exclaimed. "A body ought to be careful what they tell you." She
wiped off the cream and rubbed a soft pinkish powder into her skin.

"He saw me, did he?" she apparently addressed the glass. "Admired me
a whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?" she turned. "Were his clothes
right? You must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully,
darling. No one should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet;
she can hold her own, even in the Boscombe, against the whole
barnyard."

Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, "There he is."
But immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them.

"I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day," he
told Mrs. Condon; "such a pretty child and well brought up."

"And good, too," her mother replied; "not a minute's trouble. The
common sense of the grown; you'd never believe it."

"Why shouldn't I?" he protested gallantly. "Every reason to." Mrs.
Condon blushed becomingly.

"She had to make up for a lot," she sighed.

An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall
beyond the music. "Mama out?" she inquired brightly. "I thought Mr.
Jasper left this morning?"

Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else.