closet and putting it gravely about her. "I've never mentioned it to any one," she said (never once guessing the thoughts in her daughter's mind), "not to a soul. . . . Nothing could induce me to. . . . After all, Lily is my first cousin, the daughter of Aunt Julia, my own mother's sister. . . . I wouldn't permit any one to befoul her name in my presence. . . . But here we are alone, together, you and I. . . . It's in the family. That makes a difference. . . . Sometimes, in the family, one has to face the facts. And the facts are that Lily hasn't behaved well. . . . She's lived in Paris for years, alone in the wickedest city in the world. . . . There's even talk about her having had a baby . . . and she's never been married. . . . Nobody knows . . . and Aunt Julia wouldn't tell me. . . . You can't get a word out of her. . . . You wouldn't want to be like that, now would you?"
Ellen fell to pleating the folds of her cheap dress. Her dark brows drew closer together. She was sullen, awkward.
"I don't see that it makes any difference . . . not to Lily. She's free. . . . She's happy."
"But she's rich," said her mother. "That's why she's free . . . and only God knows whether she's happy. . . . A woman like that can't be happy. . . . I don't want my daughter, my pure, lovely little daughter to be contaminated."
The tide of Mrs. Tolliver's emotions displayed all the signs of bursting the dam of her restraint. Ellen knew these signs. Her mother was beginning to drag in God. She was beginning to use words like "pure," and "lovely." And for the first time in her life, Ellen found herself instead of softening, growing harder and harder. Strangely enough, it was the words of the gentle, birdlike Miss Ogilvie which gave her a new power. This time, she was not to be defeated.
"Well, it doesn't make any difference," she said, rising from her mother's lap. "I like Lily better than any one in this town . . . I always will . . . and nothing can change me." The fine line of her young chin grew stubborn and there rose between mother and daughter the old impregnable wall.
