The day is dull. So is the rector. So is the curate,--unutterably so. Service over, they file out again into the open air in solemn silence, though at heart glad as children who break school, and wend their way back to Herst through the dismantled wood. The trees are nearly naked: a short, sad, consumptive wind is soughing through them. The grass--what remains of it--is brown, of an unpleasant hue. No flowers smile up at them as they pass quietly along. The sky is leaden. There is a general air of despondency over everything. It is a day laid aside for dismal reflection; a day on which hateful "might have beens" crop up, for "melancholy has marked it for its own." Yet just as they come to a turn in the park, two magpies (harbingers of good when coupled; messengers of evil when apart) fly past them directly across their path. "'Two for joy!'" cries Molly, gayly, glad of any interruption to her depressing thoughts. "I saw them first. The luck is mine." "I think _I_ saw them first," says Sir Penthony, with no object beyond a laudable desire to promote argument. "Now, how could you?" says Molly. "I am quite twenty yards ahead of you, and must have seen them come round this corner first. Now, what shall I get, I wonder? Something worth getting, I do hope." "'Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed,'" says Mr. Potts, moodily, who is as gloomy as the day. "I expect nothing." "You are jealous," retorts Molly. "Sour grapes,"--making a small _moue_ at him. "But you have no claim upon this luck; it is all my own. Let nobody for a moment look upon it as his or hers." "You are welcome to it. I don't envy you," says Cecil, little thinking how prophetic are her words. They continue their walk and their interrupted thoughts,--the latter leading them in all sorts of contrary directions,--some to love, some to hate, some to cold game-pie and dry champagne. As they enter the hall at Herst, one of the footmen steps forward and hands Molly an ugly yellow envelope. "Why, here is my luck, perhaps!" cries she, gayly. "How soon it has come! Now, what can be in it? Let us all guess." She is surprised, and her cheeks have flushed a little. Her face is full of laughter. Her sweet eyes wander from one to another, asking them to join in her amusement. No thought, no faintest suspicion of the awful truth occurs to her, although only a thin piece of paper conceals it from her view. "A large fortune, perhaps," says Sir Penthony; while the others close round her, laughing, too. Only Luttrell stands apart, calmly indifferent. "Or a proposal. That would just suit the rapid times in which we live." "I think I would at once accept a man who proposed to me by telegraph," says Molly, with pretty affectation. "It would show such flattering haste,--such a desire for a kind reply. Remember,"--with her finger under the lap of the envelope,--"if the last surmise proves correct I have almost said yes."