ds. "I can't find words to
express my gratitude and admiration--"

"Don't worry yourself about that," answered Mat; "I don't suppose I
should understand you if you _could_ find 'em. If you want the picter
put up again, I'll do it. And if you want the carpenter's muddle head
punched, who put it up before, I shouldn't much mind doing that either,"
added Mat, looking at the hole from which the clamp had been torn with
an expression of the profoundest workmanlike disgust.

A new commotion in the room--near the door this time--prevented Mr.
Blyth from giving an immediate answer to the two friendly propositions
just submitted to him.

At the first alarm of danger, all the ladies--headed by the Dowager
Countess, in whom the instinct of self-preservation was largely
developed--had got as far away as they could from the falling picture,
before they ventured to look round at the process by which it was at
last safely landed on the floor. Just as this had been accomplished,
Lady Brambledown--who stood nearest to the doorway--caught sight of
Madonna in the passage that led to it. Mrs. Blyth had heard the noise
and confusion downstairs, and finding that her bell was not answered
by the servants, and that it was next to impossible to overcome her
father's nervous horror of confronting the company alone, had sent
Madonna down-stairs with him, to assist in finding out what had happened
in the studio.

While descending the stairs with her companion, the girl had anticipated
that they might easily discover whether anything was amiss, without
going further than the passage, by merely peeping through the studio
door. But all chance of escaping the ordeal of the painting-room was
lost the moment Lady Brambledown set eyes on her. The Dowager Countess
was one of Madonna's warmest admirers; and now expressed that admiration
by pouncing on her with immense affection and enthusiasm from the
painting-room door-way. Other people, to whom the deaf and dumb girl
was a much more interesting sight than "Columbus," or the "Golden Age,"
crowded round her; all trying together, with great amiability and small
intelligence, to explain what had happened by signs which no human being
could possibly understand. Fortunately for Madonna, Zack (who ever since
he had cut the picture down had been assailed by an incessant fire
of questions about his strange friend, from dozens of inquisitive
gentlemen) happened to look towards her, over the ladies' heads, and