"Miss Molly, all my life is a patchwork made up of kind deeds and kind thoughts from one or other of you. You do not believe--" "Nay, you love us all, John. I know that well enough." For some reason a silence fell between them. Molly broke it with a laugh, which nevertheless trembled a little. "Then your gown should be a patchwork, too?" "Why to be sure it is," he answered gravely; "and I wish the world could see it so, quartered out upon me like a herald's coat, and each quartering assigned--that is Mr. Wesley's, and that your mother's, and that, again, your brother John's--" "And the sleeve Miss Molly's: I will be content with a sleeve. Only it must have the armorial bearings proper to a fourth daughter, with my simple motto--'Butter and New-laid Eggs.'" The sound of their merriment reached Mrs. Wesley through an open window, and in the dim kitchen Mrs. Wesley smiled to herself. "But," objected he, "the sleeve will not do. I do not wear my heart upon my sleeve, Molly." She turned her head abruptly. For the first time in his life he had dared to call her Molly, and was trembling at his boldness. At first he took the movement for a prompt rebuke: then, deciding that she had not heard, he was at once relieved and disappointed. But be sure she had heard. And she was not angry: only--this was not the old Johnny Whitelamb, but another man in speech and accent, and she felt more than a little afraid of him. "Tell me more of Hetty," she commanded, and resting one hand on her staff pointed to the south-west, where, over the coping of the wall, out of a pure green chasm infinitely deep between reddened clouds of sunset, the evening star looked down. He knew the meaning of the sudden gesture. Had not Hetty ever been her Star? "She is beautiful as ever. You never saw so sad a face: the sadder because it is never morose." "I believe, John, you loved her best of us all." "I worshipped her. To be her servant, or her dog, would have been enough for me. I never dared to think of her as--as--" --"As you thought, for example, of her crippled sister, whom you protected." "Molly!" He drew back. "Ah, if I dared--if I dared!" she heard him stammer, and faced him swiftly, with a movement he might have misread for anger, but for the soul shining in her eyes. "Dare, then!" "But I am penniless," said he, a few moments later. For him the heavens still spun and the earth reeled: but out of their turmoil this hard truth emerged as a rock from the withdrawing flood. "God will provide for us. He knows that I cannot wait--and you--you must forget that I was unmaidenly and wooed you: for I _did_, and it's useless to deny it. But I have known--known--oh, for ever so long! And I have a short while to be happy!" Either he did not hear or he let slip her meaning. His eyes were on the star, now almost level with the wall's coping. "And this has come to me: to me--that was once Johnny Whitelamb of the Charity School!"