vited to stay at a delightful house "far from the madding
crowd"--Groombridge Castle--with a group of dear friends.

Molly, knowing that "dear friends" with her hostess meant new and most
desirable acquaintances, bought hats adorned with spring flowers and
garments appropriate to the season with great satisfaction.

Their luggage, their bags, and their maid looked perfect on the day of
departure, and Tim had gone off to Brighton in an excellent temper. Mrs.
Delaport Green trod on air in pretty buckled shoes, and patted the toy
terrier under her arm and felt as if all the society papers on the
bookstall knew that they would soon have to tell whither she was going.

"I saw Sir Edmund Grosse's servant just now," she said to Molly with
great satisfaction. "Very likely Sir Edmund is coming to Groombridge.
Why does one always think that everybody going by the same train is
coming with one? Did you tell him where we were going?"

"No, I don't think so; I have hardly seen him for a week, and I thought
he was going abroad for Easter."

When the three hours' journey was ended and the friends emerged on the
platform, they were both glad to see Sir Edmund's servant again and the
luggage with his master's name. There was a crowd of Easter holiday
visitors, and Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly were some moments in making
their way out of the station. When they were seated in the carriage that
was to take them to the Castle, Mrs. Delaport Green turned expectantly
to the footman.

"Are we to wait for any one else?"

"No, ma'am; Lady Rose Bright and the two gentlemen have started in the
other carriage."

They drove off.

"I am so glad it is Lady Rose Bright." Molly hardly heard the words.

"I have so wished to know her," Adela went on joyfully, "and she has had
such an interesting story and so extraordinary."

"Can I get away--can I go back?" thought Molly, and she leant forward
and drew off her cloak as if she felt suffocated. "To meet her is just
the one thing I can't do. Oh, it is hard, it is horrible!"

"You see," Adela continued, "she married Sir David Bright, who was three
times her age, because he was very rich, and also, of course, because
she loved him for having won the Victoria Cross, and then he died, and
they found he had left all the money to some one he had liked better all
the time. So there is a horrid woman with forty thousand a-year
somewhere or other, and Rose Bright is almost starving and can't afford
to