Finally he asked her something I couldn’t quite hear, and she said:
“It was when you sent me the picture.”
“Not till then?” said he, and she said,
“Oh, I don’t mean the second one; I mean the first one—of me.”
“The first one? Of you?” he said. “What do you mean?”
“When I posed,” says Miss Peck. “Didn’t you send it? You signed it.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean,” said he, staring at her. “I never sent you a picture in my life, Katharine.”
She sat up straight and I felt very queer.
“Perhaps you didn’t draw it, either?” she asked him, in a stiff kind of way.
“i certainly didn’t,” he said, just as stiff.
She stood up and looked at him, and I never thought Miss Peck could look so strict and dignified.
“Possibly you do not recall your particular request that I should pose for you on that occasion?” she said. (Her very words.)
“I certainly do not,” says Mr. Angell, as red as a beet, “for I never made any such request. I don’t understand you.”
“There seems to have been a general misunderstanding,” she said, and turned her back on him and started off.
“Good-by, Mr. Angell.”
He jumped up and ran after her.
“Don’t go, Katharine, don’t go!”’ he said. “It’s some mistake; somebody has played a very silly trick on us, but I—we—it’s just the same, isn’t it ?”
“Certainly not,” she told him. “Do you think I can endure such a disgraceful thing as this? I am going to have this matter thoroughly sifted, and then shall leave the school immediately.”
Well, I was awfully scared. Of course we didn’t suppose they’d get talking this way. I wished Ben had been there, but she wasn’t. So I had to think what to do myself. I jumped out of the little place and caught hold of Miss Peck’s skirt and said very fast,
“You needn’t have it sifted because I can tell you all about it and we didn’t mean any harm. It was Elizabeth Van Horn’s picture. And it was Connie’s idea, to pay you for the button you sewed on.”
Mr. Angell grabbed hold of my arm. “What are you doing here? What do you know about this?” he said.
“Did Miss Van Horn have the impertinence to send me that picture?” said Miss Peck.
“No indeed, she didn’t,” I told her. “She threw it away and Connie picked it up and”
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Angell, “is Connie a little girl with a long braid and blue eyes?”
“Yes, sir,” said I.
“Ah,” said he. And he thought a minute and looked at me very quick and then away.
“Now listen,” he said, “and answer me carefully. Why did Miss Connie save the picture?”
“She thought it was too nice to throw away,” I said.
“Ah, yes,” said he, “I begin to see. And she thought Miss Peck would like to have it, because I had said it was such a good piece of work?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“And you thought Miss Peck would have more respect for it if she thought I had drawn it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said again.
“So you signed my name?”
“Initials,” I said—“W. P. A. It was forging, of course. But you did the background and the pompadour.”
“That is true,” said he, “I went over it very carefully.”
“This is no explanation whatever,” Miss Peck “I must ask you to let me go.”
“Katharine, I beg you to stay,” said Mr. Angell. “I have not finished. Please sit down.”
Really, it seems foolish, but anybody would have minded him. He looked tall, somehow, and different. He stood up just as straight, and you didn’t mind about his hair a bit. I thought he was more important than Captain Millard.
Ben says it is because he is a gentleman and Captain Millard is not, though very grand.
So she sat down and began to cry.
“What did you say about paying for a button?” he asked me.
“Miss Peck sewed on a button for Connie, and she wanted to pay her back,” I said.
“Oh! by giving her that picture ?” said he.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You see, Katharine,” he said to her,
