just as usual. She even made a remark about the
weather to her mother, although in a little, weeping voice, as if the
weather itself, although it was a brilliant morning, were a source of
misery. Mrs. Merrill replied curtly. Lily took another spoonful of
her cereal.

She remained in her own room the greater part of the day. In the
afternoon her mother, without saying anything to her, took the
trolley for Westbridge. Lily thought with a shiver that she might be
going over there to purchase some article for her trousseau. The
thought of her mother with a trousseau caused her to laugh a little,
hysterical laugh, as she sat alone in her chamber. That evening she
and her mother went to a concert in the town hall. Lily knew that Dr.
Ellridge would accompany her mother home. She wondered what she
should do, what she should be expected to do--take the doctor's other
arm, or walk behind. She had seen the doctor with two of his
daughters seated, when she and her mother passed up the aisle. She
knew that the two daughters would go home together, and the doctor
would go with her mother. She thought of George Ramsey. Now and then
as the concert proceeded she twisted her neck slightly and peered
around, but she saw nothing of him. She concluded that he was not
there. But when the concert was over, and she and her mother were
passing out the door, and Dr. Ellridge was pressing close to her
mother, under a fire of hostile glances from his daughters, Lily felt
a touch on her own arm. She turned, and saw George Ramsey's handsome
face with a quiver of unutterable bliss. She took his arm, and
followed her mother and Dr. Ellridge. When they were out in the
frosty air, under a low sky sparkling with multitudinous stars
traversed by its mysterious nebulous highway of the gods, this poor
little morsel of a mortal, engrossed with her poor little troubles,
answered a remark of George's concerning the weather in a trembling
voice. Then she began to weep unreservedly. George with a quick
glance around, drew her around a corner which they had just reached
into a street which afforded a circuitous route home, and which was
quite deserted.

"Why Lily, what in the world is the matter?" he said. There was
absolutely nothing in his voice or his heart at the time except
friendliness and honest concern for his old playmate's distress.

"Mother is going to be married to Dr. Ellridge," whispered Lily, "and
he and his three horrid daughters are all comi