Her attention was quickly caught again, however, by the old lady's remarks, delivered as usual in a very loud voice.
"How do you do, my dear?
And what is your name?
Dear me, is this a new fashion?
Laura," to aunty, who was writing a note at the side-table and had not noticed Molly's entrance, "Laura, my dear, I wonder your mother allows the child to wear so much jewellery.

In _my_ young days such a thing was never heard of." Aunty got up from her writing at this, and grandmother turned round quickly.

What could Miss Wren be talking about?
Was her sight, as well as her hearing, failing her?
Was grandmother's own sight, hitherto quite to be depended upon, playing her some queer trick?
There stood Molly, serene as usual, with--it took grandmother quite a little while to count them--one, two, three, yes, _six_ brooches fastened on to the front of her dress! All the six invalid brooches, just restored to health, that is to say _pins_, were there in their glory.

The turquoise one in the middle, the coral and the tortoise-shell ones at each side of it, the three others, the silver bird, the mosaic and the mother-of-pearl arranged in a half-moon below them, in the front of the child's dress.
They were placed with the greatest neatness and precision; it must have cost Molly both time and trouble to put each in the right spot.
Grandmother stared, aunty stared, Miss Wren looked at Molly curiously.
"Odd little girl," she remarked, in what she honestly believed to be a perfectly inaudible whisper, to grandmother.

"She is not so nice as the other, not so like poor Mary.