if Uncle Bernard were not
ill. That makes one feel so dull and wretched that one can't be glad
about anything," said poor Mollie to herself.

Jack did not appear again; and she was not in the mood to take any
interest in Ruth's photographic efforts, so she strolled through the
grounds and gathered an armful of flowers to send home to the little
mother. This was always a pleasant undertaking, and just now there was
a special reason for choosing the freshest and most fragrant blossoms,
for the last few letters had hinted at a recurrence of the old money
troubles.

"Something is up!" wrote Trix, in school-girl parlance. "Father and
mother are talking in his den all the evening, and she comes down to
breakfast with her eyes swollen with crying, and he looks like a sheet,
and doesn't eat a bite. Horrid old business again, of course. How I
hate it! We shall have to scrape a little more, I suppose; and where we
are to scrape from, I'm blest if I know! My blue serge is green, and
the boys' Etons shine like the rising sun. It was a fine day on Sunday,
and they fairly glittered going to church. I don't want to give you the
blues, but thought I'd better tell you, so that you could write to cheer
them up, and also be more assiduous in your attentions to the old man.
You must and shall get that fortune between you, or we shall be
bivouacking in the workhouse before you can say Jack Robinson! My heart
too truly knows the signs full well!"

Mollie recalled these expressive sentences, and sighed in sympathy.

"Poor old Trix! too bad that she should be left at home to bear the
brunt, while we are living in the lap of luxury. I expect it is just
one of the old crises, and we shall worry through as usual, but it is
depressing while it lasts. I can't endure to see mother with red eyes.
She will smile when she sees these roses, bless her! I defy anyone not
to enjoy opening a box of flowers; and when we go home we will cheer
them up again,--fortune or no fortune. Dear old Trix shall have some of
my fineries made down, as a change from the green serge."

Mollie's spirits lightened perceptibly as she loitered about the garden,
for to a town-bred girl it was luxury indeed, not only to look upon a
wealth of roses, but to be able to gather them lavishly as she pleased.
When the basket was full of half-opened beauties, ranging in every
shade, from white to the bloomy crimson of "Prince Camille," she turned
to more shady corners