As she parted from her aunt Eunice at the door of the house, after they had left the car (Eunice's door was on the side where the Ramseys lived, and Maria's on the Merrill side), she told her of her resolution.
“Don't say anything to Uncle Henry about going with me,” said she.
“Why, what are you going to do?”
“I'll get Lily Merrill. I know she won't mind.”
Maria and Lily Merrill had been together frequently since Maria had come to Amity, and Eunice accounted them as intimate. She looked hesitatingly a second at her niece, then she said, with an evident air of relief:
“Well, I don't know but you can. It's bright moonlight, and it's late in the season for tramps. I don't see why you two girls can't go together, if you start early.”
“We'll start right after supper,” said Maria.
“I would,” said Eunice, still with an air of relief.
Maria took her aunt's fish-net bag, as well as her own parcels, and carried them around to her aunt Maria's side of the house, and deposited them on the door-step. There was a light in the kitchen, and she could see her aunt Maria's shadow moving behind the curtain, preparing supper. Then she ran across the yard, over the frozen furrows of a last year's garden, and knocked at the side-door of the Merrill house.
Lily herself opened the door, and gave a little, loving cry of surprise. “Why, is it you, dear?” she said.