XXI

MISS MARION ASCOUGHARTISTOrders taken for all kinds of work.

I got the landlady to put it in the front window.

There were a lot of crayon family portraits on my walls, and they looked very bad. I covered them over with draperies, and when Madame Lavalle, my landlady, came in she exclaimed:

“Why you dat? Am I and my family so hugly then?”

I assured her that I covered them to protect

If you decide to take this room, I’ll make a reduction, and I don’t mind gentlemen callers if you leave the door open.

them from the turpentine that I used in my oil paints. She came to me later and said:

“Mamselle, I am tell my husband you say the turpentine it may be will spoil the portraits of my familee. He’s telling me dat will not spoil it. But if mamselle will not be offend, I the pictures will put in my own parlor, and if some time mamselle she have company, and wish her room to look more elegant, I will give ze permission to hang them on her walls again.”

The studio was all settled, and I stood to survey my work, a delightful feeling of proprietorship coming over me. I breathed a sigh of blessed relief to think I was now free of all home influence, and had a real place all of my own.

“Here is some gentlemens to see mamselle,” called Madame Lavalle, and there standing in the doorway, smiling at me with a merry twinkle in his eye, was Colonel Stevens. I had not seen him since that night, nearly four years ago, when Ellen and I went to ride with him in Mr. Mercier’s carriage. With him now was a tall man with a very red face and nose. He wore a monocle in his eye, and he was staring at me through it.

I was very untidy as I had been busy settling up, and my hair was all mussed up and my hands dirty. I had on my painting apron, and that was smudged over, too. I felt ashamed of my appearance, but Colonel Stevens said:

“Isn’t she cute?”

Then he introduced us. His friend’s name was Davidson.

“We were on our way to the Club,” said the Colonel, “and as we passed your place I saw your sign, and ‘By Gad,’ I said, ‘I believe that is my little friend, Marion.’ Now Mr. Davidson is very much interested in art.” He gave a little wink at Mr. Davidson, and then went on, “and I think he wants to buy some of your paintings.”

“Oh, sit down,” I urged. Customers at once! I was excited and happy. I pushed out a big armchair near the fire and Colonel Stevens sat down, and seemed very much at home. Mr. Davidson followed me to where I had a number of little paintings on a shelf. I began to show them to him, pointing out the places, but he scarcely looked at them. Stretching out his hand, he picked up two and said:

“I’ll take these. How much am I to give you?”

“Oh, five—” I began.

“Charge him the full price, Marion,” put in the Colonel. “He’s a rich dog.”

“I get five dollars for two of that size,” I said.

“Well, we’ll turn it to ten for each,” smiled Mr. Davidson.

“Oh, that’s too much!” I exclaimed.

“Charge him the full price, Marion,” put in the Colonel. “He’s a rich dog.”

“Tut, tut!” said Colonel Stevens, laughing. “They are worth more. She really is a very clever little girl, eh, Davidson?”

I felt uncomfortable and to cover my confusion I started to wrap the paintings.

“No, no, don’t bother,” said Mr. Davidson, “leave them here for the present. I’ll call another time for them. We have to go now.”

When Mr. Davidson shook hands with me he pressed my hand so that I could hardly pull it away, and just as they were passing out, who should come up the stairs but Reggie! When he saw Colonel Stevens and Mr. Davidson, his face turned perfectly livid, and he glared at them. The minute the door had closed upon them, he turned on me:

“What were those men doing here?” he demanded harshly.

My face got hot, and I felt guilty, though of what, I did not know.

“Well? Why don’t you answer me? What was that notorious libertine, Stevens, and that beast, Davidson, doing here?” he shouted, and then as still I did not answer him, he yelled: “Why don’t you answer me instead of standing there and staring at me, looking your guilt? God in heaven! have I been a fool about you? Have you been false to me then?”

“No, Reggie, indeed, I haven’t,” I said. “Ididn’t tell you about Ellen and I going out with him because—because—”

I thought he must have heard of that ride!

“Going out with him! When? Where?”

Suddenly he saw the money in my hand, and the sight of it seemed to drive him wild.

“What are you doing with that money? Where did you get it from?”

I was holding the two ten-dollar bills all the time in my hand.

“Are you crazy, Reggie?” I cried. “How can you be so silly? This is the money Mr. Davidson paid me for these paintings.”

“Well, then, what are you doing here if he bought them?” demanded Reggie.

“He left them here. He said he’d call some other time for them.”

“Marion, are you a fool, or just a deceitful actress? Can’t you see he does not want your paintings? He gave you that money for expected favors and, damn it! I believe you know it too.”

I went over to Reggie, and somehow felt older than he. A great pity for him filled my heart. I put my arms around his neck, and although he tried to push me from him, I stuck to him and then suddenly, to my surprise, Reggie began to cry. He had worked himself up to such a state of excitement that he was almost hysterical. Igathered his head to my breast, and cried with him.

In a little while, we were sitting in the big armchair and I told Reggie all about the visit, and also about that ride of long ago—before I had even met him—that Ellen and I had taken with Colonel Stevens and Mr. Mercier. I think he was ashamed of himself, but was too stubborn to admit it. Before he left, he made a parcel of those two paintings, and sent them over, with a bill receipted by me, to the St. James Club.

IT was snowing hard. The snow was coming down in great big flakes. I had built a big fire in my grate and had turned off all the gas lights. The flames from the grate threw their glare upon the walls. I was waiting for Reggie, and I was wondering where I was going to get some money to pay for clothes I badly needed now, but out of the little I had been earning I had been obliged to send most of it home. It seemed to me as if every time Ada came to see me, it was as a sort of collector. Help was needed at home, and Ada was going to see that we all did our share.

I had had my studio now some time and I had made very little money. Reggie had paid the rent each month, but I had never taken any other help from Reggie. He seemed to have so much money to spend, and yet he was always saying he was too poor to marry though he had passed his examinations and was a full partner in the big law firm. He said he wanted to build up a good practice before we married.

I heard his footsteps in the hall and the door opened.

“Hallo, hallo! Sitting all alone in the dark, darling?”

Reggie came happily into the studio. He was in evening dress with his rich fur-lined coat thrown open. He sat down on the arm of my chair.

“I’m awfully disappointed, darling,” he said. “I had been looking forward to spending the evening here by the fire with you, but I’m obliged to go with my partners and a party of friends to a dinner they are giving, and I expect to meet that member of Parliament I told you about. If I can break away early, I’ll come back here and say good-night to the sweetest girl in the world. So don’t go home to-night, as we can have a few moments together anyway.”

I was left once more alone. I sat there staring into the fire. Why did Reggie never take me to these dinners? There were always women there. Why was I not introduced to his friends? Why did he leave me more and more alone like this? He was jealous of every man who spoke to me, and yet he left me alone and went to dinners and parties where he did not think I was good enough to go.

Some one was rapping on the door, and I called:

“Come!”

It was Lu Frazer.

“Why, Marion Ascough, what are you sitting alone in the dark for? Where is the fair one of the golden locks?”

Lu was shaking the snow from her clothes, but she stopped suddenly when she saw my face.

“What are you crying about?”

“I’m not crying. I’m just yawning.”

Lu put her hands on my shoulders.

“What’s his nibs been saying to you now?” she asked.

I shook my head. Somehow I didn’t feel like confiding even in Lu this night.

“Look here, Marion,” she said, “I met an old admirer of yours as I came here to-night, and he asked me to try and get you to go with him and a friend to a little supper. He said you knew his friend—that he’d bought some pictures from you. His name’s Davidson. Folks do say that his father was the Prince of Wales and that he got fresh with one of the Davidson girls that time when he was in Canada and their father entertained him, and they pass this Davidson off as a younger son of the family. I told Colonel Stevens I’d do what I could. Now, I saw that Bertie getting into a sleigh all rigged up in evening clothes and with that Mrs. Marbridge and her sister. Folks are saying he’s paying attention to the latter lady. I said to myself, when I saw him: ‘What’s sass for the goose is sass for thegander.’ Marion, you’re a fool to sit moping here, while he is enjoying himself with other women.”

I jumped to my feet.

“I’ll go with you, Lu—anywhere. I’m crazy to go with you. Let’s hurry up.”

“All right, get dressed while I ’phone the Colonel. He said he’d be waiting at the St. James Club for an answer for the next half-hour.”

I have a very dim remembrance of that evening. We were in some restaurant, and the drink was cold and yet it burned my throat like fire. I had never tasted any liquor before, except the light wine that the Count sometimes sparingly gave me. I heard some one saying—I think it was Mr. Davidson:

“She’s a hell of a girl to take out for a good time.”

I said I felt ill, and Lu took me out to get the air. She said she would be back soon. But once out there, I conceived a passionate desire to return to my room and I ran away in the street from Lu.

As I opened my door a feeling of calamity seemed to come over me. It must have been nearly twelve o’clock, and I had never been out so late before, not even with Reggie.

As I came in, Reggie, who had been sitting bythe table, stood up. He stared at me for a long time without saying a word. Then:

“You’ve been out with men!” he said.

“Yes,” I returned defiantly, “I have.”

“And you’ve been drinking!”

“Yes,” I said. “So have you.”

He flung me from him, and then all of a sudden he threw himself down in the chair by the table and, putting his head upon his arms, he shook with sobs. All of my anger melted away and I knelt down beside him and entreated him to forgive me. I told him just where I had been and with whom, and I said that it was all because I was tired, tired of waiting so long for him. I said:

“Reggie, no man has a right to bind a girl to a long engagement like this. Either marry me, or set me free. I am wasting my life for you.”

He said if we were to be married now, his whole future would be ruined; that he expected to be nominated to a high political position, and to marry at this stage of his career would be sheer madness.

I promised to wait for Reggie one more year; but I was very unhappy, and all the rest of that winter I could not refrain from constantly referring to our expected marriage, though I knew it irritated him for me to refer to it.

MY younger sister, Nellie, had married her Frenchman. The family began to look upon me as they did on Ada, as an old maid! And I was only twenty-one.

Reggie had been much wrapped up in certain elections and I had seen him only for a few minutes each day, when one night he came over to the studio. He looked very handsome and reckless. I think he had been drinking, for there was a strange look about his eyes, and when he took me in his arms I thought he was never going to let me go. Whenever Reggie was especially kind to me, I always thought it a good time to broach the subject of our marriage. So now I said:

“Reggie, don’t you think it would be lovely if we could arrange to be married in June? I hate to think of another summer alone.”

It was a clear, sweet night in April, and my windows were all open. There was the fragrance of growing green in the air, and it seemed as warm as an early summer day. I felt happy, andoh, so drawn to my handsome Reggie as he held me close in his arms. He put his warm face right down on mine, and he said:

“Darling girl, if we were to marry, you cannot imagine the mess it would make of my career. My father would never forgive me. Don’t you see my whole future might be ruined? Be my wife in every way but the silly ceremony. If you loved me, you would make this sacrifice for me.”

Something snapped in my head! I pushed him from me with my hands doubled into fists. For the first time I saw Reginald Bertie clearly! My sister was right. He was a monument of selfishness and egotism. He was worse. He was a beast who had taken from me all my best years, and now—nowhe made a proposition to me that was vile!—me, the girl he had asked to be his wife! What had I done, then, that he should have changed like this to me? I was guilty of no fault, save that of poverty. I knew that had I been possessed of those things that Reggie prized so much, never would he have insulted me like this.

I felt him approaching me with his arms held out, but I backed away from him and suddenly I found myself hysterically speaking those lines from Camille. I was pointing to the door:

“That’s your way!” I screamed at him. “Go!”

If you loved me you would make this sacrifice for me.

“Marion—darling—forgive me—I didn’t mean that.”

But I wouldn’t listen to him, and when at last he was out of my room, I locked and bolted the door upon him.

IDID not sleep all of that night, and when the morning dawned I had made up my mind what to do.

I packed up all my things and then I went out to see Lu Frazer. I told her I was going to leave Montreal—that I wanted to go to the States—to Boston, where that artist had told papa I ought to study. I felt sure I would get work there, and could study besides. I borrowed twenty-five dollars from Lu, and promised to pay her back thirty-five within three months.

When I got back to my studio I found this letter from Reggie:

“Darling:I know you will forgive your heartbroken Reggie, who was not himself last night. All shall be as it was between us, and I swear to you that never again will I say anything to my little girl that will hurt her feelings.Your repentant,Reggie.”

“Darling:

I know you will forgive your heartbroken Reggie, who was not himself last night. All shall be as it was between us, and I swear to you that never again will I say anything to my little girl that will hurt her feelings.

Your repentant,Reggie.”

I crushed his letter up in my hand. I felt thatmy love for him was dead. I never wanted to see him again. He had sacrificed me for the sake of his selfish ambitions.

My train was to leave at eight, and Lu was going to be there to see me off. I sat down and wrote the following letter to Reggie before leaving the house:

“Dear Reggie:I am leaving for Boston tonight. I have loved you very dearly, and I feel bad at leaving you without saying good-bye, but I will not live any longer in that studio that you pay for, and I could not stand home any more.I can earn my living better in Boston, and when you are ready I will come back to you, but I cannot trust myself to say good-bye.Your loving,Marion.”

“Dear Reggie:

I am leaving for Boston tonight. I have loved you very dearly, and I feel bad at leaving you without saying good-bye, but I will not live any longer in that studio that you pay for, and I could not stand home any more.

I can earn my living better in Boston, and when you are ready I will come back to you, but I cannot trust myself to say good-bye.

Your loving,Marion.”

Then I went down to Hochelaga and said good-bye to them all at home. Papa hunted up the address of Mr. Sands, that artist for whom I had done that work when a little girl of thirteen. Papa felt sure he would help me get something. Mama and papa seemed to have a vague idea that I had some definite place I could go to, and they did not ask any questions. We girls often felt older than our parents. Anyway, more worldly, and they had the greatest trust in our ability to take care of ourselves.

Ada thought it a good thing for me to go. She said I would get better pay for my work in Boston, and that I must be sure to send something home each week, just as Nora was doing.

I felt a lump in my throat when I left the old house. There was still a bit of snow in the garden, though it was April, where I had played as a child. I put my head out of the cab window to take a last look at the familiar places, which I told myself, with a sob, I might never see again.

Lu was at the station. She had my ticket, and the balance of the twenty-five dollars in an envelope which she slipped into my hand. The train was nearly due to go. My foot was on the step when I heard Reggie’s voice calling my name. He came running down the platform:

“Marion! You shall not go. You’re carrying this too far, darling.”

“Yes, yes, I’m going,” I said to Reggie. “You’re not going to stop me any longer.”

“But, Marion, I didn’t mean what I said.”

I stared up at him directly.

“Reggie, if I stay, will we be married—right away?”

“Why—Marion, look here, old girl, you can wait a little longer, can’t you?”

I laughed up at him harshly.

“No!” I cried harshly, “I can’t. And I hope God will never let me see your face again.”

I ran up the steps of the train and started inside. I did not look out.

NEVER shall I forget that journey in the train, I had not thought to get a sleeper, so I sat up all night long. I had the whole seat to myself. The conductor turned the next seat over toward me, and by putting up my feet, I was fairly comfortable.

I shut my eyes and tried to go to sleep, but the thoughts that came thronging through my head were too many. I wept for my lost sweetheart, and yet I vowed never to go back to him. His future should not be spoiled by me.

Oh, as I thought of how many times Reggie had said that, a feeling of helpless rage against him took possession of me. I saw him in all his ambitious, selfish, narrow snobbery and pride. Even his love for me was a part of his peculiar fastidiousness. He wanted me for himself because I was prettier than most girls, just as he wanted all luxurious things, but he never stopped to think of my comfort or happiness.

Somehow, as the train slipped farther and farther away from Montreal, Reggie’s influenceover me seemed to be vanishing, and presently, as I gazed out into the night, he passed away from my mind altogether.

We were passing through dark meadows, and they looked gloomy and mysterious under that starlit sky. I thought of how papa had taught us all so much about the stars, and how he said one of our ancestors had been a great astronomer. Ada knew all of the planets and suns by name and could pick them out, but to me they were always little points of mystery. I remembered as a little girl I used to look up at them and say to one particular star:

“Star bright, star lightFirst star I see to-night,Wish I may—wish I mightGet the wish I wish to-night.”

Then I would say quickly:

“Give me a doll’s carriage.”

Ada had told me if I did that for seven nights, the fairies would give me whatever I asked for, and each night I asked for that doll’s carriage. I watched to see it come and I would say to Ada:

“What’s the matter with that old fairy? I thought you said she’d give me my wish?”

Ada would answer:

“Oh, fairies are invisible, and no doubt the carriage is right near by, but you can’t see it.”

“But what’s the use,” I would say, “of a carriage I can’t see?”

“Try it again,” would say Ada. “Perhaps they’ll relent. You probably offended them, or didn’t do it just right.”

For seven nights more, I would faithfully repeat the formula. Then at Ada’s suggestion I would hunt in the tall grass at the end of the garden.

“Perhaps,” Ada would say, “there is a fairy sitting on the edge of a blade of grass and she has the carriage.”

Then I would lie in the grass and wait for the carriage to become visible. I never got that doll’s carriage. The fairies never relented.

I dozed for a little while and was awakened by the faint crowing of cocks, and I thought sleepily of a little pet chicken I used to dress in baby’s clothes, and I dreamed of a lovely wax doll that Mrs. McAlpin had given me.

It was queer how, as I lay there, all these little details of my childhood came up to my mind. I saw that wax doll as plainly as if I had it in my arms again. My brother Charles had taken a slate pencil and had made two cruel marks on its sweet face, and had left the house laughing at my rage and grief. All day long I had nursed my doll, rocking it back and forth in my arms and sobbing:

“Oh, my doll! Oh, my doll!”

Ada had said:

“Don’t be silly. Dolls don’t feel. But she is disfigured for life, like smallpox.”

I threw her down. I rushed up to Charles’ room, bent upon avenging her. Hanging on the wall was a lacrosse stick, the most treasured possession of my brother. I seized a pair of scissors and I cut the catgut of that lacrosse. As it snapped, I felt a pain and terror in my heart. I tried to mend it, but it was ruined.

Ada’s shocked face showed at the door.

“I’m glad!” I cried to her defiantly.

“Poor Charles,” said Ada, “saved up all of his little money to get that stick, and he did all those extra chores, and he’s the captain of the Shamrock Lacrosse team. You are a mean, wicked girl, Marion.”

“I tell you I’m glad!” I declared fiercely.

But when Charles came home and saw it, he held that stick to his face and burst out crying, and Charles never, never cried. I felt like a murderer, and I cried out:

“Oh, I’m sorry, Charles. Here’s all my pennies. You buy a new one.”

“You devil!” he stormed and lifted up his hand to strike me. I fled behind papa’s chair, but I wished, oh! how I wished, that Charles would forgive me.

It all came back to me like a dream, in the train, and I found myself crying for Charles even as I had cried then.

And again I began to think of Reggie, Reggie who had hurt me so terribly, Reggie whom I had thought I loved above everybody else in the world. What was it he had said to me? That I should be his wife without a ceremony! I sat up in the seat. I felt frozen stiff. I was looking at the naked truth in the plain light of day. The glamour was gone from my romance. I was awake to the bare, ugly facts.

The train was moving slowly, and some one said we were nearing Boston. I shook off all memories of Montreal and an expectant feeling of excitement came over me. What did this big United States mean to me? I felt suddenly light and happy and free! Free! That was a beautiful word that every one used in this “Land of the Free.”

I went into the dressing-room and washed my face and hands and did my hair fresh. A girl was before the mirror, dabbing powder and rouge over her face, and she took up all the room so I could not get a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

“You look as fresh as a daisy,” she said, turning around and looking at me, “and I guess you’ve had a good night’s rest. I hardly sleep in thosestuffy sleepers, and my fellow’s to meet me so I don’t want to look a fright.”

I asked if we were near to Boston, and she said we were there now. The train had come to a standstill.

WHEN I left the train with my bag in my hand, I felt excited and a little bit afraid. I realized that I had no special destination, and the part of the city where the station was did not look as if it was a place to find a room. There were many cars passing, and I finally got on one, a Columbus Avenue.

As we rode along I looked out of the window and watched the houses for a “Room to Let” sign, and presently we came to some tall stone houses, all very much alike, and ugly-and severe-looking after our pretty Montreal houses with their bits of lawn and sometimes even little gardens in front. There were “Room to Let” signs on nearly all the houses in this block. So I got out and went up the high steps of the one I thought looked the cleanest.

I rang the bell and a black woman opened the door. I said:

“Is your mistress in?” And she said: “How?”

We never say “How?” like that in Canada. If we aren’t polite enough to say: “I beg yourpardon,” then we say: “What?” So I thought she meant, how many rooms did I want, and I said: “Just one, thank you.”

She walked down the hall, and I heard her say to some one behind a curtain there:

“Say, Miss Darling, there’s a girl at the door. I think she’s a forriner. She sure talks and looks like no folks I knows.”

There was a quiet laugh, and then a faded little woman in a faded little kimono came hurrying down the hall. I call her “faded-looking,” because that describes her very well. Her face, once pretty, no doubt, made me think of a half-washed-out painting. Her hair was almost colorless, though I suppose it had once been dull brown. Now wisps of grayish hair stood out about her face as if ash had blown against it. She had dim, near-sighted eyes, and there was something pathetically worn-and tired-looking about her.

“Well? What is it you want?” she inquired.

I told her I wanted a little room, and said:

“I’ve just arrived from Montreal.”

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, “youmustbe tired!” She seemed to think Montreal was as far away as Siberia.

She showed me up three flights of stairs to a tiny room in which was a folding bed. As I had never seen a folding bed before, she opened itup and showed me how it worked. When it was down there was scarcely an inch of room left and I had to put the one chair out into the hall.

She explained that it would be much better for me to have a folding bed, because when it was up I could use the room as a sitting-room and see my company there. I told her I did not expect any company as I was a perfect stranger in Boston. She laughed—that queer little bird-like laugh I had heard behind the curtain, and said:

“I’ll take a bet you’ll have all the company this room will hold soon.”

There was something kindly about her tired face and when I asked her if I had to pay in advance—the room was three dollars a week—she hesitated, and then said:

“Well, it’s the custom, but you can suit yourself. There’s no hurry.”

I sometimes think that nearly every one in the world has a story, and, if we only knew it, those nearest to us might surprise us with a history or romance of which we never dreamed. Take my little faded landlady. She was the last person in the world one would have imagined the heroine of a real romance, but perhaps her romance was too pitiful and tiny to be worth the telling. Nevertheless, when I heard it—from another lodger in the house—I felt drawn to poor MissDarling. To the world she might seem a withered old maid. I knew she was capable of a great and unselfish passion.

She had come from Vermont to Boston, and had worked as a cashier in a down-town restaurant. She had slowly saved her money until she had a sufficient sum with which to buy this rooming-house, which I sometimes thought was as sad and faded as she.

While she was working so hard, she had fallen in love with a young medical student. He had even less money than Miss Darling. When she opened her rooming-house she took him in, and for three years she gave him rent free and supported him entirely, even buying his medical books, paying his tuition, his clothes and giving him pocket money. He had promised to marry her as soon as he passed, but within a few days after he became a doctor he married a wealthy girl who lived in Brookline and on whom he had been calling all the time he had been living with Miss Darling.

The lodger who told me about her said she never said a word to any one about it, but just began to fade away. She lost thirty pounds in a single month, but she was the “pluckiest little sport ever,” said the lodger.

It seemed to me our stories were not unlike, and I wondered to myself whether Reggie wascapable of being as base as was Miss Darling’s lover.

While I was taking my things out of my suitcase, Miss Darling watched me with a rather curious expression, and suddenly she said:

“I don’t know what you intend to do, but take my advice. Don’t be too easy. If I were as young and pretty as you, I tell you, I would make every son of a gun pay me well.”

I said:

“I’ll be contented if I can just get work soon.”

She looked at me with a queer, bitter little smile, and then she said:

“It doesn’t pay to work. I’ve worked all my life.”

Then she laughed bitterly, and went out suddenly, closing the door behind her.

As soon as I had washed and changed from my heavy Canadian coat to a little blue cloth suit I had made myself, I started out at once to look up the artist, Mr. Sands, whose address papa had given me.

I lost my way several times. I always got lost in Boston. The streets were like a maze, winding around and running off in every direction. I finally found the studio building on Boylston, and climbed up four flights of stairs. When I got to the top, I came to a door with a neat little visiting card with Mr. Sands’ name upon it. Iremembered that Count von Hatzfeldt had his card on the door like this, and for the first time I had an instinctive feeling that my own large japanned sign: “Miss Ascough, Artist,” etc., was funny and provincial. Even papa had never put up such a sign, and when he first saw mine, he had laughed and then had run his hand absently through his hair and said he “supposed it was all right” for the kind of work I expected to do. Dear papa! He wouldn’t have hurt my feelings for worlds. With what pride had I not shown him my sign and “studio!”

I knocked on Mr. Sands’ door, and presently he himself opened it. At first he did not know me, but when I stammered:

“I’m—Miss Ascough. D-don’t you remember me? I did some work for you in Montreal eight years ago, and you told me to come to Boston. Well—I’ve come!”

“Good Lord!” he ejaculated. “Did I ever tell anybody to come to Boston? Good Lord!” And he stood staring at me as if he still were unable to place me. Then after another pause, during which he stared at me curiously, he said:

“Come in, come in!”

While he was examining me, with his palette stuck on his thumb and a puzzled look on his face as if he didn’t quite know what to say to me or to do with me, I looked about me.

It was a very luxurious studio, full of beautiful draperies and tapestries. I was surprised, as the bare stairs I had climbed and the outside of the building was most unbeautiful. Sitting on a raised platform was a very lovely girl, dressed in a Greek costume, but the face on the canvas of the easel was not a bit like hers.

Mr. Sands, as though he had all of a sudden really placed me in his mind, held out his hand and shook mine heartily, exclaiming:

“Oh, yes, yes, now I remember. Ascough’s little girl. Well, well, and how is dear old Montreal? And your father, and his friend—what was his name? Mmmmum—let me see—that German artist—you remember him? He was crazy—a madman!”

Lorenz was the artist he meant. He was a great friend of my father’s. Papa thought him a genius, but mama did not like him at all, because she said he used such blasphemous language and was a bad influence on papa. I remember I used to love to hear him shout and declaim and denounce all the shams in art and the church. He was a man of immense stature, with a huge head like Walt Whitman’s. He used to come to the Château to see the Count, with whom he had long arguments and quarrels. He was German and the Count a Dane. He would shout excitedly at the Count and wave his arms, and theCount would shriek and double up with laughter sometimes, and Mr. Lorenz would shout: “Bravo! Bravo!”

They talked in German, and I couldn’t understand them, but I think they were making fun of English and American art. And as for the Canadian—! The mere mention of Canadian art was enough to make the old Count and Lorenz explode.

Poor old Lorenz! He never made any money, and was awfully shabby. One day papa sent him to Reggie’s office to try to sell a painting to the senior partner, who professed to be a connoisseur. Mr. Jones, the partner, came out from his private office in a hurry and, seeing Lorenz waiting, mistook him for a beggar. He put his hand in his pocket and gave Lorenz a dime. Then he passed out. Lorenz looked at the dime and said:

“Vell, it vill puy me two beers.”

Reggie had told me about that. He was irritated at papa for sending Lorenz there, and he said he hoped he would not appear again.

I told Mr. Sands all about Lorenz and also about the Count I had worked for; about papa, some of whose work the Duke of Argyle had taken back to England with him, as representative of Canadian art (which it was not—papa had studied in France, and was an Englishman, not a Canadian), and of my own “studio.” WhileI talked, Mr. Sands went on painting. The model watched me with, I thought, a very sad expression. Her dark eyes were as gentle and mournful as a Madonna’s. She didn’t look unlike our family, being dark and foreign-looking. She was French. Mr. Sands was painting her arms and hands on the figure on the canvas. He explained that the face belonged to the wife of Senator Chase. She was the leader of a very smart set in Brookline. He said the ladies who sat for their portraits usually got tired by the time their faces were finished, and he used models for the figures, and especially the hands.

“The average woman,” said Mr. Sands, “has extreme ugly hands. The hands of Miss St. Denis, as you see, are beautiful—the most beautiful hands in America.”

I was standing by him at the easel, watching him paint, and I asked him if it were really a portrait, for the picture looked more like a Grecian dancing figure. Mr. Sands smiled and said:

“That’s the secret of my success, child. I never paint portraits as portraits. I dress my sitters in fancy costumes and paint them as some character. There is Mrs. Olivet. Her husband is a wholesale grocer. I am going to paint her as Carmen. This spirituelle figure with the filmy veil about her is Mrs. Ash Browning, a dead-and-alive, wishy-washy individual; but, as you see, her‘beauty’ lends itself peculiarly to the nymph she there represents.”

I was so much interested in listening to him, and watching him work, that I had forgotten what I had come to see him about, till presently he said:

“So you are going to join the classes at the Academy?”

That question recalled me, and I said hastily:

“I hope so, by-and-by. First, though, I shall have to get some work to do.”

He stopped painting and stared at me, with his palette in his hand, and as he had looked at me when he opened the door.

I unwrapped the package I had brought along with me, and showed him the piano scarf I had painted as a sample, a landscape I had copied from one of papa’s and some miniatures I had painted on celluloid. I said:

“People won’t be able to tell the difference from ivory when they are framed, and I can do them very quickly, as I can trace them from a photograph underneath, do you see?”

His eyes bulged and he stared at me harder than ever. I also showed him some charcoal sketches I had done from casts, and a little painting of our kitten playing on the table. He picked this up and looked at it, and then set it down, muttering something I thought was: “Not sobad.” After a moment, he picked it up again and then stared at me a moment and said:

“I think you have some talent, and you have come to the right place tostudy.”

“And work, Mr. Sands,” I said. “I’ve come here to earn my living. Can you give me some painting to do?”

He put down his palette and nodded to Miss St. Clair to rest. Then he took hold of my hand and said:

“Now, Miss Ascough, I am going to give you some good advice, chiefly because you are from my old Montreal (Mr. Sands was a Canadian), because of your father and our friend, good old man Lorenz. Finally, because I think it is my duty. Now, young lady, take my advice. If your parents can afford to pay your expenses here, stay and go to the art schools.Butif you expect to make a living by your painting in Boston, take the next train and go home!”

“I can’t go home!” I cried. “Oh, I’m sure you must be mistaken. Lots of women earn their livings as artists. Why shouldn’t I? I worked for Count von Hatzfeldt, and he said I had more talent than the average woman who paints.”

“How much did he pay you?” demanded Mr. Sands.

“Five dollars a week and sometimes extra,” I said.

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