the nurse
make themselves heard.

"There, you may go now," says Daisy, giving him a last ungrateful push;
and as in a body they abscond, he finds himself depressed, but free.
Not only free, but alone. This brings him back to thoughts of Molly.
How long she is! Women never do know what time means. He will walk
round to the yard and amuse himself with the dogs until she has
finished her tiresome business.

Now, the kitchen window looks out upon the path he means to tread;--not
only the kitchen window, but Molly. And as Luttrell comes by, with his
head bent and a general air of moodiness about him, she is so far
flattered by his evident dullness that she cannot refrain from tapping
at the glass to call his attention.

"Have you been enjoying yourself?" asks she, innocently. "You
_look_ as if you had."

He starts as her voice so unexpectedly meets his ear, and turns upon
her a face from which all _ennui_ has fled.

"Do I?" he says. "Then my looks lie. _Enjoying_ myself, with a
pack of small demons! For what do you take me? No, I have been
wretched. What on earth are you doing down there? You have been
_hours_ about it already. Surely, whatever it is, it must be done
now. If you don't come out shortly you will have murder on your soul,
as I feel suicidal."

"I can't come yet."

"Then would you let me--might I----"

"Oh, come here if you like," says Molly. "_I_ don't mind, if you
don't."

Without waiting further invitation, Luttrell goes rapidly round,
descends the kitchen steps, and presently finds himself in Molly's
presence.

It is a pretty old-fashioned, low-ceilinged kitchen, full of quaint
corners and impossible cupboards so high up in the wall as at first
sight to be pronounced useless.

A magnificent fire burns redly, yet barely causes discomfort. (Why is
it that a fire in the kitchen fails to afflict one as it would, if lit
in summer, in the drawing-room or parlor?) Long, low benches, white as
snow, run by the walls. The dresser--is there anything prettier than a
well-kept dresser?--shines out conceitedly from its own place, full of
its choicest bravery. In the middle of the gleaming tiles stands the
table, and beside it stands Molly.

Such a lovely Molly!--a very goddess of a Molly!

Her white arms, bare to the elbow, are covered with flour; a little
patch of it has found a resting-place on the right side of her hair,
where undoubtedly one hand must have gone to punish some amorous lock
that wou