atrimony!...

"But the difficulty," she said, "is to persuade papa to let me do it. Of
course, I've no right to expect him to take me seriously.... I know
_you_ could persuade him."

That, spoken impulsively, she hurriedly covered up in conversation;
begging him to go on at once and give her his ideas of what the new
building should be like. She had gathered by now, that, whatever he
considered wonderful in all this, it was not the fact that he, she, and
her father should be, so to say, planning it shoulder to shoulder. But
this fine unconsciousness of his she herself could not match; not at
least till she had had more time to smooth things over with her
father....

However, talk of mere temporary repairs in condemned old buildings was
quickly swallowed in plannings for the splendid new. Here the man from
the outskirts indubitably shone; he bristled with illuminating ideas.
He, it seemed, was for a four-story building, brick, with concrete
floors. Much he had to say on the subject of fire-escapes and
patent-doors, lunch-rooms and rest-rooms with lockers, enclosed
stairways and elevator shafts; shower-baths, too, if one simply must
have the best and never mind the expense. And then his pencil began
unconsciously to work as he went along; and presently there emerged upon
a fresh sheet of mamma's best note-paper the first visible presentment
of the Works that would be. There it actually _was_, for you to gaze at,
dream over; the perfect apology: the front and side elevation of a fine,
dignified, businesslike building, plain yet undeniably handsome, very
substantial and roomy, very full of airy windows. Not like a marble
palace, after all; but a child could see that nobody was ever crowded in
there, nobody ever the least faint. Nothing homicidal here, Mr. V.V.,
look where you will....

"You can _draw_, too!"

"Straight lines," said V.V., modestly. But he regarded his handiwork
with passionate approbation, and finished it off gallantly with a flag
flying from the roof and two stately motor-trucks (so he said) wheeling
by the door.

"Oh, how beautiful!" cried Cally Heth.

And it was all so curiously exciting to her, so intensely interesting.
No prospect in her life, it seemed, had ever stirred her like this
strange one; a new cigar-factory, born of her purse and heart....

Once, about at this point, the young man threw out with mysterious
delight:

"I'll like to see old Sam O'Neill's face, when he hears about this