n?"

Mollie crept nearer to the fire and gave another little shudder.

"It was--somebody else," she returned, with a triumphant little
half-laugh. "Guess who!"

"Who!" repeated Aimee. "Somebody else! It was not any one I know."

"It was somebody Phil knows."

The wise one arose and came to the fire herself.

"It was some one taller than Brown!"

"Brown!" echoed Mollie, with an air of supreme contempt. "He is _twice_
as tall. Brown is only about five feet high, and he wears an overcoat
ten times too big for him, and it flaps--yes, it _flaps_ about
his odious little heels. I should think it wasn't Brown. It was a
gentleman."

The wise one regarded her pretty, scornful face dubiously.

"Brown is n't so bad as all that implies, Mollie," she said. "His coat
is the worst part of him. But if it was n't Brown and it was n't Mr.
Gowan, who was it?"

Mollie laughed and shrugged her shoulders again, and then looked up at
her small inquisitor charmingly defiant.

"It was--Mr. Chandos!" she confessed.

Aimee gazed at her for a moment in blank amazement.

"But," she objected, "you don't know him any more than I do. You
have only seen him once through the window, and you have never been
introduced to him."

"I have seen him twice," said Mollie. "Don't you recollect my telling
you that he picked up my glove for me the night I carried Dolly's dress
to Bra-bazon Lodge, and," faltering a little and dropping her eyes, "he
introduced himself to me. He met me in town. I was passing through the
Arcade, and he stopped to ask about Phil. He apologized, of course, you
know, for doing it, but he said he was very anxious to know when Phil
would be at home, and--and perhaps I would be so kind as to tell him. He
wants to see him about a picture. And--then, you know, somehow or other,
he said something else, and--and I answered him--and he walked to the
gate with me."

"He took a great liberty," said Aimee. "And it was very imprudent in you
to let him come. I don't know what you could be thinking of. The idea of
picking up people in the street like that, Mollie; you must be crazy."

"I could n't help it," returned Mollie, not appearing at all disturbed.
"He knows Phil and he knows Dolly--a little. And he is very nice. He
wants to know us all. And he says Mr. Gowan is one of his best friends.
I liked him myself."

"I dare say you did," despairingly. "You are such a child. You would
like the man in the moon or a Kaffre chief--"