approval.

"Well, I declare, Cornelia," she burst out to her daughter, whom she
found glowering at the agricultural implements, "that _is_ about the
nicest fellow! Do you know what he's done?" She stopped and began a
search for her pocket, which ended successfully. "He's given me his
name, and told me just what you're to do. And when you get to New York,
if you ever do, you can go right straight _to_ him."

She handed Ludlow's card to the girl, who instantly tore it to pieces
without looking at it. "I'll never go to him--horrid, mean, cross old
thing! And you go and talk about me to a perfect stranger as if I were
a baby. And now he'll go and laugh at you with the Burtons, and they'll
say it's just like you to say everything that comes into your head,
that way, and think everybody's as nice as they seem. But _he_ isn't
nice! He's _horrid_, and conceited, and--and--hateful. And I shall
_never_ study art anywhere. And I'd _die_ before I asked _him_ to help
me. He was just making fun of you all the time, and anybody but you
would see it, mother! Comparing me to a hired girl!"

"No, I don't think he did _that_, Cornelia," said the mother with some
misgiving. "I presume he may have been a little touched up by your
pictures, and wanted to put me down about them----"

"Oh, mother, mother, mother!" The girl broke into tears over the
agricultural implements. "They were the dust under his feet."

"Why, Cornelia, how you talk!"

"I wish _you_ wouldn't talk, mother! I've asked you a thousand times,
if I've asked you once, not to talk about me with anybody, and here you
go and tell everything that you can think of to a person that you never
saw before."

"What did I tell him about you?" asked her mother, with the uncertainty
of ladies who say a great deal.

"You told him how old I was almost to a day!"

"Oh, well, that wasn't anything! I saw he'd got to know if he was to
give any opinion about your going on that was worth having."

"It'll be all over town, to-morrow. Well, never mind! It's the last
time you'll ever have a chance to do it. I'll never, never, never touch
a pencil to draw with again! Never! You've done it _now_, mother! _I_
don't care! I'll help you with your work, all you want, but don't ever
ask me to draw a single thing after this. I guess he wouldn't have much
to say about the style of a bonnet, or set of a dress, if it _was_
wrong!"

The girl swept out of the building with tragedy-queen strides that