Five minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Walraven descended to the carriage, Mrs. Walraven with her veil drawn down, and making her adieus in a smothered sort of voice.  Mr. Walraven handed in his ward next, then followed; the coachman flourished his whip and they were gone.

The happy pair were merely going to Washington.  Mr. Walraven had had a surfeit of Europe, and Washington, this sparkling winter weather, was at its gayest and best.  The Walraven party, with plethoric purses, plunged into the midst of the gayety at once.

“I like this sort of thing,” said Mollie to her guardian; “the theater, and the opera, and a ball, and two or three parties every night.  I like dancing until broad daylight, and going to bed at six in the morning, and getting up to breakfast at one.  I like matinees at three in the afternoon, and dinners with seventeen courses, and going to the White House, and shaking hands with the President, and sailing around the East Room, and having people point me out as the beauty of the season.  It’s new and it’s nice, and I never get tired, or pale, or limpy, like most of the girls.  I never enjoyed myself so much in my life, and you would say the same thing, guardy, only you’re in your honey-moon, and not capable of enjoying anything.”

“But, Mollie,” Mr. Walraven remonstrated, “it isn’t right to flirt so much as you do.  There’s young Ingelow.  The way you devoted yourself to that young man last night set everybody talking.”

“Let ’em talk,” responded Miss Dane, loftily.  “When Mr. Ingelow followed me all the way from New York, I think it was the very least I could do in common politeness.  He found it a waste and howling wilderness without me—­yes, he did; he said so.  And then, Mr. Walraven, I like him.”

“You like him?”

“Yes, ever and ever so much; and I’m dreadfully sorry for him, because I know it’ll break his heart when I refuse him.”

“He hasn’t proposed yet, then?”

“Not yet, but I expect it shortly.  I know the symptoms.  He looked almost as sheepish last night as you used to before you proposed to Miss Oleander.”

It was quite true; the handsome young artist had followed Miss Dane to Washington.  He had hardly known how much he was in love with her until she was gone, and all young-ladydom grew flat, stale, and insipid as dish-water.

Mr. Ingelow, of rather an indolent temperament, disposed to take things easy and let the world slide, was astonished himself at the sudden heat and ardor this little girl with the sunny smile had created within him.

“It isn’t her beauty,” thought the handsome artist, “although she is pretty as an angel; it isn’t her blue eyes and her golden hair, for I see blue eyes and golden hair every day of my life, and never give them a second thought; it isn’t her singing or dancing, for half the girls I know sing and dance as well; and it can’t be her spirited style of conversation, for that’s not so very new, either.  Then what is it?”