ntly wilful
that she would succumb to a novel influence more readily than to an
old one. So I have thought once or twice of asking you to watch her a
little, and guard her if--if you should ever see her in danger."

"I can promise to do that much, at least," he returned, smiling.

She held out her hand impetuously, just as she would have held it out
to Griffith, and, oh, the hazard of it,--the hazard of so throwing aside
her mock airs and graces, and showing herself to him just as she showed
herself to the man she loved,--the Dolly whose heart was on her lips and
whose soul was in her eyes.

"Then we will make a 'paction' of it," she said. "You will help me to
take care of her."

"For your sake," he said, "there are few things I would not do."

So from that time forward he fell into the habit of regarding
unsuspecting Mollie as his own special charge. He was so faithful to
his agreement, indeed, that once or twice Griffith was almost ready to
console himself with the thought that perhaps, after all, the child's
beauty and tractability would win its way, and Gowan would find himself
seriously touched at heart. Just now he could see that his manner was
scarcely that of a lover, but there most assuredly was a probability
that it might alter and become more warm and less friendly and platonic.
As to Mollie herself, she was growing a trifle incomprehensible; she
paid more attention to her lovely hair than she had been in the habit
of doing, and was even known to mend her gloves; she began to be more
conscious of the dignity of her seventeen years. She complained less
petulantly of the attentions of Phil's friends, and accepted them with
a better grace. The wise one even observed that she tolerated Brown,
the obnoxious, and permitted him to admire her--at a distance. In her
intercourse with Gowan she was capricious and had her moods. Sometimes
she indulged in the weakness of tiring herself in all her small bravery
when he was coming, and presented herself in the parlor beauteous and
flushed and conscious, and was so delectably shy and sweet that she
betrayed him into numerous trifling follies not at all consistent with
his high position of mentor; and then, again, she was obstinate, rather
incomprehensible, and did not adorn herself at all, and, indeed, was
hard enough to manage.

"You are growing very queer, Mollie," said Miss Aimee, wonderingly.

To which sage remark Mollie retorted with a tremulous, sensitive flush,