" she protested, quickly.

"Yes, they do; and I wondered if it was only because you were young.
But those I did when I was young are almost the same as the ones I
paint now. I haven't learned much. There hasn't been any one to show
me! And you can't learn from print, never! Yet I've grown in what I
SEE--grown so that the world is full of beauty to me that I never
dreamed of seeing when I began. But I can't paint it--I can't get it on
the canvas. Ah, I think I might have known how to, if I hadn't had to
teach myself, if I could only have seen how some of the other fellows
did their work. If I'd ever saved money to get away from Canaan--if I
could have gone away from it and come back knowing how to paint it--if
I could have got to Paris for just one month! PARIS--for just one
month!"

"Perhaps we will; you can't tell what MAY happen." It was always her
reply to this cry of his.

"PARIS--for just one month!" he repeated, with infinite wistfulness,
and then realizing what an old, old cry it was with him, he shook his
head, impatiently sniffing out a laugh at himself, rose and went
pottering about among the canvases, returning their faces to the wall,
and railing at them mutteringly.

"Whatever took me into it, I don't know. I might have done something
useful. But I couldn't bring myself ever to consider doing anything
else--I couldn't bear even to think of it! Lord forgive me, I even
tried to encourage your father to paint. Perhaps he might as well, poor
boy, as to have put all he'd made into buying Jonas out. Ah me! There
you go, 'Flower-Girls'! Turn your silly faces to the wall and smile
and cry there till I'm gone and somebody throws you on a bonfire. I'LL
never look at you again." He paused, with the canvas half turned.
"And yet," he went on, reflectively, "a man promised me thirty-five
dollars for that picture once. I painted it to order, but he went away
before I finished it, and never answered the letters I wrote him about
it. I wish I had the money now--perhaps we could have more than two
meals a day."

"We don't need more," said Ariel, scraping the palette attentively.
"It's healthier with only breakfast and supper. I think I'd rather
have a new dress than dinner."

"I dare say you would," the old man mused. "You're young--you're young.
What were you doing all this afternoon, child?"

"In my room, trying to make over mamma's wedding-dress for to-night."

"To-night?"

"Mamie Pike invited m