fle disturbed, he added, as if a sudden thought had occurred
to him, "then it was Mollie, Chandos spoke of."

"Chandos!" echoed Dolly. "Who is Chandos--and what did Chandos say about
Mollie?"

He glanced across the room to where a tall, handsome man was bending
over a fussy little woman in pink.

"That is Chandos," he said; "and since you spoke of Mollie's visit, I
recollect that, as we came into the house, Chandos was behind me and
lingered a moment or so, and when he came to me afterward he asked if
I had seen the face that passed us as we entered. It had roused his
enthusiasm as far as it can be roused by anything."

"It must have been Mollie," commented Dolly, and she looked at the man
on the opposite side of the room, uneasily. "Is he a friend of yours?"
she asked, after scrutinizing him for a few seconds.

Gowan shrugged his shoulders.'

"Not a friend," he answered, dryly. "An acquaintance. We have not much
in common."

"I am glad to hear it," was Dolly's return. "I don't like Chandos."

She could not have explained why she did not like him, but certainly she
was vaguely repelled and could not help hoping that he would never see
Mollie again. He was just the man to be dangerous to Mollie; handsome,
polished, ready of speech and perfect in manner, he was the sort of man
to dazzle and flatter any ignorant, believing child.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, half aloud, "I could not bear to think that he
would see her again."

She uttered the words quite involuntarily, but Gowan heard them, and
looked at her in some surprise, and so awakened her from her reverie.

"Are you speaking of Mollie?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, candidly, "though I did not mean to speak aloud.
My thoughts were only a mental echo of the remark I made a moment
ago,--that I don't like Chandos. I do not like him at all, even at this
distance, and I cannot resist feeling that I do not want him to see
anything more of Mollie. We are not very discreet, we Vagabonds, but we
must learn wisdom enough to shield Mollie." And she sighed again.

"I understand that," he said, almost tenderly, so sympathetically, in
fact, that she turned toward him as if moved by a sudden impulse.

"I have sometimes thought since I came here," she said, "that perhaps
_you_ might help me a little, if you would. She is so pretty, you see,
and so young, and, through knowing so little of the world and longing to
know so much, in a childish, half-dazzled way, is so innoce