taining
the fingers this time with much increased firmness. "And tell me who you
are."

"Don't you know, really? You never heard of me from John or---- What a
fall to my pride, and when in my secret heart I had almost flattered
myself that----"

"What?" eagerly.

"Oh, nothing--only---- By the bye, now you have confessed yourself
ignorant of my existence, what _did_ bring you down to this
uninteresting village?" All this with the most perfect _naivete_.

"A desire," says Luttrell, smiling in spite of himself, "to see again
your--what shall I say?"--hesitating--"father?"

"Nonsense," says Molly, quickly, with a little frown. "How could you
think John my father? When he looks so young, too. I hope you are not
stupid: we shall never get on if you are. How could he be my father?"

"How could he be your brother?"

"Step-brother, then," says Molly, unwillingly. "I will acknowledge it
for this once only. But never again, mind, as he is dearer to me than
half a dozen real brothers. You like him very much, don't you?"
examining him anxiously. "You must, to take the trouble to come all the
way down here to see him."

"I do, indeed, more than I can say," replies the young man, with wise
heartiness that is yet unfeigned. "He has stood to me too often in the
old school-days to allow of my ever forgetting him. I would go farther
than Morley to meet him, after a lengthened absence such as mine has
been."

"India?" suggests Molly, blandly.

"Yes." Here they both pause, and Molly's eyes fall on her imprisoned
hand. She is so evidently bent on being again ungenerous that Luttrell
forces himself to break silence, with the mean object of distracting
her thoughts.

"Is it at this hour you usually 'take your walks abroad?'" he asks,
smoothly.

"Oh, no," laughing; "you must not think that. To-night there was an
excuse for me. And if there is blame in the matter, you must take it.
But for your slothfulness, your tardiness, your unpardonable laziness,"
spitefully, "my temper would not have driven me forth."

"But," reproachfully, "you do not ask the cause of my delay. How would
you like to be first inveigled into taking a rickety vehicle in the
last stage of dissipation and then deposited by that vehicle, without
an instant's warning, upon your mother earth? For my part, I didn't
like it at all."

"I'm so sorry," says Molly, sweetly. "Did all that really happen to
you, and just while I was abusing you with all my might and ma