_Miss Spaulding_: “Oh, _do_ you think you can keep from telling him, Ethel dear? Try! And I will be your slave forever!” Steps are heard on the stairs outside. “Oh, there he comes!” She dashes out of the door, and closes it after her, a moment before the maid-servant, followed by _Mr. Ransom_, taps at it. III. SCENE: _Miss Reed_ opens the door, and receives _Mr. Ransom_ with well-affected surprise and state, suffering him to stand awkwardly on the threshold for a moment. * * * * * _She_, coldly: “Oh!—Mr. Ransom!” _He_, abruptly: “I’ve come”— _She_: “Won’t you come in?” _He_, advancing a few paces into the room: “I’ve come”— _She_, indicating a chair: “Will you sit down?” _He_: “I must stand for the present. I’ve come to ask you for that money, Miss Reed, which I refused yesterday, in terms that I blush to think of. I was altogether and wholly in the wrong, and I’m ready to offer any imaginable apology or reparation. I’m ready to take the money and to sign a receipt, and then to be dismissed with whatever ignominy you please. I deserve anything—everything!” _She_: “The money? Excuse me; I don’t know—I’m afraid that I’m not prepared to pay you the whole sum to-day.” _He_, hastily: “Oh, no matter! no matter! I don’t care for the money now. I merely wish to—to assure you that I thought you were perfectly right in offering it, and to—to”— _She_: “What?” _He_: “Nothing. That is—ah—ah”— _She_: “It’s extremely embarrassing to have people refuse their money when it’s offered them, and then come the next day for it, when perhaps it isn’t so convenient to pay it—_very_ embarrassing.” _He_, hotly: “But I tell you I don’t want the _money_! I never wanted it, and wouldn’t take it on any account.” _She_: “Oh! I thought you said you came to get it?” _He_: “I said—I didn’t say—I meant—that is—ah—I”—He stops, open-mouthed. _She_, quietly: “I could give you part of the money now.” _He_: “Oh, whatever you like; it’s indifferent”— _She_: “Please sit down while I write a receipt.” She places herself deliberately at the table, and opens her portfolio. “I will pay you now, Mr. Ransom, for the first six lessons you gave me—the ones before you told me that I could never learn to do anything.” _He_, sinking mechanically into the chair she indicates: “Oh, just as you like!” He looks up at the ceiling in hopeless bewilderment, while she writes. _She_, blotting the paper: “There! And now let me offer you a little piece of advice, Mr. Ransom, which may be useful to you in taking pupils hereafter.” _He_, bursting out: “I never take pupils!” _She_: “Never take pupils! I don’t understand. You took _me_.” _He_, confusedly: “I took you—yes. You seemed to wish—you seemed—the case was peculiar—peculiar circumstances.”