With both her hands extended she advances on him, fell determination in her eye. Alas for his coat when those ten snowy fingers shall have marked it for their own! "Mercy!" cries Luttrell, falling on his knees at her feet. "Anything but that. I apologize, I retract; I will do penance; I will even eat it, every bit; I will----" "Will you go away?" "No," heroically, rising to his full height, "I will _not_. I would rather be white from head to heel than leave this adorable kitchen." There is a slight pause. Mercy and vengeance are in the balance, and Molly holds the scales. After a brief struggle mercy triumphs. "I forgive you," says Molly, withdrawing; "but as punishment you really must help me, as I am rather late this evening. Here, stone these," pushing toward him a plateful of raisins." "Law, miss, I'll do 'em," says Jane, who feels matters are going too far. To have a strange gentleman, one of the "high-up" gentry, a "reel millingtary swell," stoning raisins in her kitchen is more than she can reconcile herself to in silence; she therefore opens the floodgates of speech. "He'll soil hisself," she says, in a deep, reproachful whisper, fixing an imploring eye on Molly. "I hope so," murmurs that delinquent, cheerfully. "He heartily deserves it. You may go and occupy yourself elsewhere, Jane; Mr. Luttrell and I will make this pudding. Now go on, Mr. Luttrell; don't be shirking your duty. It is either do or die." "I think it is odds on the dying," says he. Silence for at least three minutes,--in this case a long, long time. "I can't find anything in them," ventures he, at last, in a slightly dejected tone; "and they're so horrid sticky." "_Nothing in them?_ Nonsense! you don't know how to go about it. Look. I'll show you. Open them with your first finger and thumb--so; and now do you see them?" triumphantly producing a round brown article on the tip of her finger. "Where?" asks Luttrell, bending forward. "There," says Molly, bending too. Their heads are very close together. The discreet Jane has retired into her pantry. "It is the real thing. Can't you see it?" "Scarcely. It is very small, isn't it?" "Well, it _is_ small," Miss Massereene confesses, with reluctance; "it certainly is the smallest I ever saw. Still----" By this time they are looking, not at the seed of the raisin, but into each other's eyes, and again there is an eloquent pause. "May I examine it a little closer?" Luttrell asks, as though athirst for information, possessing himself quietly of the hand, raisin-stone, flour, and all, and bringing it suspiciously near to his lips. "Does it--would it--I mean does flour come off things easily?" "I don't know," returns Molly, with an innocent gravity that puts him to shame. "Off some things it washes readily enough; but--mind you, I can't say for certain, as I have had no experience; but I don't think----" "Yes?" seeing her hesitate.