it, but he is going to give it up next week, when I will move in. He
has not been successful in getting rid of his pictures, and he and his
wife are going back to Vermont to live. I feel rather sorry for the
chap, for he is really very clever and only needs a start. It is
almost impossible for a young artist to get on here, I imagine, unless
he knows people, or unless some one who is known buys his work."

"Yes," said Miss Cole, politely. "Didn't you say you met the Whelen
girls before you left Paris? Were they really such a success at
Homburg?"

Mr. Cole did not eat any more dinner, but sat thoughtfully until he
was allowed to go. Then he went out into the hall, and put on his
overcoat and hat.

The Carstairses were dismantling the studio. They had been at it all
day, and they were very tired. It seemed so much harder work to take
the things down and pack them away than it did to unpack them and put
them up in appropriate corners and where they would show to the best
advantage.

The studio looked very bare indeed, for the rugs and altar cloths and
old curtains had been stripped from the walls, and the pictures and
arms and plaques lay scattered all over the floor. It was only a week
before Christmas, and it seemed a most inappropriate time to evict
one's self. "And it's hardest," said Carstairs, as he rolled up a
great Daghestan rug and sat on it, "to go back and own up that you're
a failure."

"A what!" cried young Mrs. Carstairs, indignantly. "Aren't you ashamed
of yourself? You're not a failure. It's the New Yorkers who don't know
what's good when it's shown them. They'll buy all those nasty French
pictures because they're expensive and showy, and they can't
understand what's true and good. They're not educated up to it, and
they won't be for fifty years yet."

"Fifty years is a long time to wait," said her husband, resignedly,
"but if necessary we can give them that much time. And we were to have
gone abroad, and taken dinner at Bignon's, and had a studio in
Montmartre."

"Well, you needn't talk about that just now," said Mrs. Carstairs, as
she shook out an old shawl. "It's not cheerful."

There came a knock at the door, and the railroad king walked in,
covered with snow. "Goodness me!" exclaimed King Cole, "what are you
doing?"

They told him they were going back to Vermont to spend Christmas and
the rest of the winter.

"You might have let me know you were going," said the king. "I had
something mo