“Slippers,” answered Lily, meekly.  Then she clung to Maria and began to sob hysterically.

“Come, Lily Merrill, you just stop this and get into bed,” said Maria.  She unwound Lily’s shawl, pulled off her skirt, and fairly forced her into bed.  Then she got in beside her.  “What on earth is the matter?” she asked again.

Lily’s arm came stealing around her and Lily’s cold, wet cheek touched her face.  “Oh, Maria!” she sobbed, under her breath.

“Well, what is it all about?”

“Oh, Maria, are—­are you—­”

“Am I what?”

“Are you going with him?”

“With whom?”

“With George—­with George Ramsey?” A long, trembling sob shook Lily.

“I am going with nobody,” answered Maria, in a hard voice.

“But he came home with you.  I saw him; I did, Maria.”  Lily sobbed again.

“Well, what of it?” asked Maria, impatiently.  “I didn’t care anything about his going home with me.”

“Didn’t he come in?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Didn’t you—­ask him?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Maria.”

“Well, what?”

“Maria, aren’t you going to marry him if he asks you?”

“No,” said Maria, “I am never going to marry him, if that is what you want to know.  I am never going to marry George Ramsey.”

Lily sobbed.

“I should think you would be ashamed of yourself.  I should think any girl would, acting so,” said Maria.  Her voice was a mere whisper, but it was cruel.  She felt that she hated Lily.  Then she realized how icy cold the girl was and how she trembled from head to feet in a nervous chill.  “You’ll catch your death,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t care if I do!” Lily said, in her hysterical voice, which had now a certain tone of comfort.

Maria considered again how much she despised and hated her, and again Lily shook with a long tremor.  Maria got up and tiptoed over to her closet, where she kept a little bottle of wine which the doctor had ordered when she first came to Amity.  It was not half emptied.  A wineglass stood on the mantel-shelf, and Maria filled it with the wine by the light of the moon.  Then she returned to Lily.

“Here,” she said, still in the same cruel voice.  “Sit up and drink this.”

“What is it?” moaned Lily.

“Never mind what it is.  Sit up and drink it.”

Lily sat up and obediently drank the wine, every drop.

“Now lie down and keep still, and go to sleep, and behave yourself,” said Maria.

Lily tried to say something, but Maria would not listen to her.

“Don’t you speak another word,” said she.  “Keep still, or Aunt Maria will be up.  Lie still and go to sleep.”

It was not long before, warmed by the wine and comforted by Maria’s assertion that she was never going to marry George Ramsey, that Lily fell asleep.  Maria lay awake hearing her long, even breaths, and she felt how she hated her, how she hated herself, how she hated life.  There was no sleep for her.  Just before dawn she woke Lily, bundled her up in some extra clothing, and went with her across the yard, home.