“That 's a nice speech,” in her elder sister's most shockingly flippant manner, “and it sounds well, but I have heard it before--thousands of times. People always say it when they want to be specially disagreeable, and would like to cool you down. There is the least grain of Lady Augusta in you, Aimée.” “And considering that Lady Augusta is the most unpleasant person we know, _that_ is a nice speech,” returned the oracle. “Oh, well, I only said 'a grain,' and a grain is not much.” “It is quite enough.” “Well,” amiably, “suppose we say half a grain.” “Suppose we say you are talking nonsense.” Mollie's air was Dolly's own as she answered her,--people always said she was like Dolly, despite the fact that Dolly was not a beauty at all. “There may be something in that,” she said. “Suppose we admit it and return to the subject. Do you think he is nice, Aimée?” “Do you?” “Yes, I do,” but without getting rose-colored this time. Aimée looked at her calmly, but with some quiet scrutiny in her glance. “As nice,” she put it to her,--“as nice as Ralph Gowan?” She grew rose-colored then in an instant up to her ears again and over them, and she turned her face aside and plucked at the hearth-rug with nervous fingers. “Well?” suggested Aimée. “He is as handsome and--as tall, and he dresses as well.” “Do you like him as well?” said Aimée. “Ye-es--no. I have not known him long enough to tell you.” “Well,” returned Aimée, “let me tell you. As I said before, I do not think it wise to judge people from first impressions, but this I do know, _I_ don't like him as I like Mr. Gowan, and I never shall. He is not to be relied upon, that Gerald Chandos; I saw it in his eyes.” And she set her chin upon her hand, and her small, round, fair face covered itself all at once with an anxious cloud. She kept a quiet watch upon Mollie after this, and in the weeks that followed she was puzzled, and not only puzzled, but baffled outright many a time. This first visit of Mr. Gerald Chandos was not his last. His business brought him again and again, and when the time came that he had no pretence of business, he was on sufficiently familiar terms with them all to make calls of pleasure. So he did just as Ralph Gowan had done, slipped into his groove of friend and acquaintance unobtrusively, and was made welcome as other people were,--just as any sufficiently harmless individual would have been under the same circumstances. There was no dragon of high renown to create social disturbances in Vagabondia. “As long as a man behaves himself, where's the odds?” said Phil; and no one ever disagreed with him. But Mr. Gerald Chandos had not been to the house more than three times before Aimée found cause to wonder. She discovered that Ralph Gowan was not so enthusiastically attached to him, after all; and furthermore she had her reasons for thinking that Gowan was rather disturbed at his advent, and would have preferred that he had not been adopted so complacently.