her heart, but she has a character gracefully to
accept the years that Providence has allotted her and that only serve to
make her more lovely. I have no patience with the assumption of extreme
youth in the middle-aged, despite the limerick I have taken for my
motto."

"But, Mr. Kinsella, you are not middle-aged," protested Molly. "I never
even think of Mother as being middle-aged. I think that is the ugliest
word in our language, except, maybe, stout. I'd a great deal rather be
called fat and forty than stout and middle-aged!"

"Well, it will be many a year before you will be called either, and by
that time you may change your mind. 'A rose by any other name would
smell as sweet,' and, after all, it is being stout and middle-aged that
makes the difference, not being called it."

While Molly was having the little chat with Mr. Kinsella, Mrs.
Huntington had come on deck and had approached them from behind. Looking
up, Molly surprised on her face an expression of extreme bitterness, and
she wondered if she had overheard Mr. Kinsella's views on the subject of
the assumption of youth in the middle-aged. "I do hope she didn't,"
thought Molly. "She is so pretty, and it must be hard to give up youth
and to feel your beauty slipping from you. Especially hard when beauty
has been your chief asset in life, as I fancy it has been with Mrs.
Huntington." She gave the older woman a polite bow and smile and Mr.
Kinsella formally offered her his chair but with no great cordiality.

"Oh, thank you, Tom. And how are you, Miss Brown? I do hope you are
feeling better. My daughter has taken such a fancy to you, she has been
quite _desole_ at your nonappearance all day."

"Oh, I am all well again, thanks to Mr. Kinsella's getting me some food
at the psychological moment when health was returning," answered Molly,
wondering at Mrs. Huntington's change of tactics since the evening
before, when she had been so insolent in her bearing to her. "It is
certainly nicer to have her polite to me than rude, whether she means it
or not," she said to herself. "I do wish I had not been sick all day. I
did want to see her first meeting with Mr. Kinsella. I know she had
something to do with his premature grayness and the disappointment that
Pierce hinted at. How coldly polite he is to her now. If a man like that
had ever loved me and then could be so cold to me, I believe it would
kill me," which shows that Molly was very sentimental and on the lookout