“Mother is so much alone, she sometimes forgets.”
“I should think as much. But that is neither here nor there. If old women choose to cut up rusty they are welcome, for anything I care. But we were talking about the picters for my boudoir. How long will it take you to paint em?”
“Then you were really in earnest? You meant it?” cried Ruth, catching her breath, and clasping her hands in an ecstasy of delight.
“Meant it? Of course I did. Ross has just ripped every one of my picters off of the wall, and says they aint worth the frames, which are lovely, Miss; and I’m sure the paintings were just as bright as red, and green, and yellow could make them. But, hoity-toity! my gentleman just pitched them into the coach-house; and I solemnly believe they are hung up in Battle’s room this minute. ‘Now,’ says he, ‘fill them empty frames with something worth looking at.’
“But where are they coming from?” says I, huffy as could be, for I didn’t like them empty frames lyin’ in a heap on the floor. Then he brought down two or three of the things,—‘rough gems’ he called ’em,—that you had sent to him, and put them in the frames. I aint no judge perhaps,—so don’t be offended!—but, really, now, they did not make half the show that the others did; but he said, there was ‘downright genius in them,’ and I gave in about it. So, if you could come to my house,—which, of course, you can’t—them four picters are all you would see in my boudoir, instead of them he had turned out of doors. “Now, my dear, how much am I to pay you for them?”
“How—how much? Oh, madam, I—I——”
Then Ruth put both hands to her face, and burst into a passion of warm, sweet tears, that shook her slight frame from head to foot.
“Well, now, I never did,” said Mrs. Carter, half starting from her seat. “He thought you would be delighted.”
“And so I am—the happiest, happiest creature that ever lived. Oh, madam, you seem to me like an angel.”
Mrs. Carter lifted her head and plumed herself like a peacock.