Molly Bawn | Page 2

gravely. "I would be a great deal more
shocked if you had said you wouldn't; for what I should do with him, if
you refused to take him in hand, is a thing on which I shudder to
speculate. John is forever doing questionable things, and repenting
when it is too late. Unless he means to build a new wing--" with a mild
attempt at sarcasm,--"I don't know where Mr. Luttrell is to sleep."
"I fear I would not have time," says Massereene, meekly; "the walls
would scarcely be dry, as he is coming--the day after to-morrow."
"Not until then?" says Letitia, ominously calm. "Why did you not make
it to-day? That would have utterly precluded the possibility of my
getting things into any sort of order."
"Letitia, if you continue to address me in your present heartless style
for one minute longer, I shall burst into tears," says Mr. Massereene.
And then they all laugh.

"He shall have my room," says Molly, presently, seeing that perplexity
still adorns Letitia's brows, "and I can have Lovat's."
"Oh, Molly, I will not have you turned out of your room for any one,"
says Letitia; but she says it faintly, and is conscious of a feeling of
relief at her heart as she speaks.
"But indeed he shall. It is such a pretty room that he cannot fail to be
impressed. Any one coming from a hot city, and proving insensible to
the charms of the roses that are now creeping into my window, would
be unfit to live. Even a hussar must have a soft spot somewhere. I
foresee those roses will be the means of reducing him to a lamb-like
meekness."
"You are too good, Molly. It seems a shame," says Letitia, patting her
sister-in-law's hand, and still hesitating, through a sense of duty; "does
it not, John?"
"It is so difficult to know what a woman really means by the word,
'shame,'" replies John, absently, being deep in the morning's paper.
"You said it was a shame yesterday when the cat drank all the cream;
and Molly said it was a shame when Wyndham ran away with Crofton's
wife."
"Don't take any notice of him, Letty," says Molly, with a scornful shrug
of her pretty shoulders, turning her back on her brother, and resuming
the all-important subject of the expected visitor.
"Another railway accident, and twenty men killed," says Mr.
Massereene, in a few minutes, looking up from his Times, and adopting
the lugubrious tone one always assumes on such occasions, whether
one cares or not.
"Wasn't it fortunate we put up those curtains clean last week?"
murmurs Letitia, in a slow, self-congratulatory voice.
"More than fortunate," says Molly.

"Twenty men killed, Letty!" repeats Mr. Massereene, solemnly.
"I don't believe there is a spare bath in the house," exclaims Letitia,
again sinking into the lowest depth of despair.
"You forget the old one in the nursery. It will do for the children very
well, and he can have the new one," says Molly.
"Twenty men killed, Molly!" reiterates Mr. Massereene, a faint gleam
of surprised disgust creeping into his eyes.
"So it will, dear. Molly, you are an immense comfort. What did you say,
John? Twenty men killed? Dreadful! I wonder, Molly, if I might
suggest to him that I would not like him to smoke in bed? I hear a great
many young men have that habit; indeed, a brother of mine, years ago,
at home, nearly set the house on fire one night with a cigar."
"Let me do all the lecturing," says Molly, gayly; "there is nothing I
should like better."
"Talk of ministering angels, indeed!" mutters Mr. Massereene, rising,
and making for the door, paper and all. "I don't believe they would care
if England was swamped, so long as they had clean curtains for
Luttrell's bed."
CHAPTER II.
"A lovely lady, garmented in light From her own beauty."
--Shelley.
The day that is to bring them Luttrell has dawned, deepened, burst into
perfect beauty, and now holds out its arms to the restful evening. A
glorious sunny evening as yet, full of its lingering youth, with scarce a
hint of the noon's decay. The little yellow sunbeams, richer perhaps in
tint than they were two hours agone, still play their games of
hide-and-seek and bo-peep among the roses that climb and spread
themselves in all their creamy, rosy, snowy loveliness over the long,

low house where live the Massereenes, and breathe forth scented kisses
to the wooing wind.
A straggling house is Brooklyn, larger, at the first glance, than it in
reality is, and distinctly comfortable, yet with its comfort, a thing very
far apart from luxury, and with none of the sleepiness of an over-rich
prosperity about it. In spite of the late June sun, there