hat one would fain blot it out at once."

Olive walked beneath this bitter cloud. She said to herself that if her
picture had been a work of genius, it would have been finished long ere
the time; and that if she were destined to be an artist, there would
not have come this cross. No! all fates were against her. She must be
patient and submit, but she felt as if she should never have courage to
paint again. And now, when her work had become the chief aim and joy of
her life, how hard this seemed!

She came home, drearily enough; for the sunny day had changed to rain,
and she was thoroughly wet. But even this was, as Meliora would have
expressed it, "for the best," since it made her feel the sweetness of
having a tender mother to take off her dripping garments, and smooth her
hair, and make her sit down before the bright fire. And then Olive laid
her head in her mother's lap, and thought how wrong--nay, wicked--she
had been. She was thinking thus, even with a few quiet tears, when Miss
Meliora burst, like a stream of sunshine, into the room.

"Good news--good news!"

"What? Mr. Vanbrugh has sold his picture, as you hoped to Mr.----."

"No, not yet!" and the least possible shadow troubled the sister's face:
"but perhaps he will. And, meanwhile, what think you? Something has
happened quite as good; at least for somebody else. Guess!"

"Indeed, I cannot!"

"He has sold _yours!_"

Olive's face flushed, grew white, and then she welcomed this first
success, as many another young aspirant to fame has done, by bursting
into tears. So did the easily-touched Mrs. Rothesay, and so did the kind
Miss Meliora, from pure sympathy. Never was good fortune hailed in a
more lachrymose fashion.

But soon Miss Vanbrugh, resuming her smiles, explained how she had
placed Olive's nearly-finished picture in her brother's studio, where
all the visitors had admired it; and one, a good friend to Art, and to
young, struggling artists, had bought it.

"My brother managed all, even to the payment. The full price you will
have when you have completed the picture. And, meanwhile, look here!"

She had filled one hand with golden guineas, and now poured a
Danaee-stream into Olive's lap. Then, laughing and skipping about like
a child, she vanished--the beneficent little fairy!--as swiftly as
Cinderella's godmother.

Olive sat mute, her eyes fixed on the "bits of shining gold," which
seemed to look different to all other pieces of gold that she