"Don't joke with me," said Delia, "not from Peoria!"

"All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woollen
muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle's window and
thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, though, and bought it
anyhow. He ordered another--an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight
depot--to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess Art is still in
it."

"I'm so glad you've kept on," said Delia, heartily. "You're bound to
win, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend before.
We'll have oysters to-night."

"And filet mignon with champignons," said Joe. "Where is the olive
fork?"

On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his $18
on the parlour table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark
paint from his hands.

Half an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand tied up in a shapeless
bundle of wraps and bandages.

"How is this?" asked Joe after the usual greetings. Delia laughed, but
not very joyously.

"Clementina," she explained, "insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after her
lesson. She is such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at 5 in the afternoon.
The General was there. You should have seen him run for the chafing
dish, Joe, just as if there wasn't a servant in the house. I know
Clementina isn't in good health; she is so nervous. In serving the
rabbit she spilled a great lot of it, boiling hot, over my hand and
wrist. It hurt awfully, Joe. And the dear girl was so sorry! But Gen.
Pinkney!--Joe, that old man nearly went distracted. He rushed downstairs
and sent somebody--they said the furnace man or somebody in the
basement--out to a drug store for some oil and things to bind it up
with. It doesn't hurt so much now."

"What's this?" asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling at some
white strands beneath the bandages.

"It's something soft," said Delia, "that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, did you
sell another sketch?" She had seen the money on the table.

"Did I?" said Joe; "just ask the man from Peoria. He got his depot
to-day, and he isn't sure but he thinks he wants another parkscape and
a view on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you burn your hand,
Dele?"

"Five o'clock, I think," said Dele, plaintively. "The iron--I mean the
rabbit came off the fire about that time. You ought to have seen Gen.
Pinkney, Joe, when--"

"Sit down here a moment, Dele," said Joe. He drew her to the couch, sat
beside her