“Already,” she said, “the girl has shown two of the most undesirable modern qualities—flippancy and a disregard for the law of the nation. I am convinced that I saw a box of rouge in that bag, Lizzie.”
But when, later on, she accused Lily May of making up her face, Lily May only smiled sweetly and said she was obliged to do so.
“Obliged!” Tish sniffed. “Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Not nonsense at all,” said Lily May. “All the——” She seemed to hesitate. “It’s like this,” she said. “Make-up is respectable. The other thing isn’t. When you see a woman these days with a dead-white face, watch her. That’s all.”
Poor Aggie cast an agonized glance at herself in the mirror, but Tish stared hard at Lily May.
“There are certain subjects on which I do not wish to be informed,” she said coldly.
“Oh, very well,” said Lily May. “If you like to think that the Easter bunny lays hardboiled eggs——”
I must say things looked very uncomfortable from the start. Nobody could accuse Lily May of being any trouble, or even of being unpleasant; she had a very sweet smile, and she did everything she was told. But she seemed to regard the three of us as mere children, and this was particularly galling to Tish.
“Why shouldn’t we see that picture?” Tish demanded one night, when she steered us away from a movie we had been waiting three weeks to see.
“It’s not a nice movie,” said Lily May gently, and took us to see The Ten Commandments, which we had already seen three times.