"That is not true," interposed the delinquent. "I don't know about
the man in the moon. He might be well enough--at any rate, he would
be travelled and a novelty, but Kaffre chiefs are odious. Don't you
remember those we saw last winter?"

"Mollie," said Aimee, "you are only jesting because you are ashamed of
yourself. You _know_ you were wrong to let that man come home with you."

Then Mollie hung her head and made a lovely rebellious move.

"I don't care," she said; "if it was n't exactly correct, it was nice.
But that is always the way," indignantly, "nice things are always
improper."

Here was a defection for you. The oracle quite shuddered in her discreet
disapproval.

"If you go on in that way," she said, "you will be ending by saying that
improper things are always nice."

"Never mind how I end," observed the prisoner at the bar. "You have
ended by wakening Tod;" which remark terminated the conversation
somewhat abruptly.

A day or so later came Chandos--upon business, so he said, but he
remained much longer than his errand rendered necessary, and by some
chance or other it came to pass that Phil brought him into the parlor,
and introduced him to their small circle, in his usual amiable, informal
manner. Then he was to be seen fairly, and prepossessing enough he was.
Mollie, sitting in her corner in the blue dress, and looking exquisite
and guileless, was very demurely silent at first; but in due time Aimee
began to see that she was being gradually drawn out, and at last the
drawing out was such a success, subtle as it was, that she became quite
a prominent feature in the party, and made so many brilliant speeches
without blushing, that the family eyes began to be opened to the fact
that she was really a trifle older than she had been a few years ago,
after all. The idea had suggested itself to them faintly on one or two
occasions of late, and they were just beginning to grasp it, though they
were fully as much startled as they would have been if Tod had
unexpectedly roused himself from his infantile slumbers, and mildly but
firmly announced his intention of studying for the ministry or entering
a political contest.

Aimee was dumbfounded. She had not expected this. She was going to have
her hands full, it was plain. She scarcely wondered now at her discovery
of two evenings before. And then she glanced slyly across the room
again, and took it all in once more,--Mollie, bewitching in all the
novelty of