"Don't make a noise," she whispered, "for fear of waking Mamma."
"Thank you for waiting up for me, Molly. I have had such a jolly time! The Bradings are such nice people."
"And they treated you nicely?" asked Molly.
"Bless your little woolly head, why shouldn't they treat me nicely?" said Arthur, quite forgetting his own sensitiveness on this point earlier in the evening.
"Well, I think it would have been awfully mean of them if they had not done so. But still, as Annie says, I suppose you are one of their clerks, and there was no telling what they might do."
"No," replied Arthur, "nor yet what anybody else might do. I felt quite ashamed of Adrian to-night."
"Adrian? Aunt Mary's Adrian?" exclaimed Molly. "You don't mean to say he was there!"
"Yes I do. He went for the sake of the good dinner, according to his own account, and then behaved like a cad afterwards. I felt as though I should like to give him a good thrashing again, as I did when he threw you out of the swing. Do you remember, Molly?"
"Shall I ever forget it? And Aunt Mary when she ran out and saw him! I don't think she has ever liked me since." And Molly laughed under her breath at the recollection of the scene.
But the next minute Annie appeared in dressing-gown and slippers.