at the feast," she told herself savagely. "I
suppose I'm awfully wicked, but now that they are all so happy, it makes
me feel dreadfully lonesome. I'm glad from my very heart for them, of
course. But, oh, Paul! Oh, little Dodo! If you will only come back to
Mollie, she will never go away from you again, never, never!"

Dinner that night for the other girls was a joyful occasion. The girls
dressed up in their prettiest and best, Mrs. Ford and Betty cooked a
most appetizing supper, and if it had not been for the one dark cloud
still hanging over them, the evening that followed would have been the
happiest they had ever spent.

Mollie kept her promise to herself and entered into the gayety with the
best of them, and no one--except Betty, perhaps--realized how much she
was suffering.

However, when the lights were out that night and everybody but herself
was asleep, Mollie's brave barrier broke down and she sobbed miserably
into her pillow.

"I want to go home!" she cried, heart brokenly. "I can't keep this up
day after day! I can't! If I don't hear some good news soon, I'll die--I
know I shall."

Only the sound of the waves pounding angrily on the shore and the
shrilling of a rapidly rising wind answered her, and after a while she
sank into a troubled, uneasy sleep.

And how could she know as she lay there, restlessly tossing from side to
side and muttering incoherently to herself, that the wind and waves were
actually sending her an answer which, in her wildest moments, she could
never have imagined?

Toward morning something, she could not tell what, roused Betty and she
sat up suddenly in bed, every nerve taut, every sense alert.

The wind had increased in fury while they slept, till now it was howling
fiercely about the house, rattling the windows and whistling shrilly
through the cracks, which together with the pounding of the waves, made
an almost deafening uproar.

And the rain! It came down in sheeting torrents and was driven by the
rushing wind in maddened gusts against the window panes until it seemed
they must give beneath the strain.

"What a storm!" cried Betty, pressing her hands against her ears to keep
out the noise of it. "I wonder if that was what wakened me."

Then, becoming fully awake, she suddenly realized that she was very
uncomfortable, and, looking down, discovered that the bed spread was
wet.

"Mercy, it's raining in all over us!" she tried aloud, and, springing
out of bed, ran ov