ed.

"Won't," said Jacky.

"Clear out!" Maurice said, sharply, and Jacky obeyed like a shot--but
paused on the porch to turn the ferociously clanging doorbell round and
round and round. "Well," Maurice began, "I'll tell you what's
happened... Lily! Make him stop!"

"Say, now, Jacky, stop," Lily called; but Jacky, seized apparently with
a new idea, had already stopped, and was running out on to the pavement.

So again Maurice began his story. Lily's instant and sympathetic
understanding was very reassuring. He even caught himself, under the
comfort of her quick co-operation, ranging himself with her, and saying
_"we."_ "We've got to guard against anything happening, you know."

"Oh, my soul and body, yes!" Lily agreed; "it would be too bad, and no
sense, either; you and me just acquaintances. 'Course I'll move, Mr.
Curtis. But, there! I hate to leave my garden--and I've just papered
this room! And I don't know where to go, either," she ended, with a
worried look.

"How would you like to go to New York?" he said, eagerly.

She shook her head: "I've got a lot of friends in this neighborhood. But
there's a two-family house on Ash Street--"

"Say," said Jacky, in the hall; "I got--"

"Oh, but you must leave Medfield!" he protested; "she"--that "she" made
him wince--"she may try to hunt you up."

"She can't. She don't know my name."

Maurice felt as if privacy were being pulled away from his soul, as skin
might be flayed from living flesh. "But you see," he began, huskily,
"there's a--a girl who lives with us; and she--she mentioned your name."
Then, cringing, he told her about Edith.

Lily looked blankly puzzled; then she remembered; "Why, yes, sure
enough! It was right at the gate--oh, as much as four years ago; I
slipped, and she grabbed Jacky. Yes; it comes back to me; she told me
she seen me the time we got ducked. 'Course, I gave her the glassy eye,
and said I didn't remember the gentleman in the boat with her. And she
caught on that I lived here? Well, now, ain't the world small?"

"Damned small," Maurice said, dryly.

"Say," said Jacky, from the doorway, "I got a--"

"Well, she--I mean this young lady--told my--ah, wife that you lived on
Maple Street, and--" He was stammering with angry embarrassment; Lily
gave a cluck of dismay. "Confound it!" said Maurice; "what'll we do?"

"Now, don't you worry!" Lily said, cheerfully. "If she ever speaks to me
again, I'll say, 'Why, you have the advantage of me!