But it was in serving the luncheon, which Mrs. Mulligan had brought in, that his sweetheart was most enchanting. Her full-rounded figure moved so gracefully when she bent across to hand someone a cup, and the pose of the head was so delicious, and it was all so bewitching, and so precisely satisfied his artistic sense. And he so loved to hear her talk when she was the centre of a group like this, as much really to see the movement of her lips and the light in her eyes and the gracious way in which she moved her head as to hear what she said. He was indeed so overflowing with happiness over it all, and she was so enchanting in his eyes as she sat there dispensing the comforts of the silver tray, that he must needs pop out of the room with some impromptu excuse and disappear into the little den which held her desk, that he might dash off a note which he tucked under her writing-pad--one of their hiding-places--and which bore the lines: "You were never so much my queen as you are to-day, dearest," and which she found later and covered with kisses before he was half way down the block on his way back to the hotel with the two old gentlemen. She was indeed beautiful. The brow was wider and whiter, perhaps, than it had been in the old days under the bark slant, and the look out of the eyes a trifle softer, and with a certain tenderness in them--not quite so defiant and fearless; but there had been no other changes. Certainly none in the gold-brown hair that Oliver so loved. That was still her glory, and was still heaped up in magnificent masses, and with the same look about it of being ready to burst its bonds and flood everything with a river of gold. "Lots of good news to-day, Madge," Oliver exclaimed, after they had all taken their seats, his father on Margaret's right, with Nathan next. "Yes, and I have got lots of good news too; bushels of it," laughed Margaret. "You tell me first," cried Oliver bending toward her, his face beaming; each day they exchanged the minutest occurrences of their lives. "No--Ollie--Let me hear yours. What's it about? Mine's about a picture." "So's mine," exclaimed Olive; his eyes brimming with fun and the joy of the surprise he had in store for her. "But it's about one of your OWN pictures, Ollie." "So's mine," he cried again, his voice rising in merriment. "Oh, Ollie, tell me first," pleaded Margaret with a tone in her voice of such coaxing sweetness that only Richard's and Nathan's presence restrained him from catching her up in his arms and kissing her then and there. "No, not until you have told me yours," he answered with mock firmness. "Mine came in a letter."