Norah might, perhaps, have been softened by my appeal, but my father would not listen. The words which he used were very stern ones, and his was the hand that held open the door for Lily-Ann to pass out of the house. She went slowly, almost regretfully, as though at the last she felt repentance. I never saw her again.
It was many a long year, however, before I cast off her evil spell. Even in the illnesses of my maturer years those crawling Things have come back, passing across the mirror of a pain-racked mind with all the horror of childish ignorance and fear. Yet I still feel that I have forgiven Lily-Ann. Coming from the home that she did, and unwatched and unsuspected as she was, she might easily have destroyed the holy innocence of a child's life. But she left me as she found me.
I went upstairs very quietly that night. There was a candle burning on the bedroom table, and something which my prayer had brought, something frosted, with scolloped edges, was tucked under my pillow. The whole family came to put me to bed, and made so much of me that I glowed under their affection.
"She will forget it all in time," my father said, tenderly, unwitting of my long memory. "Evil dies away quickly from a child's mind."
My mother was more impulsive. She went down on her knees and put her arms about me.
"Forgive mother," she whispered, with her mouth against my ear. "Mother knows how true you are, Rhoda!"
After all there was really something for which to thank Lily-Ann.
