"Odious, artful creature!" hissed the bride of Carl Walraven. "It is all her crafty scheming to attract the attention of that hoary-headed simpleton, Sir Roger Trajenna. If you are in love with her, Guy (and how you can is a mystery to me), why don't you propose at once?" "Because I am afraid, madame." "Afraid!" scornfully--"afraid of a goosey girl of seventeen! I never took you for a born idiot before, Guy Oleander." "Thanks, my fair relative! But it is quite as disagreeable to be refused by a 'goosey girl of seventeen' as by a young lady of seven-and-twenty. Your age, my dear Blanche, is it not?" "Never mind my age!" retorted Mrs. Walraven, sharply. "My age has nothing to do with it. If you don't ask Mollie Dane to-night, Hugh Ingelow or James Sardonyx will to-morrow, and the chances are ten to one she accepts the first one who proposes." "Indeed! Why?" "Oh, for the sake of being engaged, being a heroine, being talked about. She likes to be talked about, this bewildering fairy of yours. She isn't in love with any of you; that I can see. It isn't in her shallow nature, I suppose, to be in love with anybody but her own precious self." "My dear Mrs. Walraven, are you not a little severe? Poor, blue-eyed Mollie! And you think, if I speak to-night, I stand a chance?" "A better chance than if you defer it. She may say 'yes' on the impulse of the moment. If she does, trust me to make her keep her word." "How?" "That is my affair. Ah! what, was that?" The cousins were standing near one of the long, richly draped windows, and the silken hangings had fluttered suddenly. "Nothing but the wind," replied Dr. Oleander, carelessly. "Very well, Blanche, I take you at your word. I will ask Mollie to-night." Mrs. Walraven nodded, and turned to go. "Ask her as quickly as possible. You are to dance the polka quadrille with her, are you not? After the polka quadrille, then. And now let us part, or they will begin to think we are hatching another Gunpowder Plot." "Or Mr. Carl Walraven may be jealous," suggested Dr. Oleander, with an unpleasant laugh. "I say, Blanche, the golden-haired Mollie couldn't be his daughter, could she?" Mrs. Walraven's black eyes flashed. "Whoever she is, the sooner she is out of this house the better. I hate her, Doctor Oleander--your Fair One with the Golden Locks, and I could go to her funeral with the greatest pleasure!" The plotting pair separated. Hardly were they gone when the silken curtains parted and a bright face, framed in yellow ringlets, peeped out, sparkling with mischief.