act, that's what makes it so difficult."

"Then you might practice on something hard first," she suggested
wildly. "How would the weather do?"

"Yes, hasn't it been beautiful?" said Ludlow, with an involuntary lapse
into earnestness. "I was in the Park to-day for a little effect I
wanted to get, and it was heartbreaking to leave the woods. I was away
up in those forest depths that look wild in spite of the asphalt. If
you haven't been there, you must go some day while the autumn color
lasts. I saw a lot of your Synthesis ladies painting there. I didn't
know but I might see you."

This was all very matter of fact. Cornelia took herself in hand, and
shook herself out of her hallucination. "No, I don't suppose it would
be right for a person who was merely in the Preparatory to go sketching
in the Park. And Charmian and I were very good to-day, and kept working
away at our block hands as long as the light lasted."

"Ah, yes; Miss Maybough," said Ludlow; then he paused absently a
moment. "Do you think she is going to do much in art?"

"How should I know?" returned Cornelia. She thought it rather odd he
should recur to that after she had let him see she did not want to talk
about Charmian's art.

"Because you know that you can do something yourself," said Ludlow.
"That is the only kind of people who can really know. The other sort of
people can make clever guesses; they can't know."

"And you believe that I can do something?" asked Cornelia, and a sudden
revulsion of feeling sent the tears to her eyes. It was so sweet to be
praised, believed in, after what she had been through. "But you haven't
seen anything of mine except those things--in the Fair House."

"Oh, yes, I have. I've seen the drawings you submitted at the
Synthesis. I've just seen them. I may as well confess it: I asked to
see them."

"You did! And--and--well?" she fluttered back.

"It will take hard work."

"Oh, I know that!"

"And it will take time."

"Yes, that is the worst of it. I don't see how I can give the time."

"Why?" he asked.

"Oh, because--I can't very well be away from home." She colored as she
said this, for she could have been away from home well enough if she
had the money. "I thought I would come and try it for one winter."

He said lightly, "Perhaps you'll get so much interested that you'll
find you can take more time."

"I don't know," she answered.

"Well, then, you must get in all the work you can this winter. Block