What is this, little one? Surely, Carmen, thou needst not blush at
this, thy first grand offer. Holy Virgin! is it of a necessity that thou
shouldst stick the wrong end of thy brush in thy mouth, and then drop it
in thy lap? Or was it taught thee by the good Sisters at the convent to
stride in that boyish fashion to the side of thy elders and snatch from
their hands the missive thou wouldst read? More of this we would know,
O Carmen,--smallest of brunettes,--speak, little one, even in thine own
melodious speech, that I may commend thee and thy rare discretion to my
own fair countrywomen.

Alas, neither the present chronicler nor Mistress Plodgitt got any
further information from the prudent Carmen, and must fain speculate
upon certain facts that were already known.

Mistress Carmen's little room was opposite to Thatcher's, and once or
twice, the doors being open, Thatcher had a glimpse across the passage
of a black-haired and a sturdy, boyish little figure in a great blue
apron, perched on a stool before an easel, and on the other hand, Carmen
had often been conscious of the fumes of a tobacco pipe penetrating her
cloistered seclusion, and had seen across the passage, vaguely enveloped
in the same nicotine cloud, an American Olympian, in a rocking chair,
with his feet on the mantel shelf. They had once or twice met on the
staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two
of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,--a courtesy which never really
offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the
slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to
recognize the fact that the great and more dangerous passions are always
SERIOUS, and may be excused if in self-respect she is often induced to
try if there be not somewhere under the skin of this laughing Mercutio