antecedents, Griffith,—just see how we might trouble ourselves, and wear our patience out over Miss MacDowlas, if we troubled ourselves about anything. This being utterly free from the care of worldly possessions makes one touchingly disinterested. Since we have nothing to expect, we are perfectly willing to wait until we get it.”
She had thought so little about Ralph Gowan,—once losing sight of him, as he stood watching her on the pavement, that in discussing other subjects she had forgotten to mention him, and it was only Mollie's entrance into the room that brought him upon the carpet.
Coming in, with her hair bunched up in a lovely, disorderly knot, and the dimple on her left cheek artistically accentuated by a small patch of black, the youngest Miss Crewe yet appeared to advantage, when, after appropriating Tod, she slipped down into a sitting posture with him on the carpet, in the midst of the amplitude of folds of Lady Augusta's once gorgeous wrapper.
“Have you told him about the great Copper-Boiler costume, Dolly?” she said, bending down so that one brown tress hung swaying before Tod's eyes. “Has she, Griffith?”
“Yes,” answered Griffith, looking at her with a vague sense of admiration. He shared all Dolly's enthusiasm on the subject of Mollie's prettiness.
“Was n't it good? I wish I was as cool as Dolly is. And poor Phemie—and the gentleman who made love to you all the evening, Dolly. What was his name? Was n't it Gowan?”
Griffith's eyes turned toward Dolly that instant.
“Gowan!” he exclaimed. “You didn't say anything about him. You didn't even say he was there.”
“Did n't she?” said Mollie, looking up with innocently wide-open eyes. “Why, he made love to her all—”
“I wish you would n't talk such rubbish, Mollie,” Dolly interrupted her—a trifle sharply because she understood the cloud on her lover's face so well. “Who said Mr. Gowan made love to me? Not I, you may be sure. I told you he talked to me, and that was all.”
“You did not tell me that much,” said Griffith, dryly.
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