een months after Margaret's
first visit to it, he might have found food for reflection.

It was a Saturday afternoon. Margaret had come into the workshop
with her sewing, as usual. The papers on the round table had been
neatly cleared away, and Richard was standing by the window,
indolently drumming on the glass with a palette-knife.

"Not at work this afternoon?"

"I was waiting for you."

"That is no excuse at all," said Margaret, sweeping across the
room with a curious air of self-consciousness, and arranging her
drapery with infinite pains as she seated herself.

Richard looked puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed,
"Margaret, you have got on a long dress!"

"Yes," said Margaret, with dignity. "Do you like it,--the train?"

"That's a train?"

"Yes," said Margaret, standing up and glancing over her left
shoulder at the soft folds of maroon-colored stuff, which, with a
mysterious feminine movement of the foot, she caused to untwist
itself and flow out gracefully behind her. There was really something
very pretty in the hesitating lines of the tall, slender figure, as
she leaned back that way. Certain unsuspected points emphasized
themselves so cunningly.

"I never saw anything finer," declared Richard. "It was worth
waiting for."

"But you shouldn't have waited," said Margaret, with a gratified
flush, settling herself into the chair again. "It was understood that
you were never to let me interfere with your work."

"You see you have, by being twenty minutes late. I've finished
that acorn border for Stevens's capitals, and there's nothing more to
do for the yard. I am going to make something for myself, and I want
you to lend me a hand."

"How can I help you, Richard?" Margaret asked, promptly stopping
the needle in the hem.

"I need a paper-weight to keep my sketches from being blown about,
and I wish you literally to lend me a hand,--a hand to take a cast
of."

"Really?"

"I think that little white claw would make a very neat
paper-weight," said Richard.

Margaret gravely rolled up her sleeve to the elbow, and
contemplated the hand and wrist critically.

"It is like a claw, isn't it. I think you can find something
better than that."

"No; that is what I want, and nothing else. That, or no
paper-weight for me."

"Very well, just as you choose. It will be a fright."

"The other hand, please."

"I gave you the left because I've a ring on this one."

"You can take off the ring, I suppo