a way of growing curt and terse, sometimes even snappish.

"That hot place--without trees, and all so dusty and dirty--Kadi--Kadi--I
forget."

"Oh! you stupid girl Kadikoi was only one little wee village. You mean
the Crimea--the Crimea is the name of all the country about there--where
the war was."

"Yes, of course. I _am_ stupid," said Molly, but not at all as if she had
any reason to be ashamed of the fact. "Did he never come home from the
Crimea?"

"No," said Sylvia, curtly again, "he never came home."

For an instant Molly was silent. Then she began again.

"Well, I wonder how the old lady, that poor nice man's mother, I mean--I
wonder how she got the money and all that, that Uncle Jack was to settle
for her. Shall we ask grandmother, Sylvia?"

"No, of course not. What does it matter to us? Of course it was all
properly done. If it hadn't been, how would grandmother have known about
it?"

"I never thought of that. Still I would like to know. I think," said
Molly meditatively, "I think I could get grandmother to tell without
exactly asking--for fear, you know, of seeming to remind her about poor
Uncle Jack."

"You'd much better not," said Sylvia, as she left the room.

But once let Molly get a thing well into her head, "trust her," as Ralph
said, "not to let it out again till it suited her."

That very evening when they were all sitting together again, working and
talking, all except aunty, busily writing at her little table in the
corner, Molly began.

"Grandmother dear," she said gently, "wasn't the old lady _dreadfully_
sorry when she heard he was dead?"

For a moment grandmother stared at her in bewilderment--her thoughts had
been far away. "What are you saying, my dear?" she asked.

Sylvia frowned at Molly across the table. Too well did she know the
peculiarly meek and submissive tone of voice assumed by Molly when bent
on--had the subject been any less serious than it was, Sylvia would have
called it "mischief."

"Molly," she said reprovingly, finding her frowns calmly ignored.

"What is it?" said Molly sweetly. "I mean, grandmother dear," she
proceeded, "I mean the mother of the poor nice man that uncle was so good
to. Wasn't she _dreadfully_ sorry when she heard he was dead?"

"I think she was, dear," said grandmother unsuspiciously. "Poor woman,
whatever her mistakes with her children had been, I felt dreadfully sorry
for her. I saw her a good many times, for your uncle sent me home a