hat moment, with her white
brows perplexedly knitted, her mouth made stern by doubt and
apprehension and despair; conning in her mind her few meagre
accomplishments, asking herself how much they were likely to bring in
the world's great mart. She could read and write and add a simple sum,
finger the keys of the piano and the violin strings with a musicianly
touch, draw a little, and dream a great deal. That was the sum total of
her acquirements, and she knew very well that the value of such things
was _nil_. What, then, must become of her? The question had become a
problem, and she was very far away yet from its solution.

The house was a plain and primitive cottage in the narrow street of a
little Lincolnshire village--a village which was a relic of the old
days, before the drainage system was introduced, transforming the fens
into a fertile garden, which seems to bloom and blossom summer and
winter through. Its old houses reminded one of a Dutch picture, which
the quaint bridges across the waterways served to enhance. There are
many such in the fen country, dear to the artist's soul.

John Graham was not alone in his love for the wide reaches, level as the
sea, across which every village spire could be seen for many a mile. Not
very far away, in clear weather, the great tower of Boston, not
ungraceful, stood out in awe-inspiring grandeur against the sky, and was
pointed out with pride and pleasure by all who loved the fens and
rejoiced in the revived prosperity of their ancient capital. For ten
years John Graham had been painting pictures of these level and
monotonous plains, and of the bits to be found at every village corner,
but somehow, whether people had tired of them, or hesitated to give
their money for an unknown artist's work, the fortune he had dreamed of
never came. The most of the pictures found their way to the second-hand
dealers, and were there sold often for the merest trifle. He had somehow
missed his mark,--had proved himself a failure,--and the world has not
much patience or sympathy with failures. A great calamity, such as a
colossal bankruptcy, which proves the bankrupt to be more rogue than
fool, arouses in it a touch of admiration, and even a curious kind of
respect; but with the man out at elbows, who has striven vainly against
fearful odds, though he may have kept his integrity throughout, it will
have nothing to do; he will not be forgiven for having failed.

And now, when he lay dead, the