Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/76

62 speak to her directly. "He's quite lovely!" she declared to Mrs. Wix. Then eagerly, irrepressibly, as she still held the photograph and Sir Claude continued to fraternize, "Oh, can't I keep it?" she broke out. No sooner had she done so than she looked up from it at Miss Overmore—this was with the sudden impulse to put the case to the authority that had long ago impressed on her that she mustn't ask for things. Miss Overmore, to her surprise, looked distant and rather odd, hesitating and giving her time to turn again to Mrs. Wix. Then Maisie saw that lady's long face lengthen. It was stricken and almost scared, as if her young friend really expected more of her than she had to give. The photograph was a possession that, direly denuded, she clung to, and there was a momentary struggle between her fond clutch of it and her capability of every sacrifice for her precarious pupil. With the acuteness of her years, however, Maisie was of the opinion that her own avidity would triumph, and she held out the picture to Miss Overmore as if she were quite proud of her mother. "Isn't he just lovely?" she demanded, while poor Mrs. Wix hungrily wavered, her straighteners