"You're Ethelind, aren't you?" Molly said, without trembling or awkwardness.
Ethelind's wild eyes were all ablaze.
"Yes, and you're Molly. I'm—I'm so glad you've come. I've wanted to know you. I was coming one day to see you—I don't care what any one says. I know it's what my brother would want me to do. We—we miss him so."
"Thank you," Molly said, with a gentle smile. "I'm glad you thought of me so kindly. Just now there's something I want to say to your father or mother. Do you think either of them would see me?"
Ethelind's face fell.
"I—I can't say—for sure. They're—Oh, I don't know!—But my brother—"
"Yes, I know all that; but this is something important."
The girl seized the sister-in-law's arm. "It—it isn't—anything you've—you've heard?"
"It's nothing I've heard; it's only something that I feel I know."
But they had been seen from the window. The mother came running out, all her gay audacity transformed, as a lamp is transformed when, instead of giving light, it becomes the center of conflagration.