han it had ever been to be a permanent
inmate of her house.

Molly--thought Mrs. Carteret--was restless, not inclined to morbid
thoughts, and more gentle than of yore, but more nervous and fanciful.

It was not until after a fortnight abroad, after the revelation of
mountains realised for the first time, that Molly had the courage to say
to herself that she had been a fool during the visit to Aunt Anne. Was
it in the least likely that a man of Edmund Grosse's kind would act
romantically or hastily? Of course not. She had been as foolish as Mrs.
Browning's little Effie in dreaming that a lover might come riding over
the Malcot hills on a July evening.

The girls with whom Molly had travelled were of a healthy, intellectual
type, and Molly, under their influence, had grown to feel the worth of
the higher side of Nature's gifts. And so, vigorous in mind and body,
she had come to London in October, so she said, to study music.

Miss Carew was a little disappointed when Molly expressed lofty
indifference as to who had yet come to London. But that indifference did
not last long when her friends of the season began to find her out. Then
Miss Carew surprised Molly by her excessive nervousness and shyness of
new acquaintances. "Carey" had always professed to love society, and had
always been very carefully dressed in the fashion of the moment. But, as
a civilian may idealise warfare and be well read in tactics, and yet be
unequal to the emergency when war actually raises its grisly head, so it
was with poor Miss Carew. She simply collapsed when Molly's worldly
friends, as she called them with envious admiration, swept into the
room, garnished with wonderful hats and fashionable furs. She had none
of a Frenchwoman's gift for ignoring social differences, and she had the
uneasy pride that is rare in a Celt, although she had all a Celt's taste
for refinement and show and glitter. Miss Carew sat more and more
stiffly at the tea-table, until she confided frankly to Molly--

"My dear, I am too old, and I am simply in the way. It is just too late
in my life, you see, after all the years of governess work. Of course,
if my beloved father had lived, I should never have been a governess.
But as it is, I think I need not appear when you have visitors, except
now and then."

Molly acquiesced after enough protest, chiefly because she had begun to
wonder if it would be quite easy to have an occasional _tete-a-tete_
with men friends witho