Mollie was standing before the picture herself when they went in to look at it, but she did not turn round on hearing them. She had Tod in her arms yet, but she seemed to have forgotten his very existence in her preoccupation. And it was scarcely to be wondered at. The picture was only a head,—Mollie's own fresh, drowsy-eyed face standing out in contrast under some folds of dark drapery thrown over the brown hair like a monk's cowl, two or three autumn-tinted oak leaves clinging to a straying tress,—but it was effective and novel enough to be a trifle startling. And Mollie was looking at it with a growing shadow of pleasure in her expression. She was slowly awakening to a sense of its beauty, and she was by no means dissatisfied.
“It is lovely!” Dolly cried out, enthusiastically.
“So it is,” said Griffith. “And as like her as art can make it. It's a success, Phil.”
Phil stepped back with a critical air to give it a new inspection.
“Yes, it is a success,” he said. “Just give me a chance to get it hung well, and it will draw a crowd next season. You shall have a new dress if it does, Mollie, and you shall choose it yourself.”
Mollie roused herself for a moment, and lighted up.
“Shall I?” she said; and then all at once she blushed in a way that made Dolly stare at her in some wonder. It seemed queer to think that Mollie—careless child Mollie—was woman enough to blush over anything.
And then Aimée and 'Toinette came in, and looked on and admired just as openly and heartily as the rest, only Aimée was rather the more reticent of the two, and cast furtive glances at Mollie now and then. But Mollie was in a new mood, and had very little to say; and half an hour after, when her elder sister went into the family sitting-room, she found her curled up in an easy-chair by the fire, looking reflective. Dolly went to the hearth and stood near her.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
Mollie stirred uneasily, and half blushed again.