This brief criticism of Lily Bell, the first the boy had ever uttered,
cheered the little girl in her exile. "Never mind," she said. "I don't
care--much. I know it isn't your fault." For by this time she, too,
was under the influence of the spell of convincing reality which
Raymond Mortimer succeeded in throwing over his imaginary friend.

"She does things Ray wouldn't do," she once confided to Miss Greene.
"I mean," hastily, as she suddenly realized her own words--"I mean she
makes him think--he thinks she thinks--Oh, I don't know how to 'splain
it to you!" And Margaret Hamilton hastily abandoned so complicated a
problem. In reality she was meeting it with a wisdom far beyond her
years. The boy was in the grip of an obsession. Margaret Hamilton
would have been sadly puzzled by the words, but in her wise little
head lay the idea they convey.

"He thinks she really is here, an' he thinks he's got to be nice to
her because they're such ve-ry old fren's," she told herself. "But she
isn't very nice lately, an' she makes him cross, so maybe by-an'-by
he'll get tired an' make her act better; or maybe--"

But that last "maybe" was too daring to have a place even in the very
furthest back part of a little girl's mind.

She lent herself with easy good-nature to Lily Bell's exactions. She
had no fondness for that young person, and she let it be seen that she
had none, but she was courteous, as to a fellow-guest.

"Pooh! I don't mind," was her usual comment on Miss Bell's behests;
and this cheerful acceptance threw into strong relief the dark shadows