must be quick, or we shall be late for dinner, and that is just the kind of thing which does disturb Aunt Louisa."
The next half-hour was spent by both girls in getting into their evening finery. When their toilets were complete, they went and stood with their arms round each other in front of a tall mirror which stood in one corner of the room.
"I must say, though I say it who should not," said Kitty, with a laugh, "that we look as presentable as any two girls I have ever come across. Why, Mollie, I did not know until now that you were quite an inch taller than I am. But never mind; your dress looks perfectly sweet, and your feet are so pretty it does not matter whether they are seen or not. And oh, Mollie, what a white neck you have, and such round arms! I do think black lace is the very prettiest evening dress of all. But stay; you must have colour. I will run down to the conservatory and bring up some scarlet geraniums."
Kitty flew away, returning in a few minutes with a bunch of the brilliant flowers. She fastened them into her sister's belt, and stepped back to look at the effect.
"Now you are perfect!" she said. "You are a young lady enjoying one of her first peeps into society. Oh dear, it is too comical! Here am I, almost sick of going out (for Aunt Louisa takes me somewhere nearly every night); and here are you, with just the airs of an ingénue. And you are five-and-twenty, are you not, Mollie?"
"Quite old compared with you, Kitty."
"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.
CHAPTER II.
MUSIC
"I wish you would scold Kitty," said Mrs. Keith to Mollie in the course of the evening, "she is so very frivolous."
"O auntie, what a perfect shame!" said Kitty. "I frivolous! If frivolous means being intensely affectionate, I am that, but I don't think I am frivolous in any other sense of the word."
"I am not complaining of you, Kitty – you suit me perfectly; but you are just a dear little gay butterfly flitting about from flower to flower, always sipping the sweets and enjoying life to the utmost."
"Oh, I do enjoy life," said Kitty; "it is perfectly heavenly even to be alive!"
"Whereas Mollie," continued Mrs. Keith, "takes life, this very same life, Kitty, in a totally different way."
"Kitty and I were always different," replied Mollie. "What suits one doesn't suit the other. I should be sick of being a butterfly and just sipping the sweets out of the flowers. Such a life would be absolute misery to me. Therefore I cannot consider myself in any way praiseworthy for adopting another."
Mrs. Keith uttered a quick sigh.
"There are moments when life is serious to us all," she said gravely. "Hark! what are they crying in the street?"
Mrs. Keith raised her hand to listen. Both girls held their breath.
"'Further trouble in the Transvaal: serious disturbance,'" repeated Mrs. Keith, her lips turning white. "I am afraid there is no doubt that we shall have to go to war with the Boers."
"It looks like it," replied Mollie, and her eyes kindled.
"You would love to air your knowledge about nursing soldiers," said Kitty. "How horrid of you!"
"Well, Kitty, can you blame me? What is the good of being a soldier's nurse if I am never to enter on the full duties of my profession?"
"Surely it is not necessary to have war just to give you experience?" said Kitty. She turned very white as she spoke, and her brown eyes filled with sudden tears.
Mrs. Keith glanced at her, and then turned away. But as, a moment later, she passed Kitty's side, she took her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Kitty jumped up impatiently.
"Mollie," she cried, "I am going to sing to you. You shall see at least that I have some accomplishments."
She ran to the piano, opened it, crashed out a noisy waltz, and then burst into a rollicking song. Her voice was powerful and beautifully trained. It lacked a certain power of expression, but was finished and very pleasant to listen to. Mollie was standing by the piano, and turning over the pages of her sister's music, when the door was opened, and Gavon Keith in his dinner dress came in. He was a striking-looking and very handsome man. As the girl raised her eyes to look at him she gave a sudden start. She had seen him before; he was not, after all, a stranger. She had seen him, and in such different circumstances that if she were to disclose all she knew this little party would indeed be electrified. When she recognized him, he also recognized her. The colour left his face; he stood still for a moment; then recovering himself, he went up to his mother.
"Introduce me to Miss Hepworth, won't you?"
Kitty, who had been singing, let her voice drop; her hands came down on the keys with a crash. She saw the change on Gavon's face when he looked at Mollie. Her love for him made her intensely jealous. Was it possible? Oh no, it could not be! She danced up to his side as he came up to Mollie and took her hand.
"We must not be strangers," he said. "We are relations of a sort, are we not?"
"I don't know," replied Mollie. "We are friends at least, I hope."
His eyes seemed to convey a warning as he looked at her. She returned his gaze with a full, frank expression on her face, and he knew at once that he had nothing to fear from her. The magnetic influence which she always carried with her wherever she went affected him strangely, however. He sank down on the nearest chair and began to talk to her. Kitty flitted restlessly about. Gavon did not once glance in her direction. After a time he said, —
"What
