Deep distress reigned meanwhile in the nursery at Atherstone. Vic, the much-beloved, the stoat pursuer, the would-be church-goer, Vic was dead, and Molly's soul refused comfort. In vain nurse conveyed a palpitating guinea-pig into the nursery in a bird-cage, on the narrow door of which remains of fur showed an unwilling entrance; Molly could derive no comfort from guinea-pigs. In vain was the new horse, with leather hoofs, with real hair, and a horse-hair tail--in vain was that token of esteem from Uncle Charles brought out of its stable, and unevenly yoked with a dappled pony planted on a green, oval lawn, into Molly's own hay-cart. Molly's woe was beyond the reach of hay-carts or horse-hair tails, however realistic. Like Hezekiah, she turned her face to the nursery wall, on which trains and railroads were depicted; and even when cook herself rose up out of her kitchen to comfort her with material consolations, she refused the mockery of a gingerbread nut, which could not restore the friend with whom previous gingerbread nuts had always been equally divided. Presently a step came along the passage, and Charles, who had found no one in the drawing-room, came in tired and dusty, and inclined to be annoyed at having had to walk up from the station. Molly flew to him, and flung her arms tightly round his neck. "Oh, Uncle Charles! Uncle Charles! Vic is dead!" "I am so sorry, Molly," taking her on his knee. Nurse and the nursery-maid and cook withdrew, leaving the two mourners alone together. "He is _dead_, Uncle Charles. He was quite well, and eating Albert biscuits with the dolls this morning, and now--" The rest was too dreadful, and Molly burst into a flood of tears, and burrowed with her head against the faithful waistcoat of Uncle Charles--Uncle Charles, the friend, the consoler of all the ills that Molly had so far been heir to. "Vic had a very happy life, Molly," said Charles, pressing the little brown head against his cheek, and vaguely wondering what it would be like to have any one to turn to in time of trouble. "I always kept trouble from him except that time I shut him in the door," gasped Molly. "I never took him out in a string, and he only wore his collar--that collar you gave him, that made him scratch so--on Sundays." "And he was not ill a long time. He did not suffer any pain?" "No, Uncle Charles, not much; but, though he did not say anything, his face looked worse than screaming, and he passed away very stiff in his hind-legs. Oh!" (with a fresh outburst), "when cook told me that her sister that was in a decline had gone, I never thought," (sob, sob!) "poor Vic would be the next." A step came along the passage, a firm light step that Charles knew, that made his heart beat violently. The door opened and a familiar voice said: "Molly! My poor Molly! I met father, and--" Ruth stood in the door-way, and stopped short. A wave of color passed over her face, and left it paler than usual.