“Dolly says,” proceeded Mollie, “that she would like to be a beauty; but if I was like her I should n't care about being a beauty.”
“Ah!” said Gowan, unable to resist the temptation to try with a fine speech,—"ah! it is all very well for you to talk about not caring to be a beauty.”
It did not occur to him for an instant that it was indiscreet to say such a thing to her. He only meant it for a jest, and nine girls out of ten even at sixteen would have understood his languid air of grandiloquence in an instant. But Mollie at sixteen was extremely liberal-minded, and almost Arcadian in her simplicity of thought and demeanor.
Her brown eyes flew wide open, and for a minute she stared at him with mingled amazement and questioning.
“Me!” she said, ignoring all given rules of propriety of speech.
“Yes, you,” answered Gowan, smiling, and looking down at her amusedly. “I have been paying you a compliment, Mollie.”
“Oh!” said Mollie, bewilderment settling on her face. But the next instant the blood rushed to her cheeks, and her eyes fell, and she moved a little farther away from him.
It was the first compliment she had received in all her life, and it was the beginning of an era.