your face because I have a bad temper!"

It was the night after the little supper party at which the slander was
born that Molly said this rude thing, and then abruptly left the
drawing-room to join a hairdresser who was waiting upstairs. Almost
immediately afterwards Adela Delaport Green was standing over the stiff
chair on which Miss Carew was sitting, very limp in figure, and holding
a damp handkerchief to her face.

"How d'ye do? They told me Molly was here," she said in a disappointed
voice, and her eyes ranged round the room with the alertness of a
sportswoman.

Adela had come with a purpose; she had come there to right the wrong and
to force Molly to tell the truth.

"She was here a moment ago. She has just gone up to the hairdresser,"
said Miss Carew as she got up, quickly restoring the damp handkerchief
to her pocket and composing her countenance, not without a certain
dignity. She liked Adela, who was always friendly and civil whenever
they met.

That little lady threw herself pettishly into a deep chair.

"So tiresome when I haven't a minute to spare, and I suppose he will
keep her nearly an hour?"

"Can I take a message?"

"Oh! no, thanks, dear Miss Carew, don't go up all those horrid steep
steps. Do rest and entertain me a little. I am sure you feel these hot
days terribly."

"I find it very cool and quiet here," said Miss Carew, a little sadly.

"I'm afraid it's lonely," cried Adela.

"Well! I oughtn't to grumble about that."

"No, you never do grumble, I know; but I feel sometimes that you must be
tired and anxious, placed, as you are, as the only thing instead of a
mother to poor, dear Molly!"

The fierce, quick envy betrayed in that "poor, dear Molly" did not reach
Miss Carew's brain, and a little sympathy was very soothing.

"Now, could any fortune stand this sort of thing?" asked Adela.

The companion shook her head sadly, but would not speak.

"You know that she has bought Sir Edmund Grosse's old yacht? And that
she is taking one of the best deer forests in the Highlands? And is it
true that she is thinking of buying Portlands?"

"Oh, yes!" sighed Miss Carew. "There is some new scheme every day."

"She has everything the world can give," said Adela sharply. "But, you
know," she went on, "people won't go on standing her manners as they do
now, even if she can pay her amazing way! Do you know that her cousin,
Lady Dawning, declares she won't have anything more to do with her? Not