o not?"

She held up her small forefinger and shook it at him.

"If ever there was an artful little minx," she said, "that Beggar-maid
was one. I never believed in her. I doubted her before I was twelve.
With her eyes cast down and her sly tricks! She did not cast them down
for nothing. She did it because she had long eyelashes, and it was
becoming. And it is my impression she knew more about the king than
she professed to. She had studied his character and found it weak.
Beggar-maid me no beggar-maids! She was as deep as she was handsome."

Of course he laughed again. Her air of severe worldly experience and
that small warning forefinger were irresistible.

"But Mollie," he said, "with all her belief in Cophetua, you think
there is not enough of the beggar-maid element in her character to
sustain her under like circumstances?"

"If she met a Cophetua," she answered, "she would open her great eyes
at his royal purple in positive delight, and if he caught her looking
at him she would blush furiously and pout a little, and be so ashamed of
her weakness that she would be ready to run away; but if he was artful
enough to manage her aright, she would believe every word he said, and
romance about him until her head was turned upside down. My fear is that
some false Cophetua will masquerade for her benefit some day. She would
never doubt his veracity, and if he asked her to run away with him I
believe she would enjoy the idea. We shall have to keep sharp watch upon
her."

"You never were so troubled about Aimee?" Gowan suggested.

"Aimee!" she exclaimed. "Aimee has kept us all in order, and managed
our affairs for us ever since she wore Berlin wool boots and a coral
necklace. She regulated the household in her earliest years, and will
regulate it until she dies or somebody marries her, and what we are
to do then our lares and penates only know. Aimee! Nobody ever had any
trouble with Aimee, and nobody ever will. Mollie is more like me,
you see,--shares my weaknesses and minor sins, and always sees her
indiscretions ten minutes too late for redemption. And then, since she
is the youngest, and has been the baby so long, we have not been in the
habit of regarding her as a responsible being exactly. It has struck
me once or twice that Bloomsbury Place hardly afforded wise training
to Mollie. Poor little soul!" And a faint shadow fell upon her face and
rested there for a moment.

But it faded out again as her fits of gravi