Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/299

Rh of lavender, pink, and light blue. The woman herself was a beruffled little creature, in appearance not unlike the angora kitten, which, head cocked on one side, sat on top of the lady's chair-back, eyes black and alert, in the late evening lamp-light. The kitten was pure white. So was the head of the little lady just below.

"Well, Nathan," she said, her eyes as dark and bright as the kitten's, as she glanced up at the young man, who drew up a chair close beside her and sat down, first laying overcoat and hat aside, "How did it go? And which was it to-night, Latin, French, or your precious modern poetry?"

"Didn't I tell you?" inquired the young man. "Professor Heckelman is away for three days, so I'm having a vacation. I went out simply for exercise to-night."

He sat in characteristic attitude, as he spoke, one hand—his left—pushed into a trousers pocket, the other lying upon a crossed knee. He raised the hand upon the knee, wriggled one of its big fingers in front of the kitten's nose. The kitten surveyed it appreciatively with crescendoing purr.

"I wish your precious Professor Heckelman would stay away for a while," scolded the little lady. "You need a vacation. Both you and Robert do—the way you two work! I must say, Ruffles here," she reached up a hand and drew the kitten down into her lap, "and I are the only frivolous creatures in this house, aren't we, Fluffs? Robert's been locked up since eight o'clock in his study writing on that Lenten series of sermons of his, I suppose, and you," she shook her head disapprovingly at the young man, "you, too,