When it had been decided that he was to have the spare room for his workshop, Margaret, with womanly officiousness, had swept it and dusted it and demolished the cobwebs; but since then she had not been able to obtain so much as a glimpse of the interior.  A ten minutes’ sweeping had sufficed for the chamber, but the passage-way seemed in quite an irreclaimable state, judging by the number of times it was necessary to sweep it in the course of a few days.  Now Margaret was not an unusual mixture of timidity and daring; so one morning, about a week after Richard was settled, she walked with quaking heart up to the door of the studio, and knocked as bold as brass.

Richard opened the door, and smiled pleasantly at Margaret standing on the threshold with an expression of demure defiance in her face.  Did Mr. Shackford want anything more in the way of pans and pails for his plaster?  No, Mr. Shackford had everything he required of the kind.  But would not Miss Margaret walk in?  Yes, she would step in for a moment, but with a good deal of indifference, though, giving an air of chance to her settled determination to examine that room from top to bottom.

Richard showed her his drawings and casts, and enlightened her on all the simple mysteries of the craft.  Margaret, of whom he was a trifle afraid at first, amused him with her candor and sedateness, seeming now a mere child, and now an elderly person gravely inspecting matters.  The frankness and simplicity were hers by nature, and the oldish ways—­notably her self-possession, so quick to assert itself after an instant’s forgetfulness—­came perhaps of losing her mother in early childhood, and the premature duties which that misfortune entailed.  She amused him, for she was only fourteen; but she impressed him also, for she was Mr. Slocum’s daughter.  Yet it was not her lightness, but her gravity, that made Richard smile to himself.

“I am not interrupting you?” she asked presently.

“Not in the least,” said Richard.  “I am waiting for these molds to harden.  I cannot do anything until then.”

“Papa says you are very clever,” remarked Margaret, turning her wide black eyes full upon him. "Are you?”

“Far from it,” replied Richard, laughing to veil his confusion, “but I am glad your father thinks so.”

“You should not be glad to have him think so,” returned Margaret reprovingly, “if you are not clever.  I suppose you are, though.  Tell the truth, now.”

“It is not fair to force a fellow into praising himself.”

“You are trying to creep out!”

“Well, then, there are many cleverer persons than I in the world, and a few not so clever.”

“That won’t do,” said Margaret positively.

“I don’t understand what you mean by cleverness, Miss Margaret.  There are a great many kinds and degrees.  I can make fairly honest patterns for the men to work by; but I am not an artist, if you mean that.”