he mother of her imagination had
never existed, and, immediately afterwards, she had been given a glimpse
of the world's view of her own position as a young person best
concealed, or, at least, not brought too much forward.

Lastly, with the news of the money that at least meant freedom, she had
gained, by a rapid intuition, a faint but unmistakable sense of
discomfort as to the money itself.

It was not any scrupulous fear that it could be her duty to inquire
whether Sir David Bright ought to have left his fortune to his widow!
Probably Lady Rose had quite as much as many dowagers have to live on.
But she had been forced to know that other people disapproved of Sir
David's will. It was not a fortune entered into with head erect and eyes
proudly facing a friendly world. Still, Molly was not daunted: the
combat with life was harder and quite different from what she had
foreseen, but she had always looked on her future as a fight.

Presently she let the "letter from Jane" fall close to the chair in
which her aunt had been sitting, and moved the chair till the paper was
half hidden by the chintz frill of the cover. She meant Mrs. Carteret to
think that she had not read it.

She then went out for a long walk and met her aunt at luncheon with a
quietly respectful manner, a little more respectful than it had ever
been before.

Later in the day Molly wrote to the family lawyer, and consulted him as
to how to find a suitable lady with whom to stay in London. Mrs.
Carteret read and passed the letter. Seeing that Molly was determined to
go to London, she was anxious to help her as much as possible, without
calling down upon herself such letters of advice as the one from Lady
Dawning. It proved as difficult to find just the right thing in
chaperones as it is usually difficult to find exactly the right thing in
any form of humanity, and December and January passed in the search. But
in the end all that was to be wished for seemed to be secured in the
person of Mrs. Delaport Green, who was known to a former pupil of Miss
Carew's, and at length Molly went out of the rooms with the northern
aspect, and drove through the wood that sheltered under the shoulder of
the great green hill, with nothing about her to recall the child who had
come in there for the first time fourteen years ago, except that she
still had the look of one who waits for other circumstances and other
people.

CHAPTER VII

EDMUND GROSSE CONTINUES TO IN