Mrs. Kirkpatrick opened the door, and stood aghast at the sight of Molly.

‘Why, I quite forgot you!’ she said at length.  ’Nay, don’t cry; you’ll make yourself not fit to be seen.  Of course I must take the consequences of your over-sleeping yourself, and if I can’t manage to get you back to Hollingford to-night, you shall sleep with me, and we’ll do our best to send you home to-morrow morning.’

‘But papa!’ sobbed out Molly.  ’He always wants me to make tea for him; and I have no night-things.’

’Well, don’t go and make a piece of work about what can’t be helped now.  I’ll lend you night-things, and your papa must do without your making tea for him to-night.  And another time don’t over-sleep yourself in a strange house; you may not always find yourself among such hospitable people as they are here.  Why now, if you don’t cry and make a figure of yourself, I’ll ask if you may come in to dessert with Master Smythe and the little ladies.  You shall go into the nursery, and have some tea with them; and then you must come back here and brush your hair and make yourself tidy.  I think it is a very fine thing for you to be stopping in such a grand house as this; many a little girl would like nothing better.’

During this speech she was arranging her toilette for dinner—­taking off her black morning gown; putting on her dressing-gown; shaking her long soft auburn hair over her shoulders, and glancing about the room in search of various articles of her dress,—­a running flow of easy talk came babbling out all the time.

’I have a little girl of my own, dear!  I don’t know what she would not give to be staying here at Lord Cumnor’s with me; but, instead of that, she has to spend her holidays at school; and yet you are looking as miserable as can be at the thought of stopping for just one night.  I really have been as busy as can be with those tiresome—­those good ladies, I mean, from Hollingford—­and one can’t think of everything at a time.’

Molly—­only child as she was—­had stopped her tears at the mention of that little girl of Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s, and now she ventured to say,—­

‘Are you married, ma’am; I thought she called you Clare?’

In high good humour Mrs. Kirkpatrick made reply:—­’I don’t look as if I was married, do I?  Every one is surprised.  And yet I have been a widow for seven months now:  and not a grey hair on my head, though Lady Cuxhaven, who is younger than I, has ever so many.’

‘Why do they call you “Clare"?’ continued Molly, finding her so affable and communicative.

’Because I lived with them when I was Miss Clare.  It is a pretty name, isn’t it?  I married a Mr. Kirkpatrick; he was only a curate, poor fellow; but he was of a very good family, and if three of his relations had died without children I should have been a baronet’s wife.  But Providence did not see fit to permit it; and we must always resign ourselves to what is decreed.  Two of his cousins married, and had large families; and poor dear Kirkpatrick died, leaving me a widow.’