“I don’t know about that. You may be a grandmother, but I scarcely think that our Margery is so much older than Philip.”
“Oh, yes, Lilian. Margery is twenty-five, and has been married four years.”
“That is only a few years older, anyhow. She seems older because of the three babies.”
Evening came, and Philip. Lilian did not know just where she might be taken, but dressed for evening and laid out her pretty new evening wrap, over which she had gone into raptures. It was to have been a Christmas present, but learning of Philip’s plans for Lilian, Mrs. North had decided to give it in advance. For a cruel parent, who did not approve of anything serious in the line of love and marriage for Lilian in the near future, Mrs. North was taking a great deal of interest! “But if you are going around so much this vacation, I suppose you will need it now,” she said.
Although Philip was so accustomed to meeting people, he felt some measure of embarrassment when he met Lilian’s parents. Judge North he knew, and Dick, but Mrs. North would appraise him, he felt, as he came to call upon her daughter so definitely. However, he intended to make a general visit as well, and in the pleasant atmosphere of hospitality, with many things in common as subjects of conversation, Philip’s embarrassment soon passed. Lilian’s piano, newly tuned, had to be tried, and Philip surprised Mrs. North, as people were wont to be surprised when they heard him play. Dick left soon to meet an engagement, and as Philip finished the accompaniment he was playing for Lilian, he whispered, “Shall we go?”
“We are leaving, now, folks,” announced Lilian, bowing to her father’s applause. “Did you like that, Father?”—starting to get her wraps as she spoke.
It was the little electric coupé that was parked outside. “Isn’t this fine!” exclaimed Philip as he tucked the robes around Lilian. “Are we really by ourselves going off somewhere? Where would you like to go?”
“I haven’t an idea,” said Lilian. “Anywhere.”
“That is the way I feel about it,” said Philip, “only in a different degree, I fear me. As long as I have you, the place is immaterial. And before we start I want to ask you what you meant by asking me where Ann Maria was. And you did not answer my question.”
“I couldn’t, you know.”