From a Bench in Our Square

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

“He isn’t! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the last.”

“About what?”

“About taking money.”

“I’m a prophetess! And you’re a patroness. Born in us, I suppose. You did try to give him money.”

“Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and paint. He wouldn’t even let me do that; so I—I—I offered to buy the picture of me, and he said—he said—Cecily, do you think he’s sometimes a little queer in his head?”

“Not in the head, necessarily. What did he say?”

“He said he’d bought it himself at the highest price ever paid. And he said it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just told him that I hoped I’d see him when I came back—”

“Back from where? Are you going away?”

“Yes; didn’t I tell you? On a three months’ cruise.”

“Had you told him that?”