stified by an occasional reading of French memoirs and by
always getting through at least two articles in each _Nineteenth
Century_. It was a detail that she had never cared for poetry; Sir James
Stephen, she knew, had also never cared to have ideas expressed in
verse. But she felt a little dull when Miss Carew and Molly discussed
Browning and Tennyson and De Musset. Miss Carew fired Molly with new
thoughts and new ambitions in matters intellectual, but also in more
mundane affairs. If it is possible to be in the world and not of it we
have all of us also known people who are of the world though not in it;
and Miss Carew was undoubtedly one of the latter. Her tongue babbled of
beauties and courts, of manners, of wealth, and of chiffons, with the
free idealism of an amateur, and this without intending to do more than
enliven the dull daily walks through Malcot lanes.

Two years of this companionship rapidly developed Molly. She did not now
merely condemn her aunt and her friends from pure ignorant dislike; she
knew from other testimony that they were rather stupid, ignorant,
badly-dressed, and provincial. But the chief change in her state of mind
lay in her hopes for her own future. Miss Carew had pointed out that, if
such a very large salary could be given for the governess, there must
surely be plenty of money for Molly's disposal later on. Why should not
Molly have a splendid and delightful life before her? And then poor
Miss Carew would suppress a sigh at her own prospects in which the pupil
never showed the least interest. It was before Miss Carew's second year
of teaching had come to an end, and while Molly was rapidly enlarging
her mental horizon, that the girl came to a very serious crisis in her
life.

Occupied with her first joy in knowledge, and with dreams of future
delights in the great world, she had not broken out into any very
freakish act of benevolence for a long time. One night, when Mrs.
Carteret and Miss Carew met at dinner time, they continued to wait in
vain for Molly. The servants hunted for her, Mrs. Carteret called up the
front stairs, and Miss Carew went as far as the little carpenter's shop
opening from the greenhouse to find her. It was a dark night, and there
was nothing that could have taken her out of doors, but that she was out
could not be doubted. The gardener and coachman were sent for, and
before ten o'clock the policeman in the village joined in the search,
and yet nothing was heard