e-volumed novel," said Mollie.

"It is a good joke," said 'Toinette.

"It is very awkward," commented Aimee. "If she finds out you are engaged
to Griffith, she will think it so indiscreet of you both that she will
cut him off with a shilling."

"Indiscreet!" echoed Dolly. "So we are indiscreet, my sage young
friend,--but indiscretion is like variety, it is the spice of life."

And by this brisk speech she managed to sweep away the shadow which
had touched Griffith's face, at the unconscious hint at their lack of
wisdom.

"Don't say such a thing again," she said to Aimee afterward, when
they were talking the matter over, as they always talked things over
together, "or he will fancy that you share his own belief that he has
something to reproach himself with. Better to be indiscreet than to love
one another less."

"A great deal better," commented the wise one of the family, oracularly.
She was not nineteen yet, this wise one, but she was a great comfort
and help to Dolly, and indeed to all of them. "And it is n't _my_ way
to blame you, either, Dolly, though things _do_ look so entangled. _I_
never advised you to give it up, you know."

"Give it up," cried Dolly, a soft, pathetic warmth and color rising to
her face and eyes. "Give it up! There would be too much of what has
past and what is to come to give up with it. Give it up! I wouldn't if I
could, and I could n't if I would."

CHAPTER VII. ~ IN WHICH A SPARK IS APPLIED.

IT was several days before Bloomsbury Place settled down and became
itself again after Dolly's departure. They all missed her as they would
have missed any one of their number who had chanced to leave them;
but Griffith, coming in to make his daily visits, was naturally almost
disconsolate, and for a week or so refused to be comforted.

He could not overcome his habit of dropping in on his way to and from
his lodgings, which were near by; it was a habit of too long standing to
be overcome easily, and besides this, he was so far a part of the family
circle that his absence from it would have been regarded by its other
members as something rather like a slight, so he was obliged to pay them
the delicate attention of presenting himself at least once a day. And
thus his wounds were kept open. To come into the parlor and find them
all there but Dolly, to see her favorite chair occupied by Mollie
or Aimee or 'Toinette, to hear them talk about her and discuss her
prospects,--well, there wer