"_School for Scandal_," muttered the stranger. "A very good song and very well sung. I should like to clap. Let me see: that is what they used to do in the Arabian Nights entertainment--clap hands, enter beautiful Circassian slave, with a golden dish full of jewelled fruits. I will knock instead at the mysterious portal." "Oh, is that you, Ann!" exclaimed a voice, cheerfully. "However did you get in? Fetch me some coals, please. And oh, I forgot your poor tooth. Was it very bad?" "Pardon me," observed the young man, hurriedly. Then, at the strange voice, Mollie turned round. Once, many years ago in a foreign gallery, Ingram had stood for a long time before a little picture that had captivated his fancy; it was the work of an English artist, and a very promising one, and was entitled "Cinderella." A little workhouse drudge was sitting on a stool in the chimney corner of a dark underground kitchen; a black, cindery fire was casting a dull glow; a thin tabby cat was trying to warm itself. The torn, draggled frock and grimy hands of the little maid-of-all-work were admirably rendered, but under the tangled locks a pair of innocent child's eyes looked wistfully out. A story book, with the page opened at Cinderella, lay on the lap. Ingram thought of this picture as Mollie turned her head and looked at him, and, man of the world as he was, for the moment words failed him. He was standing in a dull little kitchen--a mere slip of a place--looking out on a long straggling garden, very narrow, and chiefly remarkable for gooseberry-and-currant bushes; and sitting on the rug in front of the fire, like a blissful salamander, was a girl with the most beautiful face that he had ever seen. Then poor Mollie, blushing like a whole garden full of roses in her embarrassment, scrambled awkwardly to her feet. "Oh, dear! I thought it was our Ann. Will you tell me your name, please? Father is out, and we do not expect him home until eight." "My business was with your sister," returned Ingram, regaining his self-possession as he saw the girl's nervousness. "Your servant let me in exactly five-and-twenty minutes ago, and as I thought the household was asleep I was endeavouring to discover a bell; and then I heard singing,-- "'Let the toast pass; Drink to the lass,' Awfully good song that." "Oh, dear," faltered Mollie--she would have liked to sink through the floor at that moment, to avoid that bright, quizzical glance; "that was father's song, not mine. Oh, I know now who you are. You are the gentleman whose pocket was picked yesterday."