"I remember. Where you wrote that bit, '_Waiting by the Sundial_'?" Scarlett nodded. "Yes. Well, I found he knew it well--in fact it turned out that he was a connection----" "What, of your friends there?" "No, not of my friends, of the old family who used to have the place." "Oh, your friends aren't the old family then?" said Molly. "No, they are not. I ought to say they _were_ not--there were only two of them," he added in an explanatory fashion, "old Mr. Hayes, and his niece Miss Strange, and Mr. Harding told me to-day that the old man was dead. I didn't know it." Molly looked up sympathetically, but, as he did not seem to be over-powered with grief, she went on, after a moment-- "Isn't it funny how, when one has never heard a name, and then one _does_ hear it, one is sure to hear it again in three or four different ways directly? Did you ever notice that?" Mr. Scarlett wasn't sure that he had, but he agreed that it was a very remarkable law. "Well it always _is_ so--you notice," she said. "Now I don't remember that I ever knew of anybody of the name of Strange in all my life, and now the Ashfords have got a Miss Strange staying with them, and here your friend is a Miss Strange." His glance quickened a little at this illustration of the rule in question. "Curious!" he said. "And who is this Miss Strange who is staying with the Ashfords?" "Oh, she is a clergyman's daughter from Devonshire. She is very pretty. Amy, don't you think that Miss Strange is pretty?" "Very pretty," said Amy, taking a book from the table. "Yes, very pretty, for that style," Molly repeated. "And what is her particular style?" Adrian asked, keeping his eyes, which were growing eager, fixed upon the keyboard. "Oh, I don't know--she's rather small," said Molly lamely (Barbara was not as tall as Amy Wilton), "and she is dark--too dark, I think." (Amy was decidedly fair.) "She has a quantity of black hair. Do you like black hair?" (Amy's was wound in shining golden coils,) "and rather a colour, and fine eyes. Oh, dear, how _difficult_ it is to describe people!" It might be so, and yet young Scarlett, as he listened, could actually see a pair of soft eyes shining under darkly pencilled brows, a cloud of shadowy hair, and lips of deep carnation. It would rather have seemed that Miss Molly Wilton excelled in the art of description. "Do you know what her name is?" he asked in an indifferent voice, stooping a little to look at a speck on one of the keys, and touching it with a neat finger-nail. "What, do you think it may be your Miss Strange?" "It's possible," he said. "Her people were somewhere in that part of the world." "I did hear her name--no, don't say it! Amy, do you remember Miss Strange's name?" Amy looked up absently. "Something old-fashioned--wasn't it Barbara?" Adrian had lifted his head, and their eyes met. In that moment the girl saw what a glance could mean. It was just a flash of light, and then his ordinary look.