somewhat arch smile.

"I can't think of any way," said she, "unless it would be by posing for
me."

"There's another way," he answered, "and the only one I'd care about."

She suddenly became absorbed in the contemplation of the paints on her
palette, at which she made little thrusts with a brush; and at last she
queried, doubtfully, "How?"

"I've heard or read," he answered, "that no artist ever rises to the
highest, you know, until after experiencing some great love. I--can't
you think of any other way besides the posing?"

She brought the brush close to her eyes, minutely inspecting its point
for a moment, then seemed to take in his expression with a swift
sweeping glance, resumed the examination of the brush, and finally
looked him in the face again, a little red spot glowing in her cheek,
and a glint of fire in her eye. I was too dense to understand it, but I
felt that there was a trace of resentment in her mien.

"Oh, I don't know about that!" she said. "There may be some other way. I
haven't met all your friends, and you may be the means of introducing me
to the very man."

I did not hear his reply, though I confess I tried to catch it. She
resumed her work of copying one of the paintings. This she did in a
mechanical sort of way, slowly, and with crabbed touches, but with some
success. I thought her lacking in anything like control over the medium
in which she worked; but the results promised rather well. He seemed
annoyed at her sudden accession of industry, and looked sometimes
quizzically at her work, often hungrily at her. Once or twice he touched
her hand as she stepped near him; but she neither reproved him nor
allowed him to retain it.

I felt that I had taken her measure by this time. She was some Western
country girl, well supplied with money, blindly groping toward the
career of an artist. Her accent, her dress, and her occupation told of
her origin and station in life, and of her ambitions. The blindness I
guessed,--partly from the manner of her work, partly from the inherent
probabilities of the case. If the young man had been eliminated from
this problem with which my love-sick imagination was busying itself, I
could have followed her back confidently to some rural neighborhood, and
to a year or two of painting portraits from photographs, and landscapes
from "studies," and exhibiting them at the county fair; the teaching of
some pupils, in an unnecessary but conscientiously thrifty effort t