"When do you have service?" Molly was saying. "We must come over, Malise and I." He told her gravely. Mr. Jonas was standing against the gallery railing, rising and falling on his neat little toes, the setter's eyes following his every movement. He was facing Mrs. Garnier and her daughter, looking from the mother, with her red-brown hair and shadowy lashes, to the girl, quite lovely, also, when she smiled in this sweet, sudden way up at him. She had nice hair, too, something the colour of wild honey. "Charming women, charming women," he was summing them up. Yet could Mr. Jonas have called to mind any women, the old or young, the forlorn or charming, who had not moved him to chivalric emotion in some form? Alexina was looking up the street. Mr. Jonas turned, too, as a wagonette, drawn by two big, iron-grey mules, swung round the corner, a glitter of brass and a hint of red about the harness. A young fellow on the front seat was driving; a lady sat behind. "The finest boy and best shot in Jasmine County," said Mr. Jonas, starting forward as the mules were reined up at the hotel entrance, "and the foolishest, most profoundly wise mother." Alexina was going forward, too. "We--that is, I know them," she told him; "they are old friends, the Leroys." For she had known Charlotte in a moment. A darky boy lounging about came to take the mules and Willy sprang his mother out, as lightly as ever a girl would spring, and brought her up the steps to Alexina. Charlotte's embrace was eager and ardent; then she cried a little, with her face against the girl's shoulder. "For my youth," she said the next instant, lifting her head and smiling at the girl. "I'm almost a middle-aged woman, little Mab; I'm nearly forty-five and I don't want to be." Vivacity, as of old, dwelt in Charlotte's face and animated her lively movements, but her brilliant eyes were somewhat sunken, as happens with women of marked features and dashing beauty; the skin was growing sallow too, and as the cheeks and temples drew in the features stood large. "I don't know how to grow old," said Charlotte, and truthfully, "I don't know how to let go. I haven't the resourcefulness, or quiet, or repose, for an old woman." Always, 'way back as Charlotte Ransome, she had loved the showy, and she loved it still, as evidenced by the scarlet ribbon from which her fan hung, and the flowered muslin, showing the hand of village dressmaking. But she bore herself with the smiling pleasure of a child in them. Willy joined them. He had been talking with Mr. Jonas, and evidently had declined the expedition too, for the little man, calling to the setter, went off grumbling and upbraiding the lot of them. "We came early to avoid the heat," Charlotte explained, as they went to join Molly and Mr. Henderson.