ns her own room about
half an hour later, and finds that damsel awaiting her. "And make me
look as beautiful as possible; I have yet another cousin to investigate,
and something tells me the third will be the charm, and that I shall get
on with him. Young men"--ingenuously, and forgetting she is expressing
her thoughts aloud--"are certainly a decided improvement on young women.
If, however, there is really any understanding between Philip and
Marcia, it will rather spoil my amusement and--still I need not torment
myself beforehand, as that is a matter I shall learn in five minutes."

"There's a very nice young man down-stairs, miss," breaks in Sarah, at
this juncture, with a simper that has the pleasing effect of making one
side of her face quite an inch shorter than the other.

"What! you have seen him, then?" cries Molly, full of her own idea, and
oblivious of dignity. "Is he handsome, Sarah? Young? Describe him to
me."

"He is short, miss, and stoutish, and--and----"

"Yes! Do go on, Sarah, and take that smile off your face: it makes you
look downright imbecile. 'Short!' 'Stout!' Good gracious! of what on
earth could Teddy have been thinking."

"His manners is most agreeable, miss, and altogether he is a most
gentleman-like young man."

"Well, of course he is all that, or he isn't anything; but stout!----"

"Not a bit stiffish, or uppish, as one might expect, considering where
he come from. And indeed, Miss Molly," with an irrepressible giggle,
"he did say as how----"

"What!" icily.

"As how I had a very bewidging look about the eyes."

"Sarah," exclaims Miss Massereene, sinking weakly into a chair, "do you
mean to tell me my cousin Philip--Captain Shadwell--told you--had the
impertinence to speak to you about----"

"Law, Miss Molly, whatever are you thinking about?--Captain Shadwell!
why, I haven't so much as laid eyes on him! I was only speaking of his
young man, what goes by the name of Peters."

"Ridiculous!" cries Molly, impatiently; then bursting into a merry
laugh, she laughs so heartily and so long that the somewhat puzzled
Sarah feels compelled to join.

"'Short, and stout, and gentlemanly'--ha, ha, ha! And so Peters said
you were bewidging, Sarah? Ah! take care, and do not let him turn your
head: if you _do_, you will lose all your fun, and gain little for
it. Is that a bell? Oh, Sarah! come, dispatch, dispatch, or I shall be
late, and eternally disgraced."

The robing proceeds, and when