“But, Mamma, it’s true! He did! He was prospecting for silver mines and all sorts of things in Mexico.” “I don’t believe a word of it, Lily;—it sounded much too much like ‘adventure stories.’ I don’t think he did it; I think he read it. He said he killed those three men because they tried to ‘jump his claim,’ while he was away on a visit to his friend, the President of Mexico, and that afterward the President made him a general in the Mexican Army, and he fought in seven battles and was wounded twelve times. That was five years ago, so he must have been a general when he was about nineteen. In all my life I never heard——” “If you please, Mamma!” Lily interrupted. “I’d rather not hear you accuse him of such things. I prefer——” “Good gracious!” Mrs. Dodge exclaimed. “I can’t see why you’re so sensitive about him when you deliberately broke an engagement with him this very afternoon without a word of explanation.” “That’s an entirely different matter,” Lily said, primly. “I _had_ to do that.” “Why did you?” “Because I couldn’t go with one of ’em without hurting both the others terribly.” “But why didn’t you make some excuse?” “Because I couldn’t think of anything I was sure would be satisfactory, or that they mightn’t find out,” Lily explained, seriously; and she added, “I had to put that _off_.” “Until when?” “Until I get time to think it out, Mamma. So you see it didn’t mean I care any less for Price. It only meant I was in a perplexing position.” She rose, facing her mother gravely. “I like him much better than the others, Mamma, and I don’t think it’s considerate of you to speak so unkindly of him.” Here Lily’s lip began to tremble a little. “I think he talks wonderfully, and it’s every word true about Mexico, and I think you and Papa ought to respect my feeling for him.” “Your father?” Mrs. Dodge cried. “You know perfectly well what your father thinks of him.” But Lily ignored this interpolation, and continued, “It seems to me it was very unkind of you to sit there just coldly criticizing him in your mind all afternoon when he was doing his best to entertain you. He meant nothing except kindness to _you_, and you were sitting there all the time coldly crit——” “Yes, I was,” her mother interrupted. “I was certainly sitting there! But I wasn’t coldly criticizing him in my mind; you’re wrong about that. After two hours of it, my mental criticism was getting pretty warm, Lily. In fact, I think it would have scorched me if I hadn’t finally got rid of him.” “Got rid of him?” Lily repeated, slowly. “Mamma—you—you weren’t——” She left the sentence eloquently unfinished. “Certainly I wasn’t rude to him,” Mrs. Dodge returned, sharply. “I showed him the patience of an angel as long as I could, and then I merely mentioned something I wish I’d thought of long before; and he picked up his plush hat and yellow gloves and went home.”