She was a thin colourless woman, with whatever good looks she may have had in her youth washed out of her by ill-health and an anxious life. But Mollie was a pretty girl, soft and round and dimpled, and wanting only encouragement to break into merriment and chatter. She needed a good deal of encouragement, though. She was shy, and diffident about herself. Her mother had kept her as retired as possible from the busy noisy boys' life by which they had been surrounded. The housemaster and his wife had not been sympathetic to either of them. They were snobs, and had daughters of their own, not so pretty as Mollie, nor so nice. There had been slights, which had extended themselves to the day school at which she had been educated. During the two years before they had settled down at Abington she had been at a school in Paris, first as a pupil, then as a teacher. She had gained her French, but not much in the way of self-confidence. She too was pleased enough to live quietly in the country; she had had quite enough of living in a crowd. And Abington had been delightful to them, not only from the pleasure they had from the pretty cottage, all their own, but from the beauty of the country, and from the kindness with which they had been received by the Vicar and Mrs. Mercer, who had given them an intimacy which had not come into their lives before. For Mrs. Walter had dropped out from among her husband's friends, and had made no new ones as long as she had remained at the school. "You know, dear," Mollie was saying, "I rather dreaded going to the Abbey. I thought they might be sniffy and stuck up. But they're not a bit. I do think they are three of the nicest girls I've ever met, Mother. Don't you?" "Yes, I think they are very nice," said Mrs. Walter. "But you must be a little careful. I think that is what the Vicar's warning meant." "What, Mother?" "Well, you know he said that you should be careful about going there too much--never without a special invitation. He is so kind and thoughtful for us that I think he must have feared that they might perhaps take you up at first, as you are the only girl in the place besides themselves, and then drop you. In many ways their life is so different from what ours can be that there might be a danger of that, though I don't think they would do it consciously." "Oh, no; they're much too nice for that. Still, of course, I should hate to feel that I was poking myself in. Don't you think I might go to tea this afternoon, Mother? Caroline did ask me, you know, and I'm sure she meant it." Mollie had been to church alone that morning, and the Grafton girls had taken her round the garden of the Abbey afterwards. "I don't know what to say," said Mrs. Walter, hesitatingly. "I can't help wishing you had waited for the Vicar and Mrs. Mercer afterwards, and walked back with them, as we generally do."