because she realized the very serious drawback that the persistent presence of a pretty, well-grown daughter might be if a wooer would wish to woo.  She knew perfectly well that if Dr. Ellridge called, Lily would wonder why he called, and would sit all the evening in the same room with her fancy-work, entirely unsuspicious.  Lily might even think he came to see her.  Mrs. Merrill had a measure of slyness and secrecy which her daughter did not inherit.  Lily was not brilliant, but she was as entirely sweet and open as the flower for which she was named.  She was emotional, too, with an innocent emotionlessness, and very affectionate.  Mrs. Merrill made almost no objection to Lily’s going with Maria, but merely told her to wrap up warmly when she went out.  Lily looked charming, with a great fur boa around her long, slender throat, and red velvet roses nestling under the brim of her black hat against the soft puff of her brown hair.  She bent over her mother and kissed her.

“I hope you won’t be very lonesome, mother dear,” she said.

Mrs. Merrill blushed a little.  To-night she had confident hopes of the doctor’s calling; she had even resolved upon a coup.  “Oh no, I shall not be lonesome,” she replied.  “Norah isn’t going out, you know.”

“We shall not be gone long, anyway,” Lily said, as she went out.  She had not even noticed her mother’s blush.  She was not very acute.  She ran across the yard, the dry grass of which shone like a carpet of crisp silver in the moonlight, and knocked on Maria’s door.  Maria answered her knock.  She was all ready, and she had her aunt Eunice’s fish-net bag and her armful of parcels.

“Here, let me take some of them, dear,” said Lily, in her cooing voice, and she gathered up some of the parcels under her long, supple arm.

Maria’s aunt Maria followed her to the door.  “Now, mind you don’t go into that house,” said she.  “Just leave the things and run right home; and if you see anybody who looks suspicious, go right up to a house and knock.  I don’t feel any too safe about you two girls going, anyway.”

Aunt Maria spoke in a harsh, croaking voice; she had a cold.  Maria seized her by the shoulders and pushed her back, laughingly.

“You go straight in the house,” said she.  “And don’t you worry.  Lily and I both have hat-pins, and we can both run, and there’s nothing to be afraid of, anyway.”

“Well, I don’t half like the idea,” croaked Aunt Maria, retreating.

Lily and Maria went on their way.  Lily looked affectionately at her companion, whose pretty face gained a singular purity of beauty from the moonlight.

“How good you are, dear,” she said.

“Nonsense!” replied Maria.  Somehow all at once the consciousness of her secret, which was always with her, like some hidden wound, stung her anew.  She thought suddenly how Lily would not think her good at all if she knew what an enormous secret she was hiding from her, of what duplicity she was guilty.