and no colour at all except one of your roses."

"Good gracious! What a memory! Have you got us all ticketed away like
that?"

"It's habit," pleaded Geisner. "She didn't say anything, and only that
she had a strong face, I shouldn't have noticed her. Has she developed?"

"Something extraordinary," struck in Stratton, puffing great clouds of
smoke. "She speaks French, she reads music, she writes uncommonly good
English, and in some incomprehensible way she has formed her own ideas of
Art. Not bad for a dress-making girl who lives in a Sydney back street
and sometimes works sixteen hours a day, is it?"

"Well, no. Only you must recollect, Stratton, that if she's been in your
place pretty often, most of the people she meets here must have given her
a wrinkle or two."

"You're always in opposition, Geisner," declared Mrs. Stratton. "I never
heard you agree with anybody else's statement yet. Nellie is wonderful.
You can't shake our faith in that. There is but one Womanity and Nellie
is its prophet."

"It's all right about her getting wrinkles here, Geisner," contributed
Ford, "for of course she has. It was what made her, Mrs. Stratton getting
hold of her. But at the same time she is extraordinary. When she's been
stirred up I've beard her tackle the best of the men who come here and
down them. On their own ground too. I don't see how on earth she has
managed to do it in the time. She's only twenty now."

"I'll tell you, if you'll light the little gas stove for me, Ford, and
put the kettle on," said Mrs. Stratton, drawing her cloak more tightly
round her shoulders. "I know some of you men don't believe it, but it is
the truth nevertheless that Feeling is higher than Reason. Isn't it
chilly? You see, after all, you can only reason as to why you feel. Well,
Nellie feels. She is an artist. She has got a soul."

"What do you call an artist?" queried Geisner, partly for the sake of the
argument, partly to see the little woman flare up.

"An artist is one who feels--that's all. Some people can fashion an
image in wood or stone, or clay, or paint, or ink, and then they imagine
that they are the only artists, when in reality three-quarters of them
aren't artists at all but the most miserable mimics and imitators--
highly trained monkeys, you know. Nellie is an artist. She can understand
dumb animals and hear music in the wind and the waves, and all sorts of
things. And to her the world is one living thing, and she can enjoy