ed conviction
at once. It was decided formally that the reddish brown cows in the
picture were reminiscent of Daubigny, and that the handling of the
masses was altogether Millet, but that the general effect was not quite
Corot.

Presley, curious to see the painting that was the subject of so much
discussion, had left the group in the round window, and stood close by
Hartrath, craning his head over the shoulders of the crowd, trying to
catch a glimpse of the reddish cows, the milk-maid and the blue painted
foothills. He was suddenly aware of Cedarquist's voice in his ear, and,
turning about, found himself face to face with the manufacturer, his
wife and his two daughters.

There was a meeting. Salutations were exchanged, Presley shaking hands
all around, expressing his delight at seeing his old friends once more,
for he had known the family from his boyhood, Mrs. Cedarquist being his
aunt. Mrs. Cedarquist and her two daughters declared that the air of Los
Muertos must certainly have done him a world of good. He was stouter,
there could be no doubt of it. A little pale, perhaps. He was fatiguing
himself with his writing, no doubt. Ah, he must take care. Health was
everything, after all. Had he been writing any more verse? Every month
they scanned the magazines, looking for his name.

Mrs. Cedarquist was a fashionable woman, the president or chairman of
a score of clubs. She was forever running after fads, appearing
continually in the society wherein she moved with new and astounding
proteges--fakirs whom she unearthed no one knew where, discovering them
long in advance of her companions. Now it was a Russian Countess, with
dirty finger nails, who travelled throughout America and borrowed money;
now an Aesthete who possessed a wonderful collection of topaz gems, who
submitted decorative schemes for the interior arrangement of houses and
who "received" in Mrs. Cedarquist's drawing-rooms dressed in a white
velvet cassock; now a widow of some Mohammedan of Bengal or Rajputana,
who had a blue spot in the middle of her forehead and who solicited
contributions for her sisters in affliction; now a certain bearded poet,
recently back from the Klondike; now a decayed musician who had been
ejected from a young ladies' musical conservatory of Europe because
of certain surprising pamphlets on free love, and who had come to San
Francisco to introduce the community to the music of Brahms; now a
Japanese youth who wore spectacles and