Vagabondia Read online

  CHAPTER IV. ~ A LILY OF THE FIELD.

  THIS was the significant and poetic appellation which at once attacheditself to Ralph Gowan after his first visit to the studio in BloomsburyPlace, and, as might have been expected, it was a fancy of Dolly’s, theaffixing of significant titles being one of her _fortes_.

  “The lilies of the field,” she observed, astutely, “are a distinctclass. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet Solomon in all hisglory was not arrayed like one of these. Yes, my young friends, Mr.Ralph Gowan is a lily of the field.”

  And she was not far wrong. Twenty-seven years before Mr. Ralph Gowanhad been presented to an extended circle of admiring friends as the soleheir to a fortune large enough to have satisfied the ambitions of halfa dozen heirs of moderate aspirations, and from that time forward hislines had continually fallen in pleasant places. As a boy he had beenhandsome, attractive, and thoroughbred, and consequently popular; hisgood looks made him a favorite with women, his good fortune with men;his friends were rather proud of him, and his enemies were powerlessagainst him; he found it easy to be amiable because no obstacles toamiability lay in his path; and altogether he regarded existence as acomfortable enough affair.

  At school his fellows had liked him just as boys as well as men are aptto like fortunate people; and as he had grown older he had always foundhimself a favorite, it may be for something of the same reason. Butbeing, happily, a gentleman by nature, he had not been much spoiled bythe general adulation. Having been born to it, he carried himself easilythrough it, scarcely recognizing the presence of what would have beenpatent to men less used to popularity. He was fond of travelling, and sohad amused himself by comfortably arranging uncomfortable journeys andexploring pleasantly those parts of the earth which to ordinary touristswould appear unattainable.

  He was not an ordinary young man, upon the whole, which was evinced byhis making no attempt to write a book of travels, though he might safelyhave done so; and really, upon the whole, “lily of the field” thoughchance had made him, he was neither useless nor purposeless, and ratherdeserved his good luck than otherwise.

  Perhaps it was because he was not an ordinary individual that his fancywas taken by the glimpse he had caught of life in Vagabondia. It washis first glimpse of the inner workings of such a life, and itsnovelty interested him. A girl of twenty-two who received attention andadmiration in an enjoyable, matter-of-fact manner, as if she was usedto and neither over- nor under-valued it, who could make coffee andconversation bearable and even exciting, who could hold her own againstpatronage and slights, and be as piquant and self-possessed at home asin society, who could be dazzling at night and charming in the morning,was novelty enough in herself to make Bloomsbury Place attractive, evenat its dingiest, and there were other attractions aside from this one.

  Phil in the studio, taking life philosophically, and regarding the worldand society in general with sublime and amiable tolerance, was as uniquein his way as Dolly was in hers; his handsome girl-wife, who had comein to them with her handsome child in her arms, was unique also; Mollieherself, who had opened the door and quite startled him with the meresight of her face,--well, Mollie had impressed him as she impressedeverybody. And he was quite observant enough to see the element ofmatter-of-fact, half-jocular affection that bound them one to another;he could not help seeing it, and it almost touched him. They were not asentimental assembly, upon the whole, but they were fond of each otherin a style peculiar to themselves, and ready to unite in any cause whichwas the cause of the common weal. The family habit of taking existenceeasily and regarding misfortunes from a serenely philosophicalstandpoint, amused Ralph Gowan intensely. It had spiced Dolly’sconversation, and it spiced Phil’s; indeed, it showed itself in morethan words. They had banded themselves against unavoidable tribulation,and it could not fail to be beautifully patent to the far-seeing mindthat, taking all things together, tribulation had the worst of it.

  They were an artistic study, Ralph Gowan found, and so, in his characterof a “lily of the field,” he fell into the habit of studying them, asan amusement at first, afterwards because his liking for them becamefriendly and sincere.

  It was an easy matter to call again after the first visit,--peoplealways did call again at Bloomsbury Place, and Ralph Gowan was noexception to the rule. He met Phil in the city, and sauntered home withhim to discuss art and look at his work; he invited him to first-classlittle dinners, and introduced him to one or two men worth knowing;in short, it was not long before the two were fond of each other inundemonstrative man fashion. The studio was the sort of place Gowanliked to drop into when time hung heavily on his hands, and consequentlyhardly a week passed without his having at least once or twice droppedinto it to sit among the half dozen of Phil’s fellow Bohemians, who werealso fond of dropping in as the young man sat at his easel, sometimesfuriously at work, sometimes tranquilly loitering over the finishingtouches of a picture. They were good-natured, jovial fellows, too, theseBohemian visitors, though they were more frequently than not highlyscented with the odor of inferior tobacco, and rarely made anostentatious display in the matter of costume, or were conspicuouslyfaultless in the matter of linen; they failed to patronize thehairdresser, and were prone to various convivialities, but they wereneither vicious nor vulgar, and they were singularly faithful to theirfriendships for each other. They were all fond of Phil, and accordinglyfraternized at once with his new friend, adopting him into their circlewith the ease of manner and freedom of sentiment which seemed thecharacteristic of their class; and they took to him all the more kindlybecause, amateur though he was, he shared many of their enthusiasms.

  Of course he did not always see Dolly when he went. During every otherday of the week but Saturday she spent her time from nine in the morninguntil five in the afternoon in the rather depressing atmosphere ofthe Bilberry school-room. She vigorously assaulted the foundations ofLindley Murray, and attacked the rules of arithmetic; she taught PhemieFrench, and made despairing but continuous efforts at “finishing” herin music. But poor Phemie was not easily “finished,” and hung somewhatheavily upon the hands of her youthful instructress; still, she wasaffectionate, if weak-minded, and so Dolly managed to retain her goodspirits.

  “I believe they are all fond of me in their way,” she said toGriffith,--“all the children, I mean; and that is something to bethankful for.”

  “They couldn’t help being fond of you,” returned the young man. “Did anyhuman being ever know you without being fond of you?”

  “Yes,” said Dolly; “Lady Augusta knows me; and I do not think--no,” witha cheerfully resigned shake of the head, which did not exactly expressdeep regret or contrition, “I really do not think Lady Augusta is whatyou might call overwhelmed with the strength of her attachment for me.”

  “Oh, Lady Augusta!” said Griffith. “Confound Lady Augusta!”

  Griffith was one of the very few people who did not like Ralph Gowan,and perhaps charitably inclined persons will be half inclined toexcuse his weakness. It was rather trying, it must be admitted, for adesponding young man rather under stress of weather, so to speak, tofind himself thrown into sharp contrast with an individual who hadsailed in smooth waters all his life, and to whom a ripple would havebeen a by no means unpleasant excitement; it was rather chafing toconstantly encounter this favorite of fortune in the best of humors,because he had nothing to irritate him; thoroughbred, unruffled, and_débonnaire_ because he had nothing of pain or privation to face;handsome, well dressed, and at ease, because his income and his tastesbalanced against each other accommodatingly. Human nature rose upand battled in the Vagabondian breast; there were times when, for theprivilege of administering severe corporeal chastisement to RalphGowan, Griffith would have sacrificed his modest salary with a Christianfortitude and resignation beautiful to behold. To see him sitting in oneof the faded padded chairs, roused all his ire, and his consciousness ofhis own weakness made the matter worse; to see him talking to Dolly, andsee her making brisk little jokes for
his amusement, was worse still,and drove him so frantic that more than once he had turned quite pale inhis secret frenzy of despair and jealousy, and had quite frightened thegirl, though he was wise enough to keep his secret to himself. It wasplain enough that Gowan admired Dolly, but other men had admired herbefore; the sting of it was that this fellow, with his cool airs andgraces and tantalizing repose of manner, had no need to hold back ifhe could win her. There would be no need for him to plan and pinch anddespair; no need for faltering over odd shillings and calculating oddpence; _he_ could marry her in an hour if she cared for him, and hecould surround her with luxuries, and dress her like a queen, and makeher happy, as she deserved to be. And then the poor fellow’s heart wouldbeat fiercely, and the very blood would tremble in his veins, at themere thought of giving her up.

  One night after they had been sitting together, and Gowan had just leftthe room with Phil, Dolly glanced up from her work and saw her loverlooking at her with a face so pale and wretched that she was thrown intoa passion of fear.

  She tossed her work away in a second, and, making one of her littlerushes at him, was caught in his arms and half suffocated. She knewthe instant she caught sight of his face what he was suffering, thoughperhaps she did not know the worst.

  “Oh, why will you?” she cried out, in tears, all at once. “It is cruel!You are as pale as death, and I know--I know so well what it means.”

  “Tell me you will never forget what we have been to each other,” he said, when he could speak; “tell me you don’t care for thatfellow,--tell me you love me, Dolly, tell me you love me.”

  She did not hesitate a moment; she had never flirted with Griffithin her life, and she knew him too well to try him when he wore thatdesperate, feverish look of longing in his eyes. She burst into animpetuous sob, and clung to him with both hands.

  “I love you with all my soul,” she said. “I will never _let_ you giveme up; and as to forgetting, I might die, but I could never forget. Carefor Ralph Gowan! I love _you_, Griffith, I love _you!_”

  “And you don’t regret?” he said, piteously. “Oh, Dolly, just think ofwhat _he_ could give you; and then think of our hopeless dreams aboutmiserable six-roomed houses and cheap furniture.”

  “You will make me hate him,” cried Dolly, her gust of love and pitymaking her fierce. “I don’t want anything anybody could give me. I onlywant you, _dear_ old fellow,--_darling_ old fellow,” holding him fast,as if she would never let him go, and shedding a shower of impassioned,tender tears. “Oh, my darling, only wait until I am your own wife, andsee how happy I will be, and how happy I will make you,--for I _can_make you happy,--and see how I will work in our little home for yoursake, and how content I will be with a little. Oh, what must I do toshow you how I love you! Do you think I could have cared for Ralph Gowanall these years as I have cared for you? No indeed; but I shall care foryou forever, and I would wait for you a _thousand_ years if I might onlybe your wife, and die in your arms at the end of it.”

  And she believed every word she said, too, and would have been willingto lay down her young life to prove it, extravagant as it may all soundto the discreet. And she quite believed, too, that she could never haveso loved any other man than this unlucky, jealous, tempestuous one; butI will take the liberty of saying that this was a mistake, for, beingan impassioned, heart-ruled, unworldly young person, it is quite likelythat if Ralph Gowan had stood in Mr. Griffith Donne’s not exactlywater-tight shoes, she would have clung to him quite as faithfully, andbelieved in his perfections quite as implicitly, and quite as scornfullywould have depreciated the merits of his rival; but chance had arrangedthe matter for her years before, and so Mr. Griffith was the hero.

  “Ralph Gowan!” she flung out. “What is Ralph Gowan, or any other man onearth, to me? Did I love _him_ before I knew what love was, and scarcelyunderstood my own heart? Did I grow into a woman loving _him_ andclinging to _him_ and dreaming about him? Have I ever had any troublesin common with _him_? Did we grow up together, and tell each other allour thoughts and help each other to bear things? Let him travel in theEast, if he likes,”--with high and rather inconsistent disdain,--“andlet him have ten thousand a year, if he will,--a hundred thousandmillions a year wouldn’t buy me from you--my own!” In another burst,“Let him ride in his carriage, if he chooses,”--rather, as if sucha course would imply the most degraded weakness; but, as I have saidbefore, she was illogical, if affectionate,--“let him ride in hiscarriage. I would rather walk barefoot through the world with youthan ride in a hundred carriages, if every one of them was lined withdiamonds and studded with pearls.”

  There was the true flavor of Vagabondia’s indiscretion and want offorethought in this, I grant you; but such speeches as these were DollyCrewe’s mode of comforting her lover in his dark moods; at least, shewas sincere,--and sincerity will excuse many touches of extravagance.And as to Griffith, every touch of loving, foolish rhapsody dropped uponhis heart like dew from heaven, filling him with rapture and drawing himnearer to her than before.

  “But,” he objected,--a rather weak objection, offered rather weakly,because he was so full of renewed confidence and bliss,--“but he is ahandsomer fellow than I am, Dolly, and it must be confessed he has goodtaste.”

  “Handsomer!” echoed Dolly. “What do I care about his beauty? He is n’t_you_,--that is where he fails to come up to the mark. And as to hisgood taste, do you suppose for a second that I could ever admire themost imposing ‘get-up’ by Poole, as I love this threadbare coat ofyours, that I have laid my cheek against for the last three years?” Andshe bent down all at once and kissed the shabby sleeve.

  “No,” she said, looking up the next minute with her eyes as brightas stars. “We have been _given_ to each other, that is it. It was n’tchance, it was something higher. We needed each other, and a higherpower than Fate bound us together, and it was a power that is n’t cruelenough to separate us now, after all these years have woven our lives inone chord, and drawn our hearts close, and taught us how to comfort andbear with each other. I was given to you because I could help to makeyour life brighter,--and you were given to me because you could help tobrighten mine, and God will never part us so long as we are true.”

  The coat sleeve came into requisition again then, as it often did. Herenthusiastic burst ended in a gush of heart-full tears, and she hid herface on the coat sleeve until they were shed; Griffith in the mean timetouching her partly bent head caressingly with his hand, but remainingsilent because he could not trust himself to speak.

  But she became quieter at last, and got over it so far as to look up andsmile.

  “I could n’t give up the six-roomed house and the green sofa, Griffith,” she said. “They are like a great many other things,--the more I don’tget them the more I want them. And the long winter evenings we are tospend together, when you are to read and I am to sew, and we are both tobe blissfully happy. I could n’t give those up on any account. And howcould I bear to see Ralph Gowan, or any one else, seated in the orthodoxarm-chair?”

  The very idea of this latter calamity occurring crushed Griffithcompletely. The long winter evenings they were to spend together weresuch a pleasant legend. Scarcely a day passed without his drawing amental picture of the room which was to be their parlor, and of thefireside Dolly was to adorn. It required only a slight effort ofimagination to picture her shining in the tiny room whose door closedupon an outside world of struggling and an inside world of love andhope and trust. He imagined Dolly under a variety of circumstances,but nothing pleased and touched him so tenderly as this firesidepicture,--its ideal warmth and glow, and its poetic placing of Dollyas his wife sitting near to him with her smiles and winsome waysand looks--his own, at last, unshared by any outsiders. Giving thatlong-cherished fancy up would have killed him, if he could have borneall the rest. And while these two experienced the recorded fluctuationsof their romance in private, Ralph Gowan had followed Phil into thestudio.

  They found Mollie there on going into the room; and Mollie ly
ing uponthe sofa asleep, with her brown head upon a big soft purple cushion,was quite worthy a second glance. She had been rather overpowered in theparlor by the presence of Ralph Gowan, and, knowing there was a firein the studio, and a couch drawn near it, she had retired there, and,appropriating a pile of cushions, had dropped asleep, and lay therecurled up among them.

  Seeing her, Gowan found himself smiling faintly. Mollie amused him justas she amused Dolly. It was so difficult a matter to assign her anysettled position in the world; She was taller than the other girls,and far larger and more statuesque; indeed, there were moments when sheseemed to be almost imposing in presence, but this only rendered herstill more a charming incongruity. She might have carried herself like aroyal princess, but she blushed up to the tips of her ears at a glance,and was otherwise as innocently awkward as a beauty may be. She was notfond of strangers either, and generally lapsed into silence when spokento. Public admiration only disconcerted her, and made her pout, and theunceremonious but friendly compliments of Phil’s brethren in art wereher special grievance.

  “They stare at me, and stare at me, and stare at me,” she complained,pettishly, to Dolly, “and some of them say things to me. I wish theywould attend to their pictures and leave me alone.”

  But she had never evinced any particular dislike to Ralph Gowan. She wasoverpowered by a secret sense of his vast superiority to the generalityof mankind, but she rather admired him upon the whole. She liked to hearhim talk to Dolly, and she approved of his style. It was such a novelsort of thing to meet with a man who was not shabby, and whose clothesseemed made for him and were worn with a grace. He was handsome, too,and witty and polite, and his cool, comfortable manner reminded hervaguely of Dolly’s own. So she used to sit and listen to the two as theychatted, and in the end her guileless admiration of Dolly’s eligiblePhilistine became pretty thoroughly established.

  When the sound of advancing footsteps roused her from her nap she wokewith great tranquillity, and sat up rubbing her drowsy eyes serenely fora minute or so before she discovered that Phil had a companion. But whenshe did discover that such was the fact she blushed all over, and lookedup at Ralph Gowan in some naïve distress.

  “I did n’t know any one was coming,” she said, “and I was so comfortablethat I fell asleep. It was the cushions, I think.”

  “I dare say it was,” answered Gowan, regarding her sleep-flushed cheeksand exquisite eyes with the pleasure he always felt in any beauty,animate or inanimate. “May I sit here, Mollie?” and then he looked ather again and decided that he was quite right in speaking to her as hewould have spoken to a child, because she _was_ such a very child.

  “By me, on the sofa?” she answered. “Oh, yes.”

  “Are you going to talk business with Phil?” she asked him next, “or mayI stay here? Griffith and Dolly won’t want me in the parlor, and I don’twant to go into the kitchen.”

  “I have no doubt you may stay here,” he said, quite seriously; “but whywon’t they want you in the parlor?”

  “They never want anybody,” astutely. “I dare say they are makinglove,--they generally are.”

  “Making love,” he repeated. “Ah, indeed!” and for the next few minuteswas so absorbed in thought that Mollie was quite forgotten.

  Making love were they,--this shabby, rather un-amiable young man and theelder Miss Crewe? It sounded rather like nonsense to Ralph Gowan, butit was not a pleasant sort of thing to think about. It is not to besupposed that he himself was very desperately in love with Dolly justyet, but it must be admitted he admired her decidedly. Beauty as Molliewas, he scarcely gave her a glance when Dolly was in the room,--herecognized the beauty, but it did not enslave him, it did not evenattract him as Dolly’s imperfect charms did. And perhaps he had his ownideas of what Dolly’s love-making would be, of the spice and varietywhich would form its characteristics, and of the little bursts of warmthand affection that would render it delightful. It was not soothingto think of all this being lavished on a shabby young man who wasnot always urbane in demeanor and who stubbornly objected to beingpropitiated by politeness.

  As was very natural, Mr. Ralph Gowan did not admire Mr. GriffithDonne enthusiastically. In his visits to Bloomsbury Place, findingan ill-dressed young man whose position in the household he could notunderstand, he began by treating him with good-natured suavity, beingready enough to make friends with him, as he had made friends with therest of Phil’s compatriots. But influenced by objections to certainthings, Griffith was not to be treated suavely, but rather resented it.There was no good reason for his resenting it, but resent it he did,as openly as he could, without being an absolute savage and attractingattention. The weakness of such a line of conduct is glaringly patent,of course, to the well-regulated mind; but then Mr. Griffith Donne’smind was not well-regulated, and he was, on the contrary, a veryhot-headed, undisciplined young man, and exceedingly sensitive to hisown misfortunes and shabbiness, and infatuated in his passion for theobject of his enemy’s admiration. But Ralph Gowan could afford to betolerant; in the matter of position he was secure, he had never beenslighted or patronized in his life, and so had no shrinkings from suchan ordeal; he was not disturbed by any bitter pang of jealousy as yet,and so, while he could not understand Griffith’s restless anxiety toresent his presence, could still tolerate it and keep cool. Yet, asmight be expected, he rather underrated his antagonist. Seeing himonly in this one unfavorable light, he regarded him simply as a ratherill-bred, or, at least, aggressively inclined individual, whose temperand tone of mind might reasonably be objected to. Once or twice he hadeven felt his own blood rise at some implied ignoring of himself; but hewas far the more urbane and well-disposed of the two, yet whether he wasto be highly lauded for his forbearance, or whether, while lauding him,it would not be as well to think as well as possible of his enemy, is amatter for charity to decide.

  It had not occurred to him before that Griffith’s frequent andunceremonious visits implied anything very serious. There were so manyfree-and-easy visitors at the house, and they all so plainly cultivatedDolly, if they did not make actual love to her; and really outsiderswould hardly have been impressed with her deportment toward herbetrothed. She was not prone to exhibit her preference sentimentally inpublic. So Ralph Gowan had been deceived,--and so he was deceived still.

  “This sort of fellow,” as he mentally put it with unconscioushigh-handedness, was not the man to make such a woman happy, howeverready she was to bear with him. It was just such men as he was, who,when the novelty of possession wore off, deteriorated into tyrannical,irritable husbands, and were not too well bred in their manners. So hebecame reflective and silent, when Mollie said that the two were “makinglove.”

  But at last it occurred to him that even to Mollie his preoccupationmight appear singular, and he roused himself accordingly.

  “Making love!” he said again. “Blissful occupation! I wonder how they doit. Do you know, Mollie?”

  Mollie looked at him with a freedom from scruples or embarrassment atthe conversation taking such a turn, which told its own story.

  “Yes,” she said. “They talk, you know, and say things to each other justas other people do, and he kisses her sometimes. I know that,” with adecided air, “because I have seen him do it.”

  “Cool enough, that, upon my word,” was her questioner’s mental comment,“and not unpleasant for Donne; but hardly significant of a fastidioustaste, if it is a public exhibition.” “Ah, indeed!” he said, aloud.

  “They have been engaged so long, you know,” volunteered Mollie.

  “Singularly enough, I did not know, Mollie,” he replied. “Are you sureyourself?”

  “Oh, yes!” exclaimed Mollie, opening her eyes. “I thought everybody knewthat. They have been engaged ever since they were ever so much younger.Dolly was only fifteen, and Griffith was only eighteen, when they firstfell in love.”

  “And they have been engaged ever since?” said Gowan, his curiositygetting decidedly the better of him.

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bsp; “Yes, and would have been married long ago, if Griffith could have gotinto something; or if Old Flynn would have raised his salary. He hasonly a hundred a year,” with unabashed frankness, “and, of course, theycouldn’t be married on that, so they are obliged to wait. A hundred andfifty would do, Dolly says,--but then, they have n’t got a hundred andfifty.”

  Ralph Gowan was meanly conscious of not being overpowered with regreton hearing this latter statement of facts. And yet he was by no meansdevoid of generous impulse. He was quite honest, however deeply he mightbe mistaken, in deciding that it would be an unfortunate thing for Dollyif she married Griffith Donne. He thought he was right, and certainly ifthere had been no more good in his rival than he himself had seen onthe surface, he would not have been far wrong; but as it was he wasunconsciously very far wrong indeed. He ran into the almost excusableextreme of condemning Griffith upon circumstantial evidence. Unfairadvantage had been taken of Dolly, he told himself. She had engagedherself before she knew her own heart, and was true to her lover becauseit was not in her nature to be false. Besides, what right has a man witha hundred a year to bind any woman to the prospect of the life of narroweconomies and privations such an income would necessarily entail?And forthwith his admiration of Dolly became touched with pity,and increased fourfold. _She_ was unselfish, at least, whatever heraffianced might be. Poor little soul! (It is a circumstance worthy ofnote, because illustrative of the blindness of human nature, thatat this very moment Miss Dorothea Crewe was enjoying her quiet_tête-à-tête_ with her lover wondrously, and would not have changedplaces with any young lady in the kingdom upon any considerationwhatever.)

  It is not at all to be wondered at that, in the absence of otherentertainment, Gowan drifted into a confidential chat with Mollie. Shewas the sort of girl few people could have remained entirely indifferentto. Her _naïveté_ was as novel as her beauty, and her weakness, so tospeak, was her strength. Gowan found it so at least, but still it mustbe confessed that Dolly was the chief subject of their conversation.

  “You are very fond of your sister?” he said to the child.

  Mollie nodded.

  “Yes,” she said, “I am very fond of her. We are all very fond of her.Dolly ‘s the clever one of the family, next to Phil. She is n’t afraidof anybody, and things don’t upset her. I wish I was like her. You oughtto see her talk to Lady Augusta, I believe she is the only person in theworld Lady Augusta can’t patronize, and she is always trying to snub herjust because she is so cool. But it never troubles Dolly. I have seenher sit and smile and talk in her quiet way until Lady Augusta could donothing but sit still and stare at her as if she was choked, with herbonnet strings actually trembling.”

  Gowan laughed. He could imagine the effect produced so well, and it wasso easy to picture Dolly smiling up in the face of her gaunt patroness,and all the time favoring her with a shower of beautiful little stabs,rendered pointed by the very essence of artfulness. He decided that uponthe whole Lady Augusta was somewhat to be pitied.

  “Dolly says,” proceeded Mollie, “that she would like to be a beauty; butif I was like her I should n’t care about being a beauty.”

  “Ah!” said Gowan, unable to resist the temptation to try with a finespeech,--“ah! it is all very well for _you_ to talk about not caring tobe a beauty.”

  It did not occur to him for an instant that it was indiscreet to saysuch a thing to her. He only meant it for a jest, and nine girls outof ten even at sixteen would have understood his languid air ofgrandiloquence in an instant. But Mollie at sixteen was extremelyliberal-minded, and almost Arcadian in her simplicity of thought anddemeanor.

  Her brown eyes flew wide open, and for a minute she stared at him withmingled amazement and questioning.

  “Me!” she said, ignoring all given rules of propriety of speech.

  “Yes, you,” answered Gowan, smiling, and looking down at her amusedly.“I have been paying you a compliment, Mollie.”

  “Oh!” said Mollie, bewilderment settling on her face. But the nextinstant the blood rushed to her cheeks, and her eyes fell, and she moveda little farther away from him.

  It was the first compliment she had received in all her life, and it wasthe beginning of an era.