cuse me, but I must
finish my hair; I have no more than time. What is the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter," sobbed Lily, "only--Oh Maria I am so happy!
I have not slept a wink all night I was so happy. Oh, you don't know
how happy I am!"

Maria's face turned deadly white. She swept the glowing lengths of
her hair over it with a deft movement. "Why, what makes you so
happy?" she asked, coolly.

"Oh, Maria, he was in earnest, he was. I am engaged to George."

Maria brushed her hair. "I am very glad," she said, in an unfaltering
voice. She bent her head, bringing her hair entirely over her face,
preparatory to making a great knot on the top of her head. "I hope
you will be very happy."

"Happy!" said Lily. "Oh, Maria, you don't know how happy I am!"

"I am very glad," Maria repeated, brushing her hair smoothly from her
neck. "He seems like a very fine young man. I think you have made a
wise choice, Lily."

Lily flung herself into a chair and looked at Maria. "Oh, Maria
dear," she said, "I wish you were as happy as I. I hope you will be
some time."

Maria laughed, and there was not a trace of bitterness in her laugh.
"Well, I shall not cry if I never am," she said. "What a little goose
you are, Lily, to cry!" She swept the hair back from her face, and
her color had returned. She looked squarely at Lily's reflection in
the glass, and there was an odd, triumphant expression on her face.

"I can't help it," sobbed Lily. "I always have cried when I was very
happy, and I never was so happy as this; and last night, before
he--before George asked me--I was so miserable I wanted to die. Only
think, Maria, mother is going to marry Dr. Ellridge, and he and his
three horrid girls are coming to live at our house. I don't know how
I could have stood it if George hadn't asked me. Now I shall live
with him in his house, of course, with his mother. I have always
liked George's mother. I think she is sweet."

"Yes, she is a very sweet woman, and I should think you could live
very happily with her," said Maria, twisting her hair carefully.
Maria had a beautiful neck showing above the lace of her underwaist.
Lily looked at it. Her tears had ceased, and left not a trace on her
smooth cheeks. The lace which Maria's upward-turned hair displayed
had set her flexible mind into a new channel.

"Say, Maria," she said, "it is to be a very short engagement. It will
have to be, on account of mother. A double wedding would be too
ridicul