"Thank you, Miss Patty; I hope you will. Oh, I'll be so glad to have it; I've been saving these stones for it for years. You see, they're beautiful stones." Pansy Potts was on her knees arranging the stones, many of which were jagged pieces of quartz shining here and there with mica scales, into a symmetrical pile, which somehow had the effect of a Pagan altar. "Well," said Patty, as she watched her, "I don't think you'll need any of the decorations I expected to give you." "Oh, Miss Patty," said Pansy earnestly, "please don't make me have pictures, and pincushions, and vases, and all those things; I like my own things so much better." "You shall fix your room just as you choose," said Patty kindly; "and if I can help you in any way, I'll be glad to do so. How are _you_ progressing, Mancy?" Patty stepped across the hall to her cook's room, and found its stout occupant rather precariously perched on a chair, tacking up a picture. She had evidently improved her time, for many other pictures were already in place, and, what is unusual in either a public or private art-gallery, the pictures were all exactly alike. They were large, very highly coloured, unframed, and, in fact, were nothing more or less than advertisements of a popular soap. The subject was a broadly-grinning old coloured woman, washing clothes, that were already snow-white, in a sea of soapsuds. "For goodness' sake, Mancy!" exclaimed Patty. "Who said you might drive tacks all over these new walls, and where did you get all those pictures of yourself?" "They does favour me, don't they, missy?" exclaimed Mancy, beaming with delight, as she took another tack from her mouth, and pounded it into place. "I got 'em from de grocer man, and co'se I has to tack 'em, else how would dey stay up?" "But you have so many of them." "Laws, chile, only a dozen; youse got mo'n that on the libr'y wall." "But ours are different; these are all alike." "Co'se dey's all alike! I des nachelly gets tired of lookin' at different pitchers. It 'stracts my head." "I should think these would distract your head. I feel as if I were in a kinetoscope." "Does that mean art-gal'ry?" "Not exactly; but tell me, Mancy, did you get all these pictures because they looked like you? And was the grocer willing to give you so many?" "Yas'm. But I 'spects I'll hab to confess a little about dat, Miss Patty. You see, I dun tole him I was gwine t' work for yo', and dat's huccome he guv 'em to me." "That's all right, Mancy. After he gets that long order we made out this morning, I'm sure he'll feel he was justified in favouring us; but get down out of that chair. In the first place, you'll fall and break your neck, and if you don't, you'll break the chair. Get down, and I'll tack up the rest of your pictures." "Thank you, missy, do; and I'll hand you the tacks. There's only six more, anyhow. I 'llowed to have three over the mantel, and two over that window, and one behind the door."