them dancing in the central glow. This is doubtless why Mr. Dosson had
slightly more than usual his air of recovering slowly from a pleasant
surprise. The vision to which I allude hung before him, at a convenient
distance, and melted into other bright confused aspects: reminiscences
of Mr. Flack in other relations--on the ship, on the deck, at the hotel
at Liverpool, and in the cars. Whitney Dosson was a loyal father, but
he would have thought himself simple had he not had two or three strong
convictions: one of which was that the children should never go out with
a gentleman they hadn't seen before. The sense of their having, and his
having, seen Mr. Flack before was comfortable to him now: it made mere
placidity of his personally foregoing the young man's society in favour
of Delia and Francie. He had not hitherto been perfectly satisfied that
the streets and shops, the general immensity of Paris, were just the
safest place for young ladies alone. But the company of a helpful
gentleman ensured safety--a gentleman who would be helpful by the fact
of his knowing so much and having it all right there. If a big newspaper
told you everything there was in the world every morning, that was
what a big newspaper-man would have to know, and Mr. Dosson had never
supposed there was anything left to know when such voices as Mr. Flack's
and that of his organ had daily been heard. In the absence of such happy
chances--and in one way or another they kept occurring--his girls might
have seemed lonely, which was not the way he struck himself. They were
his company but he scarcely theirs; it was as if they belonged to him
more than he to them.

They were out a long time, but he felt no anxiety, as he reflected that
Mr. Flack's very profession would somehow make everything turn out to
their profit. The bright French afternoon waned without bringing them
back, yet Mr. Dosson still revolved about the court till he might have
been taken for a valet de place hoping to pick up custom. The landlady
smiled at him sometimes as she passed and re-passed, and even ventured
to remark disinterestedly that it was a pity to waste such a lovely day
indoors--not to take a turn and see what was going on in Paris. But Mr.
Dosson had no sense of waste: that came to him much more when he was
confronted with historical monuments or beauties of nature or art, which
affected him as the talk of people naming others, naming friends of
theirs, whom he had never h