“You mustn't run away,” he admonished her; “nice children don't. Your mother didn't bring you up like that, I'm sure. She wouldn't like it.” Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact that, if she were to wait, he would have to say something really important. “Just you two,” he deliberated; “Miss and Mrs. Jones.” “Not at all,” Linda asserted shortly; “our name is Condon.” “I wonder if you'd tell her this,” he went on: “a gentleman's here by himself named Bardwell, who has seen her and admires her a whole lot. Tell her he's no young sprig but he likes a good time all the better. Dependable, too. Remember that, cutie. And he wouldn't presume if he had a short pocket. He knows class when he sees it.” “It won't do any good,” Linda assured him in her gravest manner. “She said only this morning she was sick of them.” “That was before dinner,” he replied cheerfully. “Things look different later in the day. You do what I tell you.” All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother was at the dressing-table, rubbing cream into her cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection in the mirror. “He was smoking a big cigar,” Linda added. The other laughed. “What a sharp little thing you are!” she exclaimed. “A body ought to be careful what they tell you.” She wiped off the cream and rubbed a soft pinkish powder into her skin. “He saw me, did he?” she apparently addressed the glass. “Admired me a whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?” she turned. “Were his clothes right? You must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet; she can hold her own, even in the Boscombe, against the whole barnyard.” Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, “There he is.” But immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them. “I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day,” he told Mrs. Condon; “such a pretty child and well brought up.” “And good, too,” her mother replied; “not a minute's trouble. The common sense of the grown; you'd never believe it.” “Why shouldn't I?” he protested gallantly. “Every reason to.” Mrs. Condon blushed becomingly. “She had to make up for a lot,” she sighed. An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall beyond the music. “Mama out?” she inquired brightly. “I thought Mr. Jasper left this morning?” Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else. “I must look at the register,” Mrs. Randall continued; “I really must.” Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half cried, “I'd like to see you riding on a leopard!” A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried up to the silence of her mother's deserted room. V