he end of a seam.
"How you can make up your mind to spend all your days bedaubing your
clothes with those nasty paints passes my comprehension."

"But sometimes I daub the canvas," Madge protested, with unwonted
meekness, as she drew a grey woollen sock over her hand, and pounced
upon a small hole in the toe; and at that very instant, which Madge
was whimsically regarding as a possible turning-point in her career,
the doorbell rang.

"A gintleman to see you, Miss," said Nora, a moment later, handing
Madge a card.

"To see me?" asked Madge, incredulously, as she read the name, "Mr.
Philip Spriggs! Are you sure he didn't ask for Father?"

But Nora was quite clear that she had not made a mistake.

"Who is it, Madge?" Mrs. Burtwell queried.

"It's probably a book agent," said Madge, as she went down-stairs to
the parlour, rather begrudging the interruption to her darning bout.

Standing by the window, hat in hand, was an elderly man of a somewhat
severe cast of countenance, as unsuggestive as possible, in his
general appearance, of the comparatively frivolous name which a
satirical fate had bestowed upon him.

As Madge entered the room he observed, without advancing a step toward
her: "You are Miss Burtwell, I suppose. I came to answer your letter
in person."

"My letter?" asked Madge, with a confused impression that something
remarkable was going forward.

"Yes; this one,"--and he drew from his pocket the red morocco
miniature case.

"Oh!" cried Madge, "how glad I am to have it!--and how kind you are to
bring it!--and, oh! that dreadful letter!"

The three aspects of the case had chased each other in rapid
succession through her mind, and each had got its-self expressed in
turn.

Mr. Spriggs did not relax a muscle of his face.

"I found this on a table in the Public Library," he stated. "Your
directions were so explicit that I could do no less than be guided by
them."

There was something so solemn, almost judicial, about her guest that
Madge became quite awestruck.

"Won't you please take a seat?" she begged, humbly. "I think I could
apologise better if you were to sit down."

"Then you consider that there is occasion to apologise?" he asked,
taking the proffered chair, and resting his hat upon the floor.

"Indeed, yes!" said Madge. "It's perfectly dreadful to think of the
letter having fallen into the hands of any one so--" and she broke
short off.

"So what?" asked Mr. Spriggs.

"Why, so dig