And Lillie put her white arm round his neck, and her downy cheek to his, and said archly, “Come, now, confess.”

Then John told her that she was a bad, naughty girl; and she laughed; and, on the whole, the pair were more hilarious and loving than usual.

But yet, when John was away at his office, he thought of it again, and found there was still a sore spot in his heart.

She had cheated him once; would she cheat him again?  And she could cheat so prettily, so serenely, and with such a candid face, it was a dangerous talent.

No:  she wasn’t like his mother, he thought with a sigh.  The “je ne sais quoi de saint et de sacre,” which had so captivated his imagination, did not cover the saintly and sacred nature; it was a mere outward purity of complexion and outline.  And then Grace,—­she must not be left to find out what he knew about Lillie.  He had told Grace that she was only twenty,—­told it on her authority; and now must he become an accomplice?  If called on to speak of his wife’s age, must he accommodate the truth to her story, or must he palter and evade?  Here was another brick laid on the wall of separation between his sister and himself.  It was rising daily.  Here was another subject on which he could never speak frankly with Grace; for he must defend Lillie,—­every impulse of his heart rushed to protect her.

But it is a terrible truth, and one that it will not hurt any of us to bear in mind, that our judgments of our friends are involuntary.

We may long with all our hearts to confide; we may be fascinated, entangled, and wish to be blinded; but blind we cannot be.  The friend that has lied to us once, we may long to believe; but we cannot.  Nay, more; it is the worse for us, if, in our desire to hold the dear deceiver in our hearts, we begin to chip and hammer on the great foundations of right and honor, and to say within ourselves, “After all, why be so particular?” Then, when we have searched about for all the reasons and apologies and extenuations for wrong-doing, are we sure that in our human weakness we shall not be pulling down the moral barriers in ourselves?  The habit of excusing evil, and finding apologies, and wishing to stand with one who stands on a lower moral plane, is not a wholesome one for the soul.

As fate would have it, the very next day after this little scene, who should walk into the parlor where Lillie, John, and Grace were sitting, but that terror of American democracy, the census-taker.  Armed with the whole power of the republic, this official steps with elegant ease into the most sacred privacies of the family.  Flutterings and denials are in vain.  Bridget and Katy and Anne, no less than Seraphina and Isabella, must give up the critical secrets of their lives.

John took the paper into the kitchen.  Honest old Bridget gave in her age with effrontery as “twinty-five.”  Anne giggled and flounced, and declared on her word she didn’t know,—­they could put it down as they liked.  “But, Anne, you must tell, or you may be sent to jail, you know.”