t is a very bad miniature, as you will see if you
know anything about such things, which you probably don't. But it is
very valuable to me, and so I hope you will return it to me as soon as
you find out how bad it is. You probably won't want to bring it
yourself,--I'm sure I should not think you would!--but you can
perfectly well send it by express, and you can let them collect
charges on delivery, unless you think that, under the circumstances,
you ought to prepay them. My address is,

Miss Margaret Burtwell," etc.

* * * * *

Madge read over her production with an amusement and satisfaction
which quite filled, for the moment, the aching void of which she had
been so painfully conscious. The letter occupied but one-half the
sheet, and, as the young artist's eye fell upon the blank third page,
she was seized with an irresistible impulse to draw a picture on it.

The figure of the pickpocket was by this time so vivid to her mind,
that she began making a pen-and-ink sketch of him, as a dark-browed
villain in the act of rifling the pocket of a very haughty young woman
proceeding along the street with an air of extreme self-consciousness.
The drawing was on a very small scale, and when it was finished to her
satisfaction there was still half the page unoccupied. Madge hastily
wrote under the sketch the words: "The Crime," and a moment later she
was engrossed in the execution of a still more dramatic design,
representing the criminal in the hands of two stalwart policemen,
being ignominiously dragged through the street toward a sort of
mediaeval fortress, with walls some twenty feet thick, upon which was
inscribed in enormous characters, "JAIL." Still more action was given
the drawing by the introduction of two or three small and gleeful
ragamuffins, dancing a derisive war-dance behind the captive, and of
two dogs of doubtful lineage, barking like mad on the outskirts of the
group. Under this picture was inscribed, "The Consequences of Crime,"
and at the bottom of the page appeared the words, "Behold and
tremble!"

"What's Artful Madge up to?" asked Ned, as he closed his Latin
Dictionary with a bang.

"Writing a letter," Madge replied, composedly.

"To the Prize Pig?"

"The what?"

"The Prize Pig! You know Eleanor said she felt like a pig to be going
to Paris without you, and as she got the prize----"

"You impudent boy!"

"Not