George himself felt tremulous, and also astonished and vexed with himself.  He had certainly not meant to kiss Lily Merrill.  But it flashed across his mind that she would not think anything of it, that he had kissed her often when they were children, and it was the same thing now.  As he went away he glanced back at the lighted windows, and a man’s shadow was quite evident.  He wondered who was calling on Lily’s mother, and then wondered, with a slight shadow of jealousy, if it could be some one who had come to see Lily herself.  He reflected, as he went homeward through the storm, that a girl as pretty as Lily ought to have some one worthy of her.  He went over in his mind, as he puffed his cigar, all the young men in Amity, and it did not seem to him that any one of them was quite the man for her.

When he reached home he found his mother already there, warming herself by the sitting-room register.  She had gone to the tea-party in a carriage (George would not have her walk), but she was chilled.  She was a delicate, pretty woman.  She looked up, shivering, as George entered.

“Where have you been, dear?” she asked.

George laughed, and colored a little.  “Well, mother, I went to see one young lady and saw another,” he replied.

Just then the maid came in with some hot chocolate, which Mrs. Ramsey always drank before she went to bed, and she asked no more questions until the girl had gone; then she resumed the conversation.

“What do you mean, dear?” she inquired, looking over the rim of the china cup at her son, with a slight, anxious contraction of her forehead.

“Well, I felt a little lonely after you went, mother, and I had nothing especial to do, and it occurred to me that I would go over and call on our neighbor.”

“On young Maria Edgham?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Well, I suppose it was a polite thing for you to do,” said his mother, mildly, “but I don’t quite care for her has I do for some girls.  She is so very vehement.  I do like a young girl to be gentle.”

“Well, I didn’t see her, mother, in either a gentle or vehement mood,” said George.  “As nearly as I can find out, she had a premonition who it was when I rang the door-bell, and said she had a headache, and ran up-stairs to bed.”

“Why, how do you know?” asked his mother, staring at him.  “Her aunt was at the tea.  Who told you?”

“Lily Merrill was there,” replied George, and again he was conscious of coloring.  “She had come to stay with Maria because her aunt was going out.  She answered my ring, and so I made a little call on her until Miss Stillman returned, and was so surprised to see her premises invaded and her niece missing that I think she inferred a conspiracy or a burglar.  At all events, Lily and I were summarily dismissed.  I have just seen Lily home.”

“Lily Merrill is pretty, and I think she is a nice, lady-like girl,” said Mrs. Ramsey, and she regarded her son more uneasily than before, “but I don’t like her mother, George.”