glad to advise you about it; and I am sure you
will believe that I have not asked him to do so.

"Yours sincerely,

"W. LUDLOW."

Cornelia turned this letter in many lights, and tried to take it in
many ways; but in the end she could only take it in the right way, and
she wrote back:

"DEAR MR. LUDLOW: I thank you very much for your letter, and I am
going to do what you say. Yours sincerely,

"CORNELIA SAUNDERS.

"P. S. I do appreciate your kindness very much."

She added this postscript after trying many times to write a reply that
would seem less blunt and dry; but she could not write anything at all
between a letter that she felt was gushing and this note which
certainly could not be called so; she thought the postscript did not
help it much, but she let it go.

As soon as she had done so, it seemed to her that she had no reason for
having done so, and she did not see how she could justify it to
Charmian, whom she had told that she should not offer her picture. She
would have to say that she had changed her mind simply because Mr.
Ludlow had bidden her, and she tried to think how she could make that
appear sufficient. But Charmian was entirely satisfied. "Oh, yes," she
said, "that was the least you could do, when he asked you. You
certainly owed him _that_ much. _Now_," she added mystically, "he never
can say a _thing_."

They were in Charmian's studio, where Cornelia's sketch of her had been
ever since she left working on it; and Charmian ran and got it, and set
it where they could both see it in the light of the new event.

It's magnificent, Cornelia. There's no other word for it. Did you know
he was going to give me his?"

"Yes, he told me he was going to," said Cornelia, looking at her
sketch, with a dreamy suffusion of happiness in her face.

"It's glorious, but it doesn't come within a million miles of yours.
Mr. Wetmore isn't on the Committee, this year, but he knows them all,
and----"

Cornelia turned upon her. "Charmian Maybough, if you breathe, if you
_dream_ a word to him about it I will never speak to you. If my picture
can't get into the Exhibition without the help of friends----"

"Oh, _I_ shan't speak to him about it," Charmian hastened to assure
her. In pursuance of her promise, she only spoke to Mrs. Wetmore, and
at the right time Wetmore used his influence with the committee. Then,
for the reason, or the no reason that governs such matters, or because