rifices for
her to place her in the best society, I have no idea of allowing her to
drop out.

"We are received in the most exclusive houses in New York and Newport,
and while our means do not permit us to entertain very largely, our
at-homes are most popular with the Four Hundred.

"Elise is very stubborn. She has had several excellent offers but
refuses to consider anyone whom she does not love. George O'Brien was
very sentimental and she has inherited that from him, along with her
love for dabbling."

Mr. Kinsella had maintained a grim silence during this heartless speech;
but he now asked: "What sacrifice have you made for your daughter's
welfare, you poor put-upon lady?"

"Why, I married Ponsonby Huntington! He had not a _sou_ to his name but
he had the _entree_ into all the fashionable homes in the East. He was a
great expense, but it fully repaid me, as he lived long enough to
establish Elise and me in that society for which we are eminently
fitted. I am deeply grateful to him and his family and do not begrudge
the money, now that he is dead.

"I was keen enough not to let him go into my principal very largely. I
am an excellent business woman, Tom, and have managed my affairs
wonderfully well."

"So it seems," muttered Mr. Kinsella. "You have evidently satisfied all
your ideals. I am glad to tell you that I have already divulged to Elise
that her father might have become a very good painter, and was
astonished that she was ignorant of the fact that he had ever drawn a
line in his life. I say that I am glad, as I want to talk to George's
daughter about her father, and I cannot think of my old friend, George
O'Brien, as anything but the gay, care-free art student, always ready to
go on a lark and to share his last penny, of which he had very few, with
any needy fellow-student. Don't you ever feel like painting yourself?"

"No! I hate the sight of a paint brush, and as for adding in any way to
the ever-increasing flood of poorly painted pictures,--I can at least
claim my innocence of that crime."

"Perhaps you are right, but you used to be so clever at catching a
likeness."

"Elise has the same power, but I hate to see it in her and never
encourage her by the least praise. Of course you can't understand this
feeling, but I know the girl would fly off at the slightest chance and
live in that shabby Latin Quarter. There, no doubt, she would marry some
down-at-the-heel artist, who would live on her money a