ted the light. As if rising from a sleep, he lay
upholding the globe on one high-raised paw. The other--a counterpart, or
nearly so in pose--had a different expression. The cub was snarling and
clutching at the light, as if it were a bird about to escape.

"I had an idea of putting them on the corners of a mantel to light a
piece of low relief," he explained, "but I never got at the relief. It
ought to be characteristic Western scenery, and I've never seen the
West. Shameful, isn't it?"

"I want you to do that mantel for me," she said. "I don't know what you
mean by 'low relief,' but I know it would be up to these, and they are
_right_!"

"Your trust in me is beautiful, Mrs. Haney, and maybe I'll come out this
summer and try to meet it."

"I wish you would," she said, and she meant it. "I'll show you
Colorado."

"If you're starting to be a patron of art, Mrs. Haney, don't overlook
Congdon; he's a first-class man." He became humorous again. "We're
moving swiftly, but I'm going to tell you that he wanted me to make a
sketch of you. If you'll be so good as to give me two or three sittings,
I'll do something we can send out to him--if you wish."

"What do you mean by a sketch?"

"Something like this." And, leading her before a curious, half-human,
veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the
head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very
dainty, very sweet, and smiling.

Bertha was puzzled. "It ain't your wife, and yet it looks like her."

"It is my wife's sister--a quick study from life--just the kind of thing
Frank wants. Will you sit for me A couple of mornings will answer." He
was eager to do her now. Her profile, so clear, so firm, so strangely
boyish, pleased him. He could feel the "snap" that the sketch would have
when it was done.

Bertha considered. She owed a great deal to the Congdons, and she liked
this man. Her homesickness at the moment was abated, and to stay two, or
even three, days in Chicago promised at the moment to be not so
dreadful, after all.

"Yes, I'll do it," she decided. "I don't know what Mr. Congdon will do
with a picture of me, but that's his funeral." And her laughing lip made
her seem again the untaught girl she really was.

As they went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated
her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and
defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," she whispered.