“If I were it should make no difference. You don’t like it, and that’s enough,” and she raised her hand to remove the ornament. But he interrupted the motion. “Don’t take it off now, for you have nothing to replace it; but that is the smallest part of the request. The real favor is that you shall not ask me why I do it.”
“That is asking a good deal, but I consent. And now tell me, how do I look? There is a wretched light in there.”
“You look like what you are, the joy of to-day and the rainbow of a happy morrow.”
“No, be serious. Is my hair in every direction?”
He regarded her gravely and with care. “Your hair is just right, and for general effect you are far and away the prettiest, the daintiest, the most highbred-looking girl within a thousand miles of this or of any other spot; and if we were alone and unobserved, I should gather you in as—” Voices close at hand caused them to turn and descend the stairs with the solemnity of an ancient couple who find dignity a restful substitute for the frivolities of youth. Once in the ball-room, with the wild Hungarian music at their heels, there was little repose for two such dancers. When the first notes of the waltz that Molly loved above all others, came floating through the hall, Amos cut in before a youth who was hastening toward the bride and swung her out across the floor. As they glided away with the music that was stirring in her heart old memories of what seemed a previous existence, she heard at her ear “Do you remember when first we waltzed? How you did snub me! But life began that night.”
Instead of returning at eleven o’clock, they returned at two in the morning. By Amos’s request it had been arranged that no servant should sit up for them, but when they entered the hall and found it dark Molly expressed surprise that not a single light should have been left burning. They easily found the matches, however, and lighted a candle. Amos had just learned from the coachman that a letter ready at six in the morning would go by an early train, so Molly showed him a little desk of her grandmother’s in the dining-room, and then left him to his writing. Passing through the hall toward the stairs she happened to look into a sitting-room, and beyond it, through a corridor, saw a portion of the big library where the moonlight fell upon a marble bust. She paused, then returning to the door of the dining-room, asked,
“How long shall you be at that letter, little prince?”
“Not five minutes.”
“Then come into the library and see it in the moonlight. You will find a girl there who is interested in you.”
“All right. That girl will not wait long.”