Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/94

 were re-furnishing," said Wedgwood. "Oh, to be sure! Perhaps you'll be stopping here a while—you could play to him."

The girl gave him a look out of her eye-corners and began to pick bits of moss out of the wall against which they were standing.

"Oh, well," she answered ingenuously. "My aunt Janet, she wants me to marry Mr. Mortover. But I don't know. To be sure, I haven't got anybody at home; at least nobody serious. But I'm not sure that I should like living here—it's out of everything!"

"A piano and a motor-car would make a difference," remarked Wedgwood, archly. "They'd be a bit of compensation. But perhaps you're not in a hurry to change your name, eh?"

"Well, I don't know—I suppose one's got to, some time. There's three of us at home, besides me—we've all got to do something—pa's job in the City isn't such a grand one, and ma's always saying that us girls must do what we can for ourselves. I suppose—you said you used to live our way—I suppose you don't know pa?"

"Can't say that I do," replied Wedgwood. He held his sketch at arm's length, with his head on one side, studying the effect. "Might you know. What's his name?"

"Patello—Mr. Thomas Patello," replied the