and to go to bed clean. If you'll promise me to take a tub before you
dress in the morning, and another before you go to bed at night, I
don't care how dirty you get in the mean time."

This happy compromise effected, she was moved to ask more particularly
how Miss Lily Bell looked. She recalled now that she had never heard
her described. Raymond Mortimer, she discovered, was no better than
the rest of his sex when it came to a description of feminine features
and apparel, but on two points his testimony was absolute. Lily Bell
had curls and she wore pantalettes. The last word was not in his
vocabulary, and it was some time before he succeeded in conveying the
correct impression to Miss Greene's mind.

"Don't you remember the little girls in mamma's old Godey books?" he
asked, at last, very anxiously, seeing that his early imperfect
description had led to an apparent oscillation of Miss Greene's
imagination between the paper ruffle of a lamb-chop and a frilly
sunbonnet. "They have slippers an' 'lastic bands an' scallopy funnels
coming down under their skirts. Well"--this with a long-drawn sigh of
relief as she beamed into acquiescence--"that's how Lily Bell looks!"

Long before this the family had accepted Lily Bell as a part of the
domestic circle, finding her a fairly trustworthy and convenient
playmate for the boy. Not always, of course; for it was very
inconvenient to leave a vacant seat beside Raymond Mortimer when they
went driving, but this had to be done or Raymond stayed at home rather
than desert his cherished Lily. It was long before his father forgot
the noble rebuke administered by his son on one occasion when the
elder Prescott, thoughtlessly ignoring the presence of Miss Bell,
sought to terminate the argument by sitting down by the boy's side.