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Page 41
As Burns came forward Miss Ruston rose to meet him. The two regarded each
other with undisguised interest as they shook hands.
"Yes, I can make a much better photograph of you than the one on your
wife's dressing-table," said she, judicially, and laughed at his
astonished expression.
"Can you, indeed?" he inquired. "Have you a snapshot camera concealed
anywhere about you? If so, I'll consider going back to town for my
luncheon."
"You are safe for to-day," Ellen assured him, and he sat down.
He was told the tale of the morning, the subject introduced by his wife,
and amplified by their guest. He expressed his interest.
"You have a good courage, Miss Ruston," said he. "And we'll agree to
stand by you. Any time, in the middle of the night, that we hear the
crash and fall of decayed old timbers, we'll come to the rescue and pull
you out. We don't have much excitement here. The wreck will have the
advantage of advertising you thoroughly. Then you can build a tight
little bungalow on the spot and settle down to real business."
Miss Ruston shook her shapely head. "No tight little bungalows for me,"
she averred. "Those vine-clad old walls will make wonderful backgrounds
for my outdoor subjects--they and the garden. Then, indoors--the
fireplace, the queer old doors--"
Red Pepper looked at his wife. "Has the village a passion for
quaintness?" he asked her. "Will our leading citizens want to be
photographed in their old hoopskirts, with roses behind their ears?"
"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Miss Ruston. "Ellen--will you excuse me
while I run up and bring down an example or two of my work?"
She was back in a minute, several prints in her hand. She came around
behind Burns's chair and laid one before him, another before Amy
Mathewson. Ellen, who had already seen the prints, watched her husband's
face as he examined the photograph.
"You don't intend me to understand," said he, after a minute's steady
scrutiny, "that this is a photograph of actual children?"
Miss Ruston nodded. Her face glowed with enthusiasm over her work.
"Indeed it is. Flesh and blood children--Rupert and Rodney Trumbull.
And it's really the night before Christmas, too. They were not acting the
part--it was the real thing."
Burns continued to study the picture--of two small boys in their
night-clothes, standing before a chimney-piece, looking up at their
stockings, at that last wondering, enchanted moment before they should
lay hands upon the mysteries before them. The glow of the firelight was
upon them, the shadows behind held the small sturdy figures in an
exquisitely soft embrace. It was such a photograph as combines the
workings of the most delicate art with the unconscious posing of absolute
realism.
Burns looked from the picture to his wife's face. "We must have one of
Bobby like that," said he.
Ellen agreed, her eyes meeting her friend's over his head. The guest laid
another print before him. "Since you like fireplace effects," she
explained. Then she gave the Christmas-eve picture to Miss Mathewson,
smiling as Amy, returning the print she had been studying, said softly,
"It is wonderful work, Miss Ruston. I shall want one of my mother like
this."
"You shall have it," Miss Ruston promised.
Burns exclaimed with pleasure over the presentment of a little old lady,
knitting before a fire, a faint smile on her face, as if she were
thinking of lovely things as she worked. As in the other picture the
shadows were soft and hazy, only the surfaces touched by the fireglow
showing with distinctness, the whole effect almost illusive, yet giving
more of the human touch than any clear and distinct details could
possibly have done.
"That is Granny," said Miss Ruston, a gentle note in her eager voice. "My
little piece of priceless porcelain which I guard with all the defences
at my command. Tell me, Dr. Burns, I shall not be bringing her into any
danger if I put her in the little old house, when it is made right?"
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