"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 rôle. 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."