"And do you really imagine," answered Molly, "that Miss Drummond annoyed us in any way? for if you do you are greatly mistaken. We are in great trouble just now about father, and about dear Guy being cut out of his rightful inheritance, and naturally we shall all feel leaving the Towers, but if you think that girl makes any difference one way or other, you are quite wrong."
Annie was silent for a moment. Then she said in a low voice, "I'm glad you don't mind her; she would try me a good bit. How soon have you got to leave, Molly?"
"Mother would like us to be out in a month," replied Molly. "Mr. Drummond does not take possession for over five weeks, but mother thinks that when a very painful thing has to be done, the sooner it is over the better. And she has almost taken a roomy old cottage on the edge of Sharsted Common. She says the children must not be cooped up in a town house, and they will have plenty of room to run about on the common, and as Nortonbury is only a mile away, Guy and Harry can still go to school there."
"And will you still stay at home, Molly?"
"I don't know, all the future is a complete blank. I am not educated according to modern ideas, and I love my own people so deeply that it would be agony to leave them. At the same time, I know some of us must go away, for we shall be very poor; we'll have no money at all except the income from mother's little fortune, and that will go a small way. I have asked mother to let us do without a servant, for I quite love housework. But really, Annie, everything at present is simply in chaos."
"It is good of you to tell me," said Annie, in her caressing voice. "You know I am poor myself, and I dearly love poor people; they are fifty times more interesting than rich ones. Fancy what zest is added to life when you have to contrive and scrape, and patch and fit every one of your dresses."
"As to that," replied Molly, "I don't in the least care what I wear; but I must frankly say that patched and contrived dresses are, as a rule, very ugly. Now shall we come into the house?"
"Not yet," replied Annie; "it is lovely out. Let us take another turn just here in the moonlight. Have you heard anything about the Squire lately, Molly? Is he likely to come back to the Towers soon?"
"No; I'm afraid he won't come at all. The sudden necessity which obliged him to sell the old home has had the strangest effect upon him. We are very anxious about him—very, very unhappy. The state of his health is our keenest grief."