_Miss Reed_: “Wouldn’t I? You wait and _see_, Miss Spaulding! He shall take the money, and he shall sign a receipt for it. I’ll draw up the receipt now, so as to have it ready, and I shall ask him to sign it the very moment he enters this door—the very instant!” She takes a portfolio from the table near her, without rising, and writes: “‘Received from Miss Ethel Reed one hundred and twenty-five dollars, in full, for twenty-five lessons in oil-painting.’ There—when Mr. Oliver Ransom has signed this little document he may begin to talk; not before!” She leans back in her chair with an air of pitiless determination. _Miss Spaulding_: “But, Ethel, you don’t mean to make him take money for the lessons he gave you after he told you you couldn’t learn anything?” _Miss Reed_, after a moment’s pause: “Yes, I do. This is to punish him. I don’t wish for justice now; I wish for vengeance! At first I would have compromised on the six lessons, or on none at all, if he had behaved nicely; but after what’s happened I shall insist upon paying him for every lesson, so as to make him feel that the whole thing, from first to last, was a purely business transaction on my part. Yes, a _purely_—BUSINESS—TRANSACTION!” _Miss Spaulding_, turning to her music: “Then I’ve got nothing more to say to you, Ethel Reed.” _Miss Reed_: “I don’t say but what, after he’s taken the money and signed the receipt, I’ll listen to anything else he’s got to say, very willingly.” _Miss Spaulding_ makes no answer, but begins to play with a scientific absorption, feeling her way fitfully through the new piece, while _Miss Reed_, seated by the register, trifles with the book she has taken from the table. II. THE interior of the room of _Miss Spaulding_ and _Miss Reed_ remains in view, while the scene discloses, on the other side of the partition wall in the same house, the bachelor apartment of _Mr. Samuel Grinnidge_. _Mr. Grinnidge_ in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his pipe in his mouth, has the effect of having just come in; his friend _Mr. Oliver Ransom_ stands at the window, staring out into the November weather. * * * * * _Grinnidge_: “How long have you been waiting here?” _Ransom_: “Ten minutes—ten years. How should I know?” _Grinnidge_: “Well, I don’t know who else should. Get back to-day?” _Ransom_: “Last night.”