ses the sense of colour beat in veritable tides
of joy, the man from the studio had encouraged her with warm words of
praise. "You will some day paint well enough to win a high place," he
had reminded her.

But she had stayed thoughtful, and a day or two later had talked to him
again.

"I don't believe, since I have thought it all out, that I can get what's
in life for me out of it in a high place," she had said, shy but eager.
Then, on that line, she had forged on to a swift and comprehensive
conclusion. "You have told me," she had continued to the studio man,
"that what I have in me for painting is not the real thing, and since I
have seen the real thing I know for myself that colour is too rich and
assertive, too apt to run away with one, for any but master hands to
use it. I feel that I don't want even to see poor colouring on canvas
any more. I shan't ever even have poor colour pictures around me. I can
get my colour stories outside. Inside, the stories shall all be told in
light and shadow. And I am not going to paint bad pictures myself any
more."

"Ah, but the work, the beautiful work!" cried the painter.

"Well, as for me, do you know, I've come to believe that my work is just
living--for a time anyhow."

"Well, then, the fame!" cried the painter.

"I don't seem to care for the fame."

It had gone much like that with her music. She had a fine voice, and her
New York teacher had told her over and over that she "must go on." She
had been pleased with his praise and had worked hard for a time. Then
she had gone to him, too, one day, open-eyed and inquiring.

"Go on to what?" she had asked.

"Why, to glory," the singer had said.

She had shaken her head, unconvinced. "I don't seem to care for the
glory," she had said. And beyond learning to use her voice well she
would not work with it. "It is not that I am lazy," she had protested to
the singer, "but I couldn't get what's in life for me out of it by
singing."

"What's in life for you?" queried the singer, interested, for the girl
was beautiful and rich and aspirant.

"Ah, I don't quite know yet," said the girl, the pretty pathos of youth
and waiting upon her, "but some day I shall find myself; then I shall
know."

All through her college days she had been looking for herself. When the
time had come that she had gone to Elsie Gossamer's house to visit, and
there had met men--college boys at first and later on men of a larger
world--she had still b