hope, just a hope, that terrible trouble may
be averted. It's all uncertainty, and it's all suspense at present,
Molly; and those who are cowards will bear it badly, and those who are
brave will bear it well. That's all I can tell you, my love; and now let
me get back to the feathers, or I won't have them done by night."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FANCY BALL.

The best cure for anxiety, short of removing it altogether, is plenty of
work. Molly came down from her interview with Jane Macalister with a
sickening sense of coming disaster filling her heart. Hers was not a
particularly hopeful nature. By nature she was inclined to look at the
dark side rather than at the bright. She had plenty of courage and was
unselfish to a fault; but when she arrived in the hall now and found all
the rest of the children gathered round Hester and was greeted by peals
of excited laughter and shouts of excited joy, she would have given a
great deal to have been able to run away and hide herself.

This was impossible, however; she was dragged into the eager group of
children, and was obliged not only to listen to their remarks, but to
make suggestions of her own. In the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Lorrimer,
Molly had to decide whether the ball-room could be used or not. She
would have given the world to say no, but scarcely dared to do this with
all those eager delighted faces gazing at her.

"I am sure mother will consent," she said after a pause. "I will write
to her to-day and ask her; but I think we may act as if her consent were
already given. Now, shall we come to the ball-room and see what is
necessary to be done?"

"Oh, what a darling Molly you are," exclaimed all the other Lorrimers in
a breath. She found herself whirled in their midst to the old
ball-room, and the rest of the morning was spent in eager and animated
discussion.

This magnificent old room was apart from the rest of the house. It was
entered by a covered way from one of the drawing-rooms; but this
entrance had long been closed, and the room itself--since the family
purse had become so low--was only made use of as a play-room for the
children in wet weather, and as a place for all kinds of lumber and
rubbish. Hester and Molly were neither of them artistic in their tastes
or ideas, but they were intensely practical in all they said and did.
Molly proposed that the room should be first cleared out and thoroughly
cleaned, and that early on the following morning Annie