"I shall be twenty in a month," said Kitty, "and then in one year my fortune comes in. Oh dear, what a horrible thing money is!"
As she spoke a change came over her face—a wistful, puzzled, distressed expression. Mollie noticed it.
"It is impossible the child can be in money difficulties," she said to herself. "I must speak to her about this later on."
The dinner gong sounded, and the two ran downstairs. Mrs. Keith was in the drawing-room. She gave Mollie a hearty welcome.
"You look very well indeed," she said. "How like Kitty you are, and yet how different!"
This was quite true. Kitty was far and away the prettier sister, and yet no one would look at Kitty when Mollie was present. It was difficult to account for this fact; nevertheless it existed. The very tone of the elder girl's voice was arresting—there was a dignity in everything she said; and yet she never posed, nor had she a trace of affectation in her nature. One secret of her influence may have been that she absolutely, on every possible occasion, forgot herself. Her life was a consecration. To make others happy was the whole aim and object of her existence. When her father and mother died, she had been old enough to feel their deaths intensely. But the greatest sorrow of all had never come into her life; and beautiful and perfect as her character seemed, there were hidden depths yet to be explored, and greater heights to be reached, before Mollie Hepworth would gain the full crown of womanhood. As to love, in the sense in which Kitty loved Gavon Keith, Mollie had never even thought of it. Her feeling, as she sat now at her aunt's luxurious table, was that nothing would induce her to marry.
"A consecrated life shall ever be mine," was her thought.
Nevertheless she was quite healthy enough to fully enjoy the present, and she drew Mrs. Keith out to talk of her son, and asked Kitty many fresh questions with regard to her employments and interests.