the days of the Wagner autocracy,
and perhaps his tremolo passed unchallenged as it could not now; but he
was a great artist. He knew his business as well as his advance-agent
knew his. The Remy Concerts were a splendid success. Reserved seats, $5.
For the Series of Six, $25.

* * * * *

On the following Monday, Esther Van Guilder returned her friend's call,
in response to an urgent invitation, despatched by mail. Louise
Latimer's great bare room was incapable of transmutation into a cosy
nest of a boudoir. There was too much of its heavy raw silk
furniture--too much of its vast, sarcophagus-like bed--too much of its
upholsterer's elegance, regardless of cost--and taste. An enlargement
from an ambrotype of the original Latimer, as he arrived in New York
from New Hampshire, and a photograph of a "child subject" by Millais,
were all her works of art. It was not to be doubted that they had
climbed upstairs from a front parlor of an earlier stage of social
development. The farm-house was six generations behind Esther; two
behind Louise.

Esther found her friend in a state of almost feverish excitement. Her
eyes shone; the color burned high on her clear cheeks.

"You never would guess what I've done, dear!" she began, as soon as they
were alone in the big room. "I'm going to see _him_--to speak to
him--_Esther!_" Her voice was solemnly hushed, "to _serve_ him!"

"Oh, Louise! what _do_ you mean?"

"To serve him--with my own hands! To--to--help him on with his coat--I
don't know--to do something that a servant does--anything, so that I can
say that once, once only, just for an hour, I have been near him, been
of use to him, served him in one little thing as loyally as he serves
OUR ART."

Music was THEIR art, and no capitals could tell how much it was theirs
or how much of an art it was.

"Louise," demanded Esther, with a frightened look, "are you crazy?"

"No. Read this!" She handed the other girl a clipping from the
advertising columns of a newspaper.

CHAMBERMAID AND WAITRESS.--WANTED, A NEAT and willing girl, for
light work. Apply to Mme. Remy, The Midlothian, ... Broadway.

"I saw it just by accident, Saturday, after I left you. Papa had left
his paper in the coupe. I was going up to my First Aid to the Injured
Class--it's at four o'clock now, you know. I made up my mind right
off--it came to me like an inspiration. I just waited until it came to
the place where t