"One would be just the beginning," said Miss Margaret. "When you had been to Mrs. Stormont's ball (for it is nonsense to call it Philip's), everybody else that was going to give a dance would be after you, and they would say, with reason, if she went to Stormonts, you cannot refuse to let her come to me; or else if you go to no other place, worse will be said, and it will go through the country that there is Some Reason why you should go there and nowhere else." "Some reason!--but what reason could there be?" cried Lilias, appalled by this solemnity, and, in spite of herself, growing pale. "They would invent some story or other," said her sister. "You see, there is nothing stands by itself in this world--one thing is always connected with another, so that ye can never just do a simple action without taking into account what comes after and what has gone before." Miss Margaret enunciated this alarming doctrine in the evening, with the light of the lamp falling upon her face and the widespread whiteness of her newspaper, and showing against the dark background the scared looks of her two companions, one of whom listened with a gasp of alarm, while the other made a mild remonstrance. "Margaret! you will frighten the poor thing out of her life." "Is it true, or is it not true?" said Margaret. "You have lived long enough, Jean, to know. There is always," she added, with a little sense of success which is seductive, "a little of the next morning and the night before in every day." Now Lilias had a lively mind, and, though she had been struck by the first statement, this repetition took away her alarm. Her reverential attitude towards her sisters prevented her from making any demonstration, but she was no longer cowed. "To be sure," she said, "in a ball you are asked ever so long before, and it is sure to last till next morning. I see now what you mean." "Oh, if that is all," said Jean, relieved. "Whether that is all or not, it is time for bed," Miss Margaret said, which is always a good way of evading an argument with a young person. But she was somewhat severe upon her sister when they were left alone. "Do you not see," she said, "that all this is just to get Lilias for that long-leggit lad of hers? If it had been any other person I would have consented at once; but Philip Stormont! It would be like falling into a man-trap just outside your own gate." "But you were just the same, Margaret--I'm not blaming you, for I am sure you have your reasons--about the little bits of tea-parties at the manse that could harm nobody." "And where there was just the same danger," said Margaret. "Not that I would have any fear of Philip Stormont if there were others to compare with him; but, where there's nobody else, any young man would be dangerous. I want her when she goes from here to be fancy free."