easy chair and her face
was turned away from Penrod, so that her expression of the moment
remained unknown to him. Facing her, and leaning toward her with
perceptible emotion, was Mr. Claude Blakely--a young man with whom
Penrod had no acquaintance, though he had seen him, was aware of his
identity, and had heard speech between Mrs. Schofield and Margaret which
indicated that Mr. Blakely had formed the habit of calling frequently at
the house. This was a brilliantly handsome young man; indeed, his face
was so beautiful that even Penrod was able to perceive something about
it which might be explicably pleasing--at least to women. And Penrod
remembered that, on the last evening before Mr. Robert Williams's
departure for college, Margaret had been peevish because Penrod had
genially spent the greater portion of the evening with Robert and
herself upon the porch. Margaret made it clear, later, that she strongly
preferred to conduct her conversations with friends unassisted--and as
Penrod listened to the faltering words of Mr. Claude Blakely, he felt
instinctively that, in a certain contingency, Margaret's indignation
would be even more severe to-day than on the former occasion.

Mr. Blakely coughed faintly and was able to continue.

"I mean to say that when I say that what Tennyson says--ah--seems to--to
apply to--to a feeling about you--"

At this point, finding too little breath in himself to proceed, in spite
of the fact that he had spoken in an almost inaudible tone, Mr. Blakely
stopped again.

Something about this little scene was making a deep impression upon
Penrod. What that impression was, he could not possibly have stated;
but he had a sense of the imminence of a tender crisis, and he perceived
that the piquancy of affairs in the library had reached a point which
would brand an intentional interruption as the act of a cold-blooded
ruffian. Suddenly it was as though a strong light shone upon him: he
decided that it was Mr. Blakely who had told Margaret that her eyes
were like blue stars in heaven--THIS was the person who had caused the
hateful letter to be written! That decided Penrod; his inspiration, so
long waited for, had come.

"I--I feel that perhaps I am not plain," said Mr. Blakely, and
immediately became red, whereas he had been pale. He was at least modest
enough about his looks to fear that Margaret might think he had referred
to them. "I mean, not plain in another sense--that is, I mean not that