So came and went for her, in these simple words, the speech that
was to figure for her, later on, that night, as the one she had ever
uttered that cost her most. She was to lie awake, at all events, half
the night, for the gladness of not having taken any line so really
inferior as the denial of a happy impression.

For Mrs. Lowder also, moreover, her simple words were the right ones;
they were at any rate, that lady's laugh showed, in the natural note of
the racy. "You dear American thing! But people may be very good, and
yet not good for what one wants."

"Yes," the girl assented, "even I suppose when what one wants is
something very good."

"Oh, my child, it would take too long just now to tell you all _I_
want! I want everything at once and together--and ever so much for you
too, you know. But you've seen us," Aunt Maud continued; "you'll have
made out."

"Ah," said Milly, "I _don't_ make out"; for again--it came that way in
rushes--she felt an obscurity in things. "Why, if our friend here
doesn't like him----"

"Should I conceive her interested in keeping things from me?" Mrs.
Lowder did justice to the question. "My dear, how can you ask? Put
yourself in her place. She meets me, but on _her_ terms. Proud young
women are proud young women. And proud old ones are--well, what _I_ am.
Fond of you as we both are, you can help us."

Milly tried to be inspired. "Does it come back then to my asking her
straight?"

At this, however, finally, Aunt Maud threw her up. "Oh, if you've so
many reasons not----!"

"I've not so many," Milly smiled "but I've one. If I break out so
suddenly as knowing him, what will she make of my not having spoken
before?"

Mrs. Lowder looked blank at it. "Why should you care what she makes?
You may have only been decently discreet."

"Ah, I _have_ been," the girl made haste to say.

"Besides," her friend went on, "I suggested to you, through Susan, your
line."

"Yes, that reason's a reason for _me."_

"And for _me,"_ Mrs. Lowder insisted. "She's not therefore so stupid as
not to do justice to grounds so marked. You can tell her perfectly that
I had asked you to say nothing."

"And may I tell her that you've asked me now to speak?"

Mrs. Lowder might well have thought, yet, oddly, this pulled her up.
"You can't do it without----?"

Milly was almost ashamed to be raising so many difficulties. "I'll do
what I can if you'll kindly tell me one thing more." She faltered a
little--i