"O Gemini! isn't that a good jest?" responded Molly, not at all in a whisper. "`Who told me?'--just as if three hundred and sixty-five people hadn't told me. Told me more jokes than one, too, Mrs Phoebe Latrobe; told me how _you_ sent off Master Marcus with all the starch washed out of him. Got-up Marcus in the rough dry--O Gemini!" and Molly almost shrieked with laughter. "Poor wretch! Hasn't had the heart to powder himself since. And she told him to his face he wanted the guineas.--Oh how jolly! Wouldn't I have given a pretty penny to see his face! Phoebe, you're tip-top." "What on earth are you talking about?" asked Rhoda, with something of her old sharp manner. "Talking about your true and constant lover, my charmer," said Molly. "His heart was broken to bits by losing--your money; so he picked up the pieces, and pasted them together, and offered the pretty little thing to your cousin, as the nearest person to you. But she, O cruel creature! instead of giving him an etiquet of admission to her heart, what does she but come down on the wretch's corns with a blunderbuss, and crush his poor pasted heart into dust. Really--" "Molly, my dear!" said Betty, laughing. "Does a man's heart lie in his corns?" "If you wish to know, Mrs Betty Delawarr, the conclusions to which I have come on that subject," replied Molly, in her gravest mock manner, "they are these. Most men haven't any hearts. They have pretty little ornaments, made of French paste, which do instead. They get smashed about once in six months, then they are pasted up, and nobody ever knows the difference. There isn't much, when 'tis nicely done." "Pray, Molly, how many women have hearts?" "Not one among 'em, present company excepted." "Oh, Molly, Molly!" said Betty, still laughing. "I thank you, in the name of present company," added Rhoda; but there was a glitter in her eyes which was not mirth. "Now, Red Gooseberries (rather sour just now), you listen to me," said Molly. "If you have got a heart (leave that to you!) don't you let it waste away for that piece of flummery. There's Osmund Derwent breaking his for you, and I believe he has one. Take him--you'll never do better; and if I tell you lies for the rest of my life, I've spoken truth this time.--Now, Fib, aren't you going to show such distinguished visitors into the parlour?" "Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Phoebe; "I was listening to you." "Madam, I thank you for the compliment," and, with a low courtesy, Molly gave her sister a push before her into the presence of Mrs Latrobe. "Phoebe, come here!" cried Rhoda, in a hoarse whisper, drawing her cousin aside into one of the deep recessed windows of the old hall, once the refectory of the Abbey. "Tell me, did Marcus Welles offer to you?" "Yes," said Phoebe, and said no more. "And you refused him?" "Why, Rhoda, dear! Yes, of course." "Not for my sake, I hope. Phoebe, I would not marry him now, if he came with his hat full of diamonds."