Molly murmured “Yes,” and sat down on a mossy bank and looked up into the glorious blue sky and then at a tuft of large, pale primroses in the midst of dark ground ivy, then far down to the fields where a group of brown cows, rich in colour, stood lazily content by a blue stream that sparkled in the sunlight.  Edmund was not hard-hearted, and Molly looked very young, and a pathetic trouble underlay the sense of pleasure in her face.  There was no peace in Molly’s eyes, only the quick alternations of acute enjoyment and the revolt against pain and a child’s resentment at supposed blame.

Pleasure was uppermost at this moment, for so many slight, easy, human pleasures were new to her.  She sat curved on the ground, with the ease and suppleness of a greyhound ready to spring, whereas Sir Edmund was forty and a little more stiff than his age warranted.

“But when you do enjoy yourself I imagine it’s worth a good many hours of our friend’s sunny existence.  Oh, dear, dear!” For at that moment the dairy was a scene of some confusion; two enormous dogs from the Castle had bounded up to Lady Groombridge, barking outrageously, and one of them had covered her companion with mud.

“She is saying that it does not matter in the least, and that the gown is an old rag, but I’m sure it’s new on to-day, and it’s impossible to say how much has not been paid for it.”

Molly laughed; she felt as sure that Sir Edmund was right as if she could hear every word the little woman was saying.

“Well, that you will allow is humbug!”

“Yes, I think I will this time, and I believe, too, that the philosophy has collapsed.  I’m sure she’s a mass of ruffled feathers, and her mind is full of things that she will hurl at the devoted head of her maid when she gets in.  You can only really wound that type of woman to the quick by touching her clothes.  There now, is that severe enough?”

“Why do we always talk of Mrs. Delaport Green?” asked Molly.

“Because she is on trial in your mind and you are not quite sure whether 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?”