d
have a look at it."

John: "You will never find it by yourself. Molly will take you; eh,
Molly?"

Molly, cruelly: "I fear I shall be busy all the morning; and in the
afternoon I intend going with Letitia to spend the day with the
Laytons."

Letitia, agreeably surprised: "Oh, will you, dear? That is very good of
you. I thought this morning you said nothing would induce you to come
with me. I shall be so glad to have you; they are so intensely dull and
difficult."

Molly, still more cruelly: "Well, I have been thinking it over, and it
seems, do you know, rather rude my not going. Besides, I hear their
brother Maxwell (a few more strawberries, if you please, John) is home
from India, and--he used to be _so_ good-looking."

John, with much unction: "Oh, has he come at last! I am glad to hear
it. (Luttrell, give Molly some strawberries.) You underrate him, I
think: he was downright handsome. When Molly Bawn was in short
petticoats he used to adore her. I suppose it would be presumptuous to
pretend to measure the admiration he will undoubtedly feel for her now.
I have a presentiment that fortune is going to favor you in the end,
Molly. He must inherit a considerable property."

"Rich and handsome," says Luttrell, with exemplary composure and a
growing conviction that he will soon hate with an undying hatred his
whilom friend John Massereene. "He must be a favorite of the gods: let
us hope he will not die young."

"He can't," says Letitia, comfortably: "he must be forty if he is a
day."

"And a good, sensible age, too," remarks John; whereupon Molly, who is
too much akin to him in spirit not to fully understand his manoeuvering,
laughs outright.

Then Letitia rises, and the two women move toward the door; and Molly,
coming last, pauses a moment on the threshold, while Luttrell holds the
door open for her. His heart beats high. Is she going to speak to him,
to throw him even one poor word, to gladden him with a smile, however
frozen?

Alas! no. Miss Massereene, with a little curve of her neck, glances
back expressively to where an unkind nail has caught the tail of her
long soft gown. That miserable nail--not he--has caused her delay.
Stooping, he extricates the dress. She bows coldly, without raising her
eyes to his. A moment later she is free; still another moment, and she
is gone; and Luttrell, with a suppressed but naughty word upon his
lips, returns to his despondency and John; while Molly, who, though she