y, as usual?"

"I suppose so." With hesitation.

"I wonder you didn't say no, you hard-hearted child. Not that it would
have made the slightest difference, as I should have come whether you
liked it or not. And now come out--do; the sun is shining, and will
melt away this severe attack of the blues. Let us go into the Park and
watch for our future prey,--you for your palsied millionaire, I for my
swarthy West Indian."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud."

--_Idylls of the King._

The very next morning brings Molly the news of her grandfather's death.
He had died quietly in his chair the day before without a sign, and
without one near him. As he had lived, so had he died--alone.

The news conveyed by Mr. Buscarlet shocks Molly greatly, and causes
her, if not actual sorrow, at least a keen regret. To have him die
thus, without reconciliation or one word of forgiveness,--to have him
go from this world to the next, hard of heart and unrelenting, saddens
her for his soul's sake.

The funeral is to be on Thursday, and this is Tuesday. So Mr. Buscarlet
writes, and adds that, by express desire of Mr. Amherst, the will is to
be opened and read immediately after the funeral before all those who
spent last autumn in his house. "Your presence," writes the attorney,
"is particularly desired."

In the afternoon Lady Stafford drops in, laden, as usual, with golden
grain (like the Argosy), in the shape of cakes and sweetmeats for the
children, who look upon her with much reverence in the light of a
modern and much-improved Santa Claus.

"I see you have heard of your grandfather's death by your face," she
says, gravely. "Here, children,"--throwing them their several
packages,--"take your property and run away while I have a chat with
mamma and Auntie Molly."

"Teddy brought us such nice sugar cigars yesterday," says Renee, who,
in her black frock and white pinafore and golden locks, looks perfectly
angelic: "only I was sorry they weren't real; the fire at the end
didn't burn one bit."

"How do you know?"

"Because"--with an enchanting smile--"I put it on Daisy's hand, to see
if it would, and it wouldn't; and wasn't it a pity?"

"It was, indeed. I am sure Daisy sympathizes with your grief. There, go
away, you blood-thirsty child; we are very busy."

While the children, in some remote corner of the house, are growing
gradually happier and stickier, their eld