There was no sight or sound of dread,"

quotes Luttrell, dreamily, as he strays idly along the garden path,
through scented shrubs and all the many-hued children of light and dew.
His reverie is lengthened yet not diffuse. One little word explains it
all. It seems to him that word is everywhere: the birds sing it, the
wind whistles it as it rushes faintly past, the innumerable voices of
the summer cry ceaselessly for "Molly."

"Mr. Luttrell, Mr. Luttrell," cries some one, "look up." And he does
look up.

Above him, on the balcony, stands Molly, "a thing of beauty," fairer
than any flower that grows beneath. Her eyes like twin stars are
gleaming, deepening; her happy lips are parted; her hair drawn loosely
back, shines like threads of living gold. Every feature is awake and
full of life; every movement of her sweet body, clad in its white gown,
proclaims a very joyousness of living.

With hands held high above her head, filled with parti-colored roses,
she stands laughing down upon him; while he stares back at her, with a
heart filled too full of love for happiness. With a slight momentary
closing of her lids she opens both her hands and flings the scented
shower into his uplifted face.

"Take your punishment," she whispers, saucily, bending over him, "and
learn your lesson. Don't look at me another time."

"It was by your own desire I did so," exclaims he, bewildered, shaking
the crimson and yellow and white leaves from off his head and
shoulders. "How am I to understand you?"

"How do I know, when I don't even understand myself? But when I called
out to you 'Look up,' of course I meant 'look down.' Don't you remember
the old game with the handkerchief?--when I say 'Let go,' 'hold fast;'
and when I say 'Hold fast,' 'let go?' You must recollect it."

"I have a dim idea of something idiotic, like what you say."

"It is not idiotic, but it suits only some people; it suits me. There
is a certain perverseness about it, a determination to do just what one
is told not to do, that affects me most agreeably. Did I"--glancing at
the rosy shower at his feet--"did I hurt you _much_?" With a
smile.

There is a little plank projecting from the wood-work of the pillars
that supports the balcony: resting his foot on this, and holding on by
the railings above, Luttrell draws himself up until his face is almost
on a level with hers,--almost, but not quite: she can still overshadow
him.

"If that was all the injury I had re