mists rise from her own life, and the sunlight prevail. A sudden
recollection of the buffalo "_Mela_" set her smiling.

"How idiotic I am!" she reproved herself gently;--we are apt to be
gentle with our own foolishness; it never seems quite so egregious as
other people's--"I might be a girl of twenty, after my first proposal,
instead of nearly thirty, and a nominal wife of five years' standing."

She drew out her watch. Four o'clock. Three mortal hours before she
could even think of starting. There was nothing for it but to have
recourse to her easel, _faute de mieux_. The last words waked her
normal self. They were no less than heresy, treason to her art.
Michael would have disowned her, had she spoken them in his hearing!
Was Art, then, so small a thing when compared with this overwhelming
force of Love, which dwarfed all thoughts and acts that did not
minister to its needs? It was too early days as yet to answer so large
a question. She simply knew that since that first kiss had set her on
the threshold of an unexplored world, Art had lost its grip; that, for
the present, at all events, she did not want to paint, but to love and
live!

"Pity Michael isn't here to scold me," she thought, as she turned back
into the house.

But Michael was away at Jundraghat, the Rajah's summer Residency. His
finished portrait had been sent off that afternoon; and he had followed
it, for the pleasure of hearing Elsie's thanks and praise in person.

The little room, robbed of the picture that had been its chief ornament
for many weeks, looked empty, desolate; and with a restless sigh she
went over to her easel. This also was empty. Her study of a hill
girl,--begun half jestingly, as a contrast to Michael's flower of
Western Maidenhood,--had so grown and beautified under her hands, that
it had been voted worthy of a Home Exhibition; and its case now stood
against the wall, awaiting mail day. Three or four unfinished pictures
leaned against the easel. Quita looked through them, aimlessly, in
search of a congenial subject. But they were chiefly landscape
studies; and in her present mood Nature seemed a little tame, and
bloodless. Her heart cried out for something human, and she wished
that Michael would come back.

Then, like a ray of light, came the required inspiration, satisfying at
once the counter-claims of Art and Love. She sought out a fresh
canvas, set it on the easel, and plunged, forthwith, into a rough
h