hind him. Everyone stood
still, staring at Mollie, and Mollie stared ruefully back.

"Oh!" she cried breathlessly, "oh!" and pressed both palms to her now
scorching cheeks. "I've never been snubbed like that in all my life."
Then suddenly she laughed a bright, sweet-hearted laugh, utterly free
from envy. "I'm nowhere, Ruth, when you are concerned; but there's one
comfort, I can do as I like, and no one will interfere! If it is to be
a choice between the two, I prefer freedom to riches."

She left the room to make her way upstairs, and Jack crossed the hall by
her side. He looked intently at her as he walked, and when their eyes
met he said simply--

"You took that well--very well indeed! I congratulate you on your self-
control. I could not have kept my temper as you did."

"Oh, I don't know!" returned Mollie easily. "I brought it on my own
head. It was stupid to speak of myself at all; but just for the moment
I couldn't help feeling aggrieved, because, really and truly, I was in
greater danger than she. Uncle Bernard is old, poor thing, and that
makes him querulous."

"It ought not to. I call that a very poor excuse. When a man gets to
his age he ought surely to have learnt to be patient, even if he
imagines himself provoked."

"But he is ill as well. You say nothing about that. Should that make
him patient too?"

"Certainly it should. Suffering has often a most ennobling effect."

Mollie stood on the first step of the staircase, her arm on the
banister, looking with a challenging smile into the proud self-confident
face on a level with her own.

"Have you ever been ill, Mr Melland?"

"I am thankful to say I have not."

"But you have surely had a pain, or an ache, for a few hours at a time?
Ear-ache, when you were a child, or toothache later on?"

"Oh, certainly! I've had my share of toothache, and the smaller
ailments."

"And when the spasms were on,--were _you_ gentle and patient? Did you
feel your character being ennobled, or did you rage and champ about like
a mad bull?"

Jack laughed. It was impossible to resist it, at the sight of the
mischievous face, and the sound of the exaggerated, school-girl simile.

"Well," he conceded magnanimously, "perhaps the champing was the more in
evidence. I was not citing myself as a model, Miss Mollie. I know
quite well that--that I might be more patient than I am."

"More patient! More! You are not patient at all. You are the most
impa