So Molly found in her music expression for her joy in the spring, and her wistful, undefined sense of hope in life.

Lady Groombridge, sitting near her, listened almost hungrily, and asked for more.  She was utterly sad to-night with the “might have been” of a childless woman.  The news of the final sacrifice on the part of the heir to Groombridge, of all that meant so much to herself and her husband, had made so keen to her the sense of emptiness in their old age.  And the music soothed her into a deeper feeling of submission that in reality underlay the outward unrest and discontent of to-day.  Submission was, at one time, the most marked virtue of every class in our country, and it may be found sometimes in those who, having lost all other conscious religion, will still say, “He knows best,” revealing thereby the bed-rock of faith as the foundation of their lives.  Lady Groombridge had not lost her religious beliefs, but she was more dutiful than devout, and did not herself often reflect on what strength duty depended.

And Molly, who knew nothing of submission, yet ministered to the older woman’s peace by her music.  When the men came out, Lord Groombridge took a chair close to his wife’s as if to share in her pleasure, and Edmund moved out of Molly’s sight.  She sometimes heard the voice of Rose or of Billy or of Mrs. Delaport Green, but not Sir Edmund’s, and she naturally thought he was listening, whereas part of the time he was reading a review.  But as the ladies were going up to bed, he said, looking into the large, grey eyes: 

“Who said she could do nothing but run like a deerhound and bandage like a surgeon?  And now I find she can play like an artist.  What next?”

And Molly, standing in her room, said to herself that it had been the happiest day of her life.

But a moment later the maid came in, and while helping to take off her dinner dress, told her mistress that the kitchenmaid in a room near hers was groaning horribly.  It seemed that Lady Groombridge had given out some medicine, and Lady Rose had sent up her hot-water bottle and her spirit-lamp, and had advised that the bottle be constantly refilled during the night.

“But I’m sure, miss, she shouldn’t take that medicine.  I took on myself to tell her not to till I’d spoken to you, and I’m sure I don’t know who is going to sit up filling bottles to-night.  Lady Groombridge’s maid”—­in a tone of deep respect—­“isn’t one to be disturbed, and the scullerymaid won’t get to bed till one in the morning:  this girl being ill it gives her double work.”

Molly instantly rose to the situation.  She knew of better appliances than the softest hot-water bottles, and soon after her noiseless entrance into the housemaid’s attic the pain had been relieved.  But, being a little afraid that the girl was threatened with appendicitis, she knew that if that were the case the relief from the application she had used was only temporary.  However, the patient rested longer than she expected.  Molly sat by the open window, while behind her on the two narrow beds lay the sick girl and the now loudly-snoring scullerymaid, who had come up a little before twelve o’clock.