as I have had with my mother for five years and the first
one she has spent away from all of her other children ever. I shall have
to make a noise like seven Browns to keep her from being homesick."

Here Molly stopped and reflected that some of those five Christmases she
had spent in the company of Professor Edwin Green and she wondered if he
would remember it, too; and if he would miss her as she felt she was
missing him, in spite of all the delightful things she was doing and
seeing. "I know he is not thinking of me at all and I am a goose to
waste any sentiment on him. I have never had a single letter from him I
could not show mother and Judy. When Judy gets a letter from Kent she
never shows it to us, but takes it to her own room and evidently gets
great satisfaction from its perusal, as she always comes out beaming. Ah
me! I am sure I shall die an old maid,--but anyhow I do not intend to
knit shawls and sit around a boarding house talking about the food!"

When poor Professor Green received the letter, part of which is given
above, he, too, was plunged into sad reflections. He reached for a
pretty azure paper weight that always stood on his desk and reminded him
of a certain pair of blue, blue eyes, and looking into it as though he
were crystal-gazing, he shook his head mournfully and said: "Ah, Molly,
you little know how you hurt me! And still, what right have I to expect
anything else from you? I see you now being conducted around Paris by
your Cousin Philippe. I'll be bound he thinks you need a courier even
when you go to a Duval restaurant, the sly dog. I know his type: small
and dark, with a pointed beard and insinuating manner.

"Here I am tied to Wellington and these hated classes and lectures, when
I hoped to be in Paris acting courier for Molly instead of this
disgusting foreigner, who won't know how to appreciate her----But what
an ass I am! I don't know that Philippe is disgusting, and from what
Miss Molly says of his mother, the marchioness, she must be charming.

"I do wish she would not write so coolly of my 'orchard home.' I should
think she would know by telepathy that I always think of it as 'Molly
Brown's Orchard Home.' I was a fool to take Mrs. Brown's advice and not
tell Molly of my love. It may be too late now, and then what shall I
do?"

The distinguished professor of English at Wellington College groaned
aloud. His housekeeper, who was bringing in his tea, heard him and
almost dropped th