ing him a trifle more advice, and favoring him
with a few more sage axioms, she prepared to take her departure.

"You may put on your hat and take me to the door; but you had better not
come in if you are going to finish your letter before the post closes,"
she said; "but the short walk will do you good, and the night-air will
cool you."

She bade him good-night at the gate when they reached Bloomsbury Place,
and she entered the house with her thoughts turning to Mollie. Mollie
had been out, too, it seemed. When she went up-stairs to their bedroom,
she found her there, standing before the dressing-table, still with her
hat on, and looking in evident preoccupation at something she held in
her hand. Hearing Aimee, she started and turned round, dropping her hand
at her side, but not in time to hide a suspicious glitter which caught
her sister's eye. Here was a worse state of affairs than ever. She had
something to hide, and she had made up her mind to hide it. She stood up
as Aimee approached, looking excited and guilty, but still half-defiant,
her lovely head tossed back a little and an obstinate curve on her red
lips. But the oracle was not to be daunted. She confronted her with
quite a stern little air.

"Mollie," she began at once, without the least hesitation,--"Mollie, you
have just this minute hidden something from me, and I should n't have
thought you could do it."

Mollie put her closed hand behind her.

"_If_ I am hiding something," she answered, "I am not hiding it without
reason."

"No," returned Dame Prudence, severely, "you are not. You have a very
good reason, I am afraid. You are ashamed of yourself, and you know you
are doing wrong. You have got a secret, which you are keeping from _me_,
Mollie," bridling a little in the prettiest way. "I didn't think you
would keep a secret from _me_."

Mollie, very naturally, was overpowered. She looked a trifle ashamed of
herself, and the tears came into her eyes. She drew her hand from behind
her back, and held it out with a half-pettish, half-timid gesture.

"There!" she said; "if you must see it."

And there, on her pink palm, lay a shining opal ring.

"And," said Aimee, looking at it without offering to touch it, and then
looking at her,--"and Mr. Gerald Chandos gave it to you?"

"Yes, Mr. Gerald Chandos did," trying to brave it out, but still
appearing the reverse of comfortable. "And you think it proper,"
proceeded her inquisitor, "to accept such pres