'We will go on a little farther. You have a capital view of Woodcote now; the house is in fine perspective. There is Michael's Bench, so called after my cousin, Captain Burnett; and this, Mollie'--pointing to a pretty little thicket of trees and shrubs reaching down to the water--'is Deep-water Chine. With your permission, we will rest here a moment.' 'Have we got to the end of our voyage?' laughed Mollie. 'Oh dear, Miss Ross, how droll you are this afternoon! But it is pretty--sweetly pretty; and how lovely those swans are! How happy you must be to live in such a dear place!' 'I am very fond of it,' returned Audrey dreamily. 'Listen to those birds; father is so fond of them. You cannot admire the place more than I do, Mollie. To me Woodcote is the finest place in the world; it would be dreadful to leave it.' 'Why should you ever leave it, Miss Ross?' 'Why, indeed?' with an amused curl of her lip. 'I don't suppose I ever shall leave it, Mollie.' 'Not unless you married,' replied Mollie, in a serious voice. 'People are obliged to go away when they are married, are they not? But perhaps you will have as grand a place of your own.' 'I have half made up my mind that I will be an old maid,' returned Audrey lazily. 'Old maids lead such nice, useful, unselfish lives.' And then, as Mollie opened her eyes rather widely at this, she went on: 'What a pretty frock that is!--and that smocking is exquisitely done. I really must ask your mother to give me lessons--for it will be useful if I ever should have any nephews and nieces,' thought Audrey, who was practical in her own way. 'Mamma will be delighted to teach you; she is so fond of you, Miss Ross. She was talking about you half the evening. Do you know, she did not go to bed until past one o'clock; she was finishing my blue cambric. Cyril begged her to put it down half a dozen times, but she said no, she had made up her mind to finish it--and the hat, too. He had to go off to bed and leave her at last, and it was not really done until past one.' Audrey made no comment. She was asking herself how far she ought to encourage Mollie's childish loquacity--she was very original and amusing. 'But if I do not check her,' thought Audrey, 'there is no knowing what she may say next. All the Blakes are so very outspoken.' But Mollie was disposed to enlarge on a topic that interested her so closely. She had arrived at an age when a girl begins to feel some anxiety to make the best of herself. Her nice new frock was an important ingredient in the day's pleasure; she felt a different Mollie from the Mollie of yesterday. It was as though Cinderella, dusty and begrimed with her ashes, had suddenly donned her princess's robe.