Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/242

228 ; not on the links, on this occasion, but in our microscopic sitting-room. It is twelve feet square, and holds a tiny piano, desk, centre-table, sofa, and chairs, but the spot between the fireplace and the table is Francesca's favorite "putting green." She wishes to become more deadly in the matter of approaches, and thinks her tee shots weak; so these two deficiencies she is trying to make good by home practice in inclement weather. She turns a tumbler on its side on the floor, and "puts" the ball into it, or at it, as the case may be, from the opposite side of the room. It is excellent discipline, and as the tumblers are inexpensive the breakage really does not matter. Whenever Miss Grieve hears the shivering of glass, she murmurs, not without reason, "It is not for the knowing what they will be doing next."

"Penelope, has it ever occurred to you that Elizabeth Ardmore is seriously interested in Mr. Macdonald?" Salemina propounded this question to me with the same innocence that a babe would display in placing a match beside a dynamite bomb.

Francesca naturally heard the remark,—although it was addressed to me,—pricked up her ears, and missed the tumbler by several feet. It was a simple inquiry, but as I look back upon it from the safe ground of subsequent knowledge I perceive that it had a certain amount of influence upon Francesca's history. The