"Poor little Moll. Well, it was rather embarrassing to have to interview a live stranger all alone, and in the kitchen too!"--for Mollie had drawn a highly colored and graphic description of her first meeting with Monsieur Blackie. Waveney had laughed mercilessly at first. "Mollie Ward enacting the part of Cinderella or Cinder Maiden--enter the Black Prince with the glass slipper. Mollie, dear, I grieve to say it, but your feet are not as pretty as mine;" and Waveney, who was excited with her eventful day, kicked off her shoes, and began dancing in the moonlight, her tiny feet scarcely touching the floor. And behold the spirit of mischief was in her; for, as Mollie sat on the bed and watched her with admiring eyes, she suddenly broke into a song; and this is what she sang: "Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen, Here's to the widow of fifty, Here's to the flaunting, extravagant quean, And here's to the housewife that's thrifty. Let the toast pass, Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass." CHAPTER VIII. MOLLIE'S BABY-HOUSE. "Within 'tis all divinely fair, No care can enter my retreat; 'Tis but a castle in the air, But you and I are in it, sweet." HELEN MARION BURNSIDE. It is necessary to retrace our steps a little; for it was not until much later that Waveney executed her _pas-de-seul_ in the moonlight. Miss Harford had kept her word, and Waveney was deposited at Sloane Street Station punctually at seven; and before the quarter had struck she was walking quickly up Cleveland Terrace. Mollie, whose state of mind by this time baffled description, was on the balcony watching for her, and had the door opened before Waveney was at the gate; a few hurried questions and answers had been interchanged, and then they had heard their father's latch-key in the door. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! Why is father so dreadfully early, this evening?" exclaimed Mollie, in a lamentable voice. "Never mind," returned Waveney, philosophically. "We must just wait until bed-time; and then won't we make a night of it, Moll?" "But father will hear us, and rap on the wall," observed Mollie, fretfully, "and tell us to go to sleep like good children." "Oh, no, he won't, if we curl ourselves on the window-seat; it is a big room, and our voices won't reach him. Mollie dear, remember, nothing is to be said to father to-night; he is far too tired for fresh worries. To-morrow I will take him for a prowl, and talk to him severely. No;" as Mollie looked at her wistfully. "I must have him all to myself; I can manage him more easily so. Run down to him now, dear, while I take off my hat, and then I will join you."