"Remember, Lilly," said Bland, stepping to the gate and taking her arm, "you are Lilly Mercer here."
"Yes, Bland."
"And you are never to mention anything regarding yourself to the lady who owns this place."
"I think I can keep my own counsel."
"And, if any inquiries are made here, by any person whatever, regarding myself, you are to be innocently and utterly ignorant."
"And what are you to do?" asked Lilly, naïvely.
"I?—why I am to do well by you."
"Just so long as you do that, Bland, you are perfectly safe!"
She had taken to dictating also; but it was a pretty little cottage and grounds, and a feeling of satisfaction at being their mistress, even if it necessitated being his mistress, came over her that made her affable and winning, if she did occasionally say things that hinted at a stormy future.
They strolled up the broad brick walk, he thrilled with his magnificent capture, and she just as satisfied with the power she had attained over one so high socially, and who stood in such near prospect of obtaining vast wealth. Instead of entering the house at its little front door with its highly ornamented porch, they opened the door of a little trellis-worked addition to the cottage, which was now covered by an almost leafless mass of vines, and passed to a side entrance, where a gentle pull of the bell caused the immediate appearance of a very fat and very flabby woman of middle age, who at once conducted them to a suite of rooms, consisting of a parlor and a large sleeping-room, between which, in place of the original folding-doors, had been substituted rich hangings sufficiently drawn apart to admit of the passage of one person, and which, with the tastefully draped windows, the deeply-framed pictures, the vari-colored marble mantels and fireplaces, the heavy, yielding carpet giving back no sound to the foot-fall, and the great easy-chairs into which one sank as into pillows of down, gave the rooms the hintings of such luxuriousness that Lilly was completely dazzled and bewildered with the unexpected elegance, and the, to her, never before realized splendor.