but--but, you see, I love somebody else," Margaret concluded, with
admirable candour.
"Ah!" said he, in a rather curious voice. "The painter chap, eh?"
Then Margaret's face flamed in a wonderful glow of shame and happiness
and pride that must have made the surrounding roses very hopelessly
jealous. A quaint mothering look, sacred, divine, Madonna-like,
woke in her great eyes as she thought--remorsefully--of
how unhappy Billy must be at that very moment and of how big he was
and of his general niceness; and she desired, very heartily, that this
fleshy young man would make his scene and have done with it. Who was