t be an exceedingly interesting
one,' said Lily."]

Whether it was that the Almighty did not grant Mrs. Collis the patience
to wait until a way was made clear, or whether another letter from her
father decided her to clear that way for herself, is uncertain; but one
day in March Valerie received a letter from Mrs. Collis; and answered
it; and the next morning she shortened a seance with Querida, exchanged
her costume for her street-clothes, and hastened to her apartments,
where Mrs. Collis was already awaiting her in the little sitting-room.

Valerie offered her hand and stood looking at Lily Collis, as though
searching for some resemblance to her brother in the pretty, slightly
flushed features. There was a very indefinite family resemblance.

"Miss West," she said, "it is amiable of you to overlook the
informality--"

"I am not formal, Mrs. Collis," she said, quietly. "Will you sit here?"
indicating an arm-chair near the window,--"because the light is not very
good and I have some mending to do on a costume which I must pose in
this afternoon."

Lily Collis seated herself, her bewitched gaze following Valerie as she
moved lightly and gracefully about, collecting sewing materials and the
costume in question, and bringing them to a low chair under the north
window.

"I am sure you will not mind my sewing," she said, with a slight upward
inflection to her voice, which made it a question.

"Please, Miss West," said Lily, hastily.

"It is really a necessity," observed Valerie threading her needle and
turning over the skirt. "Illustrators are very arbitrary gentlemen; a
model's failure to keep an engagement sometimes means loss of a valuable
contract to them, and that isn't fair either to them or to their
publishers, who would be forced to hunt up another artist at the last
moment."

"Your--profession--must be an exceedingly interesting one," said Lily in
a low voice.

Valerie smiled: "It is a very exacting one."

There was a silence. Valerie's head was bent over her sewing; Mrs.
Collis, fascinated, almost alarmed by her beauty, could not take her
eyes from her. Outwardly Lily was pleasantly reserved, perfectly at
ease with this young girl; inwardly all was commotion approaching actual
consternation.

She had been prepared for youth, for a certain kind of charm and
beauty--but not for this kind--not for the loveliness, the grace, the
composure, the exquisite simplicity of this young girl who sat sewing
ther