"You tell me first," cried Oliver bending toward her, his face beaming; each day they exchanged the minutest occurrences of their lives.
"No—Ollie—Let me hear yours. What's it about? Mine's about a picture."
"So's mine," exclaimed Olive; his eyes brimming with fun and the joy of the surprise he had in store for her.
"But it's about one of your OWN pictures, Ollie."
"So's mine," he cried again, his voice rising in merriment.
"Oh, Ollie, tell me first," pleaded Margaret with a tone in her voice of such coaxing sweetness that only Richard's and Nathan's presence restrained him from catching her up in his arms and kissing her then and there.
"No, not until you have told me yours," he answered with mock firmness.
"Mine came in a letter."
"So did mine," cried Margaret clapping her hands. "I don't believe yours is half as good as mine and I'm not going to wait to hear it. Now listen—" and she opened an envelope that lay on the table within reach of her hand. "This is from my brother John—" and she turned toward Richard and Nathan. "He and Couture, in whose atelier I studied, are great friends. Now please pay attention Mr. Autocrat—" and she looked at Oliver over the edge of the letter and began to read—
"Couture came in to-day on his way home and I showed him the photograph Ollie sent me of his portrait of you—his 'Tam-o'-Shanter Girl' he calls it. Couture was so enthusiastic about it that he wants it sent to Paris at once so that he can exhibit it in his own studio to some of the painters there. Then he is going to send it to the Salon. So you can tell that 'Johnnie Reb' to pass it along to me by the first steamer; and you can tell him, too, that his last letter is a month old, and I am getting hungry for another."
"There now! what do you think of that? Mr. Honorable Mention."