Part 1 (2/2)
The agent ventured to inquire what her line was, and she answered with a twinkle in her eye, ”Notions.”
The architect was doubtful about the fireplace, but not unwilling to discuss it, and they grew so friendly over the matter that the agent retired to the door and stared gloomily up the street.
From the fireplace the discussion turned to other things. As a possible tenant, the young lady consulted the architect about the best color for the walls, so adroitly insinuating her own ideas as to the proper stain for the woodwork that they seemed his own.
While they talked, a small boy in a gingham ap.r.o.n, with a sailor hat on the back of his curly head and a gray flannel donkey under his arm, wandered in and stood surveying them with great composure.
”Who's going to live here?” he presently asked, his brown eyes upon the lady.
She met his gaze with a smile that drew him a step nearer, but caused no break in his seriousness. ”I am thinking of it,” she said, adding, with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, ”if they will let me have a fireplace in this room. Shouldn't you want a fireplace if you were going to live here?”
He nodded, ”'Cause if you didn't, Santa Claus couldn't come.”
The lady turned gravely to the architect. ”That is a consideration which had not occurred to me, but it is an important one. I shall not take it without the fireplace.” Her manner said there was no need for further discussion.
”What is your name?” she asked the small boy.
He shook his head.
”Do you mean you haven't any?”
Another more vigorous shake.
”Perhaps you have forgotten it?”
”No, I haven't.”
”Why not tell, then? I am always willing to tell mine.”
”What is it?” he inquired with great promptness.
”But I don't think it is fair to ask me when you won't tell yours.”
”You said you would.”
The lady laughed. ”Very well, I am Miss Pennington.”
The small boy pondered this for a moment, then announced with much distinctness, ”My name is James Mandeville Norton.”
”Well, James, I am glad to meet you. I see you are a fair-minded person. Do you live in this neighborhood?”
James Mandeville pointed in the direction of the row of toy houses on Pleasant Street, and said he lived over there.
”Then if they give me a fireplace, you and I will be neighbors.”
They were standing in the door, just outside which, on the sidewalk, was a velocipede. This James Mandeville now mounted with gravity. He did not express a hope that she might come to live near him, but there was friendliness in the tone in which he said good-by as he rode away.
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