inside people and drag
out what is there. And inside him--oh, you'd see his hatred of himself!"
The tears were rolling unregarded down her face.

"This is dreadful," said Wilmer, chiefly to himself. "Dreadful."

"There!" said Mary, drearily, emptying the pods from her apron into the
basket at her side. "I suppose I've done it now. I've spoiled the
picture."

"No," returned Jerome, thoughtfully, "you haven't spoiled the picture.
Really I began it with a very definite conception of what I was going to
do. It will be done in that way or not at all."

"You're very kind," said Mary, humbly. "I didn't mean to act like
this."

"No,"--he spoke out of a maze of reflection, not looking at her. "You
have an idea he's under the microscope with me. It makes you nervous."

She nodded, and then caught herself up.

"There's nothing you mightn't see," she said, proudly, ignoring her
previous outburst. "You or anybody else, even with a microscope."

"No, of course not. Only you'd say microscopes aren't fair. Well,
perhaps they're not. And portrait-painting is a very simple matter. It's
not the black art. But if I go on with this, you are to let me do it in
my own way. You're not to look at it."

"Not even when you're not at work?"

"Not once, morning, noon, or night, till I invite you to. You were
always a good fellow, Mary. You'll keep your word."

"No, I won't look at it," said Mary.

Thereafter she stayed away from the barn, not only when he was painting,
but at other times, and Wilmer missed her. He worked very fast, and made
his plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly bemoaned his stinginess in
cutting short the summer. One day, after breakfast, he sought out Mary
again in the garden. She was snipping Coreopsis for the dinner table,
but she did it absently, and Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes.

"What's the trouble?" he asked, abruptly, and she was shaken out of her
late constraint. She looked up at him with a piteous smile.

"Nothing much," she said. "It doesn't matter. I suppose it's fate. He
has written his letter."

"Marshby?"

"You knew he got his appointment?"

"No; I saw something had him by the heels, but he's been still as a
fish."

"It came three days ago. He has decided not to take it. And it will
break his heart."

"It will break your heart," Wilmer opened his lips to say; but he dared
not jostle her mood of unconsidered frankness.

"I suppose I expected it," she went on. "I did expect i