ould do it, and he only sent his answer last night
after dinner." Charmian sat down on the side of the bed with the effect
of intending to take all the time that was needed for the full
sensation. "And now, while you're absorbing the great central fact, I
will ask if you have any idea why I have rushed down here this morning
before you were up, or mamma either, to interview you?"

"No, I haven't," said Cornelia.

"You don't happen to have an olive or a cracker any where about? I
don't need them for illustration, but I haven't had any breakfast,
yet."

"There are some ginger-snaps in the bureau box right before you," said
Cornelia from the window-sill.

"Ginger-snaps will do, in an extreme case like this," said Charmian,
and she left her place long enough to search the bureau box. "What
little ones!" she sighed. "But no matter; I can eat them all." She
returned to her seat on Cornelia's bed with the paper bag which she had
found, in her hand. "Well, I have thought it perfectly out, and all you
have to do is to give your consent; and if you knew how much valuable
sleep I had lost, thinking it out, you would consent at once. You know
that the sittings will have to be at his studio, and that I shall have
to have somebody go with me." Cornelia was silent, and Charmian urged,
"You know that much, don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Cornelia allowed.

"Well, then, you know I could have mamma go, but it would bore her; or
I could have a maid go, but that would bore me; and so I've decided to
have you go."

"Me?"

"Yes; and don't say you can't till you know what you're talking about.
It'll take all your afternoons for a week or a fortnight, and you'll
think you can't give the time. But I'll tell you how you can, and more
too; how you can give the whole winter, if it takes him that long to
paint me; but they say he paints very rapidly, and gets his picture at
a dash, or else doesn't get it at all; and it's neither more nor less
than this: I'm going to get him to let you paint me at the same time?
What do you think of that?"

All our motives are mixed, and it was not pure conscience which now
wrought in Cornelia. It was pride, too, and a certain resentment that
Charmian should assume authority to make Mr. Ludlow do this or that.
For an instant she questioned whether he had not broken faith with her,
and got Charmian to propose this; then she knew that it could not have
been. She said coldly, "I can't do it."

"_What!_