"Thank you, miss. I do feel very grateful to you for taking such an interest in her. Oh, here come the boys."
They were fine, healthy little fellows, and their mother's eyes rested on them with loving pride. The elder was Jim, and the younger Dick, she explained.
Marian discovered two pennies in her pocket, which she presented to them to spend as they thought fit, and a further search found another penny for Molly. Mrs. Lethbridge smiled her gratitude, and Marian laughed as the children ran out of the cottage, and across the road to the shop to invest their money in sweets.
"I never mind so long as Molly is with the boys," the mother explained; "they think a deal of their sister."
"That is as it should be," Marian responded. "Well, Mrs. Lethbridge, I must be going now. I'm afraid I've been hindering you in your work."
"I'm glad you should, miss. I was that miserable when you came in; and now, I declare, what with your kind thought for my little maid, and all you've said to me, I feel a different woman!"
As she left the cottage Marian glanced across to Mrs. Mugford's shop, and saw Molly and her brothers making their purchases, the boys holding an animated conversation with Mrs. Mugford herself. Marian smiled, knowing well that the kind woman would give the children good worth for their pennies.
On her way home she encountered some of the children she had surprised teasing Molly an hour before, and stopped to speak a few words of remonstrance about their behaviour. She saw by their flushed cheeks and bowed heads that they were ashamed of themselves; and when she told them how they ought to protect one whom God had made unable to protect herself, instead of mocking her, a bright little girl, who had been one of the ringleaders of Molly's tormentors, said, with real penitence in her voice:—
"We didn't mean to be unkind, Miss Morris. It was only fun, and we didn't think. I'll stand up for crazy Molly, and never laugh at her again!"