in a chair, and
placing her elbows on the table, so that her pretty face sinks into her
hands, goes on: "The moment you see her take this attitude, run! don't
pause to think, or speculate; run! Because it always means mischief;
you may know then that she has quite made up her mind. I speak from
experience. Good-bye, children. I hope you will enjoy each other's
society. I shall be busy until I leave, so you probably won't see me
again."

As Letitia follows him from the room, Molly turns her eyes on Luttrell.

"Are you afraid of me?" asks she, with a glance half questioning, half
coquettish.

"I am," replies he, slowly.

* * * * *

"Now you are all my own property," says Molly, gayly, three hours later,
after they have bidden good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Massereene, and eaten
their own luncheon _tete-a-tete_. "You cannot escape me. And what shall
we do with ourselves this glorious afternoon? Walk?--talk?--or----"

"Talk," says Luttrell, lazily.

"No, walk," says Molly, emphatically.

"If you have made up your mind to it, of course there is little use in
my suggesting anything."

"Very little. Not that you ever do suggest anything," maliciously. "Now
stay there, and resign yourself to your fate, while I go and put on my
hat."

Along the grass, over the lawn, down to the water's edge, over the
water, and into the green fields beyond, the young man follows his
guide. Above, the blazing sun is shining with all its might upon the
goodly earth; beneath, the grass is browning, withering beneath its
rays; and in the man's heart has bloomed that tenderest, cruelest,
sweetest of all delights, first love.

He has almost ceased to deny this fact to himself. Already he knows, by
the miserable doubts that pursue him, how foolishly he lies to himself
when he thinks otherwise. The sweet carelessness, the all-satisfying
joy in the present that once was his, has now in his hour of need
proved false, and, flying, leaves but a dull unrest in its place. He
has fallen madly, gladly, idiotically in love with beautiful Molly
Massereene.

Every curve of her pliant body is to him an untold poem; every touch of
her hands is a new delight; every tone of her voice is as a song rising
from out of the gloom of the lonely night.

"Here you are to stand and admire our potatoes," says Molly, standing
still, and indicating with a little sweep of her hand the field in
question. "Did you ever see so fin