"Dear Judy!" I expostulated, "you know I didn't say one word about him."

"Of course I do, you silly coz!" she cried, and burst out laughing. "But I
won't forgive you except you make amends by dining with us to-morrow."

Thus for the time she carried it off; but I believe, and have since had
good reason for believing, that she had really mistaken me at first, and
been much annoyed.

She and Percivale got on very well. He showed her the portrait he was still
working at,--even accepted one or two trifling hints as to the likeness,
and they parted the best friends in the world. Glad as I had been to see
her, how I longed to see the last of her! The moment she was gone, I threw
myself into his arms, and told him how it came about. He laughed heartily.

"I _was_ a little puzzled," he said, "to hear you informing a lady I had
never seen that I was so very stupid."

"But I wasn't telling a story, either, for you know you are ve-e-e-ry
stupid, Percivale. You don't know a leg from a shoulder of mutton, and you
can't carve a bit. How ever you can draw as you do, is a marvel to me, when
you know nothing about the shapes of things. It was very wrong to say it,
even for the sake of covering poor Mrs. Morley's husband; but it was quite
true you know."

"Perfectly true, my love," he said, with something else where I've only
put commas; "and I mean to remain so, in order that you may always have
something to fall back upon when you get yourself into a scrape by
forgetting that other people have husbands as well as you."