'"
"Lilly, you're not yourself. I'm sure you don't feel well. Baby, you
mustn't be bashful with your own mother."
"Please, please don't ask me that again in--in that voice. You know I
always feel well."
"We're both married women now, Lilly. If--if there's anything you want
to say--"
"No."
"I always say, a single woman doesn't know she's on earth. Isn't it so,
Lilly?"
Suddenly Lilly shot her hand out to her mother's arm, her fingers
digging into the flesh.
"You should have told me something--beforehand!"
"I'd have cut out my tongue sooner. What kind of a mother do you think I
am? Shame!"
"It's wicked to rear a girl with no conception of life."
"You're no greener than I was. That's what a man wants in the girl he
marries. Innocence."
"Ignorance."
"It all comes naturally to a woman after she's married, life does."
"I--I hate life."
"Lilly!"
"I do! I do! I do!"
"You poor child!" said Mrs. Becker, stroking her hand, and her voice
pitched to a very private key. "Life is life and what are you going to
do about it?"
"Only love--some sort of magic potion which Nature uses to drug us, can
make her methods seem anything but gross--horrible.
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