she suits."

"I might go further and fare worse," said Molly.

"Is there no one you would naturally go to?" asked Edmund.

"There is the aunt who brought me up, Mrs. Carteret, and I'd rather--"
She paused. "There is nothing in this world I would not rather do than
go back to her."

Molly's face was completely overcast; it was threatening and angry.

"Poor child!" said Edmund gently.

"I wonder," said Molly, "if anybody used to say 'poor child' when I was
small. There must have been some one who pitied an orphan, even in the
cheerful, open-air system of Aunt Anne's house, where no one ever
thought of feelings, or fancies, or frights at night, or loneliness."

Edmund looked at her with a sympathy that tried to conceal his
curiosity.

"Was it possible," he wondered, "that she really thought she was an
orphan?"

"It's dreadful to think of a very lonely child," he said.

"But some people have to be lonely all their lives," said Molly.

Sir Edmund was touched. She had raised her head and looked at him with a