Y'S PLAN.

"... Such a plague every morning with buckling shoes,
gartering, and combing."

THE TWIN RIVALS.

Soon after luncheon Miss Wren took her departure. Nothing more was said
about Molly before her, but on leaving she patted Sylvia approvingly on
the back.

"Nice little girl," she said. "Your grandmother must bring you to see me
some day. And your sister may come, too, if she leaves her brooches at
home. Young people in _my_ young days----"

Aunty saw that Sylvia was growing very red, and looking as if she were
on the point of saying something; Molly's queer behaviour had made her
nervous: it would never do for Sylvia, too, to shock Miss Wren's notion
of the proprieties by bursting out with some speech in Molly's defence.
So aunty interrupted the old lady by some remark about her shawl not
being thick enough for the drive, which quite distracted her attention.

As soon as she had gone, grandmother sent Sylvia upstairs to look for
Molly. Sylvia came back looking rather alarmed. No Molly was there. Where
could she be? Grandmother began to feel a little uneasy.

"She is nowhere in the house," said Sylvia. "Marcelline says she saw her
go out about half-an-hour ago. She is very fond of the little wood up the
road, grandmother: shall I go and look for her there?"

Grandmother glanced round. "Ralph," she said. "Oh, I forgot, he will
not be home till four;" for Ralph had begun going to school every day.
"Laura," she went on, to aunty, "put on your hat and go with Sylvia to
find the poor child."

Sylvia's face brightened at this. "Then you are not so vexed with Molly
now, grandmother," she said. "I know it seemed like mocking you, but I
am sure she didn't mean it that way."

"What did she mean, then, do you think?" said grandmother.

"I don't quite know," said Sylvia. "It was a plan of her own, but it
wasn't anything naughty or rude, I am sure."

Aunty and Sylvia went off to the little wood, as the children called
it--in reality a very small plantation of young trees, where any one
could be easily perceived, especially now when the leaves were few and
far between. No, there was no Molly there. Hurriedly, aunty and Sylvia
retraced their steps.

"Let us go round by the lodge," said aunty--they had left the house by
the back gate--"and see if old Marie knows anything of where she is."

As they came near to the lodge they saw old Marie coming to meet them.

"Is Mademoiselle looking for the