se."

"Of course I can take it off."

"Well, then, do."

"Richard," said Margaret severely, "I hope you are not a fidget."

"A what?"

"A fuss, then,--a person who always wants everything some other
way, and makes just twice as much trouble as anybody else."

"No, Margaret, I am not that. I prefer your right hand because the
left is next to the heart, and the evaporation of the water in the
plaster turns it as cold as snow. Your arm will be chilled to the
shoulder. We don't want to do anything to hurt the good little heart,
you know."

"Certainly not," said Margaret. "There!" and she rested her right
arm on the table, while Richard placed the hand in the desired
position on a fresh napkin which he had folded for the purpose.

"Let your hand lie flexible, please. Hold it naturally. Why do you
stiffen the fingers so?"

"I don't; they stiffen themselves, Richard. They know they are
going to have their photograph taken, and can't look natural. Who
ever does?"

After a minute the fingers relaxed, and settled of their own
accord into an easy pose. Richard laid his hand softly on her wrist.

"Don't move now."

"I'll be as quiet as a mouse," said Margaret giving a sudden queer
little glance at his face.

Richard emptied a paper of white powder into a great yellow bowl
half filled with water and fell to stirring it vigorously, like a
pastry-cook beating eggs. When the plaster was of the proper
consistency he began building it up around the hand, pouring on a
spoonful at a time, here and there, carefully. In a minute or two the
inert white fingers were completely buried. Margaret made a comical
grimace.

"Is it cold?"

"Ice," said Margaret, shutting her eyes involuntarily.

"If it is too disagreeable we can give it up," suggested Richard.

"No, don't touch it!" she cried, waving him back with her free
arm. "I don't mind; but it's as cold as so much snow. How curious!
What does it?"

"I suppose a scientific fellow could explain the matter to you
easily enough. When the water evaporates a kind of congealing process
sets in,--a sort of atmospheric change, don't you know? The sudden
precipitation of the--the"--

"You're as good as Tyndall on Heat," said Margaret demurely.

"Oh, Tyndall is well enough in his way," returned Richard, "but of
course he doesn't go into things so deeply as I do."

"The idea of telling me that 'a congealing process set in,' when I
am nearly frozen to death!" cried Margaret, bow