memory. So I said,--

"It's impossible. I'm not going an inch to Aunt Willoughby's. Why, papa,
it's more than a hundred miles, and in this weather!"

"Oh, the wind has changed."

"Then it will be too warm for such a journey."

"A new idea, Yone! Too warm for the mountains?"

"Yes, papa. I'm not going a step."

"Why, Yone, you astonish me! Your sick aunt!"

"That's the very thing. If she were well, I might,--perhaps. Sick! What
can I do for her? I never go into a sick-room. I hate it. I don't know
how to do a thing there. Don't say another word, papa. I can't go."

"It is out of the question to let it pass so, my dear. Here you are
nursing all the invalids in town, yet"----

"Indeed, I'm not, papa. I don't know and don't care whether they're dead
or alive."

"Well, then, it's Lu."

"Oh, yes, she's hospital-agent for half the country."

"Then it is time that you also got a little experience."

"Don't, papa! I don't want it. I never saw anybody die, and I never mean
to."

"Can't I do as well, uncle?" asked Lu.

"You, darling? Yes; but it isn't your duty."

"I thought, perhaps," she said, "you would rather Yone went."

"So I would."

"Dear papa, don't vex me! Ask anything else!"

"It is so unpleasant to Yone," Lu murmured, "that maybe I had better go.
And if you've no objection, Sir, I'll take the early train to-morrow."

Wasn't she an angel?

* * * * *

Lu was away a month. Rose came in, expressing his surprise. I said,
"Othello's occupation's gone?"

"And left him room for pleasure now," he retorted.

"Which means seclusion from the world, in the society of lakes and
chromes."

"Miss Willoughby," said he, turning and looking directly past me, "may I
paint you?"

"Me? Oh, you can't."

"No; but may I try?"

"I cannot go to you."

"I will come to you."

"Do you suppose it will be like?"

"Not at all, of course. It is to be, then?"

"Oh, I've no more right than any other piece of Nature to refuse an
artist a study in color."

He faced about, half pouting, as if he would go out, then returned and
fixed the time.

So he painted. He generally put me into a broad beam that slanted from
the top of the veiled window, and day after day he worked. Ah, what
glorious days they were! how gay! how full of life! I almost feared to
let him image me on canvas, do you know? I had a fancy it would lay my
soul so bare to his inspection. What secrets might be searche