nished or half-furnished room, and that she had lived for many weeks
upon bread and shell-cocoa, so that her food never cost her more than a
penny a day. Born into a county family, who were so haughty that their
neighbours called them the Royal Family, she had quarrelled with a mad
father, who had never, his tenants declared, "unscrewed the top of his
flask with any man," because she wished to study art, had ran away from
home, had lived for a time by selling her watch, and then by occasional
stories in an Irish paper. For some weeks she had paid half-a-crown a week
to some poor woman to see her to the art schools and back, for she
considered it wrong for a woman to show herself in public places
unattended; but of late she had been unable to afford the school fees. The
engineer engaged her as a companion for his wife, and gave her money
enough to begin her studies once more. She had talent and imagination, a
gift for style; but, though ready to face death for painting and poetry,
conceived as allegorical figures, she hated her own genius, and had not
met praise and sympathy early enough to overcome the hatred. Face to face
with paint and canvas, pen and paper, she saw nothing of her genius but
its cruelty, and would have scarce arrived before she would find some
excuse to leave the schools for the day, if indeed she had not invented
over her breakfast some occupation so laborious that she could call it a
duty, and so not go at all. Most watched her in mockery, but I watched in
sympathy; composition strained my nerves and spoiled my sleep; and yet, as
far back as I could trace--and in Ireland we have long memories--my
paternal ancestors had worked at some intellectual pursuit, while hers had
shot and hunted. She could at any time, had she given up her profession,
which her father had raged against, not because it was art, but because it
was a profession, have returned to the common comfortable life of women.
When, a little later, she had quarrelled with the engineer or his wife,
and gone back to bread and shell-cocoa I brought her an offer from some
Dublin merchant of fairly well paid advertisement work, which would have
been less laborious than artistic creation; but she said that to draw
advertisements was to degrade art, thanked me elaborately, and did not
disguise her indignation. She had, I believe, returned to starvation with
joy, for constant anaemia would shortly give her an argument strong enough
to silence her con