at myself. A girl wants to think she is pretty, you know, Maria, especially if she wants anybody to like her, and I can't ever tell."

"Well, you can rest easy about that," said Maria. "You are a perfect beauty. There isn't a girl in Amity to compare with you. You needn't have any doubt at all."

An expression of quite innocent and naive vanity overspread Lily's charming face. She cast a glance at herself in a gla.s.s which hung on the opposite wall, and smiled as a child might have done at her own reflection. "Do you think this green dress is becoming to me?" said she.

"Very."

"But, Maria, do you suppose George Ramsey thinks I am so pretty?"

"I should think he must, if he has eyes in his head," replied Maria.

"But you are pretty yourself, Maria," said Lily, with the most open jealousy and anxiety, "and you are smarter than I am, and he is so smart. I do think he cares a great deal more for you than for me. I think he must, Maria."

"Nonsense!" said Maria. "Just because a young man walks home with me once you think he is in love with me." Maria tried to speak lightly and scornfully, but in spite of herself there was an accent of gratification in her tone. In spite of herself she forgot for the moment.

"I think he does, all the same," said Lily, dejectedly.

"Nonsense! He doesn't; and if he did, he would have to take it out in caring."

"Then you were in earnest about what you said last night?" said Lily, eagerly. "You really mean you wouldn't have George Ramsey if he asked you?"

"Not if he asked every day in the year for a hundred years."

"I guess you must have seen somebody else whom you liked," said Lily, and Maria colored furiously. Then Lily laughed. "Oh, you have!" she cried, with sudden glee. "You are blushing like anything. Do tell me, Maria."

"I have nothing to tell."

"Maria Edgham, you don't dare tell me you are not in love with anybody?"

"I should not answer a question of that kind to any other girl, anyway," Maria replied, angrily.

"You are. I know it," said Lily. "Don't be angry, dear. I am real glad."

"I didn't say I was in love, and there is nothing for you to be glad about," returned Maria, fairly scarlet with shame and rage. She tangled the silk with which she was working, and broke it short off.

Maria was as yet not wholly controlled by herself.

"Why, you'll spoil that daisy," Lily said, wonderingly. She herself was incapable of any such retaliation upon inanimate objects. She would have carefully untangled her silk, no matter how deeply she suffered.

"I don't care if I do!" cried Maria.

"Why, Maria!"

"Well, I don't care. I am fairly sick of so much talk and thinking about love and getting married, as if there were nothing else."

"Maybe you are different, Maria," admitted Lily, in a humiliated fashion.

"I don't want to hear any more about it," Maria said, taking a fresh thread from her skein of white silk.

"But do you mean what you said?"

"Yes, I do, once for all. That settles it."

Lily looked at her wistfully. She did not find Maria as sympathetic as she wished. Then she glanced at her beautiful visage in the gla.s.s, and remembered what the other girl had said about her beauty, and again she smiled her childlike smile of gratified vanity and pleasure. Then suddenly the door-bell rang.

Lily gave a great start, and turned white as she looked at Maria.

"It's George Ramsey," she whispered.

"Nonsense! How do you know?" asked Maria, laying her work on the table beside the lamp, and rising.

"I don't know. I do know."

"Nonsense!" Still Maria stood looking irresolutely at Lily.

"I know," said Lily, and she trembled perceptibly.

"I don't see how you can tell," said Maria. She made a step towards the door.