"Oh, some old woman, perhaps, like dear old Mrs.
Mulligan." There was no coquetry in her tone.
She was speaking truthfully out of her heart.

"Anything more?" Oliver's voice had lost its
buoyancy now. The pipe was upside down, the
ashes falling on his shirt.

"Yes--lots of portraits to paint."

"And a medal at the Salon?" asked Oliver, brushing
off the waste of his pipe from his coat-sleeve.

"Yes, I don't mind, if my pictures deserve it," and
she looked at him quizzically, while a sudden flash
of humor lightened up her face. "What would you
want, Mr. Happy-go-lucky, if you had your wish?"

"I, Madge, dear?" he exclaimed, with a sudden
outburst of tenderness, raising his body erect and
looking earnestly into her eyes, which were now
within a hand's breadth of his own. She winced a
little, but it did not offend her, nor did she move an
inch. "Oh, I don't know what I want. What I
want, I suppose, is what I shall never have, little
girl."

She wasn't his little girl, or anybody else's, she
thought to herself--she was firmly convinced of that