n of
success. Was it in that sudden rush of hopefulness, so mistaken, alas,
so groundless, that she had left the little morocco case lying about?
Or had she pulled it out of her pocket with her handkerchief? Or had
she really had her pocket picked?

What wonder that in the stress of anxious speculation she was making
bad work of her painting! This would never do! She took a long stride
backwards, and over went Miss Ricker's long-suffering easel, prone
upon the floor, carrying with it a neighbouring structure of similar
unsteadiness, which was, however, happily empty, save for a couple of
jam-pots filled with turpentine and oil! These plunged with headlong
impetuosity into space, forming little rivers of stickiness, as they
rolled half-way across the room. Everybody rushed to the rescue, while
Miss Ricker gazed upon the catastrophe with stony displeasure.

By a miracle, the canvas, though "butter-side-down," had escaped
unscathed. Not until she was assured of this did the culprit speak.

"I'm a disgrace to the class," she said, "and expulsion is the only
remedy. Tell Mr. Salome that I have forfeited every right to
membership, and it's quite possible that I may never exaggerate
another detail as long as I live."

"Time's up in two minutes," Mary Downing remarked, in her
matter-of-fact voice, as she dabbed some yellow-ochre upon her
subject's chin. "I rather think you'll come back to-morrow."

"But I do think it's somebody's else turn to work behind her," said
Josephine Wilkes.

Miss Ricker gave a faint, assenting smile.

"I think Miss Ricker is very much indebted to Artful Madge," Harriet
Wells declared. "There isn't another girl in the class who could have
knocked that easel over without damaging the picture."

"Practice makes perfect," some one observed; and then, time being
called, everybody began talking at once, and wit and wisdom were
alike lost upon the company.

But Artful Madge was not to be lightly consoled.

"Mother," she said, that same afternoon, as she came into the little
sitting-room over the front entry, where her mother was stitching on
the sewing-machine, "I think I should like to do something useful. I'm
kind of tired of art."

Madge had been helping wash the luncheon dishes, and was beginning to
wonder whether her talents were not, perhaps, of a purely domestic
order.

"I should think you _would_ be tired of it!" said Mrs. Burtwell, in
perfect good faith, as she snipped the thread at t