a low tap at the door. Molly opened it; and there stood Miss Browning, in a wonderful erection of a night- cap, and scantily attired in a coloured calico jacket over her scrimpy and short white petticoat.

“I was afraid you were asleep, child,” said she, coming in and shutting the door. “But I wanted to say to you we’ve got wrong to-day, somehow; and I think it was perhaps my doing. It’s as well Phœbe shouldn’t know, for she thinks me perfect; and, when there’s only two of us, we get along better if one of us thinks the other can do no wrong. But I rather think I was a little cross. We’ll not say any more about it, Molly; only we’ll go to sleep friends—and friends we’ll always be, child, won’t we? Now give me a kiss, and don’t cry and swell your eyes up—and put out your candle carefully.”

“I was wrong—it was my fault,” said Molly, kissing her.

“Fiddlestick-ends! Don’t contradict me! I say it was my fault, and I won’t hear another word about it.”

The next day Molly went with Miss Browning to see the changes going on in her father’s house. To her they were but dismal improvements. The faint grey of the dining-room walls, which had harmonised well enough with the deep crimson of the moreen curtains, and which, when well-cleaned, looked thinly- coated rather than dirty, was now exchanged for a pink salmon-colour of a very glowing hue; and the new curtains were of that pale sea-green just coming into fashion. “Very bright and pretty,” Miss Browning called it; and, in the first renewing of their love, Molly could not bear to contradict her. She could only hope that the green and brown drugget would tone down the brightness and prettiness. There was scaffolding here, scaffolding there, and Betty scolding everywhere.

“Come up now, and see your papa’s bed-room. He’s sleeping upstairs in yours, that everything may be done up afresh in his.”

Molly could just remember, in faint clear lines of distinctness, the being taken into this very room to bid farewell to her dying mother. She could see the white linen, the white muslin, surrounding the pale, wan, wistful face, with the large, longing eyes, yearning for one more touch of the little soft, warm child, whom she was too feeble to clasp in her arms, already growing numb in death. Many a time when Molly had been in this room since that sad day, had she seen in vivid fancy that same wan, wistful face lying on the pillow, the outline of the form beneath the clothes; and the girl had not shrunk from such visions, but rather cherished them, as preserving to her the remembrance of her mother’s outward semblance. Her eyes were full of tears, as she followed Miss Browning into this room to see it under its new aspect. Nearly everything was changed—the position of the bed and the colour of the furniture; there was a grand toilette-table now, with a glass upon it, instead of the primitive substitute of the top of a chest of drawers, with a mirror above upon the wall, sloping downwards; these latter things had served her mother during her short married life.

“You see, we must have all in order for a lady who has passed so much of her time in the countess’s mansion,” said Miss Browning, who was now quite reconciled to the marriage, thanks to the pleasant employment of furnishing that had devolved upon her in consequence. “Cromer, the upholsterer, wanted to persuade me to have a sofa and a writing-table. These men will say anything is the fashion, if they want to sell an article. I said, ‘No, no, Cromer; bed-rooms are for sleeping in, and sitting-rooms are for sitting in. Keep everything to its right purpose, and don’t try to delude me into nonsense.’ Why, my mother would have given us a fine scolding if she had ever caught us in our bed-rooms in the daytime. We kept our outdoor things in a closet downstairs; and there was a very tidy place for washing our hands, which is as much as one wants in the daytime. Stuffing up a bed-room with sofas and tables! I never heard of such a thing! Besides, a hundred pounds won’t last for ever. I shan’t be able to do anything for your room, Molly!”

“I’m right down glad of it,” said Molly. “Nearly everything in it was what mamma had when she lived with my great-uncle. I wouldn’t have had it changed for the world; I am so fond of it.”