comfort in the very ring of the
deep voice. Molly was not a secretive person by nature, and moreover
she retained quite enough shrewdness, even in her unwonted break-down,
to conjecture that with Tanty lay her sole hope of help. So rolling
her dark head distractedly on the old maid's shoulder, the young maid
narrated her tale of woe. Pressed by a pointed question here and
there, Tanty soon collected a series of impressions of Molly's visit
to Scarthey, that set her busy mind working upon a startlingly new
line. It was her nature to jump at conclusions, and it was not strange
that the girl's passionate display of grief should seem to be the
unmistakable outcome of tenderer feelings than the wounded pride and
disappointment which were in reality its sole motors.

"I am convinced it is Rupert that is at the bottom of it," cried Molly
at last, springing into uprightness again, and clenching her hands.
"His one idea is to drive his brother permanently from his own
home--and he _hates me_."

Tanty sat rigid with thought.

So Molly was in love with Sir Adrian Landale, and he--who knows--was
in love with her too; or if not with her, with her likeness to her
mother, and that was much the same thing when all was said and done.
Could anything be more suitable, more fortunate? Could ever two birds
be killed with one stone with more complete felicity than in this
settling of the two people she most loved upon earth? Poor pretty
Molly! The old lady's heart grew very tender over the girl who now
stood half sullenly, half bashfully averting her swollen face; five
days ago she had not known her handsome cousin, and now she was
breaking her heart for him.

It might be, indeed, as she said, that they had to thank Rupert for
this--and off flew Tanty's mind upon another tangent. Rupert was very
deep, there could be no doubt of that; he was anxious enough to keep
Adrian away from them all; what would it be then when it came to a
question of his marriage?

Tanty, with the delightful optimism that seventy years' experience had
failed to damp, here became confident of the approach of her younger
nephew's complete discomfiture, and in the cheering contemplation of
that event chuckled so unctuously that Molly looked at her amazed.

"It is well for you, my dear," said the old lady, rising and wagging
her head with an air of enigmatic resolution, "that you have got an
aunt."

* * * * *

Some two days later