“We are going,” Dolly to Ralph Gowan, “to have a family rejoicing, and we should like you to join us. We are going to celebrate Mollie's birthday.”
“Thanks,” he answered, “I shall be delighted.” He had heard of these family rejoicings before, and was really pleased with the idea of attending one of them. They were strictly Vagabondian, which was one recommendation, and they were entirely free from the Bilberry element, which was another. They were not grand affairs, it is true, and set etiquette and the rules of society at open defiance, but they were cheerful, at least, and nobody attended them who had not previously resolved upon enjoying himself and taking kindly to even the most unexpected state of affairs. At Bloomsbury Place, Lady Augusta's “coffee and conversation” became “conversation and coffee,” and the conversation came as naturally as the coffee. People who had jokes to make made them, and people who had not were exhilarated by the bon-mots of the rest.
“Mollie will be seventeen,” said Dolly, “and it is rather a trial to me.”
Gowan laughed.
“Why?” he asked.
She shook her head gravely.
“In the first place,” she answered, “it makes me feel as if the dust of ages was accumulating in my pathway, and in the second, it is not safe for her.”
“Why, again?” he demanded.
“She is far too pretty, and her knowledge of the world is far too limited. She secretly believes in Lord Burleigh, and clings to the poetic memory of King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid.”
“And you do not?”