reether hinterestin' young party,' which mark of friendly notice
has naturally cheered me on my lonely way."

Among the people who felt the change in the household keenly, Ralph
Gowan may assuredly be included. He missed Dolly as much as any of them
did, but he missed her in a different manner. He did not call quite as
often as he had been in the habit of doing, and when he did call he was
more silent and less entertaining. Dolly had always had an inspiring
effect upon him, and, lacking the influence of her presence, even
Vagabondia lost something of its charm. So sometimes he was guilty of
the impoliteness of slipping into half-unconscious reveries of a few
minutes' duration, and, being thus guilty upon one particular occasion,
he was roused, after a short lapse of time, through the magnetic
influence of a pair of soft eyes fixed upon him, which eyes he
encountered the instant he looked up, with a start.

Mollie--the eyes were Mollie's--dropped her brown lashes with a quick
motion, turning a little away from him; so he smiled at her with a sense
of half-awakened appreciation. It was so natural to smile so at Mollie.

"Why, Mollie," he said, "what ails us? We are not usually so dull. We
have not spoken to each other for ten minutes."

The girl did not look at him; her round, childish cheek was flushed,
and her eyes were fixed on the fire, half proudly, half with a sort of
innocently transparent indifference.

"Perhaps we have nothing worth saying to each other," she said.
"Everybody is n't like Dolly."

Dolly! He colored slightly, though he smiled again. How did she know he
was thinking of Dolly? Was it so patent a fact that even she could read
it in his face? It never occurred to him for an instant that there could
exist a reason why the eyes of this grown-up baby should be sharpened.
She was such a very baby, with her ready blushes and her pettish, lovely
face.

"And so you miss Dolly, too?" he said.

She shrugged her shoulders, as if to imply that she considered the
question superfluous.

"Of course I do," she answered; "and of course we all do. Dolly is the
sort of person likely to be missed."

She was so petulant about it that, not understanding her, he was both
amused and puzzled, and so by degrees was drawn into making divers
gallant, almost caressing speeches, such as might have been drawn from
him by the changeful mood of a charming, wilful child.

"Something has made you angry," he said. "What is