"Haven't you been down to ask?" Mary Rose always had been sent to ask in Mifflin.
"Gracious, no! I shouldn't dare. He'd probably bite my head off."
"He couldn't bite your head off if he was sick. It doesn't seem real neighborly, Miss Thorley. And you are neighbors. You live right over his head. I expect he has dyspepsia and that's the reason he looked so—" she hesitated over a word, "unfriendly. Why when Mr. Lewis, he's the postmaster in Mifflin, had dyspepsia Mrs. Lewis didn't dare say her soul was her own. Mr. Lewis couldn't be cross to people when they came for their mail so he saved it all for Mrs. Lewis. That doesn't seem quite fair, does it, for people to be pleasant to outsiders and save their bad temper for their homes?"
"It isn't fair but I rather think it's human."
Mary Rose shook her head. "Sometimes I think that human and disagreeable mean the same thing because people all say the bad things we do are human. Where did we learn them, Miss Thorley? The Lord made us all good because it wouldn't have paid him to make us bad. Where do you suppose Mr. Lewis learned to snap and Mr. Wells to scold and you to frown?"
Miss Thorley certainly did have a frown. It ran right across her pretty forehead when she said: "Bless me! child, how do I know? That's enough for one day." She put the drawing board on the table and stretched herself luxuriously. "Try and be on time tomorrow, Mary Rose, and I think we can finish it."
"Yes'm." Mary Rose stared at the drawing which was a very wonderful thing to her. "Don't you believe Mr. Bingham Henderson 'll be pleased with it? It's a beautiful picture of Jenny Lind."
"It's a beautiful picture of you, if I do say it," laughed the artist.
Mary Rose drew closer until she could whisper into Miss Thorley's ear. "I wish Mr. Jerry could see it."
Miss Thorley rose abruptly and pushed her away. "He can. He'll have lots of opportunity to see it when it is on the back of a magazine. Run along, now. Skip!" She fairly pushed Mary Rose out of the door before she could say anything more about Mr. Jerry. Sometimes it seemed to Mary Rose that Miss Thorley was afraid to hear about Mr. Jerry.