"Thank you," Molly said, with a gentle smile. "I'm glad you thought of me so kindly. Just now there's something I want to say to your father or mother. Do you think either of them would see me?" Ethelind's face fell. "I--I can't say--for sure. They're--Oh, I don't know!--But my brother--" "Yes, I know all that; but this is something important." The girl seized the sister-in-law's arm. "It--it isn't--anything you've--you've heard?" "It's nothing I've heard; it's only something that I feel I know." But they had been seen from the window. The mother came running out, all her gay audacity transformed, as a lamp is transformed when, instead of giving light, it becomes the center of conflagration. "Oh, what is it? What is it?" she cried, as she hurried toward them. "It's nothing very definite, Mrs. Lester," Molly replied, calmly. "It's only something I feel so strongly that--" "Oh, feel!" Mrs. Lester exclaimed, impatiently. "Don't frighten us with feelings when--" "Is Mr. Lester in? I should like to talk to him as well." The mother led the way toward the house. Molly followed, Ethelind clinging to her arm. It did not occur to any of them that no farther explanation had been made as to who Molly was. That seemed to take itself for granted. The father was in the hall at the foot of the stairs. Cora was coming down them. Both had been summoned by the sense of something wrong. Molly went straight to her husband's father. "Oh, I want to tell you, Mr. Lester; I feel I have a message." "Feel you have a message?" he echoed, with a kind of tremulous severity. "What do you mean by that?" "I don't know what I mean; only this morning he--he seemed to come and stand beside me--" "Nonsense!" It was Cora who said that, from the position in which she had come to a standstill half-way down the stairs. To Molly she seemed very magisterial and commanding. "Nonsense!" she repeated. "This is pure nervousness--or hysterics." "No, it isn't, Miss Lester," Molly contradicted, not rudely, but with imploring earnestness. "I'm sure he did come. He spoke to me. _Something_ spoke to me." "Did you hear anything?" the mother demanded. "No, it wasn't in words; or if it was in words it was only as it turned itself into words in my own mind. It was more like--like a conviction--an intense conviction--that came to me from outside." "And what did your conviction say?" Cora inquired, icily. "It said-- Oh, you must forgive me!--I shouldn't come if I didn't feel it so strongly!--It's as hard for me as it is for you--" The father backed away to the baluster. His face had grown gray. The mother dropped to a hall chair. Ethelind was crying already, but standing by as if to give aid. Cora was still commanding and severe. It was she who interrupted. "Yes; we understand all that. But tell us what you've come to say." Under this authority and severity Molly began to grow nervous. She clasped and unclasped her hands, sometimes twisting her fingers.