"I think respect is never weakness," she said. "It is a sign of strength, even when it is misplaced. There is not much to admire in cunning people who are never taken in. The best people I have known, the people whom it did me good to be with, have been those who respected others and themselves. Do not be in too great a hurry to get rid of any little fragment that still remains. You may want it when it is gone." Charles's apathetic face had become strangely earnest. There was a keen, searching look in his tired, restless eyes. He was about to make some answer, when he suddenly became aware of Dare and Molly sitting perched on a gate close at hand waiting for them. Never had he perceived Molly's little brown face with less pleasure than at that moment. She scrambled down with a noble disregard of appearances, and tried to take his hand. But it was coolly withdrawn. Charles fell behind on some pretence of fastening the gate, and Molly had to content herself with Ruth's and Dare's society for the remainder of the walk. Ruth had almost forgotten, until Molly suggested at luncheon a picnic for the following day, that she was returning to Slumberleigh on Monday morning; and when she made the fact known, Ralph had to be "hushed" several times by Evelyn for muttering opinions behind the sirloin respecting Mrs. Alwynn, which Evelyn seemed to have heard before, and to consider unsuited to the ears of that lady's niece. "But if you go away, Cousin Ruth, we can't have the picnic. Can we, Uncle Charles?" "Impossible, Molly. Rather bread and butter at home than a mixed biscuit in the open air without Miss Deyncourt." "Is Mrs. Alwynn suffering?" asked Lady Mary, politely, down the table. Ruth explained that she was not in ill-health, but that she did wish to be left alone; and Ralph was "hushed" again.