bud and the loveliness of the full-blown
flower; but Margaret as a blossom was not pretty. She was awkward and
angular, with prominent shoulder-blades, and no soft curves anywhere
in her slimness; only her black hair, growing low on the forehead,
and her eyes were fine. Her profile, indeed, with the narrow forehead
and the sensitive upper lip, might fairly have suggested the mask of
Clytie which Richard had bought of an itinerant image-dealer, and
fixed on a bracket over the mantel-shelf. But her eyes were her
specialty, if one may say that. They were fringed with such heavy
lashes that the girl seemed always to be in half-mourning. Her smile
was singularly sweet and bright, perhaps because it broke through so
much somber coloring.

If there was a latent spark of sentiment between Richard and
Margaret in those earlier days, neither was conscious of it; they had
seemingly begun where happy lovers generally end,--by being dear
comrades. He liked to have Margaret sitting there, with her needle
flashing in the sunlight, or her eyelashes making a rich gloom above
the book as she read aloud. It was so agreeable to look up from his
work, and not be alone. He had been alone so much. And Margaret found
nothing in the world pleasanter than to sit there and watch Richard
making his winter garden, as she called it. By and by it became her
custom to pass every Saturday afternoon in that employment.

Margaret was not content to be merely a visitor; she took a
housewifely care of the workshop, resolutely straightening out its
chronic disorder at unexpected moments, and fighting the white dust
that settled upon everything. The green-paper shade, which did not
roll up very well, at the west window was of her devising. An empty
camphor vial on Richard's desk had always a clove pink, or a pansy,
or a rose, stuck into it, according to the season. She hid herself
away and peeped out in a hundred feminine things in the room.
Sometimes she was a bit of crochet-work left on a chair, and
sometimes she was only a hair-pin, which Richard gravely picked up
and put on the mantel-piece.

Mr. Slocum threw no obstacles in the path of this idyllic
friendship; possibly he did not observe it. In his eyes Margaret was
still a child,--a point of view that necessarily excluded any
consideration of Richard. Perhaps, however, if Mr. Slocum could have
assisted invisibly at a pretty little scene which took place in the
studio, one day, some twelve or eight