a well-known artist. He lived in Paris. "You are
wonderfully like your mother," he told Joan. "In appearance, I mean," he
added. "I knew her when she was Miss Caxton. I acted with her in
America."

Joan made a swift effort to hide her surprise. She had never heard of
her mother having been upon the stage.

"I did not know that you had been an actor," she answered.

"I wasn't really," explained Mr. Folk. "I just walked and talked
naturally. It made rather a sensation at the time. Your mother was a
genius. You have never thought of going on the stage yourself?"

"No," said Joan. "I don't think I've got what you call the artistic
temperament. I have never felt drawn towards anything of that sort."

"I wonder," he said. "You could hardly be your mother's daughter without
it."

"Tell me," said Joan. "What was my mother like? I can only remember her
as more or less of an invalid."

He did not reply to her question. "Master or Mistress Eminent Artist,"
he said; "intends to retire from his or her particular stage, whatever it
may be. That paragraph ought always to be put among the obituary
notices."

"What's your line?" he asked her. "I take it you have one by your being
here. Besides, I am sure you have. I am an old fighter. I can tell the
young soldier. What's your regiment?"

Joan laughed. "I'm a drummer boy," she answered. "I beat my drum each
week in a Sunday newspaper, hoping the lads will follow."

"You feel you must beat that drum," he suggested. "Beat it louder and
louder and louder till all the world shall hear it."

"Yes," Joan agreed, "I think that does describe me."

He nodded. "I thought you were an artist," he said. "Don't let them
ever take your drum away from you. You'll go to pieces and get into
mischief without it."

"I know an old actress," he continued. "She's the mother of four. They
are all on the stage and they've all made their mark. The youngest was
born in her dressing-room, just after the curtain had fallen. She was
playing the Nurse to your mother's Juliet. She is still the best Nurse
that I know. 'Jack's always worrying me to chuck it and devote myself to
the children,' she confided to me one evening, while she was waiting for
her cue. 'But, as I tell him, I'm more helpful to them being with them
half the day alive than all the day dead.' That's an anecdote worth
remembering, when your time comes. If God gives woman a drum he doesn't
mean man to