to show becoming pride, but
failed. "I should be very happy to have you," she said, "but--"

"Well, it _is_ asking you to play second fiddle, and no mistake,"
laughed George Ramsey, "for I did think I would make Miss Edgham a
little call. But, after all, the second fiddle is an indispensable
thing, and you and I are old friends, Lily."

He could not help the admiration in his eyes as he looked at Lily.
She carried a little lamp, and the soft light was thrown upon her
lovely face, and her brown hair gleamed gold in it. No man could have
helped admiring her. Lily had never been a very brilliant scholar,
but she could read admiration for herself. She regained her
self-possession.

"I don't mind playing second fiddle," said she. "I should be glad if
I could play any fiddle. Come in, Mr. Ramsey."

"How very formal we have grown!" laughed George, as he took off his
coat and hat in the icy little hall. "Why, don't you remember we went
to school together? What is the use?"

"George, then," said Lily. Her voice seemed to caress the name.

The young man colored. He was of a stanch sort, but he was a man, and
the adulation of such a beautiful girl as this touched him. He took
the lamp out of her hand.

"Come in, then," he said; "but it is rather funny for me to be
calling on you here, isn't it?"

"Funnier than it would be for you to call on me at my own house,"
said Lily, demurely, with a faint accent of reproach.

"Well, I must admit I am not very neighborly," George replied, with
an apologetic air. "But, you see, I am really busy a good many
evenings with accounts, and I don't go out very much."

Lily reflected that he had come to call on Maria, in spite of being
busy, but she said nothing. She placed Maria's vacant chair for him
beside the sitting-room stove.

"It is a hard storm," she said.

"Very. It is a queer night for Miss Edgham's aunt to go out, it seems
to me."

"Mrs. Ralph Wright has a tea-party," said Lily. "Maria's aunt Eunice
has gone, too. My mother was invited, but mother never goes out in
the evening."

After these commonplace remarks, Lily seated herself opposite George
Ramsey, and there was a little silence. Again the expression of
admiration came into the young man's face, and the girl read it with
delight. Sitting gracefully, her slender body outlined by the soft
green of her dress, her radiant face showing above the ivory cameo
brooch at her throat, she was charming. George Ramsey owned t