well-meaning fairy godmother; and I'm Cinderella, with the tatters and
rags turned to cloth of gold, and nothing to do but wait at my ease for
the fairy prince, and marry him when he comes. Cricket! Cricket! you're
the luckiest witch's granddaughter that ever danced to her own shadow!"




CHAPTER III.

MR. WALRAVEN'S WEDDING.


Mollie Dane made herself very much at home at once in the magnificent
Walraven mansion. The dazzle of its glories scarcely lasted beyond the
first day, or, if it did, nobody saw it. Why, indeed, should she be
dazzled? She, who had been Lady Macbeth, and received the Thane of
Cawdor at her own gates; who had been Juliet, the heiress of all the
Capulets; who had seen dukes and nobles snubbed unmercifully every night
of her life by virtuous poverty, on the stage. Before the end of the
first week Mollie had become the light of the house, perfectly
indispensable to the happiness of its inmates.

Miss Dane was launched into society at a dinner-party given for the
express purpose by "grandmamma". Wondrously pretty looked the youthful
_débutante_, in silvery silk and misty lace and pearls, her eyes like
blue stars, her cheeks like June roses.

In the wintery dusk of the short December days, Mrs. Walraven
received her guests in the library, an imposing room, oak-paneled,