“I say, boys,” said Tom Nichols, “isn’t she a case, now?  What a head she has!  I bet she can smoke equal to any of us.”

“Yes; I keep her in cigarettes,” said Danforth; “she’s got a box of them somewhere under her ruffles now.”

“What if Seymour should find them?” said Tom.

“Seymour? pooh! he’s a muff and a prig.  I bet you he won’t find her out; she’s the jolliest little humbugger there is going.  She’d cheat a fellow out of the sight of his eyes.  It’s perfectly wonderful.”

“How came Seymour to marry her?”

“He?  Why, he’s a pious youth, green as grass itself; and I suppose she talked religion to him.  Did you ever hear her talk religion?”

A roar of laughter followed this, out of which Danforth went on.  “By George, boys, she gave me a prayer-book once!  I’ve got it yet.”

“Well, if that isn’t the best thing I ever heard!” said Nichols.

“It was at the time she was laying siege to me, you see.  She undertook the part of guardian angel, and used to talk lots of sentiment.  The girls get lots of that out of George Sand’s novels about the holiness of doing just as you’ve a mind to, and all that,” said Danforth.

“By George, Dan, you oughtn’t to laugh.  She may have more good in her than you think.”

“Oh, humbug! don’t I know her?”

“Well, at any rate she’s a wonderful creature to hold her looks.  By George! how she does hold out!  You’d say, now, she wasn’t more than twenty.”

“Yes; she understands getting herself up,” said Danforth, “and touches up her cheeks a bit now and then.”

“She don’t paint, though?”

“Don’t paint! Don’t she?  I’d like to know if she don’t; but she does it like an artist, like an old master, in fact.”

“Or like a young mistress,” said Tom, and then laughed at his own wit.

Now, it so happened that John was sitting at an open window above, and heard occasional snatches of this conversation quite sufficient to impress him disagreeably.  He had not heard enough to know exactly what had been said, but enough to feel that a set of coarse, low-minded men were making quite free with the name and reputation of his Lillie; and he was indignant.

“She is so pretty, so frank, and so impulsive,” he said.  “Such women are always misconstrued.  I’m resolved to caution her.”

“Lillie,” he said, “who is this Danforth?”

“Charlie Danforth—­oh! he’s a millionnaire that I refused.  He was wild about me,—­is now, for that matter.  He perfectly haunts my rooms, and is always teasing me to ride with him.”

“Well, Lillie, if I were you, I wouldn’t have any thing to do with him.”

“John, I don’t mean to, any more than I can help.  I try to keep him off all I can; but one doesn’t want to be rude, you know.”

“My darling,” said John, “you little know the wickedness of the world, and the cruel things that men will allow themselves to say of women who are meaning no harm.  You can’t be too careful, Lillie.”