Waveney was in excellent spirits all breakfast-time. She laughed and talked with Noel, while Mollie sat behind her coffee-pot and looked at her with puzzled eyes.

"How can Wave laugh like that when she knows, she knows!" she thought, wonderingly; but at that moment Waveney looked at her with a smile so sweet and so full of sadness, that poor Mollie nearly choked, and her eyes brimmed over with tears.

CHAPTER V.

FAIRY MAGNIFICENT.

"Leave no stone unturned."

Euripides.

Euripides

"What is useful is beautiful."

Socrates.

Socrates

"Wish me good luck, and do not expect me until you see me," were Waveney's last words, as Mollie stood at the door with a very woe-begone face. "Cheer up, Moll. Care killed the cat, you know;" and then she waved her hand and vanished.

It was still quite early in the afternoon when she reached Berkeley Square. In spite of her assumed cheerfulness, her courage was at a low ebb. The imposing appearance of the houses awed her; she knocked timidly, and the butler who opened the door looked like a dignified and venerable clergyman.

He received her affably, as though she were an expected guest. Miss Harford was out driving, but would be back shortly; his mistress, Mrs. Mainwaring, had desired that Miss Ward should be shown into the drawing-room.

Waveney never felt so small and insignificant in her life. For the first time she was conscious of a wish to be tall, as she followed him down the corridor. Then the thickness of the carpets distracted her, and the cabinets of china. Then a door was opened, and she heard her name announced, and a soft little voice said, "Certainly, Druce. Show the young lady in."

For one moment Waveney hesitated. The owner of the voice seemed invisible. It was a 

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