rummond does not take possession for over five weeks, but mother thinks
that when a very painful thing has to be done, the sooner it is over the
better. And she has almost taken a roomy old cottage on the edge of
Sharsted Common. She says the children must not be cooped up in a town
house, and they will have plenty of room to run about on the common, and
as Nortonbury is only a mile away, Guy and Harry can still go to school
there."

"And will you still stay at home, Molly?"

"I don't know, all the future is a complete blank. I am not educated
according to modern ideas, and I love my own people so deeply that it
would be agony to leave them. At the same time, I know some of us must
go away, for we shall be very poor; we'll have no money at all except
the income from mother's little fortune, and that will go a small way. I
have asked mother to let us do without a servant, for I quite love
housework. But really, Annie, everything at present is simply in chaos."

"It is good of you to tell me," said Annie, in her caressing voice. "You
know I am poor myself, and I dearly love poor people; they are fifty
times more interesting than rich ones. Fancy what zest is added to life
when you have to contrive and scrape, and patch and fit every one of
your dresses."

"As to that," replied Molly, "I don't in the least care what I wear; but
I must frankly say that patched and contrived dresses are, as a rule,
very ugly. Now shall we come into the house?"

"Not yet," replied Annie; "it is lovely out. Let us take another turn
just here in the moonlight. Have you heard anything about the Squire
lately, Molly? Is he likely to come back to the Towers soon?"

"No; I'm afraid he won't come at all. The sudden necessity which obliged
him to sell the old home has had the strangest effect upon him. We are
very anxious about him--very, very unhappy. The state of his health is
our keenest grief."

"And do you know where he is?"

"Oh, yes, in London. Mother writes to him to his club."

"It seems a great pity that he should be alone there," said Annie. "I
wonder your mother likes to leave him."

"Mother is only carrying out his wishes. He has absolutely refused to
come back to the Towers. He says he may come after we have all gone, but
not before. I cannot tell you, Annie, how miserable we are about him. He
is completely altered. He used to be the tenderest, the most unselfish
of fathers, and now the whole burden of everything is put on po