Yes! she was there--forty feet away--a hundred miles away! All that
blank space had to be crossed; and then a speech to be made!

'Must I go?' asked Molly, in the most pitiful and pleading voice
possible.

'Yes; make haste about it; there is nothing so formidable in it, is
there?' replied Mrs. Kirkpatrick, in a sharper voice than before, aware
that they were wanting her at the piano, and anxious to get the
business in hand done as soon as possible.

Molly stood still for a minute, then, looking up, she said, softly,--

'Would you mind coming with me, please?'

'No! not I!' said Mrs. Kirkpatrick, seeing that her compliance was
likely to be the most speedy way of getting through the affair; so she
took Molly's hand, and, on the way, in passing the group at the piano,
she said, smiling, in her pretty genteel manner,--

'Our little friend here is shy and modest, and wants me to accompany
her to Lady Cumnor to wish good-night; her father has come for her, and
she is going away.'

Molly did not know how it was afterwards, but she pulled her hand out
of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's on hearing these words, and going a step or two
in advance came up to Lady Cumnor, grand in purple velvet, and dropping
a curtsey, almost after the fashion of the school-children, she said,--