going back to the drawing-room, finds Cecil there, serene as
usual.

"Well, and where is my book?" asks that innocent. "I thought you were
never coming."

"Cecil, why did you tell grandpapa to offer me a dress?" demands Molly,
abruptly.

"My dearest girl!----" exclaims Cecil, and then has the grace to stop
and blush, a little.

"You did. There is no use your denying it."

"You didn't refuse it? Oh, Molly, after all my trouble!"

"No,"--laughing, and unfolding her palm, where the paper lies
crushed,--"but I was very near it. But that his manner was so kind, so
marvelously gentle, for him, I should have done so. Cecil, I couldn't
help thinking that perhaps long ago, before the world hardened him,
grandpapa was a nice young man."

"Perhaps he was, my dear,--there is no knowing what any of us may come
to,--though you must excuse me if I say I rather doubt it. Well, and
what did he say?"

"Very little, indeed; and that little a failure. When going about it
you might have given him a few lessons in his _role_. So bungling
a performance as the leading up to it I never witnessed; and when he
wound up by handing me a check ready prepared beside him on the desk I
very nearly laughed."

"Old goose! Never mind; 'they laugh who win.' I have won."

"So you have."

"Well, but look, Molly, look. I want to see how far his unwonted
'gentleness' has carried him. I am dying of curiosity. I do hope he has
not been shabby."

Unfolding the paper, they find the check has been drawn for a hundred
pounds.

"Very good," says Cecil, with a relieved sigh. "He is not such a bad
old thing, when all is told."

"It is too much," says Molly, aghast. "I can't take it, indeed. I would
have thought twenty pounds a great deal, but a _hundred_ pounds! I
must take it back to him."

"Are you mad," exclaims Cecil, "to insult him? He thinks _nothing_
of a hundred pounds. And to give back money,--that scarce
commodity,--how could you bring yourself to do it?" In tones of the
liveliest reproach. "Be reasonable, dear, and let us see how we can
spend it fast enough."

Thus adjured, Molly succumbs, and, sinking into a chair, is soon deep
in the unfathomable mysteries of silks and satins, tulle and flowers.

"And, Cecil, I should like to buy Letitia a silk dress like that one of
yours up-stairs I admire so much."

"The navy blue?"

"No, the olive-green; it would just suit her. She has a lovely
complexion, clear and tinted, like your own."