Polly and Molly, both on a visit to the Bryces in London, looked up sharply.
"Yes, indeed, and you may guess; but I vow you'll not divine the truth. Two young maidens to have such good fortune. Had it come to me in my young days, 'twould have driven me out of my senses with joy. But you may conjecture, you may conjecture!"
Polly, seated upright on a straight-backed chair, looked as usual exceedingly pretty. Her eyes, softer and more than ever like brown velvet, took a far-away expression; and the delicate tinting of her cheeks grew roseate. She said demurely—
"If I might conjecture that which my desires would prompt, ma'am, I would say—Captain Ivor."
Mrs. Bryce tapped the floor impatiently with her slippered and sandalled foot.
"Tut!—Pish!—Pshaw! To be sure, that is proper enough, my dear. But now you may rest satisfied that you have uttered that which propriety demands. And since Captain Ivor is a prisoner in foreign parts—likely so to remain for many a long year to come—we'll e'en dismiss the thoughts of him, and Molly shall say whom she would most desire to meet at the dance to-night."
Molly sat upon a second straight-backed chair, busily netting. She was more altered from the child of eleven or twelve than her twin-brother in the same lapse of time. She had not grown tall, but she had gained rounder outlines. Her black eyes looked less big and less anxious, partly because the face had lost its peakiness. A healthy complexion and an expression of straightforward earnestness served in lieu of good looks. Though Molly Baron would never be a "belle," she might become a woman to whom men and women alike would turn, with a restful certainty of finding in her what they wanted. Her reply, no less prompt than Polly's, consisted of a single syllable—
"Roy!"
"But Roy, like Captain Ivor, is a prisoner, child. Like to remain so also. Who next?"
"Jack!"