“She can’t.  She don’t know my name.”

Maurice felt as if privacy were being pulled away from his soul, as skin might be flayed from living flesh.  “But you see,” he began, huskily, “there’s a—­a girl who lives with us; and she—­she mentioned your name.”  Then, cringing, he told her about Edith.

Lily looked blankly puzzled; then she remembered; “Why, yes, sure enough!  It was right at the gate—­oh, as much as four years ago; I slipped, and she grabbed Jacky.  Yes; it comes back to me; she told me she seen me the time we got ducked.  ’Course, I gave her the glassy eye, and said I didn’t remember the gentleman in the boat with her.  And she caught on that I lived here?  Well, now, ain’t the world small?”

“Damned small,” Maurice said, dryly.

“Say,” said Jacky, from the doorway, “I got a—­”

“Well, she—­I mean this young lady—­told my—­ah, wife that you lived on Maple Street, and—­” He was stammering with angry embarrassment; Lily gave a cluck of dismay.  “Confound it!” said Maurice; “what’ll we do?”

“Now, don’t you worry!” Lily said, cheerfully.  “If she ever speaks to me again, I’ll say, ‘Why, you have the advantage of me!’”

Her mincing politeness made him laugh, in spite of his irritation.  “I think you’d like it in New York?” he urged.

Lily’s amber eyes were full of sympathy—­but she was firm:  “I wouldn’t live in New York for anything!”

“Mr. Gem’man,” said Jacky, sidling crabwise into the room to the shelter of his mother’s skirt; “I—­”

“Say, now, Sweety, be quiet!  No, Mr. Curtis; I only go into real good society, and I’ve always heard that New York ladies ain’t what they should be.  And, besides, I want a garden for Jacky.  I’ll tell you what I’ll do!  I’ll take the top flat in that house on Ash Street.  It has three little rooms I could let.  There’s a widow lady’s been asking me to go in on it with her; it has a garden back of it Jacky could play in—­last summer there was a reg’lar hedge of golden glow inside the fence!  Mr. Curtis, you’d ‘a’ laughed!  He pinched an orange off a hand-cart yesterday, just as cute!  ’Course I gave him a good slap, and paid the man; but I had to laugh, he was so smart.  And he’s got going now, on God—­since I’ve been paying him to say his prayers.  Well, I suppose I’ll have to be going to church one of these days,” she said, resignedly.  “The questions he asks about God are something fierce! I don’t know how to answer ’em.  Crazy to know what God eats—­I told him bad boys.”

“Lily, I don’t think—­Thunder and guns!” said Maurice, leaping to his feet and rubbing his ankle; “Lily, call him off!  The little wretch put his teeth into me!”

Lily, horrified, slapped her son, who explained, bawling, “Well, b-b-but he didn’t let on he heard me tellin’ him that I—­”

“I felt you,” Maurice said, laughing; “Gosh, Lily!  He’s cut his eyeteeth—­I’ll say that for him!” He poked Jacky with the toe of his boot, good-naturedly:  “Don’t howl, Jacobus.  Sorry I hurt your feelings.  Lily, what I was going to say was, I don’t believe that Ash Street place is what you want?”