"How delightful!" exclaimed Mariana, genially. She kissed Miss Freighley, and pressed the extended hands of the others with demonstrative cordiality.
"Oh, if I could only paint!" she said to Miss Freighley, in affectionate undertones. "If I could only go about with a box of brushes, without feeling silly, and wear a smudge of paint upon my sleeve without being dishonest." And she wiped Miss Freighley's sleeve upon her handkerchief.
"Thanks," responded that young lady, amiably; "but you can carry a music-roll, you know, which is much handier and a good deal tidier."
Mariana had turned to the "Andromeda." "Oh, Mr. Ponsonby!" she remarked, to one of the group surrounding it, "don't you uphold me in thinking the shadows upon the throat too heavy?"
Mr. Ponsonby protested that he would uphold her in any statement she might choose to make, so long as he was not expected to agree with her. Mariana appealed to Mr. Nevins, who declared that he would agree with her in any matter whatsoever, so long as he was not expected to change his "Andromeda."
Mariana frowned. "Mr. Ardly thinks as I do—now don't you?"
Ardly sauntered over to them.
"Why, of course," he assented. "That shadow was put on with a pitchfork. I am positively surprised at you, Nevins."
"On your conscience?" demanded Mariana.
"Haven't any," protested Ardly, indolently. "Left it in Boston. It is indigenous to the soil, and won't bear transplanting."