A MIDNIGHT TETE-A-TETE.
Mollie Dane sat alone in her pretty room. A bright fire burned in the
grate. Old Mme. Walraven liked coal-fires, and would have them
throughout the house. It was very late--past midnight--but the gas
burned full flare, its garish flame subdued by globes of tinted glass,
and Mollie, on a low stool before the fire, was still in all the
splendor of her pink silk dinner-dress, her laces, her pearls.
Mollie's considering-cap was on, and Mollie's dainty brows were
contracted, and the rosebud month ominously puckered. Miss Dane was
doing what she did not often do--thinking--and the thoughts chasing one
another through her flighty brain were evidently the reverse of
pleasant.
"So I'm really married," mused the young lady--"really and truly
married!--and I've been thinking all along it was only a sham ceremony."
She lifted up her left hand and looked at the shining wedding-ring.
"Ernest! Such a pretty name! And that's all I know about him. Oh, who
is he, among all the men I know--who? It's not Doctor Oleander--I'm
certain it's not, although the height and shape are the same; and I
don't think it's Sardonyx, and I know it's not Hugh Ingelow--handsome
Hugh!--because he hasn't the pluck, and he's a great deal too lazy.
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