l all sorts of lies to carry on their
great politics and their ambition, and nobody thinks it so dreadful of
_them_"

"I _do_--I should," interposed John.

"Oh, well! _you_--you are an exception. It is not one man in a hundred
that is so good as you are. Now, we women have only one poor little
ambition,--to be pretty, to please you men; and, as soon as you know
we are getting old, you don't like us. And can you think it's so very
shocking if we don't come square up to the dreadful truth about our
age? Youth and beauty is all there is to us, you know."

"O Lillie! don't say so," said John, who felt the necessity of being
instructive, and of improving the occasion to elevate the moral tone
of his little elf. "Goodness lasts, my dear, when beauty fades."

"Oh, nonsense! Now, John, don't talk humbug. I'd like to see _you_
following goodness when beauty is gone. I've known lots of plain old
maids that were perfect saints and angels; and yet men crowded and
jostled by them to get the pretty sinners. I dare say now," she added,
with a bewitching look over her shoulder at him, "you'd rather have me
than Miss Almira Carraway,--hadn't you, now?"

And Lillie put her white arm round his neck, and her downy cheek to
his, and said archly, "Come, now, confess."

Then John told her that she was a bad, naughty girl; and she laughed;
and, on the whole, the pair were more hilarious and loving than usual.

But yet, when John was away at his office, he thought of it again, and
found there was still a sore spot in his heart.

She had cheated him once; would she cheat him again? And she could
cheat so prettily, so serenely, and with such a candid face, it was a
dangerous talent.

No: she wasn't like his mother, he thought with a sigh. The "je
ne sais quoi de saint et de sacre," which had so captivated his
imagination, did not cover the saintly and sacred nature; it was a
mere outward purity of complexion and outline. And then Grace,--she
must not be left to find out what he knew about Lillie. He had told
Grace that she was only twenty,--told it on her authority; and now
must he become an accomplice? If called on to speak of his wife's age,
must he accommodate the truth to her story, or must he palter and
evade? Here was another brick laid on the wall of separation between
his sister and himself. It was rising daily. Here was another subject
on which he could never speak frankly with Grace; for he must defend
Lillie,--every impulse