pouring over it pots of clotted cream that the 'schone' Lili brought
them. Rose pretended an indifference to it, which his mother betrayed was
a sacrifice in behalf of March's inability.

Lili's delays in coming to be paid had been such that the Marches now
tried to pay her when she brought their breakfast, but they sometimes
forgot, and then they caught her whenever she came near them. In this
event she liked to coquet with their impatience; she would lean against
their table, and say: "Oh, no. You stay a little. It is so nice." One day
after such an entreaty, she said, "The queen is here, this morning."

Mrs. March started, in the hope of highhotes. "The queen!"

"Yes; the young lady. Mr. Burnamy was saying she was a queen. She is
there with her father." She nodded in the direction of a distant corner,
and the Marches knew that she meant Miss Triscoe and the general. "She is
not seeming so gayly as she was being."

March smiled. "We are none of us so gayly as we were being, Lili. The
summer is going."

"But Mr. Burnamy will be returning, not true?" the girl asked, resting
her tray on the corner of the table.

"No, I'm afraid he won't," March returned sadly.

"He was very good. He was paying the proprietor for the dishes that
Augusta did break when she was falling down. He was paying before he went
away, when he was knowing that the proprietor would make Augusta to pay."