die_ if they told anybody! Paul
had promised solemnly not to tell anybody. Her mother said, of course
she knew how Lydia felt about it. It _was_ a handicap for a girl in her
first season. Lydia was half-way up the stairs again, but at that she
looked down at her mother--_God!_ Julia, if a child of mine had ever
looked at me like that--"

Mrs. Sandworth patted him vaguely. "Oh, people always look white and
queer in the twilight, you know--even quite _florid_ complexions."

The doctor made a rush to the door.

"But dinner must be ready to put on the table," she called after him.

"Put it on, then," he cried, and disappeared.

A plain statement was manna to Mrs. Sandworth. She had finished her
soup, and was beginning on her hamburg steak when the doctor came
soberly in, took his place, and began to eat in silence. She took up the
conversation where they had left it.

"So it's all over," she commented, watching his plate to see that he did
not forget to salt his meat and help himself to gravy.

"Nothing's ever over in a human life," he contradicted her. "Why do you
suppose she doesn't want it announced?"

"You don't suppose she means to break it off later?"

"I haven't any idea _what_ she means, any more than she has, poor child!
But it's plain that this is only to gain time--a sop to the wolves."

"Wolves!" cried poor Mrs. Sandworth.

"Well, tigers and hyenas, perhaps," he added moderately.

"They're crazy about Lydia, that whole Emery family," she protested.

"They are that," he agreed sardonically. "But I don't mean only her
family. I mean unclean prowling standards of what's what, as well as--"

"They'd lie down and let her walk over them! You know they would--"

"If they thought she was going in the right direction."

Mrs. Sandworth gave him up, and drifted off into speculation. "I wonder
what she could have found in that man to think of! A girl brought up as
she's been!"

"Perhaps she was only snatching a little sensible talk where she could
get it."

"But they _didn't_ talk sensibly. Marietta said Lydia tried, one of the
times when they were going over it with her, Lydia tried to tell her
mother some of the things they said that night when he took her home
from here. Marietta said they were 'too sickish!' 'Flat Sunday-school
cant about wanting to be good,' and all that sort of thing."

"That certainly wouldn't have tempted _Marietta_ from the path of virtue
and sharp attention to a good match,"