ding or for "prowling,"--the term
familiarly applied to the sometimes disastrous backward and forward
movements of which mention has been made, and which ordinarily gave so
much action to the scene. Furthermore, the use of watercolor, as
lending itself more readily than oils to rapid execution, deprived the
scene of one of its most picturesque features,--namely, the
brilliant-hued palette which, with its similarity to a shield, was
wont to lend its bearer an Amazonian air, not lost upon the class
caricaturists. Subdued, however, and almost "lady-like" as the
appearance of the class had become, hardly half an hour had passed
before the genial spirit of creation had so taken possession of the
assembly as to cast a glow and glamour of its own upon it. Here and
there, to be sure, might still be seen an anxious, intent young face
with eyes fixed upon vacancy, or an idle, if somewhat begrimed and
parti-coloured hand, fiercely clutching a dejected head; but nearly
all were already busily at work, eagerly painting, or as eagerly
obliterating strokes too hastily made. The subject, hackneyed as it
certainly is, had pleased and stimulated the girls. There was a
mingled vagueness and familiarity in its suggestion which puzzled them
and spurred them on at the same time.

Among the most impetuous workers, almost from the outset, was Artful
Madge. She had instantly conceived of Hope as a vague, beckoning
figure, which was to take its significance from the multitude and
variety of its followers. She chose a large sheet of paper and
quickly sketched in the upper left-hand corner a very indefinite hint
of a winged, luminous something,--it might have been an angel or a
bird or a cloud, seen from a great distance, against a somewhat
threatening sky. Without defining the form at all she very cleverly
produced an impression of receding motion;--she ventured even to hope
that there was something alluring in the motion. That, however, must
be made unmistakably clear through the pursuing figures with which she
proposed to fill the foreground.

She glanced at Eleanor, who had not yet mixed a colour.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"I don't seem ready to begin," said Eleanor, in an absent tone of
voice.

"Have you got an idea?"

"I think so."

"Then do hurry up and go ahead, or you'll get left."

Madge sat a moment, looking straight before her.

"What are you going to put in there?" asked Eleanor.

"What I want is all the p