l with his
eyes on Molly.

"Evidently you have all been pining for me," says Molly, gayly. "It is
useless your denying it. Mr. Potts,"--sweetly,--"leave me a little
cake, will you? Don't eat it _all_ up. Knowing as you do my
weakness for seed-cake, I consider it mean of you to behave as you are
now doing."

"You shall have it all," says Mr. Potts, magnanimously. "I devoted
myself to the plum-cake so as to leave this for you; so you see I don't
deserve your sneer."

Philip straightens himself, and his moodiness flies from him. Marcia,
on the contrary, grows _distrait_ and anxious. Molly, with the air
of a little _gourmand_, makes her white teeth meet in her sweet
cake, and, with a sigh of deep content, seats herself on the
window-sill.

Mr. Potts essays to do likewise. In fact, so great is his haste to
secure the coveted position that he trips, loses balance, and crash
goes tea, cup, and all--with which he meant to regale his idol--on to
the stone at his feet.

"You seem determined to outdo yourself this evening, Potts," Sir
Penthony says, mildly, turning his eyeglass upon the delinquent. "First
you did all you knew in the way of battering the silver, and now you
have turned your kind attention on the china. I really think, too, that
it is the very best china,--Wedgwood, is it not? Only yesterday I heard
Mr. Amherst explaining to Lady Elizabeth Eyre, who is rather a
connoisseur in china, how blessed he was in possessing an entire set of
Wedgwood unbroken. I heard him asking her to name a day to come and see
it."

"I don't think you need pile up the agony any higher," Philip
interposes, laughing, coming to the rescue in his grandfather's
absence. "He will never find it out."

"I'm so awfully sorry!" Mr. Potts says, addressing Marcia, his skin
having by this time borrowed largely of his hair in coloring. "It was
unpardonably awkward. I don't know how it happened. But I'll mend it
again for you, Miss Amherst; I've the best cement you ever knew
up-stairs; I always carry it about with me."

"You do right," says Molly, laughing.

"The hot tea won't affect it afterward," goes on Potts triumphantly.

"He is evidently in the habit of going about breaking people's pet
china and mending it again,--knows all about it," murmurs Sir Penthony,
_sotto voce_, with much interest. "It isn't a concoction of your
own, Potts, is it?"

"No; a fellow gave it to me. The least little touch mends, and it never
gives way again."