to prevent anybody in the whole wide world from ever annoying her
again about--anything, that I've come here now!" he persisted rashly.
"And don't you see--we had a little misunderstanding and--"
Into the little old lady's ivory cheek crept a small, bright,
blush-spot.
"Oh, you had a little misunderstanding," she repeated softly. "A
little quarrel? Oh, is that why Molly has been crying so much ever
since she came home?"
Very gently she reached out her tiny, blue-veined hand, and turned
Stanton's big body around so that the lamp-light smote him squarely on
his face.
"Are you a good boy?" she asked. "Are you good enough for--my--little
Molly?"
Impulsively Stanton grabbed her small hands in his big ones, and
raised them very tenderly to his lips.
[Illustration: "Are you a good boy?" she asked]
"Oh, little Molly's little grandmother," he said; "nobody on the face
of this snow-covered earth is good enough for your Molly, but won't
you give me a chance? Couldn't you please give me a chance? Now--this
minute? Is she so very ill?"
"No, she's not so very ill, that is, she's not sick in bed," mused the
old lady waveringly. "She's well enough to be sitting up in her big
chair in front of her open fire."
"Big chair--open fire?" quizzed Stanton. "Then, are there two chairs?"
he asked casually.
"Why, yes," answered the little-grandmother in surprise.
"And a mantelpiece with a clock on it?" he probed.
The little-grandmother's eyes opened wide and blue with astonishment.
"Yes," she said, "but the clock hasn't gone for forty years!"
"Oh, great!" exclaimed Stanton. "Then won't you please--please--I tell
you it's a case of life or death--won't you _please_ go right upstairs
and sit down in that extra big chair--and not say a word or anything
but just wait till I come? And of course," he said, "it wouldn't be
good for you to run upstairs, but if you could hurry just a little I
should be _so_ much obliged."
As soon as he dared, he followed cautiously up the unfamiliar stairs,
and peered inquisitively through the illuminating crack of a loosely
closed door.
The grandmother as he remembered her was dressed in some funny sort of
a dullish purple, but peeping out from the edge of one of the chairs
he caught an unmistakable flutter of blue.
Catching his breath he tapped gently on the woodwork.
Round the big winged arm of the chair a wonderful, bright aureole of
hair showed suddenly.
"Come in," faltered Molly's perplexed voice.
All muffled up in his great fur-coat he pushed the door wide open and
entered boldly.
"It's only Carl," he said. "Am I interrupting you?"
The really dreadful collapsed expression on Molly's face Stanton did
not appear to notice at all. He merely walked over to the mantelpiece,
and leaning his elbows on the little cleared space in front of the
clock, stood staring fixedly at the time-piece which had not changed
its quarter-of-three expression for forty years.
"It's almost half-past seven," he announced pointedly, "and I can stay
till just eight o'clock."
Only the little grandmother smiled.
Almost immediately: "It's twenty minutes of eight now!" he announced
severely.
"My, how time flies!" laughed the little grandmother.
When he turned around again the little grandmother had fled.
But Molly did not laugh, as he himself had laughed on that faraway,
dreamlike evening in his rooms. Instead of laughter, two great tears
welled up in her eyes and glistened slowly down her flushing cheeks.
"What if this old clock hasn't moved a minute in forty years?"
whispered Stanton passionately, "it's such a _stingy_ little time to
eight o'clock--even if the hands never get there!"
Then turning suddenly to Molly he held out his great strong arms to
her.
"Oh, Molly, Molly!" he cried out beseechingly, "I love you! And I'm
free to love you! Won't you please come to me?"
[Illustration: "It's only Carl," he said]
Sliding very cautiously out of the big, deep chair, Molly came walking
hesitatingly towards him. Like a little wraith miraculously tinted
with bronze and blue she stopped and faced him piteously for a second.
Then suddenly she made a little wild rush into his arms and burrowed
her small frightened face in his shoulder.
"Oh, Carl, Sweetheart!" she cried. "I can really love you now? Love
you, Carl--love you! And not have to be just Molly Make-Believing any
more!"
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Molly Make-Believe, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott