Dolly was in her element. Her songs, her little supper, and her plans of entertainment were a perfect success. Such jokes as she made and such laughter as she managed to elicit through the medium of the smallest of them, and such aptness and tact as she displayed in keeping up the general fusillade of _bon-mots_ and repartee. It would have been impossible for a witticism to fall short of its mark under her active superintendence, even if witticisms had been prone to fall short in Vagabondia, which they decidedly were not. She kept Griffith busy, too, from first to last, perhaps because she felt it to be the safest plan; at any rate, she held him near her, and managed to keep him in the best of spirits all the evening, and more than once Gowan, catching a glimpse of her as she addressed some simple remark to the favored one, recognized a certain bright softness in her face which told its own story. But there would have been little use in openly displaying his discomfiture; so, after feeling irritated for a moment or so, Ralph Gowan allowed himself to drift into attendance on Mollie, and, being almost gratefully received by that young lady, he did not find that the time passed slowly. “I am so glad you came here.” she said to him, plaintively, when he first crossed the room to her side. “I do so hate Brown.” “Brown!” he echoed. “Who _is_ Brown, Mollie? and what has Brown been doing to incur your resentment?” Mollie gave her shoulders a petulant shrug. “Brown is that little man in the big coat,” she said, “the one who went away when you came. I wish he would stay away. I can't bear him,” with delightful candor. “But why?” persisted Gowan, casting a glance at the side of the room where Dolly stood talking to her lover. “Is it because his coat is so big, or because he is so little, that he is so objectionable? To be at once moral and instructive, Mollie, a man is not to be judged by his coat.” “I know that,” returned Mollie, her unconscious innocence asserting itself; “it is n't that. _You_ couldn't be as disagreeable as he is if you were dressed in rags.” Gowan turned quickly to look at her, forgetting even Dolly for the instant,--but she was quite in earnest, and met his questioning eyes with the most pathetic ignorance of having said anything extraordinary. Indeed, her faith in what she had said was so patent that he found it impossible to answer her with a light or jesting speech. “It is n't that,” she went on, pulling at a glossy green leaf on her bouquet. “If he did n't--if he would n't--if he didn't keep saying things--” “What sort of things?” asked Gowan, to help her out of her dilemma. “I--don't know,” was the shy reply. “Stupid things.” “Stupid things!” he repeated. “Poor Brown!” and his eyes wandered to Dolly again.