Once more she stopped before the portrait, her eyes drinking in its beauty.
“Don’t you love it, Mr. Gregg?”
“Yes, but I’m going to give it to your—to Philip.”
“Oh! you know! do you? Yes, just say it out. We are going to be married just as soon as we can—next October is the very latest date. I told father we were tired of waiting and he has promised me; we would have been married this spring but for that horrid copper mine that the deeper you go the less copper——”
“Oh, but Madeleine,” protested Philip with a sudden flush in his face, “that was some time ago; everything’s all right now.”
“Well, I don’t know much about it; I only repeated what father said.”
And then having had her fill of all the pretty things—some she must go back to half a dozen times in her delight—especially some “ducky” little china dogs that were “just too sweet for anything”; and having discussed to her heart’s content all the details of the coming wedding—especially the part where Adam was to walk close behind them on their way up the aisle of the church as a sort of fairy godfather to give Phil away—the joyous little bird, followed by the happy young lover, spread her dainty wings and flew away.
And thus it was that two new spirits were added to Adam Gregg’s long list of friends: One the young man, earnest, alert, losing no chance in his business, awake to all the changes in the ever-shifting market, conversant with every move of his opponents and meeting them with a shrewdness—and sometimes, Adam thought—with a cunning far beyond his years. The other, the fresh, outspoken, merry young girl, fluttering in and out like a bird in her ever-changing plumage—now in hat loaded with tea-roses, now in trim walking costume fitting her dainty figure; now in her waterproof, her wee little feet “wringing wet” she would tell Adam with a laugh—always a welcome guest, no matter who had his chair, or whose portrait or what work required his brush.