Part 10 (1/2)

Miss Ricker gave a faint, a.s.senting smile.

”I think Miss Ricker is very much indebted to Artful Madge,” Harriet Wells declared. ”There isn't another girl in the cla.s.s who could have knocked that easel over without damaging the picture.”

”Practice makes perfect,” some one observed; and then, time being called, everybody began talking at once, and wit and wisdom were alike lost upon the company.

But Artful Madge was not to be lightly consoled.

”Mother,” she said, that same afternoon, as she came into the little sitting-room over the front entry, where her mother was st.i.tching on the sewing-machine, ”I think I should like to do something useful. I'm kind of tired of art.”

Madge had been helping wash the luncheon dishes, and was beginning to wonder whether her talents were not, perhaps, of a purely domestic order.

”I should think you _would_ be tired of it!” said Mrs. Burtwell, in perfect good faith, as she snipped the thread at the end of a seam.

”How you can make up your mind to spend all your days bedaubing your clothes with those nasty paints pa.s.ses my comprehension.”

”But sometimes I daub the canvas,” Madge protested, with unwonted meekness, as she drew a grey woollen sock over her hand, and pounced upon a small hole in the toe; and at that very instant, which Madge was whimsically regarding as a possible turning-point in her career, the doorbell rang.

”A gintleman to see you, Miss,” said Nora, a moment later, handing Madge a card.

”To see me?” asked Madge, incredulously, as she read the name, ”Mr.

Philip Spriggs! Are you sure he didn't ask for Father?”

But Nora was quite clear that she had not made a mistake.

”Who is it, Madge?” Mrs. Burtwell queried.

”It's probably a book agent,” said Madge, as she went down-stairs to the parlour, rather begrudging the interruption to her darning bout.

Standing by the window, hat in hand, was an elderly man of a somewhat severe cast of countenance, as unsuggestive as possible, in his general appearance, of the comparatively frivolous name which a satirical fate had bestowed upon him.

As Madge entered the room he observed, without advancing a step toward her: ”You are Miss Burtwell, I suppose. I came to answer your letter in person.”

”My letter?” asked Madge, with a confused impression that something remarkable was going forward.

”Yes; this one,”--and he drew from his pocket the red morocco miniature case.

”Oh!” cried Madge, ”how glad I am to have it!--and how kind you are to bring it!--and, oh! that dreadful letter!”

The three aspects of the case had chased each other in rapid succession through her mind, and each had got its-self expressed in turn.

Mr. Spriggs did not relax a muscle of his face.

”I found this on a table in the Public Library,” he stated. ”Your directions were so explicit that I could do no less than be guided by them.”

There was something so solemn, almost judicial, about her guest that Madge became quite awestruck.

”Won't you please take a seat?” she begged, humbly. ”I think I could apologise better if you were to sit down.”

”Then you consider that there is occasion to apologise?” he asked, taking the proffered chair, and resting his hat upon the floor.

”Indeed, yes!” said Madge. ”It's perfectly dreadful to think of the letter having fallen into the hands of any one so--” and she broke short off.