F Harriet Ten Eyck had been told that Miss Cornelia had taken her up because Harriet had her own way to make in the world, and Miss Cornelia felt that she could help her to attain the social prestige that was her birthright, Harriet would have been incredulous at first, and she might have laughed softly, a moment. But she would have been genuinely touched, and she would have done something particularly sweet and sacrificing for Miss Cornelia on the spot.

It was really Harriet who had taken up Miss Cornelia, finding in the disenchanted face of the older woman one of the opportunities for self-sacrifice in which her heart rejoiced. Harriet had the most impulsive, Quixotic heart in the world. She would give you her last cent, her interest, her company when she could ill spare the time it cost; everything from her physical strength to her exquisite spiritual courage and sweet faith. Everything but her work, that is. Let a man come along, and in his blundering way show her that it was foolish for her to slave at her drawing when he wanted to take care of her and loved her so. Harriet immediately turned into the immovable post, before it

came in contact with the irresistible forceif it ever did. That was the one thing she could not understand in other women, she said. And she did not know what men were made of, that they could calmly expect a woman to give up her work for them; and when they hastily explained that of course she would go on working "when she wanted to," she always lost her temper and sent them packing with such icy scorn and such burning criticism that afterwards, when they met her, they always instinctively buttoned their coats to the chin.

Harriet was an illustrator. She had passed the point where art managers groaned when they saw her slim figure in the office doorway. She had even passed the point where authors groaned when a spasm of economy in the art department made the manager kind to budding talent. In fact, she could draw.

She was very busy when Miss Cornelia knocked. She was working with a brush in black and white, her pen held pirate fashion between her teeth. She had a curious way of working with both these implements at once, or almost at once, and she seemed to begin anywhere the fancy happened to strike her on a picture, in a swift sure way, as if she saw it all on the bristol-board, and was

only tracing it over. The only people she 'tolerated in her studio during working hours were those who were willing to pose. Harriet never idled. She was always either feverishly hard at work on a drawing which must be delivered to-morrow, or else improvising with her brush and pen. The girl lived and breathed her work, and dreamed about it at night, for she would often refer to an idea that had come to her the night before in her sleep. Her complete absorption in her art was what made her so utterly unconscious of Miss Cornelia's anxieties for her social advancement. Her profession naturally brought her in touch with the people whom she most cared about. She met them on a ground somewhere above the ordinary social plane, where talking was vital, not compulsory, and where everybody understood."

"I was hoping," said Miss Cornelia, "that you could come out with me this afternoon, to call on the Belforts."

Harriet thrust her visitor into a chair with a hug which consisted of equal parts Harriet and wash and India ink. It was not to be wondered at that Miss Cornelia withdrew. Years of stiffness and tartness, through which Harriet had penetrated as near the old lady's heart as any living soul would ever come, made her withdraw with a sharp grim gesture, but she was glad Harriet had hugged her, and she looked at her own fawn-colored ladies'cloth to make sure no harm had been done.

"I can't," said Harriet, with a nod toward her drawing-board. "I am afraid I'll have to work until midnight to-night, anyway."

Miss Cornelia looked toward the drawing board, and her expression was a curious mixture of offence that anything she suggested should not meet with instantaneous appreciation, and a vague awe of the importance of work. When she was not with Harriet she thought of her as that poor child of Stuyvesant's, and planned what might be done even yet to give her a youth like that of other young girls. But when she came in contact with Harriet at her work she had a bewildered and distressed feeling that there was something amiss with her or with the universe. She always left Harriet's studio warmed by Harriet's devoted attention and cordiality, but with an uncomfortable feeling of having had an adventure. It was almost as if she had strayed, by mistake, into a young man's place of business.

"Suppose," said Harriet, "that we set some VOL. XXXVIII.-54

afternoon next week. You set the date, Miss Cornelia, and I solemnly swear that I shall be there to meet you at the hour appointed." She looked so sweet and so earnest, as she sat directly in front of Miss Cornelia, with her hand on the older woman's knee, giving her solemn promise to keep an appointment to meet some people of whom she knew nothing in the world and cared less, that it would have taken a more sensitive and touchy person than Miss Cornelia to suspect that she was making a sacrifice.

"Perhaps," said Miss Cornelia, “it would be better for you to meet me there, if you are very busy, but I should have liked you to take luncheon with me."

"I should have dearly loved it," said Harriet.

"The Belforts, my dear, are exceedingly charming people. Mrs. Belfort has spoken to me of some little book that Ned is writing, and I thought that perhaps you might arrange to make the pictures, and that would be a nice little windfall."

"I'd rather just meet Mrs. Belfort," said Harriet, smiling. "Don't you think it's lots pleasanter not to mix things?"

I only

"Well, perhaps you are right. thought of that because you are so wrapped up in your drawing. I was afraid you might not think it worth your while to undertake a purely social call."

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Now, Miss Cornelia," said Harriet. "You know you haven't any right to say that when I bought a new dinner dress last week just to please you. Now tell me about the Belforts, and where do they live, and when shall I meet you ?"

Miss Cornelia's face softened a little. Well, my dear, Adèle Dillingham was a school friend of mine. She married Alexander Belfort, who is worth anywhere from twenty to fifty millions to-day, but, what is even more important, they are the most charming and unpretentious people in the world, and they live on Washington Square. Alexander is a painter. He does landscapes. I don't suppose you have ever heard of him, my dear, because, between you and me, I don't believe he was ever a very great artist, and of course he is getting along in years. Since he inherited a fortune from his uncle in Colorado, they have lived just as simply as they did when they were first married. They have the same studio and apartment on Washington Square. I'll meet you at the studio

Harriet smiled in amused acquiescence. She could not have told whether it was a feeling of pain or of pity at her heart that always greeted Miss Cornelia's references to young men. Romance, as Miss Cornelia understood it, had never entered Harriet's mind, although she had probably had more lovers in her short life than Miss Cornelia in all her twoscore and something. Harriet came in contact with men every day of her existence. They entered into the ordinary scheme of things. Some of them were her friends, and a few she had admitted to the frank comradeship of girl and man that Miss Cornelia's girlhood never dreamed of, and that is as priceless as love itself. But the little quiver of sentimental anticipation in Miss Cornelia's lowered voice would have repelled Harriet in a girl like herself.

The houses that front on Washington Square have not been broken into by commercial necessities. The old nail-studded doors have not been replaced by plate-glass shop entrances, and the wistaria vines still weave in and out among the scrollwork of the iron balconies. It is true that squalid children and the older flotsam and jetsam of the neighboring tenement quarters crowd the benches in the park and swarm on the sunbeaten asphalt walks on pleasant days, but the graceful branches of the unclipped trees sway with every breeze that blows, and the broad stately house fronts preserve something of the grace of another day.

There was almost no one on Fifth Avenue below Fourteenth Street. Harriet met one or two nurses trundling baby-carriages, and the old Fifth Avenue omnibus passed her, looking strangely as if the city, which is not given to such sentiment, were keeping it in use to confirm the illusion that one has, in going down to Washington Square-that the past is still with us. It is all different enough up

town.

She walked briskly, as if she were in a

happened to remember that she had stopped work for the day, and she fell into a more leisurely step. She was thinking of how she liked to come down Fifth Avenue a little later, at twilight, just when the evening star showed over the tall white arch, or the moon hung its silver crescent there. She was thinking that she liked the tones of the level sunlight on the red brick walls of a house at the corner, and the reddish brown of the ivy against the brick. She was thinking of anything in the world but Miss Cornelia, whose tall thin figure showed for a moment on the doorstep of the studio building, and then disappeared into the doorway. If Miss Cornelia had seen Harriet coming she would have waited, but she did not once look toward her, and Harriet came on dreamily, drifting with her own thoughts.

There are two bulletin boards in the studio hallway, one the directory for the front of the house, the other for the back. The first one which Harriet glanced at bore the name she was looking for, and she went straight up the front stairs without waiting to learn that the directory for the other part of the house also held the name she was looking for. At the head of the first flight of stairs she found the Belfort studio. The name was on a small brass plate on the door. Giving a glance at herself and summoning the conventional inquiry to her lips, she knocked, and waited.

She heard a chair come down on its forelegs, and a moment of silence followed. Then some one came to the door and opened it, at first self-protectingly, just enough to see who was knocking, and then wider, disclosing all of a somewhat dishevelled young man with a pipe. The look of preoccupation on his face vanished, and a smile followed.

Harriet, who had been prepared to ask a neatly capped and aproned maid if her mistress were in, fell back a little.

"Has Miss Cornelia come?" she asked.

His pipe waved a trifle hesitatingly in his hand. "No," he said, "not yet. But-but won't you come in?"

"Thank you," said Harriet, "I will. I am Miss Ten Eyck."

"I thought so," he said. "My mother is expecting you and Miss Cornelia. Won't you sit down?"

Harriet took the chair he offered her. She was not given to criticising other people's houses, and yet it seemed to her that if Mrs.