ood, to give her a feeling of
congeniality with him.

"Are there many big studios in Chicago?" he asked when they finally got
around to that phase of her work. He was curious to know what the art
life of the city was.

"No, not so very many--not, at least, of the good ones. There are a lot
of fellows who think they can paint."

"Who are the big ones?" he asked.

"Well, I only know by what I hear artists say. Mr. Rose is pretty good.
Byam Jones is pretty fine on _genre_ subjects, so they say. Walter Low
is a good portrait painter, and so is Manson Steele. And let's
see--there's Arthur Biggs--he does landscapes only; I've never been in
his studio; and Finley Wood, he's another portrait man; and Wilson
Brooks, he does figures--Oh! I don't know, there are quite a number."

Eugene listened entranced. This patter of art matters was more in the
way of definite information about personalities than he had heard during
all the time he had been in the city. The girl knew these things. She
was in the movement. He wondered what her relationship to these various
people was?

He got up after a time and looked out of the window again. She came
also. "It's not very nice around here," she explained, "but papa and
mamma like to live here. It's near papa's work."

"Was that your father I met at the door?"

"They're not my real parents," she explained. "I'm an adopted child.
They're just like real parents to me, though, I certainly owe them a
lot."

"You can't have been posing in art very long," said Eugene thoughtfully,
thinking of her age.

"No; I only began about a year ago."

She told how she had been a clerk in The Fair and how she and another
girl had got the idea from seeing articles in the Sunday papers. There
was once a picture in the Tribune of a model posing in the nude before
the local life class. This had taken her eye and she had consulted with
the other girl as to whether they had not better try posing, too. Her
friend, like herself, was still posing. She was coming to the dinner.

Eugene listened entranced. It reminded him of how he was caught by the
picture of Goose Island in the Chicago River, of the little tumble-down
huts and upturned hulls of boats used for homes. He told her of that and
of how he came, and it touched her fancy. She thought he was sentimental
but nice--and then he was big, too, and she was so much smaller.

"You play?" he asked, "don't you?"

"Oh, just a little. But we haven't got a pi