"Yes; Eliza gave me your card on my return. I have been away spending a couple of days with some friends," Mollie quietly explained, as she released her hands and indicated a chair for him, then seated herself upon a small sofa near him.
"Perhaps you will think me very persistent and impatient to make two calls in one day," Philip observed apologetically, and feeling a trifle disconcerted by the girl's perfect composure; "but I have been wild to learn why you ceased writing to me so suddenly—I have not heard from you for the longest while!"
Mollie lifted a look of surprise to him.
"I think you have transposed the situation," she said, a faint smile curving her lips. "I have answered every letter that I have received from you."
"Ah! then I have wronged you; forgive me! And my last letter must have miscarried, for when I did not hear from you I began to wonder if it could have contained anything to offend you," Philip returned, but he flushed beneath the clear, searching eyes looking steadily into his, as he uttered the lie. Then unceremoniously waiving the uncomfortable topic, he added with animation:
"But tell me something about yourself now, Mollie. I do not need to ask if you are well; for your blooming appearance speaks for itself; but how is your father, and what have you been doing to amuse yourself during all these long months?"
Again that faint smile wreathed Mollie's lips, and there was a suspicion of irony in it, for his question was suggestive of the tenor of his own way of passing his time.
"'To amuse myself'," she repeated in a peculiar tone. "I really have had very little time to devote to amusement of any kind during the last year and a half. For the first few months I was busy keeping house for papa, for we were trying to be economical and kept no servant. Then he was taken ill."
"Yes, I remember you wrote me at one time that he was ill," Philip interposed, "but I supposed that he had recovered long ago."
"My father is a hopeless invalid—the physicians tell me that he will never be any better," said Mollie sadly.