[Illustration: "Are you a good boy?" she asked] "Oh, little Molly's little grandmother," he said; "nobody on the face of this snow-covered earth is good enough for your Molly, but won't you give me a chance? Couldn't you please give me a chance? Now--this minute? Is she so very ill?" "No, she's not so very ill, that is, she's not sick in bed," mused the old lady waveringly. "She's well enough to be sitting up in her big chair in front of her open fire." "Big chair--open fire?" quizzed Stanton. "Then, are there two chairs?" he asked casually. "Why, yes," answered the little-grandmother in surprise. "And a mantelpiece with a clock on it?" he probed. The little-grandmother's eyes opened wide and blue with astonishment. "Yes," she said, "but the clock hasn't gone for forty years!" "Oh, great!" exclaimed Stanton. "Then won't you please--please--I tell you it's a case of life or death--won't you _please_ go right upstairs and sit down in that extra big chair--and not say a word or anything but just wait till I come? And of course," he said, "it wouldn't be good for you to run upstairs, but if you could hurry just a little I should be _so_ much obliged." As soon as he dared, he followed cautiously up the unfamiliar stairs, and peered inquisitively through the illuminating crack of a loosely closed door. The grandmother as he remembered her was dressed in some funny sort of a dullish purple, but peeping out from the edge of one of the chairs he caught an unmistakable flutter of blue. Catching his breath he tapped gently on the woodwork. Round the big winged arm of the chair a wonderful, bright aureole of hair showed suddenly. "Come in," faltered Molly's perplexed voice. All muffled up in his great fur-coat he pushed the door wide open and entered boldly. "It's only Carl," he said. "Am I interrupting you?" The really dreadful collapsed expression on Molly's face Stanton did not appear to notice at all. He merely walked over to the mantelpiece, and leaning his elbows on the little cleared space in front of the clock, stood staring fixedly at the time-piece which had not changed its quarter-of-three expression for forty years. "It's almost half-past seven," he announced pointedly, "and I can stay till just eight o'clock." Only the little grandmother smiled. Almost immediately: "It's twenty minutes of eight now!" he announced severely. "My, how time flies!" laughed the little grandmother. When he turned around again the little grandmother had fled. But Molly did not laugh, as he himself had laughed on that faraway, dreamlike evening in his rooms. Instead of laughter, two great tears welled up in her eyes and glistened slowly down her flushing cheeks. "What if this old clock hasn't moved a minute in forty years?" whispered Stanton passionately, "it's such a _stingy_ little time to eight o'clock--even if the hands never get there!" Then turning suddenly to Molly he held out his great strong arms to her.