dle at her waist of the same tawny hue, emphasized the rare colour of
her eyes--in shadow, brown like an autumn leaf, gold like amber when the
sunlight lay in them--and the whole effect was deliciously arresting.

"You've been spending your substance in riotous purple and fine
linen," pursued Audrey relentlessly. "That frock was never evolved in
Oldhampton, I'm positive."

Molly blushed--not the dull, unbecoming red most women achieve, but a
delicate pink like the inside of a shell that made her look even more
irresistibly distracting than before.

"No," she admitted reluctantly, "I sent for this from town."

Sara glanced at her with quick surprise. Entirely absorbed in her own
thoughts, she had failed to observe the expensive charm of Molly's
toilette and now regarded it attentively. Where had she obtained the
money to pay for it? Only a very little while ago she had been in debt,
and now here she was launching out into expenditure which common sense
would suggest must be quite beyond her means.

Sara frowned a little, but, recognizing the impossibility of probing
into the matter at the moment, she dismissed it from her mind, resolving
to elucidate the mystery later on.

Meanwhile, it was impossible to do other than acknowledge the results
obtained. Molly looked more like a stately young empress than an
impecunious doctor's daughter as she floated into the room, to be
embraced and complimented by the Lavender Lady and to receive a generous
meed of admiration, seasoned with a little gentle banter, from Miles
Herrick.

Sara experienced a sensation of relief on discovering Miss Lavinia and
Herrick to be the only occupants of the room. Garth Trent had not yet
come. Despite her longing to see him again, she was conscious of a
certain diffidence, a reluctance at meeting him in the presence of
others, and she wished fervently that their first meeting after the
events of the previous day could have taken place anywhere rather than
at this gay little lunch party of Audrey's.

As it fell out, however, she chanced to be entirely alone in the room
when Trent was at length ushered in by a trim maidservant, the rest of
the party having gradually drifted out on to the verandah, while she had
lingered behind, glad of a moment's solitude in which to try and steady
herself.

She had never conceived it possible that so commonplace an emotion as
mere nervousness could find place beside the immensities of love itself,
yet, durin