Reluctant, but not daring to disobey, and always with the same aggrieved expression upon her face, Marcia withdraws. As the door closes behind her, Mr. Amherst rises, and holds out one hand to Molly. "You are welcome," he says, quietly, but coldly, and evidently speaking with an effort. Molly, coming slowly up to him, lays her hand in his, while entertaining an earnest hope that she will not be called upon to seal the interview with a kiss. "Thank you," she says, faintly, not knowing what else to say, and feeling thoroughly embarrassed by the fixity and duration of his regard. "Yes," speaking again, slowly, and absently. "You are welcome--Eleanor. I am glad I have seen you before--my death. Yes--you are very like---- Go!" with sudden vehemence, "leave me; I wish to be alone." Sinking back heavily into his arm-chair, he motions her from him, and Molly, finding herself a moment later once more in the anteroom, breathes a sigh of thankfulness that this her first strange interview with her host is at an end. * * * * * "Dress me quickly, Sarah," she says, as she gains her own room about half an hour later, and finds that damsel awaiting her. "And make me look as beautiful as possible; I have yet another cousin to investigate, and something tells me the third will be the charm, and that I shall get on with him. Young men"--ingenuously, and forgetting she is expressing her thoughts aloud--"are certainly a decided improvement on young women. If, however, there is really any understanding between Philip and Marcia, it will rather spoil my amusement and--still I need not torment myself beforehand, as that is a matter I shall learn in five minutes." "There's a very nice young man down-stairs, miss," breaks in Sarah, at this juncture, with a simper that has the pleasing effect of making one side of her face quite an inch shorter than the other. "What! you have seen him, then?" cries Molly, full of her own idea, and oblivious of dignity. "Is he handsome, Sarah? Young? Describe him to me." "He is short, miss, and stoutish, and--and----" "Yes! Do go on, Sarah, and take that smile off your face: it makes you look downright imbecile. 'Short!' 'Stout!' Good gracious! of what on earth could Teddy have been thinking." "His manners is most agreeable, miss, and altogether he is a most gentleman-like young man." "Well, of course he is all that, or he isn't anything; but stout!----" "Not a bit stiffish, or uppish, as one might expect, considering where he come from. And indeed, Miss Molly," with an irrepressible giggle, "he did say as how----" "What!" icily. "As how I had a very bewidging look about the eyes." "Sarah," exclaims Miss Massereene, sinking weakly into a chair, "do you mean to tell me my cousin Philip--Captain Shadwell--told you--had the impertinence to speak to you about----"