"To take me out of my friends' way, you mean ?" she said quietly; and Mrs.Fisher responded with a deprecating kiss: "To keep you out of their sight till they realize how much they miss you." Miss Bart went with the Gormers to Alaska; and the expedition, if it did not produce the effect anticipated by her friend, had at least the negative advantage of removing her from the fiery centre of criticism and discussion.

Gerty Farish had opposed the plan with all the energy of her somewhat inarticulate nature.

She had even offered to give up her visit to Lake George, and remain in town with Miss Bart, if the latter would renounce her journey; but Lily could disguise her real distaste for this plan under a sufficiently valid reason.
"You dear innocent, don't you see," she protested, "that Carry is quite right, and that I must take up my usual life, and go about among people as much as possible?
If my old friends choose to believe lies about me I shall have to make new ones, that's all; and you know beggars mustn't be choosers.

Not that I don't like Mattie Gormer--I DO like her: she's kind and honest and unaffected; and don't you suppose I feel grateful to her for making me welcome at a time when, as you've yourself seen, my own family have unanimously washed their hands of me ?" Gerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced.

She felt not only that Lily was cheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she would never have cultivated from choice, but that, in drifting back now to her former manner of life, she was forfeiting her last chance of ever escaping from it.