“Maria has gone to bed with a headache,” she faltered, before George had time to inquire for her.  Then she added, in response to the young man’s look of astonishment, the little speech which Maria had prepared for her.  “Her aunt has gone out, and so I came over to stay with her.”  Lily was a born actress.  It was not her fault that a little accent of tender pity for Maria in her lonely estate, with her aunt away, and a headache, crept into her voice.  She at the moment almost believed what she said.  It became quite real to her.

“I am sorry Miss Edgham has a headache,” said George, after a barely perceptible second of hesitation, “but, as long as she has, I may as well come in and make you a little call, Lily.”

Lily quivered perceptibly.  She tried to show becoming pride, but failed.  “I should be very happy to have you,” she said, “but—­”

“Well, it is asking you to play second fiddle, and no mistake,” laughed George Ramsey, “for I did think I would make Miss Edgham a little call.  But, after all, the second fiddle is an indispensable thing, and you and I are old friends, Lily.”

He could not help the admiration in his eyes as he looked at Lily.  She carried a little lamp, and the soft light was thrown upon her lovely face, and her brown hair gleamed gold in it.  No man could have helped admiring her.  Lily had never been a very brilliant scholar, but she could read admiration for herself.  She regained her self-possession.

“I don’t mind playing second fiddle,” said she.  “I should be glad if I could play any fiddle.  Come in, Mr. Ramsey.”

“How very formal we have grown!” laughed George, as he took off his coat and hat in the icy little hall.  “Why, don’t you remember we went to school together?  What is the use?”

“George, then,” said Lily.  Her voice seemed to caress the name.

The young man colored.  He was of a stanch sort, but he was a man, and the adulation of such a beautiful girl as this touched him.  He took the lamp out of her hand.

“Come in, then,” he said; “but it is rather funny for me to be calling on you here, isn’t it?”

“Funnier than it would be for you to call on me at my own house,” said Lily, demurely, with a faint accent of reproach.

“Well, I must admit I am not very neighborly,” George replied, with an apologetic air.  “But, you see, I am really busy a good many evenings with accounts, and I don’t go out very much.”

Lily reflected that he had come to call on Maria, in spite of being busy, but she said nothing.  She placed Maria’s vacant chair for him beside the sitting-room stove.

“It is a hard storm,” she said.

“Very.  It is a queer night for Miss Edgham’s aunt to go out, it seems to me.”

“Mrs. Ralph Wright has a tea-party,” said Lily.  “Maria’s aunt Eunice has gone, too.  My mother was invited, but mother never goes out in the evening.”