skimming over the table.

Susan blushed and smiled, and took it up. "Oh, it is beautiful,"
she said. "Isn't it beautifully done, mother?" and then all the
three got up to look at it, and all confessed that it was
excellently done.

"And I am sure we are very much obliged to you," said Susan after a
pause, remembering that she had not yet thanked him.

"Oh, it's nothing," said he, not quite liking the word "we." On the
following day he returned from his work to Saratoga about noon.
This he had never done before, and therefore no one expected that he
would be seen in the house before the evening. On this occasion,
however, he went straight thither, and as chance would have it, both
the widow and her elder daughter were out. Susan was there alone in
charge of the house.

He walked in and opened the parlour door. There she sat, with her
feet on the fender, with her work unheeded on the table behind her,
and the picture, Aaron's drawing, lying on her knees. She was
gazing at it intently as he entered, thinking in her young heart
that it possessed all the beauties which a picture could possess.

"Oh, Mr. Dunn," she said, getting up and holding the telltale sketch
behind the skirt of her dress.

"Miss Susan, I have come here to tell your mother that I must start
for New York this afternoon and be there for six weeks, or perhaps
longer."