ents from a gentleman who
cares nothing for you?"

Care nothing for her! Mollie drew herself upright, with the air of a
Zenobia. She had had too few real love affairs not to take arms at once
at such an imputation cast upon her prowess.

"He cares enough for me to want me to marry him," she said, and then
stopped and looked as if she could have bitten her tongue off for
betraying her.

Aimee sat down in the nearest chair and stared at her, as if she doubted
the evidence of her senses.

"To do what?" she demanded.

There was no use in trying to conceal the truth any longer. Mollie saw
that much; and besides this, her feelings were becoming too strong for
her from various causes. The afternoon had been an exciting one to her,
too. So, all at once, so suddenly that Aimee was altogether unprepared
for the outbreak, she gave way. The ring fell unheeded on to the carpet,
slipped from her hand and rolled away, and the next instant she went
down upon her knees, hiding her face on her arms on Aimee's lap, and
began to cry hysterically.

"It--it is to be quite a secret," she sobbed. "I would not tell anybody
but you, and I dare not tell you quite all, but he _has_ asked me to
marry him, Aimee, and I have--I have said yes." And then she cried more
than ever, and caught Aimee's hand, and clung to it with a desperate,
childish grasp, as if she was frightened.

It was very evident that she was frightened, too. All the newly assumed
womanliness was gone. It was the handsome, inexperienced, ignorant
child Mollie she had known all her life who was clinging to her, Aimee
felt,--the pretty, simple, thoughtless Mollie they had all admired and
laughed at, and teased and been fond of. She seemed to have become a
child again all at once, and she was in trouble and desperate, it was
plain.

"But the very idea!" exclaimed Aimee, inwardly; "the bare idea of her
having the courage to engage herself to him!"

"I never heard such a thing in my life," she said, aloud. "Oh, Mollie!
Mollie! what induced you to give him such a mad answer? You don't care
for him."

"He--he would not take any other answer, and he is as nice as any one
else," shamefacedly. "He is nicer than Brown and the others, and--I do
like him--a little," but a tiny shudder crept over her, and she held her
listener's hand more tightly.

"As nice as any one else!" echoed Aimee, indignantly. "Nicer than Brown!
You ought to be in leading-strings!" with pathetic hopelessnes