LITMIR.BIZ

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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 is the matter with you, Kit? Can't you sit still? I am much interested in what your sister is telling me."

      "Tell me too, then, Mollie," said Kitty, and there was a note of sadness and entreaty in her voice.

      She slipped into a seat close to Mollie, who put her arm round her waist.

      Keith continued to ask eager questions. He was interested in Mollie's experiences as a nurse at the Victoria Hospital, Netley. All of a sudden he seemed to recognize a change in her. Her voice at first had been full of enthusiasm, but when she felt the touch of Kitty's small hand her manner changed – it became formal. She rose after a moment.

      "I did not know that I was tired, but I find I am," she said. "Will you excuse me, Aunt Louisa? I should like to go to bed."

      "Do, my dear, certainly," replied Mrs. Keith.

      "Then, Kit, you must give me another song," said Keith.

      His words and request immediately chased away every cloud from her face. She took her seat at the piano, and Mollie went out of the room.

      CHAPTER III.

      KITTY'S DREAM

      Several months before the events just related, as Mollie Hepworth was returning late to the hospital at Netley, she was arrested by seeing a figure lying by the roadside. Her professional instincts were at once aroused, and she hurried towards it. She bent down, to discover a gentlemanly-looking, well-dressed man. He was breathing heavily, and was evidently quite unconscious.

      She gave a hurried exclamation, and fell on her knees by his side. She took one of his limp hands in hers, and bending low, perceived a smell like that of opium on his breath. Had he been drugged by another? What could have happened? Her first instinct was to shield him from any possible disgrace; her second, to restore him to consciousness. She looked to right and left of her. The road was lonely – there was no one in sight. Exercising all her strength, she pulled the man more to one side. She then applied a vinaigrette, which she happened to have about her, to his nostrils, and finding a little stream of water not far off, took some in the palms of both hands, and flung the liquid over his face. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked at her.

      "Where am I?" he said. "Who are you? What has happened?"

      "I am a nurse," said Mollie – "a

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