Molly's eyes swept Mrs. Leroy's youthful fineries wonderingly, curiously. It was no credit to Molly that her sixth sense lay in an instinctive selection of the appropriate in the beautiful. She wondered much as a child wonders over the mysterious, at what she more often than not saw on others. She lolled back now in her simple dress, of which Alexina had reason to know the cost, and she lolled indifferently--Celeste or some one would press out the rumples when need be--then she held out a pretty hand to Charlotte. But Mrs. Leroy, the greetings over, spread her draperies with some care and absorption as she sat down. She was another type of helpless person, the reverse of Molly, with a carping sense of responsibility. Molly's gaze followed her concern with lazy interest in which lurked laughter, for the dress upon which the care was bestowed was so, well-- Alexina's face grew hot; she hated Molly, whose every thought she was reading; and, by the girl's arrangement, they fell into two groups, Molly and the men making one, King William perched on the railing of the gallery, and Alexina and Mrs. Leroy the other, drawn a little apart. There was so much to say. "We see the Kentucky papers," Charlotte told Alexina, "so I know of most of the happenings." She drew a little breath. "And Austen Blair is married?" "Yes," said Alexina, "just before we came." Charlotte was regarding her like a child with a secret trembling on its lips. "I was engaged to him once, Alexina, and we broke it." Light from many sides began to break in upon Alexina. "Oh," she said; "Mrs. Leroy!" "It's odd, isn't it?" said Charlotte. "He was the only man ever caring for me that I never subjugated--except Willy here--" Her voice brightened, while she nodded, in her near-sighted way, at Mr. Henderson. "As for him, he's ruled me and browbeat me all his life." And Charlotte smiled contentedly at the minister. Alexina reached out and, with a passionate sort of protectingness, took hold of the beringed hand wielding a fan with vivacity and sprightliness. "I wish we could have given him more advantages," Mrs. Leroy was continuing; "but he's had to plan for us somehow instead. I remember he wasn't eleven years old, though it seemed natural enough he should be doing it at the time, when we came over from St. Louis to Louisville without his father, and Willy had to buy the tickets and check the trunks. I suppose I ought to have realized it, but I never had done such things in my life, and I lost my purse in the depot, I remember, and a gentleman found it, and so Willy took hold.