“_Did she?—did I?_ Well, then, I guess I am; but it’s a heap nicer, now you’ve come. Mildred seems to me a little bit sober. Lawrence,” and Lilian spoke in a whisper, for they were now ascending a hill, and she did not care to have Finn hear,—“Lawrence, I know something about Mildred, but you mustn’t never tell,—will you? She’s in love with a _man_! She told me so confidentially this morning, but wouldn’t tell me his name. Why, how your face flushes up? It is awful hot,—ain’t it?” and Lilian began to fan herself with her leghorn hat, while Lawrence, leaning from the window, and watching the wheels grinding into the gravelly sand, indulged himself in thoughts not wholly complimentary either to Lilian or the _man_ whom Mildred Howell loved. “What business had Lilian to betray Mildred’s confidence, even to him? Had she no delicate sense of honor? Or what business had Mildred to be in love?” and, by the time the carriage turned into the avenue, Lawrence was about as uncomfortable in his mind as he well could be. “There’s Mildred! Isn’t she beautiful with those white flowers in her hair?” cried Lilian; and, looking up, Lawrence saw Mildred standing near a maple a little way in advance. With that restlessness natural to people waiting the arrival of guests, she had left the Judge and Oliver, who were sitting in the parlor, and walked slowly down the avenue until she saw the carriage coming, when she stopped beneath the tree. “Get in here, Milly,—get in,” said Lilian; and, hastily alighting, Lawrence offered her his hand, feeling strongly tempted to press the warm fingers, which he fancied trembled slightly in his own. “She has been walking fast,” he thought, and he was about to say so, when Lilian startled them with the exclamation: “Why don’t you kiss her, Lawrence, just as you do me?” Lawrence thought of the man, and rather coolly replied: “I never kissed Miss Howell in my life,—neither would she care to have me.” “Perhaps not,” returned Lilian, while Mildred’s cheeks flushed crimson,—“perhaps not, for she is a bit of a prude, I think; and then, too, I heard her say she didn’t like you as well as she did Clubs.” “Oh, Lilian, when did I say so?” and Mildred’s eyes for an instant flashed with anger. “You needn’t be so mad,” laughed Lilian. “You did say so, that first night I came here. Don’t you remember that I surprised you telling Oliver how Uncle Thornton kept you looking over those old stones for fear you’d talk with Lawrence, and how you hated them all?” “Lilian,” said Lawrence, sternly, “no true woman would ever wantonly divulge the secrets of another, particularly if that other be her chosen friend.” “S’pected they’d end in a row when I seen ’em so lovin’,” muttered Finn; and, hurrying up his horses, he drew up at the gate just as Lilian began to pout, Mildred to cry, and Lawrence to wish he had stayed at home.