instant that it was indiscreet to say
such a thing to her. He only meant it for a jest, and nine girls out
of ten even at sixteen would have understood his languid air of
grandiloquence in an instant. But Mollie at sixteen was extremely
liberal-minded, and almost Arcadian in her simplicity of thought and
demeanor.

Her brown eyes flew wide open, and for a minute she stared at him with
mingled amazement and questioning.

"Me!" she said, ignoring all given rules of propriety of speech.

"Yes, you," answered Gowan, smiling, and looking down at her amusedly.
"I have been paying you a compliment, Mollie."

"Oh!" said Mollie, bewilderment settling on her face. But the next
instant the blood rushed to her cheeks, and her eyes fell, and she moved
a little farther away from him.

It was the first compliment she had received in all her life, and it was
the beginning of an era.

CHAPTER V. ~ IN WHICH THE PHILISTINES BE UPON US.

"We are going," Dolly to Ralph Gowan, "to have a family rejoicing,
and we should like you to join us. We are going to celebrate Mollie's
birthday."

"Thanks," he answered, "I shall be delighted." He had heard of these
family rejoicings before, and was really pleased with the idea of
attending one of them. They were strictly Vagabondian, which was one
recommendation, and they were entirely free from the Bilberry element,
which was another. They were not grand affairs, it is true, and set
etiquette and the rules of society at open defiance, but they were
cheerful, at least, and nobody attended them who had not previously
resolved upon enjoying himself and taking kindly to even the most
unexpected state of affairs. At Bloomsbury Place, Lady Augusta's "coffee
and conversation" became "conversation and coffee," and the conversation
came as naturally as the coffee. People who had jokes to make made them,
and people who had not were exhilarated by the _bon-mots_ of the rest.

"Mollie will be seventeen," said Dolly, "and it is rather a trial to
me."

Gowan laughed.

"Why?" he asked.

She shook her head gravely.

"In the first place," she answered, "it makes me feel as if the dust of
ages was accumulating in my pathway, and in the second, it is not safe
for her."

"Why, again?" he demanded.

"She is far too pretty, and her knowledge of the world is far too
limited. She secretly believes in Lord Burleigh, and clings to the
poetic memory of King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid."

"And you d