Mike noticed the change in the cheery greetings and in the passages of Irish wit with which the new clerk welcomed him whenever be appeared in the store, and so did Kling, and even the two Dutchies when Felix would drop into the cellar searching for what was still good enough to be made over new.  And so did Kitty and John and all at their home.

Masie alone noticed nothing.  To her, “Uncle Felix,” as she now called him, was always the same adorable and comprehending companion, forever opening up to her new vistas of interest, never too busy to answer her questions, never too preoccupied to explain the different objects he was handling.  If she were ever in the way, she was never made to feel it.  Instead, so gentle and considerate was he, that she grew to believe herself his most valuable assistant, daily helping him to arrange the various new acquisitions.

One morning in June when they were busy over a lot of small curios, arranging bits of jade, odd silver watches, seals, and pinchbeck rings, in a glass case that had been cleaned and revarnished, the door opened and an old fellow strolled in—­an odd-looking old fellow, with snow-white hair and beard, wearing a black sombrero and a shirt cut very low in the neck.  But for a pair of kindly eyes, which looked out at you from beneath the brim of the hat, he might have been mistaken for one of the dwarfs in “Rip Van Winkle.”  Fudge, having now been disciplined by Felix, only sniffed at his trousers.

“I see an old gold frame in your window,” began the new customer.  “Might I measure it?”

“Which one, sir?” replied Felix.  “There are half a dozen of them, I believe.”

“Well; will you please come outside?  And I will point it out.  It is the Florentine, there in the corner—­ perhaps a reproduction, but it looks to me like the real thing.”

“It is a Florentine,” answered Felix.  “There are two or three pictures in the Uffizi with similar frames, if I recall them aright.  Would you like a look at it?”

“I don’t want to trouble you to take it out,” said the old man apologetically.  “It might not do, and I can’t afford to pay much for it anyway.  But I would like to measure it; I’ve got an Academy picture which I think will just fit it, but you can’t always tell.  No, I guess I’ll let it go.  It’s all covered up, and you would have to move everything to reach it.”

“No, I won’t have to move a thing.  Here, you bunch of sunshine!  Squeeze in there, Masie, dear, and let me know how wide and high that frame is—­ the one next the glass.  Take this rule.”

The child caught up the rule and, followed by Fudge, who liked nothing so well as rummaging, crept among the jars, mirrors, and candelabra crowding the window, her steps as true as those of a kitten.  “Twenty inches by thirty-one—­no, thirty,” she laughed back, tucking her little skirts closer to her shapely limbs so as to clear a tiny table set out with cups and saucers.