o
close to each other as we have done! My grandfather's peculiar
disposition of course accounts for it: he has quite a morbid horror of
aliens."

"Is one's granddaughter to be considered an alien?" asks Molly, with a
laugh. "The suggestion opens an enormous field for reflection. If so,
what are one's nephews, and one's nieces, and cousins, first, second,
and third? Poor third-cousins! it makes one sad to think of them."

"I think perhaps Mr. Amherst's incivility toward you arose from his
dislike to your mother's marriage. You don't mind my speaking, do you?
It was more than good of you to come here at all, considering the
circumstances,--I don't believe I could have been so forgiving,--but I
know he felt very bitterly on the subject, and does so still."

"Does he? How very absurd! Amhersts cannot always marry Amhersts, nor
would it be a good thing if they could. I suppose, however, even he can
be forgiving at times. Now, for instance, how did he get over your
father's marriage?"

Marcia raises her head quickly. Her color deepens. She turns a glance
full of displeased suspicion upon her companion, who meets it calmly,
and with such an amount of innocence in hers as might have disarmed a
Machiavelli. Not a shadow of intention mars her expression; her
widely-opened blue eyes contain only a desire to know; and Marcia,
angry, disconcerted, and puzzled, lets her gaze return to her work. A
dim idea that it will not be so easy to ride rough-shod over this
country-bred girl as she had hoped oppresses her, while a still more
unpleasant doubt that her intended snubbing has recoiled upon her own
head adds to her discontent. Partly through policy and partly with a
view to showing this recreant Molly the rudeness of her ways, she
refuses an answer to her question and starts a different topic in a
still more freezing tone.

"You found your room comfortable, I hope, and--all that?"

"Quite all that, thank you," cordially. "And such a pretty room too!"
(She is unaware as she speaks that it is one of the plainest the house
contains.) "How large everything seems! When coming down through all
those corridors and halls I very nearly lost my way. Stupid of me was
it not? But it is an enormous house, I can see."

"Is it? Perhaps so. Very much the size of most country houses, I should
say. And yet, no doubt, to a stranger it would seem large. Your own
home is not so?"

"Oh, no. If you could only see poor Brooklyn in comparison! It is