Madeleine's nightgear scarcely more
treacherously tell-tale of her slender woman's loveliness than the
evening robe that clung so closely to the vigorous grace of Molly's
lithe young figure.

The elder, whose face bore a blush distinct from the reflected glow of
the embers, fell to guessing, as commanded, a little wildly:

"You begin to find the _beau cousin_ Rupert a little more interesting
than you anticipated."

"Bah," cried Molly, with a stamp of her sandalled foot, "it is not
possible to guess worse! He is more insufferable to me, hour by hour."

"I think him kind and pleasant," returned Madeleine simply.

"Ah, because he makes sweet eyes at you, I suppose--yet no--I express
myself badly--he could not make anything sweet out of those hard, hard
eyes of his, but he is very--what they call here in England--attentive
to you. And he looks at you and ponders you over when you little think
it--you poor innocent--lost in your dream of ... _Smith_! There, I
will not tease you. Guess again."

"You are pleased to remain here because you are a true
weather-cock--because you like one thing one day another the
next--because the country peace and quiet is soothing to you after the
folly and noise of the great world of Bath and Dublin, and reminds you
refreshingly, as it does me, of our happy convent days." The glimmer
of a dainty malice lurked in the apparent candour of Madeleine's
grave blue eyes, and from thence spread into her pretty smile at the
sight of Molly's disdainful lip, "Well then, I give it up. You have
some mischief on foot, of that at least I am sure."

"No mischief--a work of righteousness rather. Sister Madeleine, you
heard all that that gallant gentleman you think so highly of--your
cousin Rupert, my dear" (it was a little way of Molly's to throw the
responsibility of anything she did not like, even to an obnoxious
relationship, upon another person's shoulders), "narrated of his
brother Sir Adrian, and how he persuaded Tanty that he was, as you
said just now, a hopeless madman--"

"But yes--he does mad things," said the elder twin, a little
wonderingly.

"Well, Madeleine, it is a vile lie. I am convinced of it."

"But, my darling----"

"Look here, Madeleine, there is something behind it all. I attacked
that creature, that rag, you cannot call her a woman, that female
cousin of yours, Sophia, and I pressed her hard too, but she could not
give me a single instance about Sir Adrian that is really the