io for
a minute or so, Grif."

"It is that picture Mollie sat for," he explained, as they followed him
into the big, barren room, dignified by the name of studio. "I have just
finished it."

Mollie was standing before the picture herself when they went in to look
at it, but she did not turn round on hearing them. She had Tod in her
arms yet, but she seemed to have forgotten his very existence in her
preoccupation. And it was scarcely to be wondered at. The picture was
only a head,--Mollie's own fresh, drowsy-eyed face standing out in
contrast under some folds of dark drapery thrown over the brown hair
like a monk's cowl, two or three autumn-tinted oak leaves clinging to
a straying tress,--but it was effective and novel enough to be a
trifle startling. And Mollie was looking at it with a growing shadow of
pleasure in her expression. She was slowly awakening to a sense of its
beauty, and she was by no means dissatisfied.

"It is lovely!" Dolly cried out, enthusiastically.

"So it is," said Griffith. "And as like her as art can make it. It's a
success, Phil."

Phil stepped back with a critical air to give it a new inspection.

"Yes, it is a success," he said. "Just give me a chance to get it hung
well, and it will draw a crowd next season. You shall have a new dress
if it does, Mollie, and you shall choose it yourself."

Mollie roused herself for a moment, and lighted up.

"Shall I?" she said; and then all at once she blushed in a way that
made Dolly stare at her in some wonder. It seemed queer to think that
Mollie--careless child Mollie--was woman enough to blush over anything.

And then Aimee and 'Toinette came in, and looked on and admired just as
openly and heartily as the rest, only Aimee was rather the more reticent
of the two, and cast furtive glances at Mollie now and then. But Mollie
was in a new mood, and had very little to say; and half an hour after,
when her elder sister went into the family sitting-room, she found her
curled up in an easy-chair by the fire, looking reflective. Dolly went
to the hearth and stood near her.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

Mollie stirred uneasily, and half blushed again.

"I don't know," she answered.

"Yes, you do," contradicted Dolly, good-naturedly. "Are you thinking
that it is a pleasant sort of a thing to be handsome enough to be made a
picture of, Mollie?"

The brown eyes met hers with an innocent sort of deprecating
consciousness. "I--I never