“I—I—am fond of music,” she stammered.
“Perhaps you will play for me now?” he said, rising.
“Oh, no!” starting back, and just then Mrs. Barry came in.
“I have been playing to your little girl,” Cecil Laurens said to her, with a smile.
“She may look like a little girl, but she is a grown-up young lady, Cecil,” Mrs. Barry answered, quickly, and Molly cried out, vexedly:
“I am not! I won’t be seventeen till August.”
Mrs. Barry glared at her displeasedly.
“Only hear her, Cecil! pretending to be a school-girl still! I never could understand why girls try to make themselves out younger than they really are. I am sure there is not such a charm in callow youth as they think,” she said, tartly.
Molly was already biting her lips in dismay.
“Aunt Thalia, I was jesting,” she said, soberly, without glancing at Cecil Laurens.